1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
3.
Baroque pop
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Baroque pop is a pop music subgenre that fuses classical music, orchestral pop, rock, and Baroque music. It is identifiable for its use of melodies, functional harmony patterns. The genre emerged in the 1960s after pop musicians and record producers began placing the harpsichord in the foreground of their arrangements, other typical baroque pop instrumentation includes string sections, French horns, and oboes. Baroque pops mainstream popularity faded by the 1970s, partially because punk rock, disco and hard rock took over, nonetheless, music was still produced within the genres tradition. Philadelphia soul in the 1970s and chamber pop in the 1990s both incorporated the spirit of baroque pop while the latter contested much of the low fidelity musical aesthetic. Baroque pop, stylistically, fuses elements of rock with classical music, often incorporating layered harmonies, strings and its prominent characteristics are the use of contrapuntal melodies and functional harmony patterns. It was intended to be a serious and mature outgrowth of rock music. English baroque is used by journalist Bob Stanley to describe a subset that existed between 1968 and 1973, starting in the 1960s, pop musicians and record producers like Phil Spector and the Beach Boys Brian Wilson began placing the harpsichord in the foreground of their arrangements. Harpsichords were widely available in recording studios, and had used in popular music since as early as the 1940s. One of the first pop hits to use a harpsichord was the Jamies Summertime, Summertime. Later examples range from the Beach Boys I Get Around and When I Grow Up to the Righteous Brothers Youve Lost That Lovin Feelin and the Mamas & the Papas Monday, Monday. The Boston Globes Matthew Guerriri speculates that the harpsichord may have been desirable for its buzzing, stinging timbre, slates Forrest Wickman credits Wilson and the Beatles producer, George Martin, as some of the men most responsible for the move into baroque pop. Along with Burt Bacharach, Spector had melded pop music with classical elements before they were melded with rock, writer Andrew Jackson suggests that the era of baroque pop in which rock melded with classical elements was prefaced by the Rolling Stones and Brian Wilson. The Beatles benefited from the music skills of Martin, who played a baroque harpsichord solo on the song In My Life. Author Joe Harrington noted that after its release, many baroque-rock works would soon appear, producer Tommy LiPuma believed, Once the Beatles featured that harpsichord sound on In My Life, pop producers began working it in. The genre is traced to the United States and the United Kingdom, by early 1966, various groups began using baroque and classical instrumentation, described as a baroque rock movement by Gendron. The Zombies single Shes Not There marked a point for British baroque pop. Stanley explains that the song didnt feature any oboes but stuck out rather dramatically in 1964, Shes Not There would inspire New York musician Michael Brown to form the Left Banke, whose song Walk Away Renée is considered by Stanley to be the first recognizable baroque pop single
4.
Smash Records
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Smash Records was an American record label founded in 1961 as a subsidiary of Mercury Records by Mercury executive Shelby Singleton and run by Singleton with Charlie Fach. Fach took over after Singleton left Mercury in 1966 and its recording artists included Frankie Valli, James Brown, Bruce Channel, Roger Miller, The Left Banke, Bill Justis and Jerry Lee Lewis. A dispute with King Records led Brown to release all of his bands instrumental recordings between 1964 and 1967 on Smash, Smash also released three of Browns vocal recordings, including his 1964 proto-funk single Out of Sight. Smash shared the numbering system for their singles with other labels that they distributed, the most important of these was Fontana Records. Mercury discontinued the Smash label in 1970, Mercury label owner PolyGram used the Smash imprint for reissues in the 1980s. PolyGram revived Smash in 1991 as an R&B/dance label with its offices located in Chicago and it was first under the PolyGram Label Group umbrella, then under the Independent Label Sales umbrella, then under Island Records until the imprint was retired in 1996. One of the hits Smash saw during this period was People Are Still Having Sex by house music producer LaTour, another successful artist on the dance charts was Jamie Principle
5.
Philips Records
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Not to be confused with Phillips International Records. Philips Records is a label that was founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. In 1946 Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Deccas Dutch outlet in Amsterdam, the record label was started by Philips Phonographische Industrie in June 1950 when it began issuing classical recordings. Recordings were also made with artists of various nationalities and with classical artists from Germany, France. Launched under the slogan Records of the Century, the first releases in Britain appeared at the beginning of January 1953 on 1078 rpm discs, Philips also distributed recordings made by the Columbia Records in the UK and on the European continent. After the separation of the English Columbia label and American Columbia, the first single on the label to chart was Frankie Laines I Believe, which reached the No.1 chart position in the UK that April. Many of the first British recordings on the label were produced by Norman Newell until John Franz was appointed artists, in 1958 Philips created a subsidiary label, Fontana Records, which meant that American-Columbia recordings were being issued on both the Philips and Fontana labels. This arrangement lasted until April 1962 when, under pressure from Columbia in America, Philips then created a label for them. In late 1964, under the stewardship of U. S. President of Columbia Records Goddard Lieberson, CBS Records formed its own international operations, CBS Records set up their UK operation in Theobalds Road in Holborn. Singles and albums on the Philips and Fontana labels by Columbia-owned product were subsequently withdrawn, in 1962, Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon formed the Grammophon-Philips Group joint venture, which later became PolyGram in 1972. UK pressings were manufactured at the large factory based at Walthamstow in N. E. In 1961, after Philips lost its North American distribution deal with Columbia Records, a year later, Philips US affiliate Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp. bought Mercury and its subsidiary labels, such as Smash. Philips classical, jazz and pop records were marketed by Mercury in the US under the Philips label, the Mercury Living Presence team also made classical recordings for Philips, in July 1961. 69 for cello and piano by Richter and Rostropovich, classical groups that Philips heavily recorded included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Quartetto Italiano. Violinist Arthur Grumiaux and the pianist Claudio Arrau were under contract to Philips, symphony orchestras under contract, including the LSO, were under the command of prestigious young conductors such as Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink. From 1961 until the late 1980s, Philips Records issued many classical titles in US-specific packaging, the records were pressed at Mercurys plant in Richmond, Indiana, and mastered in New York by George Piros at Fine Recording, using 2-track and mono master tapes provided by Philips. These releases were the PHS900 xxx series for stereo and the 500 xxx series for mono, clair Van Ausdal in Mercurys New York office oversaw the Philips classical US releases through the mid-1960s. These records were made through Mercurys existing jazz operations and produced by Jack Tracy, in addition to jazz and classical music, Philips also became a major player in the world of rock and pop music in the late 1950s till late 1970s
6.
