1.
Hank Williams
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Hiram King Hank Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Born in Mount Olive, Butler County, Alabama, Williams moved to Georgiana, where he met Rufus Payne, Payne had a major influence on Williams later musical style, along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank and he moved to Montgomery, where he began his music career in 1937, when producers at radio station WSFA hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, Williams eventually married Audrey Sheppard, who was his manager for nearly a decade. After recording Never Again and Honky Tonkin with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records, in 1947 he released Move It on Over, which became a hit, and also joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. One year later, he released a cover of Lovesick Blues, after an initial rejection, Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. He was unable to read or notate music to any significant degree, among the hits he wrote were Your Cheatin Heart, Hey, Good Lookin, and Im So Lonesome I Could Cry. Several years of pain, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse severely damaged Williams health. He divorced Sheppard and was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his unreliability, Williams died on New Years Day of 1953 at the age of 29, from heart failure exacerbated by pills and alcohol. Despite his short life, Williams had a influence on 20th-century popular music. The songs he wrote and recorded have been covered by artists and have been hits in various genres. He has been inducted into multiple halls of fame, such as the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Williams was born in Butler County, Alabama, the son of Jessie Lillybelle Lillie and his parents married on November 12,1916. Hank Williams was of English ancestry, Elonzo Williams worked as an engineer for the railroads of the W. T. Smith lumber company. He was drafted during World War I, serving from July 1918 until June 1919 and he was severely injured after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone and suffering a severe blow to the head. After his return, the familys first child, Irene, was born on August 8,1922, another son of theirs died shortly after birth. Their third child, Hiram, was born on September 17,1923, in Mount Olive. Since Elonzo Williams was a Mason, and his wife was a member of Order of the Eastern Star the child was named after Hiram I of Tyre, as a child, he was nicknamed Harm by his family and Herky or Poots by his friends
2.
Recording studio
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A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties. The engineers and producers listen to the music and the recorded tracks on monitor speakers and/or headphones. Major recording studios typically have a range of large, heavy, Isolation booths are small sound-insulated rooms with doors, designed for instrumentalists. This equipment may interfere with the recording process, Recording studios are carefully designed around the principles of room acoustics to create a set of spaces with the acoustical properties required for recording sound with precision and accuracy. This will consist of both room treatment and soundproofing to prevent sound from leaving the property. Even though sound isolation is a key goal, the musicians, singers, audio engineers and record producers still need to be able to see other, to see cue gestures. As such, the room, isolation booths, vocal booths. Some smaller studios do not have instruments, and bands and artists are expected to bring their own instruments, having musical instruments and equipment in the studio creates additional costs for a studio, as pianos have to be tuned and instruments need to be maintained. However, it makes it convenient for recording artists, as they do not have to bring in large. As well, less costly studio time is spent moving in gear, drummers bring their own snare drum, cymbals and sticks/brushes. The types and brands of equipment owned by a studio depends on the styles of music for the bands. A studio that mainly records heavy metal music will be likely to have large, powerful guitar amp heads, in contrast, a studio which mainly records country bands will likely have a selection of small, vintage combo amps. A studio that records a lot of 1970s-style funk may have an electric piano. General purpose computers have rapidly assumed a role in the recording process. A computer thus outfitted is called a Digital Audio Workstation, or DAW, other software applications include Ableton Live, Mixcraft, Cakewalk Sonar, ACID Pro, FL Studio, Adobe Audition, Auto-Tune, Audacity, and Ardour. While Apple Macintosh is used for most studio work, there is a breadth of available for Microsoft Windows. If no mixing console is used and all mixing is done using only a keyboard and mouse, the OTB is used when mixing with other hardware and not just the PC software
3.
