1.
NME
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New Musical Express is a British music journalism magazine published since 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. It started as a newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 1990s. An online version of NME, NME. com, was launched in 1996 and it became the worlds biggest standalone music site, with over seven million users per month. With newsstand sales falling across the UK magazine sector, the paid circulation in the first half of 2014 was 15,830. In 2013, the list of NMEs The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, NME magazine was relaunched in September 2015 as a nationally distributed free publication. NMEs headquarters are in Southwark, London, England, the brands editor-in-chief is Mike Williams, who replaced Krissi Murison in 2012. The paper was established in 1952, the Accordion Times and Musical Express was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, for the sum of £1,000, just 15 minutes before it was due to be officially closed. It was relaunched as the New Musical Express, and was published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint. On 14 November 1952, taking its cue from the US magazine Billboard, it created the first UK Singles Chart, the first of these was, in contrast to more recent charts, a top twelve sourced by the magazine itself from sales in regional stores around the UK. The first number one was Here in My Heart by Al Martino, during the 1960s the paper championed the new British groups emerging at the time. The NME circulation peaked under Andy Gray, Editor 1957–1972, with a figure of 306,881 for the period from January to June 1964, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were frequently featured on the front cover. These and other artists appeared at the NME Poll Winners Concert. The concert also featured a ceremony where the winners would collect their awards. The NME Poll Winners Concerts took place between 1959 and 1972, from 1964 onwards they were filmed, edited and transmitted on British television a few weeks after they had taken place. The latter part of the 1960s saw the chart the rise of psychedelia. During this period some sections of pop music began to be designated as rock, in early 1972 the paper found itself on the verge of closure by its owner IPC. Alan Smith was made editor and in 1972 was told by IPC to turn things around quickly or face closure, according to The Economist, the New Musical Express started to champion underground, up-and-coming music. NME became the gateway to a more rebellious world
NME
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Cover featuring
Patti Smith for the week of 21 February 1976
NME
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Blur vs.
Oasis issue in August 1995.
NME
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Logo of the 2006 NME Awards Tour.
2.
Rolling Stone
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Rolling Stone is an American biweekly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still the publisher. It was first known for its coverage and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors. In recent years, it has resumed its traditional mix of content, Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim. The first issue carried a date of November 9,1967. Some authors have attributed the name solely to Dylans hit single, At Gleasons suggestion, Rolling Stone initially identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. In the very first edition, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone is not just about the music, in the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark with its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazines political section. Thompson first published his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine also helped launch the careers of prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Patti Smith. It was at point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories. One interviewer, speaking for a number of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus. In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City, editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become a cultural backwater. During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift towards being an entertainment magazine. Music was still a dominant topic, but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television, films, the magazine also initiated its annual Hot Issue during this time. Rolling Stone was initially known for its coverage and for Thompsons political reporting. In the 1990s, the changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors
Rolling Stone
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Cee Lo Green,
Adam Levine,
Christina Aguilera, and
Blake Shelton, on the cover of the February 1, 2012, issue of Rolling Stone
3.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
Rock music
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Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2006, showing a quartet lineup for a rock band (from left to right: bassist, lead vocalist, drummer, and guitarist).
Rock music
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Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for
Jailhouse Rock in 1957
Rock music
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Chubby Checker in 2005
Rock music
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The Beach Boys performing in 1964
4.
Rob Sheffield
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Rob Sheffield is an American music journalist and author. He is a long time contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing music, TV. Previously, he was an editor at Blender, Spin. A native of Boston, Sheffield attended Yale and the University of Virginia and his first book, Love is a Mix Tape, was released by Random House in January 2007. It was met with acclaim and was a national bestseller. Sheffield lives in Brooklyn, New York, sheffields second book, released in July 2010, is called Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. Sheffields third book, released in August 2013, is called Turn Around Bright Eyes, The Rituals of Love, media related to Rob Sheffield at Wikimedia Commons Rob Sheffield at the Internet Movie Database
Rob Sheffield
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Rob Sheffield at the 2007
Brooklyn Book Festival
5.
Steven Van Zandt
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Steven Van Zandt is an American musician and actor, who frequently goes by the stage names Little Steven or Miami Steve. He is a member of Bruce Springsteens E Street Band, in which he plays guitar and he has also acted in television dramas such as The Sopranos and Lilyhammer. Van Zandt also had his own band called Little Steven. In 2014, Van Zandt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band, Steven Van Zandt was born on November 22,1950, in Boston, Massachusetts. Steven Van Zandt was born as Steven Lento and is of South Italian descent and he lived at 16 Edgecliff Road in Watertown, Massachusetts. His mother, Mary Lento, remarried in 1957 and Steven took the last name of his stepfather, the family moved from Massachusetts to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was seven. Steven Van Zandt found his love for music at an early age and he watched the performances of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show and Rolling Stones on Hollywood Palace in 1964 and referred to the former as The Big Bang of Rock n Roll. He said that when he was 13, George Harrison was his favorite Beatle, around August 1964, Steven formed his first band, the Whirlwinds, which was short lived. He would later form the Mates in 1965 and join the Shadows in May 1966, Van Zandt would later cite British Invasion bands such as the Dave Clark Five, as well as Ravi Shankar and the culture of India as early influences. Steven Van Zandt attended Middletown High School, where he got kicked out for having long hair and he went back to school to make his mother happy and graduated in 1968. Actor/playwright/producer Billy Van Zandt is Stevens half-brother, making actress Adrienne Barbeau his sister-in-law, Steven also has a half-sister named Kathi who is a writer. Bruce Springsteen met Steven Van Zandt for the first time in 1966 or 1967 when Springsteen went to the Hullabaloo club in Middletown, Van Zandt was performing a cover of the Turtles Happy Together with the Shadows. Van Zandt grew up in the Jersey Shore music scene, and was an early friend and they performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band. During the early 1970s, Van Zandt worked in construction for 2 years. In 1973, he toured with The Dovells, the tour ended in Miami during Dick Clarks New Years Show at the Deauville Hotel. After going back to Jersey, Steven continued to wear Hawaiian shirts because he did not like winter and he co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, in addition to The Miami Horns, who got their name from Stevens nickname. Van Zandt helped establish the rhythm and blues oriented style of music that the band performed and he also produced Southsides first three albums. Overall, Van Zandt wrote a significant bulk of Southsides music which helped them with the success that they achieved
Steven Van Zandt
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Van Zandt at the 2011 MIPCOM, in Cannes
Steven Van Zandt
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Springsteen and Van Zandt, onstage during the
Working on a Dream Tour, August 1, 2009, in
Valladolid, Spain.
6.
