1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Skeeter Davis
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Mary Frances Penick, better known as Skeeter Davis, was an American country music singer who sang crossover pop music songs including 1962s The End of the World. She started out as part of the Davis Sisters as a teenager in the late 1940s, in the late 1950s, she became a solo star. Davis was the first of seven born to William Lee and Sarah Rachel Roberts Penick, in Dry Ridge. Because her grandfather thought that she had a lot of energy for a young child, the Penick family moved to Erlanger, Kentucky in 1947, where Skeeter met Betty Jack Davis at Dixie Heights High School, becoming instant friends. They sang together through much of high school, and at Decoursey Baptist Church and they formed the duet known as the Davis Sisters, and started singing on Detroit radio station WJRs program Barnyard Frolics. Eventually, the duo were signed by RCA Victor in 1951, earlier demo recordings were eventually released on Fortune Records. RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes liked the Davis Sisters harmonies and offered the duo a recording contract in 1953. Their most successful release was I Forgot More Than Youll Ever Know, the record ranks No.65 on the Top 100 Country Singles of All Time, according to Billboard historian Joel Whitburn. While I Forgot More Than Youll Ever Know was climbing the charts, the crash killed Betty Jack Davis and left Skeeter with severe injuries. After the accident, Skeeter and Betty Jacks sister, Georgia, Skeeter decided to retire from the music industry in 1956, and get married, ending the duet. Davis decided to go back into music as a solo act in 1958. She began touring with Ernest Tubb and she returned to RCA Victor and that year, Davis recorded Lost to a Geisha Girl, an answer song to Hank Locklins hit Geisha Girl, which reached the country Top 15 and became her first solo hit. Atkins worked with Davis as a guitarist on all of these sessions, at Davis suggestion, Atkins frequently multi-tracked Davis voice for harmony vocals to resemble the sound of the Davis Sisters. This echo can be found on several of her solo hits. Davis had a Top 5 country hit, Set Him Free, in 1959 and she also joined the Grand Ole Opry that year, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Set Him Free, becoming the first female country singer to be nominated for a Grammy. From 1960 to 1962, Davis had top ten hits with the songs Im Falling Too, My Last Date, Where I Ought to Be, Im Falling Too in 1960 was her first entrance as a solo onto the pop charts. The song went all the way to the Top 40, unheard of for a country singer at the time. In 1961, she scored a second pop hit with a version of Floyd Cramers instrumental country pop smash Last Date called My Last Date which did even better making the Top 30 on the pop charts
3.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
4.
Nashville sound
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It was an attempt to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock n roll. They invented the form by replacing elements of the honky tonk style with smooth elements from 1950s pop music, and using slick production. The producers relied on a group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability. The Anita Kerr Quartet was the vocal backing group in the early 1960s. In 1960, Time magazine reported that Nashville had nosed out Hollywood as the second biggest record-producing center. The term Nashville Sound was first mentioned in an article about Jim Reeves in 1958 in the Music Reporter, other observers have identified several recordings that helped establish the early Nashville sound. Country historian Rich Kienzle says that Gone, a Ferlin Husky hit recorded in November 1956, regarding the Nashville sound, the record producer Owen Bradley stated, Now weve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh, countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, the Bakersfield sound, and later outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts. Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins would put his hand into his pocket, shake his loose change, and say Thats what it is. By the late 1970s and 1980s, many pop music singers picked up the style and created what is known as country pop. Classic examples of Nashville sound recordings, Four Walls by Jim Reeves Gone by Ferlin Husky A Fallen Star by Jimmy C
5.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
6.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
7.
Chet Atkins
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Chester Burton Chet Atkins known as Mr. He was primarily known as a guitarist and he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele. Atkins signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis, other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year and he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. Atkins was born on June 20,1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee and his parents divorced when he was six, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl and he started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, We were so poor, forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus, to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, while living in Fortson, he attended the historic Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition, Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He used the restroom in the school to practice, because it gave better acoustics and his first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased an electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet. Later in life, he gave himself the honorary degree CGP. In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell and she then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate. His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York, Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939, when he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style, whereas Traviss right hand used his index finger for the melody and thumb for bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass. Chet Atkins was a ham radio general class licensee, formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation
8.
I'll Sing You a Song and Harmonize Too
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Ill Sing You a Song and Harmonize Too is the debut studio album by American country artist Skeeter Davis. The album was released in November 1959 by RCA Victor and was produced by Chet Atkins and it signified Davis first solo album ever released after departing from the duo, The Davis Sisters. Ill Sing You a Song and Harmonize Too was recorded in three recording sessions at the RCA Victor studio in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, the first session took place in May 1958, followed by January 30,1959, and then ending in September 1959. The album took its name from Chet Atkins idea of harmonizing Davis vocals with herself, Atkins used this technique because Davis vocals were not suited to singing lead vocals, as she had previously sung harmony as part of The Davis Sisters. By using the technique of harmonizing with herself, it gave her voice a fuller sound, the debut record contained twelve tracks of material. Besides a selected amount of new songs the rest of the album contained cover versions of songs and it included cover versions of Hank Williams Your Cheatin Heart, Jan Howards The One You Slip Around With, and Buck Owens Under Your Spell Again. It also included a version of The Davis Sisters 1953 hit. The album was released as an LP album with six songs on each side of the record. Allmusic rated the album and gave it four out of five stars, ill Sing You a Song and Harmonize Too spawned three singles between 1958 and 1960. The first single released was the version of I Forgot More Than Youll Ever Know. Set Him Free was released as the single in February 1959 and peaked at #5 on the Billboard Magazine Hot Country Songs chart. The third and final single was Am I That Easy to Forget, the single peaked at #11 on the Billboard Magazine Hot Country Songs chart that same year. The single would become a hit for Debbie Reynolds, Jim Reeves. The album was issued in November 1959 on RCA Victor Records