Rhino Entertainment
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Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the division for the Warner Music Group. Founded in 1978, Rhino was originally a novelty and reissue label during the 1970s and 1980s, one of Rhinos early artists was The Twisters, whose Los Angeles popularity far exceeded their album sales. The labels on early Rhino records featured the mascot character. Some of the labels earliest successes with reissues were achieved by acquiring the rights to the White Whale Records catalog that included the Turtles, by the mid-1980s, most of Rhinos releases were reissues of previously released recordings licensed from other companies. Rhino was quick to get into the disc market, releasing dozens of oldies CDs at the dawn of the CD age in 1984. Their retrospective compact disc releases, such as those in the Billboard Top Hits series, are often remastered to restore or improve upon the original analog audio quality. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the company continued to sign artists and release new music, on the main Rhino label and on subsidiary labels such as RNA. In 1985, Rhino signed a distribution agreement with Capitol Records. During 1989 Rhino and Capitol’s parent EMI made a deal to jointly acquire Roulette Records, Rhino received the US rights to Roulettes catalog, excluding jazz. When the distribution deal with Capitol ended in 1992, Rhino signed a new deal with Atlantic Records. In 1998, Time Warner bought the other half of Rhino, the Rhino Records retail store, which was not part of the sale, closed in 2005. Periods, in addition to WBs own post-1949 period, Rhinos soundtrack releases include Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade, North by Northwest, Casablanca, King Kong, Doctor Zhivago, Superman, and Finians Rainbow. The Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. film soundtrack libraries are managed by Warner Bros. in-house label subsidiary. In 1999, Rhino started the Rhino Handmade division of limited-edition releases available primarily from their website, all Handmade deluxe editions were limited to about 3,000 copies or less, and once sold out were not re-pressed. In 2003, co-founders and longtime executives Richard Foos and Harold Bronson left Rhino, soon after, Foos inaugurated a new label, Shout. Factory, which began releasing dozens of CDs and videos mirroring the original early-1990s Rhino philosophy, in 2004, Time Warner spun off its music divisions and today Rhino is part of the newly organized Warner Music Group. In June 2006, Warner Strategic Marketing in the U. K. was dissolved, the division has two main factions, TV-advertised compilations and catalog material from the Warner vaults
7.
Mercury Records
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Mercury Records is an American-based record label owned by Universal Music Group. In the United States, it operates through Island Records, in the UK, Mercury Record Corporation was formed in the American city of Chicago in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams, Ray Greenberg and Arthur Talmadge. They were a force in jazz and blues, classical music, rock and roll. Early in the history, Mercury opened two pressing plants, one in Chicago and the other in St. Louis, Missouri. With the use of presses and providing 24-hour turnaround, they went into direct competition with major recording labels such as Columbia, Decca, Capitol. By hiring two promoters, Tiny Hill and Jimmy Hilliard, they penetrated the pop market with such as Frankie Laine, Vic Damone, Tony Fontane. Rather than rely on radio airplay, Mercury initially relied on jukeboxes to promote their music, some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo. In 1947 Jack Rael, a musician and publicist/manager, persuaded Mercury to let Patti Page record a song that had planned to be done by Vic Damone. The budget was too small for them to hire a second singer to provide the parts to Page. The company released a number of recordings under the Mercury label as well as its subsidiaries. In addition, they leased and purchased material by independent labels, under their own label, Mercury released a variety of recording styles from classical music to psychedelic rock. However, its subsidiaries focused on their own specialized categories of music, Mercurys jazz division had two distinct and important fathers. John Hammond brought his expertise and connections when Mercury bought Keynote Records in the late 1940s, and Mercury was the issuing company and distributor for Norman Granzs pre-Norgran/Verve recordings. Although both Hammond and Granz had departed Mercury by the mid-1950s, they established the company in the jazz world, by the early 1960s, Mercury was releasing jazz under the flagship label and was an early leader in the new stereo sound releases. Highlights of the early and mid-1960s included albums by Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach, in the early 1950s, Norman Granz started his own record company, Norgran, which later became Verve. In an ironic twist, both Mercury and Verve are now owned by Universal Music Group and Mercurys jazz library falls under the Verve division. Since the early 1990s, Verve has reissued many Mercury jazz titles on CD, often taking care to use original master tapes, in 1962, Mercury began marketing a line of phonographs made by Philips bearing the Mercury brand name. In July 1967, Mercury Records became the first U. S. record company to release cassette music tapes, in 1969, Mercury changed its corporate name to Mercury Record Productions Inc. while its parent Conelco became North American Philips Corp after Philips brought control of the company
8.