Robert Johnson (musician)
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Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, Johnsons shadowy and poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend. One Faustian myth says that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads of Mississippi highways to achieve success. As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, after the reissue of his recordings in 1961, on the LP King of the Delta Blues Singers, his work reached a wider audience. Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly of the Mississippi Delta blues style and he is credited by many rock musicians as an important influence, the blues and rock musician Eric Clapton has called Johnson the most important blues singer that ever lived. Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, as an influence on rock. In 2010, David Fricke ranked Johnson fifth in Rolling Stone magazines 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8,1911, to Julia Major Dodds and Noah Johnson. Julia was married to Charles Dodds, a prosperous landowner and furniture maker. Charles Dodds had been forced by a mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia left Hazlehurst with baby Robert but after two years sent the boy to Memphis to live with her husband, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer, about 1919, Robert rejoined his mother in the Mississippi Delta area around Tunica and Robinsonville, Mississippi. Julias new husband, known as Dusty Willis, was 24 years her junior, Robert was remembered by some residents as Little Robert Dusty, but he was registered at Tunicas Indian Creek School as Robert Spencer. In the 1920 census he is listed as Robert Spencer, living in Lucas, Arkansas, with Will, Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927. The quality of his signature on his marriage suggests that he was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. A school friend, Willie Coffee, who was interviewed and filmed in later life, recalled that as a youth Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp. Coffee recalled that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis. After school, Robert adopted the surname of his natural father and she died in childbirth shortly after. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert Mack McCormick that this was a punishment for Roberts decision to sing secular songs. McCormick believed that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his resolve to abandon the life of a husband
Robert Johnson (musician)
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Robert Johnson records
Robert Johnson (musician)
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Studio portrait (circa 1935), one of only two or three verified photographs
Robert Johnson (musician)
Robert Johnson (musician)
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Johnson's recordings were released by several record companies: "Milkcow's Calf Blues" on Perfect (top), "Love in Vain Blues" on
Vocalion (middle), and "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" by Conqueror (bottom)
7.
The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
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The Complete Recordings is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released August 28,1990 on Columbia Records. The albums recordings were recorded in two sessions in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Company during 1936 and 1937, most of the songs were first released on 78rpm records in 1937. The Complete Recordings contains every recording Johnson is known to have made, the Complete Recordings peaked at number 80 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album has more than a million copies, and won a Grammy Award in 1991 for Best Historical Album. In 1992, the Blues Foundation inducted the album into the Blues Hall of Fame and it also was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2003. The board selects recordings on a basis that are culturally, historically. Prior to his death in 1938, through the help of H. C, speir Johnson recorded 29 songs for the American Record Company. His complete canon of recordings includes these 29 masters, plus 13 surviving alternate takes, all recorded at two ARC sessions held in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas. He is said to have heavily influenced by early blues artists like Skip James. Jamess eerie, distinctive style is reflected throughout Johnsons recordings, most notably in 32-20 Blues, kind Hearted Woman Blues was the first song recorded. Also captured in San Antonio were I Believe Ill Dust My Broom and Sweet Home Chicago, terraplane Blues, known for its metaphoric lyrics, became a regional hit and Johnsons signature song. Most of the selections were released on Vocalion 78s, but three songs and several interesting alternate takes remained unissued until they appeared on the Columbia albums and this time 13 songs were recorded and 10 were released during the following year. The song Cross Road Blues is one of his most popular, thanks to Eric Clapton and Cream, Johnsons recordings became popular in the early 60s when Columbia Records released a collection of called King of the Delta Blues Singers. While Robert Johnsons professional recording career can be measured in months, muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf, two prominent Chicago bluesmen, have their roots in the Delta, both knew Robert Johnson, and were heavily influenced by him. Johnsons emotive vocals, combined with his varied and masterful guitar playing, continue to influence blues and popular music performers to this day. In 2004, Eric Clapton recorded Me and Mr. Johnson as a tribute to the legendary bluesman, the album reached number 6 on the Billboard 200 and has sold more than 563,000 copies in the United States. The Chicago Tribunes Greg Kot wrote that The Complete Recordings, along with Claptons The Layla Sessions, survive as monuments of 20th Century music that will rarely, if ever, a new remastered edition of the album was released in 2011 in commemoration of Johnsons 100th birthday. The Centennial Edition was released in standard and deluxe editions
The Complete Recordings (Robert Johnson album)
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The Complete Recordings
8.
King of the Delta Blues Singers
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King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever, in 2003, the album was ranked number 27 on Rolling Stone magazines list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album compiles sixteen recordings, thirteen of which were previously available as 78s on the Vocalion label. The records sold well in their market of the American south and southwest, with Terraplane Blues something of a regional hit. By the time this appeared, Johnson was mostly rumor, if known at all, except to a small group of collectors. Nevertheless, Johnsons LP failed to make the charts, but the quality of Johnsons music was recognized and Johnsons reputation grew. The album became a badge of hip taste in the 1960s, Clapton would later record an entire disc of Johnsons songs, Me and Mr. Johnson. The album was released by Columbia Records in 1961 as a mono LP. As the two surviving portraits of him were discovered a decade later, the painting depicts a faceless musician in field clothes. The album was followed in 1970 by King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II, the original recording engineer was Vincent Liebler. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Johnsons recordings for the albums revolutionized the Mississippi Delta style that became the foundation of the Chicago blues sound. The Wall Street Journal wrote that when his album King of the Delta Blues Singers made its way to England in the mid-1960s. English rock musician Eric Clapton cited King of the Delta Blues Singers, along with its second volume, in 1980, King of the Delta Blues Singers became the first album to be inducted by the Blues Foundation into the Blues Hall of Fame. The Hartford Courant selected King of the Delta Blues Singers for its list of the 25 Pivotal Recordings That Defined Our Times, in 2003, the album was ranked number 27 on Rolling Stone magazines list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Mojo magazine ranked it number 6 on its list of 100 Records That Changed the World, bibliography King of the Delta Blues Singers at Radio3Net King of the Delta Blues Singers at Discogs
King of the Delta Blues Singers
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King of the Delta Blues Singers
9.
John Lennon
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John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded the Beatles, the most commercially successful and musically influential band in the history of popular music. He and fellow member Paul McCartney formed a songwriting partnership. Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the craze as a teenager, his first band, the Quarrymen, first became the Silver Beatles. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he added Ono as one of his middle names, Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release, Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. By 2012, Lennons solo album sales in the United States exceeded 14 million and, as writer, co-writer, or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth and, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1994 as a solo artist. Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent and his parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John Jack Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, after her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpools Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946 Lennons father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her, according to author Mark Lewisohn, Lennons parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said the scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again, Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence he lived at Mendips,251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of stories for him, and his uncle. In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature, Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society, but I cannot be what I am not. I was the one who all the other boys parents—including Pauls father—would say, the parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friends home, partly out of envy that I didnt have this so-called home
John Lennon
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John Lennon, 1969
John Lennon
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251 Menlove Avenue, where Lennon lived for most of his childhood
John Lennon
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Lennon (right) performing with
the Beatles in 1964 at the height of
Beatlemania
John Lennon
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Lennon (right) performing "
All You Need Is Love " with
The Beatles in 1967 to 400 million viewers of
Our World.
10.
The Beatles
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The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. They acquired the nickname the Fab Four as Beatlemania grew in Britain the next year, from 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced increasingly innovative recordings, including the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road, after their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers of varying lengths. McCartney and Starr, the members, remain musically active. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of cancer in November 2001. The Beatles are the band in history, with estimated sales of over 600 million records worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act, according to the RIAA, the Beatles are also the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazines list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, as of 2016 and they have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they were also collectively included in Time magazines compilation of the twentieth centurys 100 most influential people. In March 1957, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a group with several friends from Quarry Bank school. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that a local group was already using the other name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after he, in February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fourteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, after a month of Harrisons persistence, they enlisted him as their lead guitarist. By January 1959, Lennons Quarry Bank friends had left the group, the three guitarists, billing themselves at least three times as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. They used the name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer. By early July, they had changed their name to the Silver Beatles, allan Williams, the Beatles unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg, but lacking a full-time drummer they auditioned and hired Pete Best in mid-August 1960
The Beatles
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The "Fab Four" Beatles lineup in 1964 Top: Lennon, McCartney Bottom: Harrison, Starr
The Beatles
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Abbey Road Studios main entrance
The Beatles
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McCartney, Harrison, Swedish pop singer
Lill-Babs and Lennon on the set of the Swedish television show Drop-In, 30 October 1963
The Beatles
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The Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport, 7 February 1964
11.