Cincinnati
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Cincinnati is a city in the U. S. state of Ohio that serves as county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the side of the confluence of the Licking with the Ohio River. With a population of 298,550, Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and its metropolitan statistical area is the 28th-largest in the United States and the largest centered in Ohio. The city is part of the larger Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington combined statistical area. In the 19th century, Cincinnati was an American boomtown in the heart of the country, it rivaled the larger cities in size. Throughout much of the 19th century, it was listed among the top 10 U. S and it was by far the largest city in the west. By the end of the 19th century, with the shift from steamboats to railroads drawing off freight shipping, trade patterns had altered and Cincinnatis growth slowed considerably. Cincinnati is home to two sports teams, the Cincinnati Reds, the oldest franchise in Major League Baseball. The University of Cincinnati, founded in 1819, is one of the 50 largest in the United States, Cincinnati is known for its historic architecture. In the late 1800s, Cincinnati was commonly referred to as Paris of America, due mainly to such ambitious projects as the Music Hall, Cincinnatian Hotel. The original surveyor, John Filson, named it Losantiville, in 1790, Arthur St. Ethnic Germans were among the early settlers, migrating from Pennsylvania and the backcountry of Virginia and Tennessee. General David Ziegler succeeded General St. Clair in command at Fort Washington, after the conclusion of the Northwest Indian Wars and removal of Native Americans to the west, he was elected as the mayor of Cincinnati in 1802. Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819, exporting pork products and hay, it became a center of pork processing in the region. From 1810 to 1830 its population tripled, from 9,642 to 24,831. Completion of the Miami and Erie Canal in 1827 to Middletown, Ohio further stimulated businesses, the city had a labor shortage until large waves of immigration by Irish and Germans in the late 1840s. The city grew rapidly over the two decades, reaching 115,000 persons by 1850. Construction on the Miami and Erie Canal began on July 21,1825, the first section of the canal was opened for business in 1827. In 1827, the canal connected Cincinnati to nearby Middletown, by 1840, during this period of rapid expansion and prominence, residents of Cincinnati began referring to the city as the Queen City
4.
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
5.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
6.
Louisiana Hayride
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Elvis Presley performed on the radio version of the program in 1954 and made his first television appearance on the television version of Louisiana Hayride on March 3,1955. First broadcast on April 3,1948 from the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Shreveport, Horace Hoss Logan was the original producer, the show was soon made into a Broadway attraction called Louisiana Hayride. Within a year of its debut, the program was so popular that a regional 25-station network was set up to broadcast portions of the show, the flagship station of the program was KWKH/1130 in Shreveport. Horace Logan continued to produce Louisiana Hayride until 1957, in 1999, Logan published a book about the Hayride that received acclaim from reviewers such as Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Beginning with the successful first show on April 3,1948, while the Opry, the Jubilee and the Hayride all showcased established stars, the Hayride was where talented, but virtual unknowns, were also given exposure to a large audience. By mid-1954, a special 30-minute portion of Louisiana Hayride was being broadcast every Saturday on the AFN Pacific channel of the United Kingdom Scottish Forces Radio Network, on October 16 of that year, Elvis Presley appeared on the radio program. On March 3,1955, Presley made his first television appearance on the version of The Louisiana Hayride, carried by KSLA-TV. Within a few years, rock and roll had come to dominate the music scene, however, KWKH continued to use the Louisiana Hayride name for packaged music tours throughout the 1960s on a bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly basis, finally ending operations entirely in 1969. In August 1974, Shreveport businessman David Kent mounted a country music show originally called Hayride U. S. A. which was retitled Louisiana Hayride in 1975 after KWKH agreed to let Kent use the name. Barney Cannon, a KWKH deejay, became a specialist on the history of music, KWKH. In August 2009, the Louisiana Hayride was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, in 2009, after several years of litigation over the Louisiana Hayride name and trademark, a federal court ruled that Margaret Lewis Warwick owned the rights to the name. As of May 31,2012, KWKH had changed to a sports format and ceased producing the classic country music format reminiscent of the Hayride era
7.