PolyGram
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PolyGram was a Dutch entertainment company, a division of Seagram. It started as a record label recording company founded by Philips. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records, the company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disk gramophone, Emil Berliner. Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film, in May 1998, it was sold to Seagram which owned MCA Inc. PolyGram Music Group was merged into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was merged into Universal Pictures. When the new company faced difficulties, its parent Seagram was sold in large part to Vivendi. Vivendi is the current owner of UMG, in February 2017, Polygram Entertainment was re-launched as the film & television division of Universal Music Group. In 1929, Decca Records licensed record shop owner H. W. Van Zoelen as a distributor in the Netherlands, by 1931, his company Hollandsche Decca Distributie had become exclusive Decca distributor for all of the Netherlands and its colonies. Over the course of the 1930s, HDD put together its own facilities for A&R, recording, HDD was commercially successful during World War II because of the absence of American and British competition. Van Zoelen wanted to sell to Philips so that HDD would have sufficient financial backing when their major competitors returned after the war and this led Philips to purchase HDD in 1942. Philips labs were developing magnetic tape and LPs, and they could support eventual new formats, after the war, Philips built a large factory in Doetinchem to produce 78 rpm records. During the late 1940s, Philips combined its various businesses into Philips Phonografische Industrie. PPIs early growth was based on alliances, a merger was first proposed with Decca of London in late 1945, but was rejected by Edward Lewis, Deccas owner. In the early 1950s, Philips set itself the goal of making PPI the largest record company in Europe, PPIs second attempt at a merger was with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. DGG, owned by Siemens AG, and well known for its repertoire, had been the German licensee for Decca from 1935. PPI and DGG finally merged in 1962, the alliance with DGG still left PPI without repertoire in Britain or the United States. But in 1951, after Columbia had failed to renew its international distribution agreement with EMI, Columbia became PPIs distributor within the US. This agreement ran until 1961 when Columbia set up its own European network, PPI signed a worldwide distribution deal with Mercury Records in 1961
9.
Tom Finn
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Thomas Joseph Tom Finn is a founding member of the 1960s baroque pop group The Left Banke. After the Left Banke disbanded, Finn went on to become an engineer at Bell Sound Studios as well as working with jazz drummer Buddy Rich at Richs night club Buddys Place as stage manager and MC. In 1982 Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell convinced Finn to try his hand as a DJ and this led to Finn working at NY clubs such as The Palladium, The Red Zone, and Au Bar. In the 1990s Finn began working as a DJ for private events, resulting in his own company, Finn was the DJ for the White House Millennium Gala, hosted by President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. In 2006, he appeared in the November issue of Town & Country magazine in a five-page spread called The Party Masters, Finn was featured in a The New York Times article The D. J. Who Moves the Movers and Shakers
10.
The Left Banke
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The Left Banke is an American baroque pop band, formed in New York City in 1965. They are best remembered for their two US hit singles, Walk Away Renée and Pretty Ballerina, the band often used what the music press referred to as baroque string arrangements, which led to their music being variously termed as Bach-rock or baroque rock. The bands vocal harmonies borrowed from such as The Beatles, The Zombies. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine placed Walk Away Renée at #220 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Browns father, Harry Lookofsky, a well-known session violinist, ran a studio in New York and took an interest in the bands music, after some initial recording sessions, David-Schierhorst was ousted, with Cameron switching to drums and Jeff Winfield on guitar. Browns song, Walk Away Renee, was sold to Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, radio and Smash Records ultimately removed their support from the single, which subsequently failed to make the Billboard Hot 100. And Suddenly was eventually recorded by a group called The Cherry People, in late 1967, the group reunited and recorded more material, including the single Desiree. Brown left the group shortly thereafter and was replaced for touring purposes by Emmett Lake. Cameron, Finn and Martin continued to record and tour, with Tom Feher replacing Lake on keyboards, the songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler on Nice To See You, My Friend Today, the band continued playing live in 1969, without Martin, but soon disbanded due to lack of success and financial problems. Later that same year, Brown and Martin reunited in the studio to another single as The Left Banke. In 1971, Brown, Cameron, Finn and Martin reunited briefly to two songs for the movie Hot Parts. The songs, Love Songs in the Night and Two by Two, were released as a Steve Martin solo single on Buddah Records, in 1972, producer Les Fradkin offered to produce the group for a project on Bell Records. Although these sessions were not released at the time, one of the songs, I Could Make It Last Forever, composed by Fradkin and it was a rare recording since it featured Caro, Finn, Cameron and Brown, along with Browns father, violinist Harry Lookofsky. Fradkin sang and played 12-string guitar on the sessions, in 1978, Martin, Cameron and Finn reunited as The Left Banke to record an albums worth of material which unfortunately was not released at the time. However, a single from these 1978 sessions, Queen of Paradise, was released in late 1978 with modest success, the album was eventually issued by Relix Records in 1986 under the title Strangers on a Train. However, the album did little to restore the popularity of the group, after leaving The Left Banke in 1967, Michael Brown helped form the band, Montage. Although Brown was never a member of Montage, his presence is unmistakable in its music
11.
Michael Brown (rock musician)
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Michael Brown was an American keyboardist-songwriter. After internal band tensions saw Brown leave the Left Banke in late 1967, prior to the completion of their second record, Brown also co-wrote the minor mid-1968 hit And Suddenly for The Cherry People, which was a #45 single on the Billboard Hot 100. Subsequently, he involved with Stories and The Beckies. Brown briefly reunited with the Left Banke at a New York performance in April 2012, Brown died of heart failure on March 19,2015. 1877-1995’’, Vol.2, 2nd edition, Schirmer Books,1996, the Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Viking,1989. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness Publishing,1992, the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 3rd edition, Macmillan,1998. Michael Brown discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs
12.