Paul McCartney
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Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained fame with the rock band the Beatles, largely considered the most popular. His songwriting partnership with Lennon is the most celebrated of the post-war era, after the bands break-up, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine. McCartney has been recognised as one of the most successful composers and performers of all time, More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song Yesterday, more than any other copyrighted song in history. Wings 1977 release Mull of Kintyre is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr all received The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1965, McCartney has released an extensive catalogue of songs as a solo artist and has composed classical and electronic music. He has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty. He has married three times and is the father of five children, James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital, Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practise as a nurse. His father, James McCartney, was absent from his sons birth due to his work as a firefighter during World War II. Paul has one brother, Michael. Though the children were baptised in their mothers Catholic faith, their father was a former Protestant turned agnostic, McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton. In 1953, with three others out of ninety examinees, he passed the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his home in Speke. The two quickly became friends, McCartney later admitted, I tended to talk down to him because he was a year younger. McCartneys mother Mary was a midwife and the primary wage earner, her earnings enabled them to move into 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. She rode a bicycle to her patients, McCartney described an early memory of her leaving at about three in the morning streets, on 31 October 1956, when McCartney was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism. McCartneys loss later became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, McCartneys father was a trumpet player and pianist, who had led Jim Macs Jazz Band in the 1920s. He kept a piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised Paul to take piano lessons
Paul McCartney
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Paul McCartney in 2010
Paul McCartney
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McCartney's former home,
20 Forthlin Road. The McCartney family moved into this address in 1955
Paul McCartney
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McCartney (second from left) with Lennon, Harrison and Starr, 1964
Paul McCartney
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Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "the most famous cover of any music album", wrote Beatles biographer
Bill Harry.
12.
Paul McCartney and Wings
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Wings were noted for frequent personnel changes as well as commercial success, going through three lead guitarists and four drummers. Created following the McCartneys 1971 album Ram, the bands first two albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, were viewed as artistic disappointments beside Paul McCartneys work with the Beatles. After the release of the track of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, McCullough. The McCartneys and Laine then released 1973s Band on the Run, following that album, the band recruited guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton, only for Britton to quit shortly afterwards and be replaced by Joe English. With the new line-up, Wings released Venus and Mars, which included the US number one single Listen to What the Man Said, and undertook a highly successful world tour over 1975–76. Intended as more of an effort, Wings at the Speed of Sound was issued midway through the tour and featured the hit singles Silly Love Songs. In 1977, the band earned their only UK number one single, with Mull of Kintyre, Wings experienced another line-up shuffle, however, with both McCulloch and English departing before the release of the groups 1978 album London Town. The McCartneys and Laine again added new members, recruiting guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holley, the resulting album, Back to the Egg, was a relative flop, with its singles under-performing and the critical reception negative. During the supporting tour, Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for cannabis possession, despite a final US number one, the live version of McCartneys solo single Coming Up, Wings broke up permanently in 1981. After the Beatles break-up in 1970, McCartney recorded two albums, McCartney, credited to himself, and Ram, with wife Linda, Ram was recorded in New York City, where McCartney auditioned a number of drummers and guitarists, selecting Seiwell and guitarist David Spinozza. When Spinozza became unavailable due to other commitments, Hugh McCracken was enlisted to take his place. After the release of Ram, McCartney decided to form a new group and asked Seiwell, Seiwell accepted, but McCracken declined, so McCartney invited Denny Laine, whom he had known since the early 1960s, to join. He said, Nothing, so I said, Right, Laine then dropped plans for his album there and then. In August 1971, Seiwell and Laine joined Paul and Linda McCartney to record Pauls third post-Beatles album for Apple Records, the result was Wild Life, released 7 December. It was the first project to credit Wings as the artist, the band name is said to have come to McCartney as he was praying in the hospital while Linda was giving birth to their second child together, Stella, on 13 September 1971. Paul McCartney recalled in the film Wingspan that the birth of Stella was a bit of a drama, there were complications at the birth and he was praying fervently and the image of wings came to his mind. He decided to name his new band Wings, in an attempt to capture the spontaneity of live performances, five of Wild Lifes eight songs were first takes by the band. The album included a cover of Mickey & Sylvias Love Is Strange, like Ram, Wild Life left music critics cold, a response that typified the anti-McCartney sentiments that prevailed among the music press following the Beatles break-up
Paul McCartney and Wings
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Wings, 1975. L–R: Joe English, Denny Laine, Linda McCartney, Jimmy McCulloch, and Paul McCartney.
Paul McCartney and Wings
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Paul and Linda McCartney at the Academy Awards, April 1974
Paul McCartney and Wings
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Paul McCartney with
Linda McCartney in 1976
Paul McCartney and Wings
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Denny Laine during the 1976 tour
13.
George Harrison
–
George Harrison, MBE was an English guitarist, singer, songwriter, and music and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Although most of the Beatles songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and his songs for the group included Taxman, Within You Without You, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes the Sun and Something, the last of which became the Beatles second-most covered song. Harrisons earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt, Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry were subsequent influences. By 1965 he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in the Byrds and Bob Dylan, having initiated the bands embracing of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement. He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, in his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974 and co-founding HandMade Films in 1978. Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 11 in their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, Harrisons first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977. The following year he married Olivia Harrison, with whom he had one son, Harrison died in 2001, aged 58, from lung cancer. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India and he left an estate of almost £100 million. Born in Liverpool, United Kingdom, on 25 February 1943, Harrison was the youngest of four children of Harold Hargreaves Harrison and he had one sister, Louise, and two brothers, Harry and Peter. His mother was an assistant from a Catholic family with Irish roots. His future wife, the model Pattie Boyd, described Harrisons parents as quite short, an enthusiastic music fan, she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons windows. While pregnant with George, she listened to the weekly broadcast Radio India. Harrisons biographer Joshua Greene wrote, Every Sunday she tuned in to mystical sounds evoked by sitars and tablas, hoping that the music would bring peace. Harrison was born and lived the first six years of his life at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool, the home had an outdoor toilet and its only heat came from a single coal fire. In 1949 the family were offered a house and moved to 25 Upton Green. In 1948, at the age of five, Harrison enrolled at Dovedale Primary School and he passed the eleven-plus exam and attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys from 1954 to 1959. Though the institute did offer a course, Harrison was disappointed with the absence of guitars
George Harrison
–
Harrison at the
White House in 1974
George Harrison
–
Harrison's first home and place of birth –
12 Arnold Grove
George Harrison
–
Harrison at a press conference in the Netherlands in 1964
George Harrison
–
Harrison (third from left) with the other Beatles in New York City in 1964
14.
Bob Dylan
–
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
Bob Dylan
–
Dylan onstage at Azkena Rock Festival,
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, June 26, 2010
Bob Dylan
–
Zimmerman family home in Hibbing, Minnesota
Bob Dylan
–
With
Joan Baez during the civil rights "
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom ", August 28, 1963
Bob Dylan
–
Bob Dylan in November 1963
15.
