Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie Johnson was an American gospel blues singer and guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher he had little wealth in his lifetime, his life was poorly documented, but over time music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions. A revival of interest in Johnson's music began in the 1960s, following his inclusion on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, by the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. Johnson's work has become more accessible through compilation albums such as American Epic: The Best of Blind Willie Johnson and the Charters compilations; as a result, Johnson is credited as one of the most influential practitioners of the blues, his slide guitar playing on his hymn "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", is acclaimed.
Other recordings by Johnson include "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine", "John the Revelator". Johnson was born on January 25, 1897, in Pendleton, Texas, a small town near Waco, to sharecropper George Johnson and his wife, Mary Fields, who died in 1901, his family, which according to the blues historian Steven Calt included at least one younger brother named Carl, moved to the agriculturally rich community of Marlin, where Johnson spent most of his childhood. There, the Johnson family attended church—most the Marlin Missionary Baptist Church—every Sunday, a practice which had a lasting impact on Johnson and fueled his desire to be ordained as a Baptist minister; when Johnson was five years old, his father gave him his first instrument—a cigar box guitar. Johnson was not born blind, it is uncertain how he lost his sight, but it is agreed by most biographers of Johnson that he was blinded by his stepmother when he was seven years old, a claim, first made by Johnson's purported widow Angeline Johnson.
In her recollection, Willie's father had violently confronted Willie's stepmother about her infidelity, during the argument she splashed Willie with a caustic solution of lye water, permanently blinding him. Other theories have been developed to explain Johnson's visual impairment, including that he wore the wrong spectacles, that he viewed a partial solar eclipse, observable over Texas in 1905 or a combination of the two conjectures. Few other details are known about the singer's childhood. At some point he met another blind musician, Madkin Butler, who had a powerful singing and preaching style that influenced Johnson's own vocal delivery and repertoire. Adam Booker, a blind minister interviewed by the blues historian Samuel Charters in the 1950s, recalled that while visiting his father in Hearne, Johnson would perform religious songs on street corners with a tin cup tied to the neck of his Stella guitar to collect money. Johnson would play on the same street as Blind Lemon Jefferson, but the extent of the two songsters' involvement with each other is unknown.
In 1926 or early 1927, Johnson established an unregistered marriage with Willie B. Harris, who sang on the street with him and at benefits for the Marlin Church of God in Christ with Johnson accompanied on piano. From the relationship, Johnson had a daughter, Sam Faye Johnson Kelly, in 1931; the blues guitarist L. C. Robinson recalled that his sister Anne claimed to have been married to Johnson in the late 1920s. By the time Johnson began his recording career, he was a well-known evangelist with a "remarkable technique and a wide range of songs", as noted by the blues historian Paul Oliver. On December 3, 1927, Johnson was assembled along with Billiken Johnson and Coley Jones at a temporary studio that talent scout Frank Buckley Walker had set up in the Deep Ellum neighborhood in Dallas to record for Columbia Records. In the ensuing session, Johnson played six selections, 13 takes in total, was accompanied by Willie B. Harris on his first recording, "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole". Among the other songs Johnson recorded in Dallas were "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine", "Mother's Children Have a Hard Time", "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down".
He was compensated with $50 per "usable" side—a substantial amount for the period—and a bonus to forfeit royalties from sales of the records. The first songs to be released were "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole" and "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed", on Columbia's popular 14000 Race series. Johnson's debut became a substantial success, as 9,400 copies were pressed, more than the latest release by one of Columbia's most established stars, Bessie Smith, an additional pressing of 6,000 copies followed, his fifth recorded song, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" the B-side of Johnson's second release, best exemplifies his unique guitar playing in open D tuning for slide. For the session, Johnson substituted a knife or penknife for the bottleneck and—according to Harris—he played with a thumb pick, his melancholy, indecipherable humming of the guitar part creates the impression of "unison moaning", a style of singing hymns, common in southern African-American church choirs. In 1928, the blues critic Edward Abbe Niles praised Johnson in his column for The Bookman, emphasizing his "violent and abysmal shouts and groans, his inspired guitar playing".
Johnson, accompanied by Harris, returned to Dallas on December 5
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum; the term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals and spinet. The harpsichord was used in Renaissance and Baroque music. During the late 18th century, with the rise of the piano, it disappeared from the musical scene. In the 20th century, it made a resurgence, being used in informed performances of older music, in new compositions, in certain styles of popular music. Harpsichords vary in size and shape; the player depresses a key that rocks over a pivot in the middle of its length. The other end of the key lifts a jack; when the player releases the key, the far end returns to its rest position, the jack falls back. As the key reaches its rest position, a felt damper atop the jack stops the string's vibrations; these basic principles are explained in detail below.