Bert Sommer
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Bert William Sommer was an American folk singer, songwriter and actor. He was briefly a member of pop group The Left Banke. At Woodstock, Sommers performance of Simon & Garfunkels America received a standing ovation and he wrote Were All Playing In The Same Band at and about Woodstock, and his recording peaked at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 12 September 1970. Sommer also played Woof in the original Broadway production of Hair in 1969-70 and Flatbush of Kaptain Kool and he did not reprise the role in the second season. Sommer died in Troy, New York on July 23,1990 and his last performance was in Troy on June 11,1990, with his friend Johnny Rabb
13.
Michael McKean
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McKean was born October 17,1947, in New York City, the son of Ruth, a librarian, and Gilbert McKean, one of the founders of Decca Records, and was raised in Sea Cliff, New York, on Long Island. McKean is of Irish, English, Scottish, and some German and Dutch, McKean began his career in Pittsburgh while a student at Carnegie Mellon, David Lander was a fellow student at CMU. McKean directed one episode, and the characters became something of a phenomenon, even releasing an album as Lenny and the Squigtones in 1979, foreign Legion of Love was a big hit for the Squigtones, with frequent play on the Dr. Demento Show. McKean also played his character in an episode of Happy Days, after leaving Laverne & Shirley in 1982, McKean played David St. Hubbins in the comedy This is Spinal Tap with both Guest and Shearer, and appeared in the soap opera spoof Young Doctors in Love. McKean was part of an ensemble cast in the television series Grand on NBC which aired in 1990. In 1991 McKean co-wrote the second episode and later directed the episode of the mock documentary series Morton & Hayes, created by Phil Mishkin. Having already appeared as a musical guest and then host of Saturday Night Live, McKean joined the cast in 1994 and remained a cast member until 1995. During this time, he released a video follow up to Spinal Tap, played the villainous Mr. Dittmeyer in The Brady Bunch Movie. After leaving Saturday Night Live, McKean spent a lot of time doing childrens fare, voicing various TV shows, McKean gained further notoriety acting in the film adaptation of Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Coneheads, Airheads, Radioland Murders. In 1997, he played the voice role in the video game Zork Grand Inquisitor, as Dalboz of Gurth and appeared in the 1999 films Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Mystery. McKeans TV guest appearances include, The Simpsons, Star Trek, Voyager, Boy Meets World, Murder, She Wrote, Murphy Brown, Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman, and Caroline in the City. In 1998, he guest starred in a episode of The X-Files called Dreamland in which his character, Morris Fletcher. The character was a success, and reappeared in 1999s Three of a Kind, the character appeared on their short-lived spin-off series in 2001, and then returned to The X-Files in its final season for an episode called Jump the Shark. His recent films of the time included Best in Show, Little Nicky, The Guru, And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, McKean had a regular role as the brassy, heavily made-up bandleader Adrian Van Horhees in Martin Shorts Comedy Central series, Primetime Glick. He also had guest roles on shows as Law & Order, Family Guy, SpongeBob SquarePants and Harvey Birdman. He also did work on Oswald as Henrys cousin, Louie. Coincidentally, Henry was voiced by David Lander and he also lent his voice to an episode of Kevin Smiths Clerks, The Animated Series that was never aired on ABC but was included on the VHS and DVD versions of the series. In 2003, he guest starred on Smallville, the Superman prequel in which his wife stars as Martha Kent, McKean played Perry White, who – in the Superman universe – ultimately becomes Clark Kents boss
14.
Music journalism
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Music journalism is media criticism and reporting about popular music topics, including pop music, rock music, and related styles. Journalists began writing music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now thought of as classical music. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was James William Davison of The Times, the composer Hector Berlioz also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s. The 1840s could be considered a point, in that music critics after the 1840s generally were not also practicing musicians. However, counterexamples include Alfred Brendel, Charles Rosen, Paul Hindemith, in the early 1980s, a decline in the quantity of classical criticism began occurring when classical-music criticism visibly started to disappear from the media. Also of concern in classical music journalism was how American reviewers can write about ethnic and folk music from other than their own, such as Indian ragas. The performers be treated as human beings and their music be treated as human activity rather than a mystical or mysterious phenomenon, the review should show an understanding of the musics cultural backgrounds and intentions. A key finding in a 2005 study of journalism in America was that the profile of the average classical music critic is a white, 52-year old male. Demographics indicated that the group was 74% male, 92% white, davis, one of the most respected voices of the craft, said he had been forced out after 26 years. Music writers only started treating pop and rock music seriously in 1964 after the breakthrough of the Beatles, one of the early music magazines in Britain, Melody Maker, complained in 1967 about how newspapers and magazines are continually hammering pop music. Melody Maker magazine advocated the new forms of pop music of the late 1960s, by 1999, the quality press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums, which had a key role in keeping pop in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of legitimating pop as an art form, as a result, in the world of pop music criticism, there has tended to be a quick turnover. In the realm of music, as in that of classical music. Frank Zappa declared that, Most rock journalism is people who cant write, interviewing people who cant talk, in the 2000s, online music bloggers began to supplement, and to some degree displace, music journalists in print media. In 2006, Martin Edlund of the New York Sun criticized the trend, arguing that while the Internet has democratized music criticism, slate magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in his article The Perils of Poptimism. Rosen noted that much of the debate is centered on a perception that rock critics regard rock as normative … the standard state of popular music … to which everything else is compared. At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians and genres which rock critics have dismissed as lightweight. Rosen stated that this new paradigm is called popism — or, more evocatively
15.