The Band
–
The Band was a Canadian roots rock group, originally consisting of four Canadians—Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, and Robbie Robertson —and one American, Levon Helm. The members of the Band first came together as they joined the rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkinss backing group, in 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U. S. tour in 1965, because they were always the band to various frontmen, Helm said the name The Band worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as the Band in 1968 and went on to ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with the Band over the course of their career, the original configuration of the Band ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate live ballroom performance featuring numerous musical celebrities. This performance was immortalized in Martin Scorseses 1978 documentary The Last Waltz, the Band recommenced touring in 1983 without guitarist Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. Following a 1986 show, Manuel committed suicide, Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Helm was diagnosed with cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years. He continued to perform and released several albums until he died in 2012. The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989, in 2004 Rolling Stone ranked them No.50 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time, and in 2008 they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, The Weight was ranked 41st on Rolling Stones list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, in 2014, the Band was inducted into Canadas Walk of Fame. While most of the Hawks were eager to join Hawkinss group and he had earned a college degree, planned on a career as a music teacher, and was interested in playing rock music only as a hobby. The Hawks were in awe of his wild, full-bore organ sound, Hudson finally relented, as long as the Hawks each paid him $10 per week to be their instructor, all music theory questions were directed to Hudson. While pocketing a little cash, Hudson was also able to mollify his familys fears that his education had gone to waste. The piano–organ combination was uncommon in rock music, and for all his aggressive playing, there is a view that jazz is evil because it comes from evil people, but actually the greatest priests on 52nd Street, and on the streets of New York City were the musicians. They were doing the greatest healing work, and they knew how to punch through music which would cure and make people feel good. With Hawkins, they recorded a few singles in this period, Hawkins regularly convened all-night rehearsals following long club shows, with the result that the young musicians quickly developed great technical prowess on their instruments. In late 1963, the split from Hawkins over personal differences
The Band
–
"Big Pink" in 2006
The Band
–
The Band in 1969. Left to right:
Manuel,
Hudson,
Helm,
Robertson and
Danko.
The Band
–
L to R:Danko, Helm and Manuel on tour in Hamburg, Germany in 1971
The Band
–
Bob Dylan and The Band touring in Chicago in 1974. Left to right: Danko, Robertson, Dylan and Helm.
16.
The Rolling Stones
–
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. The original line-up consisted of Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Stewart was removed from the official line-up in 1963 but continued as a touring member until his death in 1985. Jones left the less than a month prior to his death in 1969, having already been replaced by Mick Taylor. After Taylor left the band, Ronnie Wood took his place in 1975 and has been on guitar in tandem with Richards ever since, following Wymans departure in 1993, Darryl Jones joined as their touring bassist. Other touring keyboardists for the band have been Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston, the band was first led by Jones, but after teaming as the bands songwriters, Jagger and Richards assumed leadership while Jones dealt with legal and personal troubles. The Rolling Stones were at the forefront of the British Invasion of bands that became popular in the US in 1964, and identified with the youthful and rebellious counterculture of the 1960s. Rooted in blues and early rock and roll, the group began a period of musical experimentation in the mid-1960s that peaked with the psychedelic album Their Satanic Majesties Request. During this period, they were first introduced on stage as The Worlds Greatest Rock, the band continued to release commercially successful records in the 1970s and sold many albums, including Some Girls and Tattoo You, which were their most popular albums worldwide. From 1983 to 1987, tensions between Jagger and Richards almost caused the band to split, however, they managed to patch up their friendship in 1987. They separated temporarily to work on projects and experienced a comeback with Steel Wheels. Since the 1990s, new recorded material from the group has been increasingly less well-received, despite this, the Rolling Stones have continued to be a huge attraction on the live circuit, with stadium tours in the 1990s and 2000s. By 2007, the band had four of the top five highest-grossing concert tours of all time, Voodoo Lounge Tour, Bridges to Babylon Tour, Licks Tour and A Bigger Bang Tour. The Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, Rolling Stone magazine ranked them fourth on the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list and their estimated album sales are above 250 million. They have released 30 studio albums,18 live albums and numerous compilations, Let It Bleed was their first of five consecutive number one studio and live albums in the UK. Sticky Fingers was the first of eight number one studio albums in the US. In 2008, the band ranked 10th on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists chart, in 2012, the band celebrated its 50th anniversary. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were childhood friends and classmates in Dartford, Kent, Jagger had formed a garage band with Dick Taylor, mainly playing Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Howlin Wolf and Bo Diddley material. Jagger met Richards again in 1960 on platform two of Dartford railway station, the Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records that Jagger carried revealed a common interest that prompted their musical partnership
The Rolling Stones
–
The Rolling Stones performing at
Summerfest festival in June 2015 Left to right:
Charlie Watts (drums),
Ronnie Wood (rhythm guitar),
Mick Jagger (vocals),
Keith Richards (lead guitar)
The Rolling Stones
–
The back room of what was the
Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, London where the Rolling Stones had their first residency in 1963
The Rolling Stones
–
The Rolling Stones performing at Georgia Southern College in Statesboro, Georgia, May 1965
The Rolling Stones
–
A trade ad for the 1965 Rolling Stones' North American tour.
17.
Eric Clapton
–
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is the only inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important, Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazines list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and fourth in Gibsons Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. He was also named number five in Time magazines list of The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players in 2009, in the mid-1960s Clapton left the Yardbirds to play with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Furthermore, he formed rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood. For most of the 1970s Claptons output bore the influence of the style of J. J. Cale. His version of Marleys I Shot the Sheriff helped reggae reach a mass market, two of his most popular recordings were Layla, recorded with Derek and the Dominos, and Robert Johnsons Crossroads, recorded with Cream. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Claptons grief was expressed in the song Tears in Heaven, Clapton has been the recipient of 18 Grammy Awards, and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2004 he was awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music, in 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers. Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, Fryer shipped off to war prior to Claptons birth and then returned to Canada. The similarity in surnames gave rise to the belief that Claptons real surname is Clapp. Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany, Clapton received an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, but the inexpensive steel-stringed instrument was difficult to play and he briefly lost interest. Two years later Clapton picked it up again and started playing consistently, Clapton was influenced by the blues from an early age, and practised long hours to learn the chords of blues music by playing along to the records. He preserved his practice sessions using his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder and his guitar playing was so advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed. Around this time, Clapton began busking around Kingston, Richmond, in 1962, Clapton started performing as a duo with fellow blues enthusiast David Brock in pubs around Surrey. When he was seventeen years old, Clapton joined his first band, an early British R&B group and he stayed with this band from January until August 1963. In October of that year, Clapton did a stint with Casey Jones & the Engineers. In October 1963, Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a rock and roll band
Eric Clapton
–
Clapton performing at Hyde Park, London in June 2008
Eric Clapton
–
Appearing at the
Royal Albert Hall in London for the first time in 1964, Clapton has since performed at the venue over 200 times.
Eric Clapton
–
Clapton (right) with Cream
Eric Clapton
–
Clapton's
The Fool guitar (replica shown), with its bright artwork and famous "woman tone", was symbolic of the 1960s psychedelic rock era.
18.