The keylever is a simple pivot, which rocks on a balance pin that passes through a hole drilled through the keylever. The jack is a rectangular piece of wood that sits upright on the end of the keylever; the jacks are held in place by the registers. These are two long strips of wood, which run in the gap between bellyrail; the registers have rectangular mortises through which the jacks pass as they can move down. The registers hold the jacks in the precise location needed to pluck the string. In the jack, a plectrum juts out horizontally and passes just under the string. Plectra were made of bird quill or leather; when the front of the key is pressed, the back of the key rises, the jack is lifted, the plectrum plucks the string. The vertical motion of the jack is stopped by the jackrail, covered with soft felt to muffle the impact; when the key is released, the jack falls back down under its own weight, the plectrum passes back under the string. This is made possible by having the plectrum held in a tongue attached with a pivot and a spring to the body of the jack.
The bottom surface of the plectrum is cut at a slant. When the jack arrives in lowered position, the felt damper touches the string, causing the note to cease; each string is wound around a tuning pin at the end of the string closer to the player. When rotated with a wrench or tuning hammer, the tuning pin adjusts the tension so that the string sounds the correct pitch. Tuning pins are held in holes drilled in the pinblock or wrestplank, an oblong hardwood plank. Proceeding from the tuning pin, a string next passes over the nut, a sharp edge, made of hardwood and is attached to the wrestplank; the section of the string beyond the nut forms its vibrating length, plucked and creates sound. At the other end of its vibrating length, the string passes over the bridge, another sharp edge made of hardwood; as with the nut, the horizontal position of the string along the bridge is determined by a vertical metal pin inserted into the bridge, against which the string rests. The bridge itself rests on a soundboard, a thin panel of wood made of spruce, fir or—in some Italian harpsichords—cypress.
The soundboard efficiently transduces the vibrations of the strings into vibrations in the air. A string is attached at its far end by a loop to a hitchpin. While many harpsichords have one string per note, more elaborate harpsichords can have two or more strings for each note; when there are multiple strings for each note, these additional strings are called "choirs" of strings. This provides two advantages: the ability to vary ability to vary tonal quality. Volume is increased when the mechanism of the instrument is set up by the player so that the press of a single key plucks more than one string. Tonal quality can be varied in two ways. First, different choirs of strings can be designed to have distinct tonal qualities by having one set of strings plucked closer to the nut, which emphasizes the higher harmonics, produces a "nasal" sound quality; the mechanism of the instrument, called "stops" permits the player to select the other. Second, having one key pluck two strings at once changes not just volume but tonal quality.
A vivid effect is obtained when the strings plucked are an octave apart. This is heard by the ear not as two pitches but as one: the sound of the higher string is blended with that of the lower one, the ear hears the lower pitch, enriched in tonal quality by the additional strength in the upper harmonics of the note sounded by the higher string; when describing a harpsichord it is customary to specify its choirs of strings called its disposition. Strings at eight foot pitch sound at the normal expected pitch, strings at four foot pitch sound
Pentangle (band)
Pentangle are a British folk-jazz band with an eclectic mix of folk, jazz and folk rock influences. The original band was active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a version has been active since the early 1980s; the original line-up, unchanged throughout the band's first incarnation, was: Jacqui McShee. The name Pentangle was chosen to represent the five members of the band, is the device on Sir Gawain's shield in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which held a fascination for Renbourn. In 2007, the original members of the band were reunited to receive a Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and to record a short concert, broadcast on BBC radio; the following June, all five original members embarked on a twelve-date UK tour. The original group formed in 1967. Renbourn and Jansch were popular musicians on the British folk scene, with several solo albums each and a duet LP, Bert and John, their use of complex inter-dependent guitar parts, referred to as "folk baroque", had become a distinctive characteristic of their music.
They shared a house in St John's Wood, London. Jacqui McShee had begun as an "floor singer" in several of the London folk clubs, by 1965, ran a folk club at the Red Lion in Sutton, establishing a friendship with Jansch and Renbourn when they played there, she sang on Renbourn's Another Monday album and performed with him as a duo, debuting at Les Cousins club in August 1966. Thompson and Cox had played together in Alexis Korner's band. By 1966, they were both part of Duffy Power's Nucleus. Thompson was well-known to Renbourn through appearances at Les Cousins and working with him on a project for television. In 1967, the Scottish entrepreneur Bruce Dunnet, who had organised a tour for Jansch, set up a Sunday night club for him and Renbourn at the Horseshoe Hotel in Tottenham Court Road. McShee began to join them as a vocalist and, by March of that year and Cox were being billed as part of the band. Renbourn claims to be the "catalyst" that brought the band together but credits Jansch with the idea "to get the band to play in a regular place, to knock it into shape".