National Recording Registry
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The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States. The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the legislative intent of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000 was to develop a national program to guard Americas sound recording heritage. The Act resulted in the formations of the National Recording Registry, The National Recording Preservation Board, beginning in 2002, the National Recording Preservation Board began selecting nominated recordings each year to be preserved. The first four yearly lists included 50 selections, however, since 2006,25 recordings have been selected annually. Thus, a total of 475 recordings have been preserved in the Registry as of 2017, each calendar year, public nominations are accepted for inclusion in that years list of selections to be announced the following spring. Those recordings on the Library of Congress National Recording Registry that are of a political nature will tend to overlap with the collection of the National Archives. The list shows overlapping items and whether the National Archives has an original or a copy of the recording, recordings may be a single item or group of related items, published or unpublished, and may contain music, non-music, spoken word, or broadcast sound. Recordings will not be considered for inclusion into the National Recording Registry if no copy of the recording exists, no recording should be denied inclusion into the National Recording Registry because that recording has already been preserved. No recording is eligible for inclusion into the National Recording Registry until ten years after the recordings creation, on January 27,2003, the following 50 selections were announced by the National Recording Preservation Board. In March 2004, the following 50 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board, in April 2005, the following 50 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board. In April 2006, the following 50 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board, on March 6,2007, the following 25 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board. On May 14,2008, the following 25 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board, on June 10,2009, the following 25 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board. On June 23,2010, the following 25 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board, on April 6,2011, the following 25 selections were announced. On May 23,2012, the following 25 selections were made by the National Recording Preservation Board, on March 21,2013, the following 25 selections were announced. On April 2,2014, the following 25 selections were announced, on March 25,2015, the following 25 selections were announced. On March 23,2016, the following 25 selections were announced, on March 29,2017, the following 25 selections were announced. As of 2014, the oldest recording on the list is Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinvilles Phonautograms which date back to 1853. The most recent is Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman by Joan Tower, performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop, which was released in 1999
8.
Tin Pan Alley
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The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when a number of music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan. The end of Tin Pan Alley is less clear cut, the origins of the name Tin Pan Alley are unclear. One account claims that it was a reference to the sound of many pianos. Others claim it arose from songwriters modifying their pianos to produce a percussive sound. After many years, the term came to refer to the U. S. music industry in general, various explanations have been advanced to account for the origins of the term Tin Pan Alley. This article has not been found, simon Napier-Bell quotes an account of the origin of the name which was published in a 1930 book about the music business. In this version, popular songwriter Harry von Tilzer was being interviewed about the area around 28th Street and Fifth Avenue, von Tilzer had modified his expensive Kindler & Collins piano by placing strips of paper down the strings to give the instrument a more percussive sound. The journalist told von Tilzer, Your Kindler & Collins sounds exactly like a tin can, ill call the article Tin Pan Alley. With time, this nickname was popularly embraced and came to describe the American music publishing industry in general, the term then spread to the United Kingdom, where Tin Pan Alley is also used to describe Denmark Street in Londons West End. In the 1920s the street known as Britains Tin Pan Alley because of its large number of music shops. In the mid-19th century, copyright control of melodies was not as strict, with stronger copyright protection laws late in the century, songwriters, composers, lyricists, and publishers started working together for their mutual financial benefit. Songwriters would literally bang on doors of Tin Pan Alley to get new material, the two most enterprising New York publishers were Willis Woodard and T. B. Harms, the first companies to specialize in popular songs rather than hymns or classical music. Naturally, these firms were located in the entertainment district, which, Witmark was the first publishing house to move to West 28th Street as the entertainment district gradually shifted uptown, and by the late 1890s most publishers had followed their lead. When a tune became a significant local hit, rights to it were purchased from the local publisher by one of the big New York firms. The song publishers who created Tin Pan Alley frequently had backgrounds as salesmen, the background of Isadore Witmark was selling water filters. Leo Feist had sold corsets, and Joe Stern and Edward B, marks had sold neckties and buttons respectively. The music houses in lower Manhattan were lively places, with a stream of songwriters, vaudeville and Broadway performers, musicians. Aspiring songwriters came to demonstrate tunes they hoped to sell, when tunes were purchased from unknowns with no previous hits, the name of someone with the firm was often added as co-composer, or all rights to the song were purchased outright for a flat fee
9.