Baroque music
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Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
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Johann Sebastian Bach
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bachs compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor and his music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. He is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was born in Eisenach, in the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father probably taught him to play the violin and harpsichord, apparently at his own initiative, Bach attended St. Michaels School in Lüneburg for two years. He received the title of Royal Court Composer from Augustus III in 1736, Bachs health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany and he was the son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius, who taught him violin. His uncles were all musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the organ, Bachs mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, there he studied, performed, and copied music, including his own brothers, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper of that type was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord, also during this time he was taught theology, Latin, Greek, French and Italian at the local gymnasium. By 3 April 1700 Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann–who was two years Bachs elder–were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michaels School in Lüneburg, some two weeks travel north of Ohrdruf and their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the Schools three-manual organ and he came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany, sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in other disciplines. While in Lüneburg, Bach had access to St. Johns Church and possibly used the famous organ from 1553. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties, despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir and he called one of them a Zippel Fagottist
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Vocal harmony
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Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies have been an important part of Western art music since the Renaissance-era introduction of Mass melodies harmonized in sweet thirds, with the rise of the Lutheran churchs chorale hymn singing style, congregations sang hymns arranged with four or five-part vocal harmony. In the Romantic era of music during the 1800s, vocal harmonization became more complex, operas and choral music from the Romantic era used tense-sounding vocal harmonies with augmented and diminished intervals as an important tool for underscoring the drama of the music. As well, the rhythm of the harmony parts has to be in time with the lead singer. In more vocally oriented bands, backup singers may have to sing complex parts which demand a vocal agility and sensitivity equal to that of the vocal line. Usually, pop and rock bands use harmony vocals while the rest of the band is playing, however, as an effect, some rock and pop harmony vocals are done a cappella, without instrumental accompaniment. In many rock and metal bands, the musicians doing backup vocals also play instruments, such as keyboards, in Latin or Afro-Cuban groups, backup singers may play percussion instruments or shakers while singing. In some pop and hip-hop groups and in theater, the backup singers may be required to perform elaborately choreographed dance routines while they sing through headset microphones. One of the more complex styles of vocal harmony is the barbershop quartet style, the melody is not usually sung by the tenor or bass. Barbershop quartets are more likely to use dissonant and tense-sounding dominant seventh chords than pop or rock bands and it used smooth, consonant vocal harmonies, with a number of singers imitating instruments while singing nonsense syllables. For example, in The Ravens song Count Every Star, the singers imitate the doomph, doomph plucking-sound of a double bass, well-known hits include In the Still of the Night by The Five Satins and Get a Job by The Silhouettes, a hit in 1958. Doo-wop remained popular until just before the British Invasion of 1964, a cappella Backup singer Barbershop arranging Doo-wop
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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
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The Zombies
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The Zombies are an English rock band, formed in 1962 in St Albans and led by Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone. The group scored British and American hits in 1964 with Shes Not There, in the US two further singles, Tell Her No in 1965 and Time of the Season in 1968, were also successful. Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle is ranked number 100 on Rolling Stone Magazines list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Three members of the band, Rod Argent, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy, first came together to jam in late 1961 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, Argent wanted to form a band and initially asked his elder cousin Jim Rodford to join as a bassist. Rodford was in local band the Bluetones at the time so declined. Colin Blunstone and Paul Arnold joined the three to form the band in April 1961, while all five members were at school. Some sources state that Argent, Atkinson and Grundy were at St Albans School, while Blunstone, however, both Blunstone and Grundy came from Hatfield and both sang in the choir there at St. Etheldredas church. Argent was a boy chorister in St Albans Cathedral Choir and they held their original rehearsals at the Pioneer Club, then situated in Hatfield Road, using equipment lent to them by local band the Bluetones. They met outside the Blacksmiths Arms pub in St Albans before their first rehearsal and their original name was the Mustangs, but they quickly realised that there were other groups with that name. It was Arnold who came up with the Zombies, according to Blunstone, Argent explains, It was Paul that came up with the name. I dont know where he got it from and he very soon left the band after that. However, Arnold also left his mark with the name, I thought this was a name that no one else is going to have. And I just liked the idea of it. Colin was wary, Im sure, at the beginning, I know, Arnold lost interest in the band and chose to leave to become a physician, he was replaced by Chris White, completing the original lineup. After winning a competition sponsored by the London Evening News, they signed a recording contract with Decca and recorded their first hit. It was released in mid-1964 and peaked at number 12 in the UK, the tune began to catch on in the United States and eventually climbed to number 2 in early December. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA, like many other British Invasion groups, the Zombies were sent to the United States to tour behind their new hit single. Among their early US gigs were Murray the Ks Christmas shows at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, on 12 January 1965, the band made its first in-person appearance on US television, on the first episode of NBCs Hullabaloo
20.