Although nominally a ` folk' group, the members influences. McShee had a grounding in traditional music and Thompson a love of jazz, Renbourn a growing interest in early music, Jansch a taste for blues and contemporaries such as Bob Dylan; the first public concert by Pentangle was a sell-out performance at the Royal Festival Hall, on 27 May 1967. That year, they undertook a short tour of Denmark — in which they were disastrously billed as a rock'n'roll band — and a short UK tour, organised by Nathan Joseph of Transatlantic Records. By this stage, their association with Bruce Dunnett had ended and, early in 1968, they acquired Jo Lustig as a manager. With his influence, they graduated from clubs to concert halls and from on, as Colin Harper puts it, "the ramshackle, happy-go-lucky progress of the Pentangle was going to be a streamlined machine of purpose and efficiency". Pentangle signed up with Transatlantic Records and their eponymous debut LP was released in May 1968; this all-acoustic album was produced by Shel Talmy, who has claimed to have employed an innovative approach to recording acoustic guitars to deliver a bright "bell-like" sound.
On 29 June of that year they performed at London's Royal Festival Hall. Recordings from that concert formed part of their second album, Sweet Child, a double LP comprising live and studio recordings. Basket of Light, which followed in mid-1969, was their greatest commercial success, thanks to a surprise hit single, "Light Flight" which became popular through its use as theme music for the television series Take Three Girls for which the band provided incidental music; the album went all the way to number five in the charts. By 1970, they were at the peak of their popularity, recording a soundtrack for the film Tam Lin, making at least 12 television appearances, undertaking tours of the UK and America. However, their fourth album, Cruel Sister, released in October 1970, was a commercial disaster; this was an album of traditional songs that included a 20-minute-long version of "Jack Orion", a song that Jansch and Renbourn had recorded as a duo. It failed to go higher than number 51 in the charts.
The band returned to a mix of traditional and original material on Reflection, recorded in March 1971. This was received without enthusiasm by the music press. By this time, the strains of touring and of working together as a band were apparent. Bill Leader, who produced the album, said "It seems to me, in retrospect, that each day a different member of the group had decided that this was it:'Sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm leaving the group!'" Pentangle withdrew in a bitter dispute with Joseph regarding royalties. Transatlantic had concluded that they were within their contractual rights to withhold royalty payments from the Pentangle albums. Joseph pointed out that his company had covered all the costs, such as recording costs, entailed in making the albums. Jo Lustig, their manager, who had agreed to the Transatlantic contract, made it clear that their contract with him included a clause that they could not sue him "for anything under any circumstances." In order to make some money out of
Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is an American record producer and writer. He owned Witchseason production company and Hannibal Records. Boyd has worked on recordings of Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, R. E. M. Vashti Bunyan and Beverley Martyn, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Billy Bragg, 10,000 Maniacs and Muzsikás. Boyd was born in Boston and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, he attended Pomfret School in Connecticut. He first became involved in music promoting blues artists while a student at Harvard University. After graduating, Boyd worked as a production and tour manager for music impresario George Wein, which took Boyd to Europe to organise concerts with Muddy Waters, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Boyd was responsible for the sound at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Bob Dylan played a controversial set backed by electric musicians. In 1964, Boyd paid his first visit to Britain, returning the following year to establish an overseas office of Elektra Records.
In 1966, Boyd and John "Hoppy" Hopkins opened the UFO Club, a famous but short-lived UK Underground club in London's Tottenham Court Road. He worked with UFO regulars Pink Floyd, produced their first single, "Arnold Layne" and recordings by Soft Machine. Boyd worked extensively with audio engineer John Wood at Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea. In this studio and Wood made a succession of celebrated albums with British folk and folk rock artists, including the Incredible String Band, Martin Carthy, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Fairport Convention and Richard Thompson; some of these were produced by Witchseason. Boyd returned to the United States at the end of 1970 to work as a music producer for Warner Bros. with special input into films, where he collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the sound track release of A Clockwork Orange. Boyd contributed to the soundtrack of Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, where he supervised the recording of "Dueling Banjos", which became a hit single for Eric Weissberg.