Cream (band)
–
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. The groups third album, Wheels of Fire, was the worlds first platinum-selling double album, the band is widely regarded as the worlds first successful supergroup. In their career, they more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. The bands biggest hits were I Feel Free, Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, Crossroads, and Badge. The band made a significant impact on the music of the time. They also had an impact on American southern rock leading groups The Allman Brothers Band, the bands live performances influenced progressive rock acts such as Rush. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and they were included in both Rolling Stone and VH1s lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, at number 67 and 61 respectively. They were also ranked number 16 on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, by July 1966, Eric Claptons career with The Yardbirds and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers had earned him a reputation as the premier blues guitarist in Britain. Clapton, however, found the environment of Mayalls band confining, in 1966, Clapton met Ginger Baker, then the leader of the Graham Bond Organisation, which at one point featured Jack Bruce on bass guitar, harmonica and piano. Baker felt stifled in the Graham Bond Organisation and had tired of Graham Bonds drug addictions. I had always liked Ginger, explained Clapton, Ginger had come to see me play with the Bluesbreakers. After the gig he drove me back to London in his Rover, I was very impressed with his car and driving. He was telling me that he wanted to start a band, each was impressed with the others playing abilities, prompting Baker to ask Clapton to join his new, then-unnamed group. Clapton immediately agreed, on the condition that Baker hire Bruce as the groups bassist, according to Clapton, Clapton had met Bruce when the bassist/vocalist briefly played with the Bluesbreakers in November 1965, the two also had worked together as part of a one-shot band called Powerhouse. Impressed with Bruces vocals and technical prowess, Clapton wanted to work with him on an ongoing basis, in contrast, while Bruce was in Bonds band, he and Baker had been notorious for their quarrelling. Their volatile relationship included on-stage fights and the sabotage of one anothers instruments, after Baker fired Bruce from the band, Bruce continued to arrive for gigs, ultimately, Bruce was driven away from the band after Baker threatened him at knifepoint. Baker and Bruce put aside their differences for the good of Bakers new trio, the band was named Cream, as Clapton, Bruce, and Baker were already considered the cream of the crop amongst blues and jazz musicians in the exploding British music scene. Initially, the group were referred to and billed as The Cream, but starting officially with its first record releases, before deciding upon Cream, the band considered calling themselves Sweet n Sour Rock n Roll
Cream (band)
–
Cream in 1967. From left to right:
Ginger Baker,
Jack Bruce, and
Eric Clapton.
Cream (band)
–
Ginger Baker at the drumkit
Cream (band)
–
Eric Clapton performing in Barcelona years after leaving Cream, 1974
19.
Derek and the Dominos
–
Derek and the Dominos were a blues rock band formed in the spring of 1970 by guitarist and singer Eric Clapton, keyboardist and singer Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon. All four members had played together in Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, during. Dave Mason supplied additional guitar on early studio sessions and played at their first live gig. Another participant at their first session as a band was George Harrison, the recording for whose album All Things Must Pass marked the formation of Derek and the Dominos. The band released one studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, produced by Tom Dowd. A double album, Layla went on to critical acclaim. Although released in 1970 it was not until March 1972 that the albums single Layla made the top ten in both the United States and the United Kingdom, the album is often considered to be the defining achievement of Claptons career. Derek and the Dominos came about through its four members involvement in the American soul revue Delaney & Bonnie, in addition, the entire band backed him on his debut solo album, Eric Clapton, recorded over the same period. Many of the members began to leave Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Whitlock later recalled other difficulties with Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, citing the couples frequent fights and describing Delaney as a demanding band leader in the manner of James Brown. In April 1970, at the suggestion of his friend and mentor Steve Cropper, Whitlock subsequently lived in Hurtwood Edge, Claptons house in Surrey, where the two musicians would jam and, on acoustic guitars, began writing the bulk of the Dominos catalogue. Soon after Whitlocks arrival, he and Clapton were eager to form a new band and contacted Radle, although their first choice for a drummer was Keltner – like Radle and Russell, a native of Tulsa – he was busy recording with jazz guitarist Gábor Szabó. Gordon, however, had invited to London to work on Harrisons post-Beatles solo album All Things Must Pass. In May that year, Clapton, Whitlock, Radle and Gordon reunited in London at a session for P. P, arnold, before going on to serve as the backing band on much of Harrisons album. Among the friendships formed before the group came into existence, Shapiro continues. Outcropped most noticeably in Bobby Whitlock, in whom Eric found an accomplished and sympathetic songwriting partner, Clapton and Whitlock considered adding the Delaney & Bonnie horn section to their new band, but this plan was abandoned. Whitlock later explained the ethos of Derek and the Dominos, we didnt want any horns, we didnt want no chicks, but my vocal concept was that we approach singing like Sam and Dave did, sings a line, I sing a line, we sing together. Towards the end of the sessions for the tracks on All Things Must Pass. With the lineup expanded to a band, Derek and the Dominos gave their debut live performance on 14 June 1970
Derek and the Dominos
–
Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, and Duane Allman live at the
Curtis Hixon Hall in
Tampa, one of the two shows in which Allman appeared
Derek and the Dominos
–
L–R: Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, Eric Clapton
20.
The Yardbirds
–
The Yardbirds are an English rock band formed in London in 1963 that had a string of hits during the mid-1960s, including For Your Love, Heart Full of Soul and Over Under Sideways Down. The group launched the careers of guitarists Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, the band reformed in the 1990s, featuring McCarty, Dreja and new members. The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and they were included in Rolling Stones list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and ranked No.37 on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. The group formed in the south-west London suburbs in 1963, Relf and Samwell-Smith were originally in a band named the Metropolitan Blues Quartet. After being joined by Dreja, McCarty and Top Topham in late May, the quintet achieved notice on the burgeoning British rhythm and blues scene that month when they took over as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, succeeding the Rolling Stones. Original lead guitarist Topham left and was replaced by Eric Clapton in October 1963, Crawdaddy Club impresario Giorgio Gomelsky became the Yardbirds manager and first record producer. Under Gomelskys guidance the Yardbirds signed to EMIs Columbia label in February 1964 and their first album was the live, Five Live Yardbirds, recorded at the legendary Marquee Club in London. Blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson II invited the group to tour Britain and Germany with him, a union that later engendered another live album. The Clapton line-up cut two singles, I Wish You Would and Good Morning, School Girl, before the band scored its first major hit with the next, For Your Love and it sold over one million copies and went gold. But Clapton was a blues purist whose vision extended far beyond three-minute singles, frustrated by the commercial approach, he abruptly left the group on 25 March 1965, the day that For Your Love was released to the public. Soon Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, but not before he recommended Jimmy Page, unwilling to give up his lucrative gig and worried about his health, Page in turn recommended his friend Jeff Beck. Beck played his first gig with the Yardbirds only two days after Claptons departure, Beck was voted No.1 lead guitarist of 1966 in the British music magazine Beat Instrumental. The band embarked on their first U. S. tour in late August 1965, a pair of albums were put together for the U. S. market, For Your Love, and Having a Rave Up, half of which came from Five Live Yardbirds. There were three more U. S. tours during Becks time with the group, a brief European tour took place in April 1966. In June 1966, shortly after the sessions that produced Yardbirds, Samwell-Smith decided to leave the group, Jimmy Page agreed to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on it. A Beck–Page lead guitar tandem, however, is heard on the psychedelic rock highlight Happenings Ten Years Time Ago. It was backed in the U. K. with Psycho Daisies, with Beck on lead and Page on bass, stroll On features a twin lead-guitar break by Beck and Page. Their appearance in Blowup came after the Who declined and the In-Crowd were unable to attend the filming, the Velvet Underground were also considered for the part but were unable to acquire UK work permits
The Yardbirds
–
The Yardbirds, 1966. From left: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty.
The Yardbirds
–
Jim McCarty drums the Yardbirds 1963–68, 1992–present
The Yardbirds
–
Handprints of the living members of the Yardbirds at the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Left to right: Page, Beck, Dreja, McCarty, Clapton
21.