Okeh Records
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Okeh Records was a record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. Since 1926, it has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, today, Okeh is an imprint of Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia. Okeh was founded by Otto K. E. Heinemann, a German-American manager for the U. S. branch of German-owned Odeon Records, Heinemann formed the name of the record label from his initials, on early disc labels, the name is spelled OkeH. The first discs were vertical cut, in 1919, Okeh switched to the lateral-cut method of sound recording, more commony used for disc records. In that year the parent company was renamed the General Phonograph Corporation. The common 10-inch discs retailed for 75 cents each, the 12-inch discs for $1.25, the companys musical director was Fred Hager, who was also credited under the pseudonym Milo Rega. Okeh produced lines of recordings in German, Czech, Polish, Swedish, some were pressed from masters leased from European labels, others were recorded by Okeh in New York. In 1920, Ralph Peers recordings of the African-American blues singer Mamie Smith were a smash hit for Okeh. The company perceived the significant, little-tapped market for blues and jazz by African-American artists, in 1922, Okeh hired Clarence Williams as director of race recordings for Okehs New York studios, in addition to making recordings under his own name. Okeh then opened a studio in Chicago, the center of jazz in the 1920s. Many classic jazz performances by prominent artists as King Oliver, Lucille Bogan, Sidney Bechet, Hattie McDaniel, Louis Armstrong. As part of the Carl Lindstrom Company, Okeh recordings were distributed by other Lindstrom labels, King Oliver and Bennie Moten recorded for Okeh before moving on to other labels. The 8000 race series is highly prized by collectors, partly because Okeh recorded many blues, in 1926, Okeh was sold to Columbia Records. Columbia and its subsequent parent companies have controlled Okeh since then, the original Mamie Smith recording was in 1920, of Crazy Blues. General Phonograph Corp, Okehs manufacturer, used Smith’s success as the press to cultivate the new found market. Okeh had further prominence in the demographic, as African-American artists such as Sara Martin, Eva Taylor, Shelton Brooks, Esther Bigeou, Okeh started a special 8000 series devoted exclusively to race artists. The success of this series led Okeh to start recording where the music was being performed, the 8000 series, which began in 1921, lasted until late 1934, the final number being 8966. Okeh Records pioneered the practice of recording in 1922
10.
Asheville, North Carolina
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Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina, the citys population was 87,236 according to the 2013 estimates. It is the city in the four-county Asheville metropolitan area. Asheville is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center, before the arrival of the Europeans, the land where Asheville now exists lay within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation. In 1540, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came to the area, bringing the first European visitors along with European diseases, the area was used as an open hunting ground until the middle of the 19th century. The history of Asheville, as a town, began in 1784, in that year, Colonel Samuel Davidson and his family settled in the Swannanoa Valley, redeeming a soldiers land grant from the state of North Carolina. Soon after building a log cabin at the bank of Christian Creek, Davidson was lured into the woods by a band of Cherokee hunters, Davidsons wife, child and female slave fled on foot overnight to Davidsons Fort 16 miles away. In response to the killing, Davidsons twin brother Major William Davidson and brother-in-law Colonel Daniel Smith formed an expedition to retrieve Samuel Davidsons body and avenge his murder. Months after the expedition, Major Davidson and other members of his family returned to the area. The United States Census of 1790 counted 1,000 residents of the area, Buncombe County was officially formed in 1792. The county seat, named Morristown in 1793, was established on a plateau where two old Indian trails crossed, in 1797, Morristown was incorporated and renamed Asheville after North Carolina Governor Samuel Ashe. For a time, an Enfield rifle manufacturing facility was located in the town, in late April 1865 troops under the overall command of Union Gen. Stoneman captured Asheville. Hartley, Stonemans Raid, p.362 After a negotiated departure, the years following the war were a time of economic and social hardship in Buncombe County, as throughout most of the defeated South. On October 2,1880, the Western North Carolina Railroad completed its line from Salisbury to Asheville, almost immediately it was sold and resold to the Richmond and Danville Railroad Company, becoming part of the Southern Railway in 1894. With the completion of the first railway, Asheville experienced a slow but steady growth as industrial plants increased in number and size, textile mills were established and plants were set up for the manufacture of wood and mica products, foodstuffs, and other commodities. The 21-mile distance between Hendersonville and Asheville of the former Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad was completed in 1886, by that point, the line was operated as part of the Richmond and Danville Railroad until 1894 and controlled by the Southern Railway afterward. Asheville had the first electric railway lines in the state of North Carolina. These would be replaced by buses in 1934, Asheville prospered in the decades of the 1910s and 1920s and at one point was the third largest city in the state, behind Charlotte and Wilmington
11.
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
12.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s