British Invasion
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Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, Hermans Hermits, and the Animals were at the forefront of the invasion. The rebellious tone and image of US rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s, some observers have noted that US teenagers were growing tired of singles-oriented pop acts like Fabian. The Mods and Rockers, two gangs in mid-1960s Britain, also had an impact in British Invasion music. Bands with a Mod aesthetic became the most popular, but bands able to both were also successful. In October 1963, the first newspaper articles about the frenzy in England surrounding the group the Beatles appeared nationally in the US. The Beatles November 4 Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother sparked music industry, during November a number of major American print outlets and two network television evening programs published and broadcast stories on the phenomenon that became known as Beatlemania. On December 17 James had Miss Albert introduce I Want to Hold Your Hand live on the air, wWDCs phones lit up, and Washington, D. C. area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock. James sent the record to disc jockeys around the country sparking similar reaction. On December 26 Capitol Records released the three weeks ahead of schedule. The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation helped spread Beatlemania in the US, on December 29 The Baltimore Sun, reflecting the dismissive view of most adults, editorialized, America had better take thought as to how it will deal with the invasion. Indeed a restrained Beatles go home might be just the thing, in the next year alone, the Beatles would have 30 different listings on the Hot 100. On January 3,1964, The Jack Paar Program ran Beatles concert footage licensed from the BBC as a joke, while this piece was largely forgotten, Beatles producer George Martin has said it aroused the kids curiosity. I Want to Hold Your Hand ascended to one on the January 25,1964, edition of Cash Box magazine. Two days later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of US television viewers that night saw their appearance, according to Michael Ross, It is somewhat ironic that the biggest moment in the history of popular music was first experienced in the US as a television event. The Ed Sullivan Show had for some time been a comfortable hearth-and-slippers experience, not many of the 73 million viewers watching in February 1964 would fully understand what impact the band they were watching would have. The Beatles soon incited contrasting reactions and, in the process, generated more novelty records than anyone - at least 200 during their 1964-1965 takeover and many more later. Among the many reactions, favoring the hysteria, British girl group The Carefrees We Love You Beatles and, on Tuff Records, disapproving the pandemonium, American group the Four Preps A Letter to the Beatles and American comedian Allan Shermans Pop Hates the Beatles
21.
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
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Keyboardist
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A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists, since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more general term for a person who plays them. A complete list can be found at List of keyboardists, the use of electronic keyboards grew in popularity throughout the 1960s, with many bands using the Hammond organ, Mellotron, and electric pianos such as the Fender Rhodes. The Doors became the first group to use the Moog synthesizer on a pop record on 1967s Strange Days. Other bands, including The Moody Blues, The Rolling Stones, in 1966, Billy Ritchie became the first keyboard player to take a lead role in a rock band, replacing guitar, and thereby preparing the ground for others such as Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. In the late 1960s, a pioneer of electronic music Jean Michel Jarre started to experiment with synthesizers. Some of the first bands that used this set up were Kraftwerk, Suicide, the pop-blues-rock band Fleetwood Mac was also known for synthesizer-infused hits during this period. Pianist Organist List of Hammond organ players List of harpsichordists Classical pianists Young, concerns celebrated keyboard players and the various such instruments used over the centuries. SBN 200-71497-X Keyboard magazine Keyboard Player magazine Harmony Central resource for keyboard/synth players Vintage Synth Explorer
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Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song
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Drummer
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The term percussionist applies to a musician who performs struck musical instruments of numerous diverse shapes, sizes and applications. Most contemporary western ensembles bands for rock, pop, jazz, most drummers of this particular designation work within the context of a larger contingent that may also include, keyboard or guitar, auxiliary percussion and bass. Said ensembles may also include melodic based mallet percussion including, vibraphone, the rhythm section, being the core metronomic foundation with which other melodic instruments, including voices, may present the harmonic/melodic portion of the material. In popular music, the function of the drummer is to keep time or provide a steady tempo. There are many tools that a drummer can use for either timekeeping or soloing and these include cymbals, snare, toms, auxiliary percussion and many others. Also there are single, double, and triple bass pedals for the bass drum, before motorized transport became widespread, drummers played a key role in military conflicts. Military drummers provided drum cadences that set a marching pace. In some armies drums also assisted in combat by keeping cadence for firing and loading drills with muzzle loading guns, military drummers were also employed on the parade field, when troops passed in review, and in various ceremonies including ominous drum rolls accompanying disciplinary punishments. Children also served as drummer boys well into the century, though less commonly than is popularly assumed, due to the nature of the job. In modern times, drummers are not employed in battle, typically buglers and drummers mass under a sergeant-drummer and during marches alternately perform with the regiment or battalion ensembles. Military-based musical percussion traditions were not limited exclusively to the western world, in the Ottoman Empire, the size of a military band reflected the rank of its commander in chief, the largest band was reserved for the Sultan. It included various percussion instruments, often adopted in European military music, the pitched bass drum is still known in some languages as the Turkish Drum. The drumline is a type of marching ensemble descended from drummers, and can be arranged as a performance of a drum. Their uniforms will often have a style and a fancy hat. In recent times, it is common to see drummers in parades wearing costumes with an African, Asian, Latin, Native American, or tribal look. Various indigenous cultures use the drum to create a sense of unity with others especially during recreational events, the drum also helps in prayers and meditations. List of drummers Drum beat Drum machine Drum tracks Pipe band This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
25.