Bruce Springsteen
–
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his work with the E Street Band, Springsteens recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful albums, Born to Run and Born in the U. S. A. find pleasures in the struggles of daily American life. He has sold more 120 million records worldwide and more than 64 million records in the United States, in 2009, Springsteen was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, in 2013 was named MusiCares person of the year and in 2016 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He married Patti Scialfa in 1991, and the couple have had three children – Evan James, Jessica Rae and Sam Ryan, Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen was born on September 23,1949, at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey. He was brought home from the hospital to Freehold Borough where he spent his childhood and he lived on South Street and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry, Springsteen said his mother, Adele Ann, a legal secretary and of Italian ancestry, was the main breadwinner. His maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a town near Naples and he has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full-time, she took photos for his Human Touch, Lucky Town. The Springsteens are among the early Dutch families who settled in the colony of New Netherland in the 1600s, raised a Roman Catholic, Springsteen attended the St. In a 2012 interview, he explained that it was his Catholic upbringing rather than political ideology that most influenced his music and he noted in the interview that his faith had given him a very active spiritual life, although he joked that this made it very difficult sexually. He added, Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, in the ninth grade, Springsteen transferred to the public Freehold High School, but did not fit in there either. Former teachers have said he was a loner, who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar and he completed high school, but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony. He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out, Springsteen grew up hearing fellow New Jersey singer Frank Sinatra on the radio. He became interested in being involved in music himself when, in 1956 at the age of seven, in 1964, Springsteens mother bought him his first guitar for $18. 1964 was also an important year for Springsteen, having seen The Beatles appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, thereafter he started playing for audiences with a band called the Rogues at local venues such as the Elks Lodge in Freehold. In 1965, Springsteens mother took out a loan to buy her 16-year-old son a $60 Kent guitar, in the same year, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become the lead guitarist and subsequently one of the singers of the Castiles
Bruce Springsteen
–
Bruce Springsteen performing at the
Roskilde Festival 2012.
Bruce Springsteen
–
New Jersey beach towns such as
Asbury Park inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen's music.
Bruce Springsteen
–
Springsteen and the E Street Band, 1977
Bruce Springsteen
–
Springsteen at
Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport in Ivory Coast during
Amnesty International 's 1988
Human Rights Now! Tour
22.
The Who
–
The Who are an English rock band that formed in 1964. Their classic line-up consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered one of the most influential bands of the 20th century, selling over 100 million records worldwide and holding a reputation for their live shows. The Who developed from a group, the Detours, and established themselves as part of the pop art and mod movements, featuring auto-destructive art by destroying guitars. Their first single as the Who, I Cant Explain, reached the UK top ten, followed by a string of singles including My Generation, Substitute and Happy Jack. In 1967, they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival and released the US top ten single I Can See for Miles, the groups fourth album, 1969s rock opera Tommy, included the single Pinball Wizard and was a critical and commercial success. Live appearances at Woodstock and the Isle of Wight Festival, along with the live album Live at Leeds, with their success came increased pressure on lead songwriter and visionary Townshend, and the follow-up to Tommy, Lifehouse, was abandoned. Songs from the project made up 1971s Whos Next, which included the hit Wont Get Fooled Again, the group released the album Quadrophenia in 1973 as a celebration of their mod roots, and oversaw the film adaptation of Tommy in 1975. They continued to tour to large audiences before semi-retiring from live performances at the end of 1976, the release of Who Are You in 1978 was overshadowed by the death of Moon shortly after. Kenney Jones replaced Moon and the group resumed activity, releasing a film adaptation of Quadrophenia, after Townshend became weary of touring, the group split in 1982. The Who occasionally re-formed for live appearances such as Live Aid in 1985, a 25th anniversary tour in 1989 and they resumed regular touring in 1999, with drummer Zak Starkey. After Entwistles death in 2002, plans for a new album were delayed, Townshend and Daltrey continued as the Who, releasing Endless Wire in 2006, and continued to play live regularly. They are cited as an influence by rock, punk rock and mod bands. The founding members of the Who, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle, grew up in Acton, London and went to Acton County Grammar School. Townshend and Entwistle became friends in their year of Acton County. Both were interested in rock, and Townshend particularly admired Cliff Richards début single, Entwistle moved to guitar, but struggled with it due to his large fingers, and moved to bass on hearing the guitar work of Duane Eddy. He was unable to afford a bass and built one at home, after Acton County, Townshend attended Ealing Art College, a move he later described as profoundly influential on the course of the Who. Daltrey, who was in the year above, had moved to Acton from Shepherds Bush and he had trouble fitting in at the school, and discovered gangs and rock and roll
The Who
–
The Who in 1975 Left to right:
Roger Daltrey (
vocals),
John Entwistle (
bass),
Keith Moon (
drums),
Pete Townshend (
guitar)
The Who
–
Pete Townshend attended
Ealing Art College (pictured in 2010), and his experience there contributed to the Who's career.
The Who
–
Roger Daltrey (left) and Keith Moon, 1967
The Who
–
John Entwistle backstage in 1967
23.
Neil Young
–
Neil Percival Young, OC OM, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, producer, director and screenwriter. Young began performing in a group covering Shadows instrumentals in Canada in 1960, in 1966, after a brief stint with the Rick James-fronted Mynah Birds, he moved to Los Angeles, where he formed Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others. Young had released two albums by the time he joined Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969, in addition to two as a member of Buffalo Springfield. From his early albums and those with his backing band Crazy Horse, Young has recorded a steady stream of studio and live albums. Youngs often-distorted electric guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature tenor singing voice transcend his long career, Young also plays piano and harmonica on many albums which frequently combine folk, rock, blues and other musical styles. Famed for emotional outbursts and ripping up live set lists, Young often plays acoustic versions of songs in one show and his gritty guitar work, especially with Crazy Horse, earned him the nickname Godfather of Grunge and led to his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam. More recently Young has been backed by Promise of the Real, Young directed films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past, Rust Never Sleeps, Human Highway, Greendale, and CSNY/Déjà Vu. He also contributed to the soundtracks of the films Philadelphia and Dead Man, Young has received several Grammy and Juno awards. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted him twice, as a solo artist in 1995, in 2000, Rolling Stone named Young the 34th greatest rock n roll artist. He has lived in California since the 1960s but retains Canadian citizenship and he was awarded the Order of Manitoba on July 14,2006, and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 30,2009. Young was born on November 12,1945, in Toronto and his father, Scott Alexander Young, was a journalist and sportswriter who also wrote fiction. His mother, Edna Blow Ragland Rassy Young was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, although Canadian, his mother had American and French ancestry. Youngs parents married in 1940 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and their first son, shortly after Youngs birth in 1945, his family moved to rural Omemee, Ontario, which Young later described fondly as a sleepy little place. Young suffered from polio in 1951 during the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario, after his recovery, the Young family vacationed in Florida. During that period, Young briefly attended Chisolm Elementary School in New Smyrna Beach, in 1952, upon returning to Canada, Young moved from Omemee to Winnipeg for a year, before relocating to Toronto and Pickering. Young became interested in music he heard on the radio. When Young was twelve, his father, who had several extramarital affairs and his mother asked for a divorce which was granted in 1960. Young went to live with his mother, who moved back to Winnipeg, during the mid-fifties, Young listened to rock n roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, R&B, country, and western pop
Neil Young
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Young in 1983
Neil Young
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The Last Waltz, Young (center on left microphone) performing with Bob Dylan and
The Band, among others in 1976.
Neil Young
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Young playing in
Barcelona, Spain, 1984
24.
