1.
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
2.
Bob Dylan
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Bob Dylan is an American songwriter, singer, painter, and writer. He has been influential in music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when his songs chronicled social unrest, early songs such as Blowin in the Wind and The Times They Are a-Changin became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. Leaving behind his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single Like a Rolling Stone, recorded in 1965, Dylans lyrics incorporate a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture, initially inspired by the performances of Little Richard and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Dylan has amplified and personalized musical genres. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica, backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, since 1994, Dylan has published seven books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records and he has also received numerous awards including eleven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a citation for his profound impact on popular music and American culture. In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Marys Hospital on May 24,1941, in Duluth, Minnesota and he has a younger brother, David. Dylans paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, in the Russian Empire and his maternal grandparents, Ben and Florence Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. Dylans father, Abram Zimmerman – an electric-appliance shop owner – and mother, Beatrice Beatty Stone, were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community. They lived in Duluth until Robert was six, when his father had polio and the returned to his mothers hometown, Hibbing. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport, Louisiana, and later and he formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Little Richard and their performance of Danny & the Juniors Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. In 1959, his high school yearbook carried the caption Robert Zimmerman, the same year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and clapping
3.
Planet Waves
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Planet Waves is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 17,1974 by Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom. Dylan is supported on the album by longtime collaborators the Band, with a successful tour and a host of publicity, Planet Waves was a hit, enjoying a brief stay at #1 on the US Billboard charts—a first for the artist—and #7 in the UK. Critics were not as negative as they had been with some then-recent Bob Dylan albums, another, earlier working title was Wedding Song. The cover art is drawn by Dylan himself, written on the right side of the cover image is the phrase, Cast-iron songs & torch ballads, apparently signaling Dylans own conception of the album. On the left side is written Moonglow, which is interpreted as a subtitle. The original back artwork for the album is written, with a long, rambling essay on the left hand side. In the center, the names are listed, though Richard Manuels surname is misspelled Manual. The initial release included an insert which reportedly set out excerpts from Dylans personal journals. In the summer of 1973, Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist of the Band, relocated to Malibu, California, after much discussion about that experience, the idea of touring again seemed to really make sense, says Robertson. It was an idea, a kind of step into the past. The other guys in the Band came out. Dylan had not toured since 1966, when the Band accompanied him as The Hawks, when Dylan joined the Band for a test run at Robertsons home in September 1973, he was satisfied by the results, enough to proceed with touring plans. We sat down and played for four hours and ran over a number of tunes. Bob would ask us to play certain tunes of ours, and then we would do the same, Dylan left for New York in October to compose new material for album sessions scheduled in November. Dylan already had three songs which he had demoed in June, and when he returned to Malibu after twenty days in New York, on Friday, November 2, Dylan and the Band held a session at Village Recorder Studio A in Los Angeles, California. Engineer Rob Fraboni recalls the proceedings as fairly relaxed and informal, drummer Levon Helm was not even present, as he was still in transit, on his way to Los Angeles from the East Coast. When Dylan and the Band reconvened at Village Recorder the following Monday, November 5, with Levon Helm now present, Robertson abandoned the wah-wah pedal used during the November 2 session, and a satisfactory take was completed and marked for possible inclusion. Master takes for You Angel You and Going, Going, Gone were also completed, Forever Young occupied a portion of the Monday session, but the results were not to Dylans satisfaction. He returned to it for three sessions, as it proved to be the most difficult song to record
4.
A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record
5.
Roots rock
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Roots rock is rock music that looks back to rocks origins in folk, blues and country music. Because roots music is used to mean folk and world musical forms. In the 1980s, roots rock enjoyed a revival in response to trends in rock, new wave. The same movement saw the beginning of the careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt. The back to basics tendency would also be evident in the Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet and Exile on Main Street, the Beatles The White Album and Let It Be. The Doors Morrison Hotel and L. A. Woman, as well as the Grateful Deads Workingmans Dead Dylans lead was followed by The Byrds. The result of Parsons tenure in the Byrds was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, country rock was a particularly popular style in the California music scene of the late 1960s, and was adopted by bands including Hearts and Flowers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Some folk-rockers followed the Byrds into the genre, among them the Beau Brummels, one of the few acts to successfully move from the country side towards rock were the bluegrass band The Dillards. Members of Ronstadts former backing band went on to form the Eagles, country rock began to fade in the late 1970s in the face of punk and new wave trends.38 Special, and Molly Hatchet. It has been seen as an American Midwest and Rust Belt counterpart to West Coast country rock and it can also be heard as an influence on artists as diverse as Billy Joel, Kid Rock and The Killers. As rock music in general, and blue collar and white working class themes in particular, lost influence with younger audiences, the term roots rock was coined during the mid-80s. Also part of trend and enjoying some mainstream success were Gun Club, Chris Isaak, John Mellencamp, BoDeans. In addition the alternative country movement, producing figures as Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Uncle Tupelo. The movement began to decline in popularity again in the 1990s but produced some bands like Son Volt, Wilco, after disbanding Dire Straits in 1995, frontman and lyricist Mark Knopfler has largely returned to a roots-rock sound across his nine albums since. List of Roots rock bands and musicians
6.
Asylum Records
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Asylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts. It was taken over by Warner Communications in 1972, and later merged with Elektra Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records, after various incarnations, today it is geared primarily towards hip-hop, along with rock and alternative metal. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and is distributed through Atlantic Records. Asylum was founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. They had previously founded their own management company, Geffen was unable to get a recording contract for their client Jackson Browne. While pitching Browne to Ahmet Ertegun, Geffen said, Youll make a lot of money, Ertegun replied, You know what, David, I have a lot of money. Why dont you start a company and then youll have a lot of money. They agreed immediately that Ertegun would put up the funds, Atlantic Records would distribute Asylum Records. Although they knew they would sign Browne, the first act that Geffen asked to join the label was his close friend Laura Nyro, Nyro agreed, but without Geffens knowledge she changed her mind and re-signed with Columbia Records. Geffen said it was the biggest betrayal of his life up to that point, Asylums early releases were distributed by Atlantic Records. His seventh and final album for the label, Heartattack and Vine, was released in 1980, former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty signed with the label in 1974. The biggest coup for Asylum was signing Bob Dylan, who had been with Columbia Records since the early 1960s but who, Dylan recorded two albums, Planet Waves and the live Before the Flood, for Asylum before returning to Columbia. Columbia reissued Dylans two Asylum albums in 1981, Asylum was taken over by Warner Communications in 1973, and merged with Elektra Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records. David Geffen and Elliot Roberts each received $2 million in cash and $5 million in Warner Communications stock, Geffen served as president and chairman of Elektra/Asylum Records until 1975, when he crossed over to film and was named vice-chairman of Warner Bros. By the middle of the decade, the company was calling itself Elektra Records. By this time Asylums remaining acts had been shifted to the Elektra roster, although catalog recordings, Asylum was reformatted into a Country music label, still operated by Elektra, in 1992. Under the new format, Asylum scored successful recordings by acts as Emmylou Harris, Brother Phelps, Thrasher Shiver, Kevin Sharp, Bryan White. They also produced many critically acclaimed albums by such as Mandy Barnett, Guy Clark, The Cox Family, Bob Woodruff, John Douglas Myers
7.
Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song
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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