Singing
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Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
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Bassist
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A bassist, or bass player, is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments. Since the 1960s, the bass has been the standard bass instrument for funk, R&B, soul music, rock and roll, reggae, jazz fusion, heavy metal, country. The double bass is the bass instrument for classical music, bluegrass, rockabilly. Low brass instruments such as the tuba or sousaphone are the bass instrument in Dixieland. Despite the associations of different bass instruments with certain genres, there are exceptions, some fusion jazz groups use a lightweight, stripped-down electric upright bass rather than a double bass. Some composers of art music use the electric bass in a chamber music setting. Some jazz big bands use electric bass, some funk, R&B and jazz, fusion groups use synth bass or keyboard bass rather than electric bass. Bootsy Collins and Stevie Wonder used synth bass, some Dixieland bands use double bass or electric bass instead of a tuba. In some jazz groups and jam bands, the basslines are played by a Hammond organ player, electric bassists play the bass guitar. In most rock, pop, metal and country genres, the bass line outlines the harmony of the music being performed, in addition, there are many different standard bass line types for different genres and types of song. Bass lines often emphasize the root note, with a role for the third. In addition, pedal tones, ostinatos, and bass riffs are also used as bass lines, while most electric bass players rarely play chords, chords are used in some styles, especially funk, R&B, soul music, jazz, Latin and heavy metal music. A shortlist of the notable bassists in these genres includes, Barry Bales Herbie Flowers Willie Dixon Danny Thompson List of double bassists in popular music
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Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
28.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
29.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s
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Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
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Lead vocalist
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The lead vocalist, lead vocals or lead singer in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer either leads the ensemble, or sets against the ensemble as the dominant sound. In vocal group performances, notably in soul and gospel music, and early rock and roll, as an example in rock music, Mick Jagger is the lead singer of The Rolling Stones. Similarly in soul music, Smokey Robinson was the singer of The Miracles. The practice of using a lead singer in vocal groups, however, has a longer history, songs of the late nineteenth century frequently used a leading solo voice, followed by a choral response by other singers. From these various points - including Motown - it went on to become a device in much rock. In some bands - most famously, The Beatles - the role of lead singer alternated, while in others - for example, there are as many types and styles of lead singer as there are styles and genres of music. However, the singer of a group or band is usually the main focus of audiences attention. The lead vocalist of a band is called the front man or front woman. Pink Floyd also can be considered a band with two front men, as both the guitarist David Gilmour and the bassist Roger Waters sang and wrote most of the songs. In the beginning of the career, however, Pink Floyds lead singer and guitarist was Syd Barrett. Particularly before the 1970s, many bands were named for the leader or founder, rather than the lead singer, examples include the Dave Clark Five and Harold Melvin. In modern rock music, the singer is often, but not always, also the bands leader. While lead singers or spokespersons for any musical ensembles can be called a front man, since the position commonly has an expanded role from simple lead vocalists, there have been cases in which the front man for a band is someone other than the lead vocalist. In many bands, such as The Who, Fall Out Boy, Led Zeppelin, Living Colour, Queen and Oasis, usually, this is derived from that guitarists specific role as a co-songwriter, co-founder and/or co-vocalist. Also in some cases, there are two frontmen, such as Underoath, with singers Spencer Chamberlain and Aaron Gillespie sharing vocal duties, another example is Blink-182, in which vocal duties are split between bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge. Hoppus usually carries out most media either by himself or together with DeLonge, linkin Park has two vocalists as well, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, both considered as frontmen. Another example is the metal band Metallica, in which James Hetfield
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Spinal Tap (band)
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Spinal Tap is a parody band spoofing the style of British heavy metal groups. The band first appeared on a 1979 ABC TV sketch comedy pilot called The T. V. Show, starring Rob Reiner. The sketch, actually a promotional video for the song Rock and Roll Nightmare, was written by Reiner and the band. Later the band became the subject of the 1984 rockumentary/mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap. The band members are portrayed by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and this Is Spinal Tap was accompanied by a soundtrack album of the same name. In the years following the release, the actors have portrayed the band members at concerts. Support at Wembley Arena came from the same trios fictitious folk music band The Folksmen, although the 1984 film portrays the band hailing from the United Kingdom, all three actors who play the principal band members were actually born in the United States. Fans of Spinal Tap have assembled details about the band based on film, albums, concerts, and related promotional material, including a discography. Additionally, it is claimed that police described one of the deaths as a mystery best left unsolved, Spinal Tap reunited in 1992 for Break Like the Wind, an album produced in part by T‑Bone Burnett, an accomplished musician and record producer. The band also released the single Bitch School, on July 1,1992, Tap crossed five time zones for three performances in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Barrie, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia, for MuchMusic and Molsons Great Canadian Party. For each performance of Stonehenge, the miniature monument prop was delivered on stage in a courier envelope, in 2000 the band launched a web site named Tapster where their song Back from the Dead was made available for download. Tapster was a parody of Napster, a file sharing network. In 2001, the band reunited for the nine-city Back from the Dead Tour that began on June 1,2001, the tour included a show at Carnegie Hall in New York City and ended in Montreal in mid-July at the Just for Laughs festival. The opening act for some of these shows were The Folksmen, the folk trio seen in the film A Mighty Wind, and also performed by Guest, McKean, in 2007, Tap reunited again, this time to help combat global warming. Theyre not that environmentally conscious, but theyve heard of global warming, Nigel thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing – that if he just took his jacket off it would be cooler. This reunion also included the release of a new song called Warmer Than Hell, the band played on the London leg of the SOS/Live Earth concert series, and Rob Reiner has directed a short film which was released on the Live Earth website on April 27. The film reveals that Nigel Tufnel is now working as a farm looking after miniature horses. David St Hubbins is currently working as a producer and Derek Smalls is in rehab for being addicted to the Internet
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A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record
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Billboard Hot 100