Crazy Horse (band)
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Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for their association with Neil Young. They have also released six albums of their own, issued between 1971 and 2009. Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina have been the consistent members of the band. On four of Crazy Horses studio albums, Talbot and Molina serve as the section to an entirely different group of musicians. The latter two would become the members of Crazy Horse present in every incarnation of the band. In San Francisco as the Psyrcle, Sly Stone produced their 45 on Lorna and this lineup recorded the Rockets only album, a self-titled set released in 1968 on White Whale Records. With their album complete, the Rockets reconnected with Neil Young, credited to Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere includes the Top 100 pop hit Cinnamon Girl and the extended guitar workouts Down by the River and Cowgirl in the Sand. Crazy Horse toured with Young during the first half of 1969 and, with the addition of Jack Nitzsche on electric piano, the 1970 tour was showcased on the 2006 album Live at the Fillmore East. Young would later opine that some of the stuff, Nitzsche was in the way tonally, Crazy Horse was so good with the two guitars, bass and drums it didnt need anything else. Although Nitzsche disdained the rhythm section of Talbot and Molina, he retrospectively lauded Whitten as the black man in the band. When Young returned to his album in 1970, Crazy Horse found its participation more limited. Crazy Horse capitalized on its exposure and recorded its eponymous debut album for Reprise Records that year. Stewart would record the three times and score a hit with it on the same number of occasions—including a UK No.1 in 1977 as a double A-side with The First Cut Is the Deepest. In 1988 the song would become a hit in the UK again. Two songs from the album were covered by Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, Beggars Day appears on Nazareths Hair of the Dog, the band released two albums with different lineups in 1972, Loose and At Crooked Lake. After Whittens death and the reception accorded to both albums, Talbot and Molina were the only full-fledged members of the band. They let the Crazy Horse name go unused without retiring it altogether, in mid-1973, Young brought together a band comprising Talbot, Molina, Lofgren, and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith to record Tonights the Night, the majority of which eventually saw release in 1975. It was great, Talbot would say of the coming together and it was the first time we heard the Horse since Danny Whitten died
Crazy Horse (band)
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The band in 1972.
25.
Buffalo Springfield
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Buffalo Springfield was an American-Canadian rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1966. Their original lineup included Stephen Stills, Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Richie Furay, pioneering the folk rock genre, Buffalo Springfield, along with the Byrds, combined elements of folk and country music with British invasion influences into their early works. Their second studio album, Buffalo Springfield Again, marked their progression to psychedelia, with a name taken from a steamroller, the group signed to Atlantic Records in 1966 and released their debut single “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing - a regional hit in Los Angeles. The following January, the released the protest song they were most prominently known for, For What Its Worth. After various drug-related arrests and line-up changes, the decided to break up in 1968. Stephen Stills went on to form the rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash with David Crosby of the Byrds. Neil Young had launched his solo career and reunited with Stills in Crosby, Stills. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, Neil Young and Stephen Stills first crossed paths in 1965, at the Fourth Dimension in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Young was there with The Squires, a Winnipeg group he had been leading since February 1963, and Stills was on tour with The Company, a spin-off from the Au Go Go Singers. When The Company broke up at the end of tour, Stills moved to the West Coast. He had been in a band called Buffalo Fish with fellow Greenwich Village transplant Peter Tork, both agreed, although Koblun chose to leave before very long and joined the group 3s a Crowd. In early 1966 in Toronto, Young met Bruce Palmer, a Canadian who was playing bass for a called the Mynah Birds. In need of a lead guitarist, Palmer invited Young to join the group, the Mynah Birds were set to record an album for Motown Records when their singer Ricky James Matthews was tracked down and arrested by the U. S. Navy for being AWOL. With their record deal canceled, Young and Palmer headed for Los Angeles, the new group debuted on April 11,1966, at The Troubadour in Hollywood. A few days later, they began a tour of California as the opening act on a bill featuring The Dillards. Chris Hillman persuaded the owners of the Whisky a Go Go to give the band an audition, Buffalo Springfield essentially became the house band at the Whisky for seven weeks, from May 2 to June 18,1966. This series of concerts solidified the reputation for exhilarating live performances. It also brought an invitation from Friedman to Dickie Davis, who had been lighting manager for The Byrds, Friedman was fired, and Davis was made the groups tour manager
Buffalo Springfield
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Buffalo Springfield, left to right: Stephen Stills, Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Richie Furay, Neil Young
26.
David Bowie
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David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music, during his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the worlds best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, in the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. Space Oddity became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969, after a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single Starman and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, in 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. Heroes and Lodger followed, each reached the UK top five. He then reached his peak in 1983 with Lets Dance. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with styles, including industrial. He stopped concert touring after 2004, and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006, in 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar. David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947, in Brixton, south London and his mother, Margaret Mary Peggy, was born in Kent, and had Irish ancestry, she worked as a waitress. His father, Haywood Stenton John Jones, from Yorkshire, was an officer for the childrens charity Barnardos. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, near the border of the south London areas of Brixton, Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler. In 1953, Bowie moved with his family to the suburb of Bromley and his voice was considered adequate by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average abilities in playing the recorder. Upon listening to Little Richards song Tutti Frutti, Bowie would later say, presleys impact on him was likewise emphatic, I saw a cousin of mine dance to. Hound Dog and I had never seen her get up and be moved so much by anything and it really impressed me, the power of the music
David Bowie
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Bowie during the
Heathen Tour in 2002
David Bowie
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David Bowie during the
Ziggy Stardust Tour
David Bowie
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Bowie performing with
Cher on the
Cher show, 1975
David Bowie
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Bowie as the Thin White Duke at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto 1976
27.
Lou Reed
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Lewis Allan Lou Reed was an American musician, singer and songwriter. He was the guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground, the Velvet Underground was unsuccessful during their active years, but gained a significant cult following to become one of the most widely acclaimed and influential bands in rock history. Brian Eno famously stated that, while the Velvet Undergrounds debut album sold only 30,000 copies, Reeds solo career began in 1972. He had a hit the year with Walk on the Wild Side. Reed was known for his distinctive voice and poetic lyrics. Reed was born on March 2,1942 at Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn and grew up in Freeport, contrary to some sources, his birth name was Lewis Allan Reed, not Louis Firbanks, a name that was coined as a joke by Lester Bangs in Creem magazine. Reed was the son of Toby and Sidney Joseph Reed, an accountant and his family was Jewish, and although he said that he was Jewish, he added, My God is rocknroll. Its an obscure power that can change your life, the most important part of my religion is to play guitar. Reed attended Atkinson Elementary School in Freeport and went on to Freeport Junior High School and his sister said that as a teenager, he suffered panic attacks, became socially awkward and possessed a fragile temperament but was highly focused on things that he liked – principally music. Having learned to play the guitar from the radio, he developed an early interest in rock and roll and rhythm and blues, Reed began experimenting with drugs at the age of 16. His first recording was as a member of a group called the Jades. His love for playing music and his desire to play gigs brought him into confrontation with his anxious, visiting a psychologist, Reeds parents were made to feel guilty as inadequate parents, and consented to electroconvulsive therapy. Reed appeared to blame his father principally for what he had subjected to. He wrote about the experience in his 1974 song, Kill Your Sons, in an interview, Reed said of the experience, They put the thing down your throat so you dont swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. Thats what was recommended in Rockland County then to discourage homosexual feelings, the effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You cant read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go back to page one again. Upon his recovery from the bout of illness and associated treatment, Reed resumed his education at Syracuse University in 1960, studying journalism, film directing and he was a platoon leader in ROTC and was later expelled from the program for holding an unloaded gun to his superiors head. In 1961, he began hosting a radio program on WAER called Excursions On A Wobbly Rail
Lou Reed
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Reed performing in
Portland, Oregon, in January 2004
Lou Reed
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Reed as a high school senior, 1959
Lou Reed
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Reed performing during
A Conspiracy of Hope in 1986
Lou Reed
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Reed performing in
Málaga, Spain, July 21, 2008
28.