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The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales, radio play and online streaming, the weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday, when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming data, is available on a real-time basis. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays, as of the issue for the week ending on April 15,2017, the Hot 100 has had 1,061 different number one hits. The current number one song is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, prior to 1955, Billboard did not have a unified, all-encompassing popularity chart, instead measuring songs by individual metrics. At the start of the era in 1955, three such charts existed, Best Sellers in Stores was the first Billboard chart, established in 1936. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country, Most Played by Jockeys was Billboards original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio disc jockeys, Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes across the United States. On the week ending November 12,1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time, the Top 100 combined all aspects of a singles performance, based on a point system that typically gave sales more weight than radio airplay. The Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart. The week ending July 28,1958 was the publication of the Most Played By Jockeys and Top 100 charts. On August 4,1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart, the Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13,1958. The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a songs popularity is measured in the United States, the Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan and streaming activity provided by online music sources. There are several component charts that contribute to the calculation of the Hot 100. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with Arbitron listener data. Hot Singles Sales, the top selling singles compiled from a sample of retail store, mass merchant and internet sales reports collected, compiled. The chart is released weekly and measures sales of commercial singles. With the decline in sales of singles in the US
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Laverne & Shirley
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Laverne & Shirley is an American sitcom that ran on ABC from January 27,1976, to May 10,1983. It starred Penny Marshall as Laverne DeFazio and Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney, the show was a spin-off from Happy Days, as the two lead characters were originally introduced on that series as acquaintances of Fonzie. Set in roughly the time period, the timeline started in approximately 1958, when the series began, through 1967. As with Happy Days, it was made by Paramount Television, created by Garry Marshall, and executive produced by Garry Marshall, Edward K. Milkis, and Thomas L. Miller. At the start of episode, Laverne and Shirley are skipping down a Milwaukee street, arm in arm. Hasenpfeffer Incorporated, which leads into the series theme song titled Making Our Dreams Come True. The hopscotch chant is from Penny Marshalls childhood, in seasons six and seven, the intro features Laverne and Shirley exiting their apartment building, but still reciting their original chant, and then a re-recorded version of the theme song is played. During the final season, it opens with a group of performing the chant. For the first five seasons, from 1976 to 1980, the show was set in Milwaukee, also included in the show are Lavernes father, Frank DeFazio, proprietor of the Pizza Bowl, and Edna Babish, the apartment buildings landlady, who would later marry Frank. Shirley maintained an off-again on-again romance with dancer/singer/boxer Carmine Ragusa, during this period, characters from Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley would make occasional guest appearances on each others shows. During the fifth season, the girls went into the Army, Michael McKean and David Lander created the characters of Lenny and Squiggy while both were theater students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Lander told an interviewer in 2006 that they created the characters high on marijuana. After graduating, they continued to perform the characters in comedy routines before joining the shows cast. For the fifth season in 1980, Laverne and Shirley and their friends all moved from Milwaukee to Burbank, the girls took jobs at a department store, Frank and Edna managed a Texas BBQ restaurant, and Carmine delivered singing telegrams and sought work as an actor. From this point until the end of the run, Laverne & Shirley was set in the mid-1960s. In one of the shots in the new opening sequence. With each season, a new year passed in the timeline of the show, starting with 1965 in the 1980–81 season, in March 1982, Cindy Williams became pregnant with her first child. In May, Williams and her manager-husband Bill Hudson presented a list of demands to accommodate her pregnancy and pending child birth, in August, two episodes into production of the series eighth season, Williams left the show and filed a $20 million lawsuit against Paramount
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This Is Spinal Tap
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This Is Spinal Tap is a 1984 American rock music mockumentary comedy film written, scored by, and starring Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. The film portrays the fictional British heavy metal band Spinal Tap, Reiner and the three main actors are credited as the writers of the movie because they ad libbed much of the dialogue. Several dozen hours of footage were filmed before Reiner edited it to the released movie, the three main members of Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—are played by actors McKean, Shearer, and Guest, respectively. The three actors play their instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the movie. Reiner appears as Marty Di Bergi, the maker of the documentary, other actors in the movie are Tony Hendra as group manager Ian Faith, and June Chadwick as St. Hubbins interfering girlfriend Jeanine. In 2002, This Is Spinal Tap was deemed culturally, historically and this is Spinal Tap is presented as a serious rock documentary, purportedly filmed and directed by the fictional Marty Di Bergi. The band was started by friends, David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel. They changed their name again to Spinal Tap and enjoyed limited success with the flower power anthem Listen to the Flower People, ultimately, the band became successful with heavy metal and produced several albums. Di Bergis interviews with St. Hubbins and Tufnel reveal that they are competent composers and musicians, Tufnel can only reply, These go to eleven. Tufnel later plays a somber quasi-classical music composition on piano for Di Bergi, claiming it to be a Mach piece, as the tour starts, concert appearances are repeatedly canceled because of low ticket sales. Tensions continue to increase when several major retailers refuse to sell Smell the Glove because of its sexist cover art, the bands distributor, Polymer Records, opts to release Smell the Glove with an entirely black cover without consulting the band. The album fails to draw crowds to autograph sessions with the band, however, Tufnel, rushing a sketch on a napkin, mislabels its dimensions, using a double prime symbol instead of single prime. The resulting prop, seen for the first time by the group during a show, is only 18 inches high, the group accuses Faith of mismanagement, and when St. Hubbins suggests Jeanine should co-manage the group, Faith quits in disgust. The tour continues, rescheduled into smaller and smaller venues, Tufnel becomes marginalized by Jeanine and St. Hubbins. At their next gig Tufnel is upset by an equipment malfunction, in their next gig, in an amphitheater at an amusement park in Stockton, California, they find that Nigels absence severely limits their repertoire. They are forced to improvise a fusion-esque, experimental song entitled Jazz Odyssey and he then tells St. Hubbins that Faith would like to arrange a new tour in that country. St. Hubbins is initially cool to the idea, but later on during their show, St. Hubbins convinces Tufnel to join them on stage and this Is Spinal Tap was only a modest success upon its initial release. However, the film found success, and a cult following