The Velvet Underground
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The Velvet Underground was a rock band formed in New York, America, by singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. The provocative subject matter, musical experimentation, and often nihilistic attitudes explored in the work would prove influential in the development of punk rock. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the band No.19 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 by Patti Smith. The foundations for what would become the Velvet Underground were laid in late 1964, singer/songwriter/guitarist Lou Reed had performed with a few short-lived garage bands and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records. Reed met John Cale, a Welshman who had moved to the United States to study classical music upon securing a scholarship. Cale had worked with experimental composers Cornelius Cardew and La Monte Young, Youngs use of extended drones would be a profound influence on the bands early sound. Cale was pleasantly surprised to discover that Reeds experimentalist tendencies were similar to his own, the pair rehearsed and performed together, their partnership and shared interests built the path towards what would later become the Velvet Underground. Reed and Cale recruited Sterling Morrison—a college classmate of Reeds at Syracuse University—as a replacement for Walter De Maria, Reed and Morrison both played guitars, Cale played viola, keyboards and bass and Angus MacLise joined on percussion to complete the initial four-member unit. This quartet was first called the Warlocks, then the Falling Spikes, MacLise made a suggestion to adopt the title as the bands name. The band immediately and unanimously adopted the Velvet Underground as its new name in November 1965, the newly named Velvet Underground rehearsed and performed in New York City. Their music was much more relaxed than it would later become, Cale described this era as reminiscent of beat poetry. When he briefly returned to Britain, Cale attempted to give a copy of the tape to Marianne Faithfull, hoping shed pass it on to Mick Jagger, nothing ever came of this, but the demo was eventually released on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See. Manager and music journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the groups first paying gig—$75 to play at Summit High School, in Summit, New Jersey, opening for the Myddle Class. When they decided to take the gig, MacLise abruptly left the group, protesting what he considered a sellout, he was unwilling to be told when to start. Angus was in it for art, Morrison reported, MacLise was replaced by Maureen Moe Tucker, the younger sister of Morrisons friend Jim Tucker. Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic, became a part of the groups music. The group earned a regular paying gig at the Café Bizarre, in 1965, after being introduced to the Velvet Underground by filmmaker Barbara Rubin, Andy Warhol became the bands manager and suggested they use the German-born singer Nico on several songs. Warhols reputation helped the band gain a higher profile and he helped the band secure a recording contract with MGMs Verve Records, with himself as nominal producer, and gave the Velvets free rein over the sound they created
The Velvet Underground
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1993 promotional photo. From left to right:
Sterling Morrison (at back),
Maureen Tucker,
John Cale and
Lou Reed
29.
Chris Hillman
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Christopher Chris Hillman is an American musician. He was one of the members of The Byrds, which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby. Hillman, the third of four children, spent his years at his familys ranch home in rural northern San Diego County. Hillman soon began watching many of the shows on local television in southern California at the time such as Town Hall Party, The Spade Cooley Show. Hillmans mother encouraged his interests and bought him his first guitar, shortly thereafter he developed an interest in bluegrass. When he was 16, Hillmans father committed suicide and he became known in San Diegos folk music community as a solid player, this won him an invitation to join his first band, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers. When the Hillmen folded, he joined a spinoff of Randy Sparks New Christy Minstrels known as the Green Grass Revival. Hillman was recruited to play guitar, although he had never picked up the instrument before. Thanks to his bluegrass background, he developed his own melodic style on the instrument. The Byrds first single, a cover of Bob Dylans Mr. Tambourine Man, was an international hit. During the mid-1960s the Byrds ranked as one of the most successful and influential American pop groups, they recorded a string of hits, eight Miles High and So You Want to Be a Rock n Roll Star. Hillman kept a low profile on the bands first two albums, on which McGuinn and Clark shared lead vocals with Crosby adding high harmony, however, Clarks departure in 1966 and Crosbys growing restlessness allowed Hillman the opportunity to develop as a singer and songwriter in the group. He came into his own on the Byrds 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, Hillman also wrote the minor hit Have You Seen Her Face, Thoughts and Words, Time Between and The Girl with No Name, the latter two demonstrating his bluegrass and country roots. Hillmans prominence continued with the Byrds next album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, internal strife dogged the Byrds, and by the beginning of 1968 the band was down to two original members, with Hillmans cousin Kevin Kelley on drums. They then hired Gram Parsons to replace Crosby, Hillman and Parsons changed the Byrds musical direction, helping to usher in a new genre known as country rock when they recorded the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Once again Hillman seemed to recede into the background, leaving most of the vocals to Parsons and McGuinn and concentrating on bass, Hillman teamed with Parsons again to form the Flying Burrito Brothers. Parsons was out of the lineup by June 1970 when the band toured Canada as part of the Festival Express tour, Hillman stayed with the band for two more records, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Last of the Red Hot Burritos. In 1974, Hillman teamed with singer-songwriter Richie Furay and songwriter J. D. Souther in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, the trio never quite gelled, and broke up in 1975 after two albums and internal squabbles
Chris Hillman
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Chris Hillman
Chris Hillman
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The Flying Burrito Brothers (Amsterdam, 1970). From left to right:
'Sneaky' Pete Kleinow,
Rick Roberts, Chris Hillman,
Michael Clarke &
Bernie Leadon
Chris Hillman
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Hillman (
TopPop, 1972)
30.
The Byrds
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The Byrds /ˈbɜːrdz/ were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member. Initially, they pioneered the genre of folk rock, melding the influence of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary. As the 1960s progressed, the band was influential in originating psychedelic rock, raga rock. The bands signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinns jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar has continued to be influential on popular music up to the present day, among the bands most enduring songs are their cover versions of Bob Dylans Mr. Tambourine Man and Pete Seegers Turn. Turn. along with the originals, Ill Feel a Whole Lot Better, Eight Miles High, So You Want to Be a Rock n Roll Star, Ballad of Easy Rider. The original five-piece lineup of the Byrds consisted of Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke. However, this version of the band was relatively short-lived and by early 1966, Clark had left due to associated with anxiety. The Byrds continued as a quartet until late 1967, when Crosby, McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit new members, including country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, but by late 1968, Hillman and Parsons had also exited the band. McGuinn disbanded the current lineup in early 1973, to make way for a reunion of the original quintet. The Byrds final album was released in March 1973, with the group disbanding soon afterwards. In the late 1980s, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke both began touring as the Byrds, prompting a legal challenge from McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman over the rights to the bands name. As a result of this, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman performed a series of concerts as the Byrds in 1989 and 1990. In January 1991, the Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman still remain active but Gene Clark died of a heart attack in May 1991, and Michael Clarke died of liver failure in December 1993. The nucleus of the Byrds formed in early 1964, when Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, All three musicians had a background rooted in folk music, with each one having worked as a folk singer on the acoustic coffeehouse circuit during the early 1960s. McGuinn had also spent time as a songwriter at the Brill Building in New York City. By early 1964, McGuinn had become enamored with the music of the Beatles, soon after, David Crosby introduced himself to the duo at The Troubadour and began harmonizing with them on some of their songs. Impressed by the blend of their voices, the three formed a trio and named themselves the Jet Set, a moniker inspired by McGuinns love of aeronautics
The Byrds
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The Byrds in 1965 From left to right:
David Crosby,
Gene Clark,
Michael Clarke,
Chris Hillman, and
Jim McGuinn
The Byrds
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A
Rickenbacker 360 12-string guitar similar to the one used by Jim McGuinn in 1964 and 1965. By 1966, McGuinn had transitioned to playing the three
pickup 370/12 model.
The Byrds
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Producer Terry Melcher (left) in the recording studio with Gene Clark (center) and David Crosby (right). Melcher brought in session musicians to play on the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single because he felt that the Byrds hadn't yet gelled musically.
The Byrds
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Bob Dylan making an impromptu guest appearance with the Byrds at Ciro's nightclub.