Boyd produced and co-directed the film documentary Jimi Hendrix. In the States, Boyd produced albums by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Boyd subsequently founded the Hannibal Records label in 1980, which released albums by Richard Thompson and many recordings of world music, including Hungarian band Muzsikás. Boyd produced R. E. M.'s third album Fables of records by Billy Bragg and 10,000 Maniacs. Boyd was executive producer for the 1988 feature film Scandal, starring John Hurt and Bridget Fonda about the Profumo Affair in UK politics in 1963. Boyd left Hannibal/Ryko in 2001 and his autobiography, White Bicycles - Making Music in the 1960s, was published in 2006 by Serpent's Tail in the UK. In 2008, Boyd was a judge for the 7th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists. 1966The Incredible String Band Lord of the Dance Alasdair Clayre What's Shakin' – 3 tracks by Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse A Cold Wind Blows Various artists: Cyril Tawney, Matt McGinn, Johnny Handle and Alasdair Clayre1967The Power of the True Love Knot The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion Rags Reels and Airs "Arnold Layne" / "Candy and a Currant Bun" "Granny Takes a Trip" "She's Gone", "I Should've Known" recordings for projected single by Soft Machine, Sound Techniques, London released on Triple Echo, 1977, Turns On Volume 1 1968Tonite Let's All Make Love in London Very Urgent "If I Had a Ribbon Bow" / "If" "If" / "Chelsea Morning" Fairport Convention The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter Wee Tam and the Big Huge Kalpana – instrumental and dance music of India 1969What We Did On Our Holidays "Si Tu Dois Partir" / "Genesis Hall" Unhalfbricking Five Leaves Left Liege & Lief Kip of the Serenes "Big Ted" / "All Writ Down" Changing Horses 1970Desertshore Just Another Diamond Day Stormbringer!
U Full House Fotheringay I Looked Up Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending Pottery Pie Brotherhood of Breath 1971Bryter Layter Smiling Men with Bad Reputations Call Me Diamond / Lady Wonder The Road to Ruin Heavy Petting 1973Maria Muldaur Midnight at the Oasis b/w Any Old Time Dueling Banjos b/w Reuben's Train Jimi Hendrix – soundtrack 1974Waitress in a Donut Shop Muleskinner 1975Kate & Anna McGarrigle Geoff Muldaur Is Having a Wonderful Time 1976Junco Partner Live at the L. A. Troubadour Sweet Harmony Reggae Got Soul 1977Dancer with Bruised Knees 1978Rise Up Like the Sun Julie Covington (
Simon Nicol
Simon John Breckenridge Nicol is an English guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was a founding member of British folk rock group Fairport Convention and is the only founding member still in the band, he has been involved with the Albion Band and a wide range of musical projects, both as a collaborator, producer and as a solo artist. He has received several awards for his career. Born in Muswell Hill, North London, Nicol was the son of a General practitioner, who died in 1964, he began to play guitar at age 11 and left school at 15. In 1966 he was asked to join local band the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra by bass guitarist Ashley Hutchings, soon left his job at a local cinema to play full-time, they rehearsed above his father's old surgery in Fairport House, which gave its name to the band he and Hutchings formed with Richard Thompson and Shaun Frater as Fairport Convention in 1967. As Thompson emerged as the lead guitarist, Nicol moved towards rhythm duties and occasional backing vocals.
After some line-up changes the band enjoyed a degree of commercial success in their early years, with three albums and appearing on Britain's most popular music programme Top of the Pops in 1969 with the single "Si Tu Dois Partir", which reached number 21 in the UK Charts. Nicol contributed his first composition to the band for the second album What We Did on Our Holidays, the short instrumental'End of a Holiday'. Besides contributing rhythm guitar and backing vocals to this album Nicol played the autoharp on some songs. Nicol was injured in the accident that killed drummer Martin Lamble on 12 May 1969, but when he and the band were recovered they recorded what is considered their masterpiece and the most important single album in British folk rock and Lief, credited as the key recording in the creation of the British folk rock genre and which helped institute a major surge of interest in British folk music. After the release of the album Hutchings and vocalist Sandy Denny left the band, joined full-time by Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and by bassist Dave Pegg.
While Swarbrick, with his knowledge of traditional music, emerged as the leading figure in the band, Nicol had to shoulder a larger share of the vocal duties on the next album Full House. When Thompson left soon after, Nicol had to take over lead guitar duties. Although never happy with this role, it was thought at the time that he acquitted himself well, he demonstrated that he was a multi-instrumentalist playing bass guitar and dulcimer. He began song writing on the next two albums Angel Delight and "Babbacombe" Lee.'Breakfast in Mayfair' on the latter was his first solo song composition with the band and one of the tracks that made it onto the History of Fairport Convention compilation album. He took over some of the production duties on Babbacombe Lee, but his efforts were not well received by the band and this, together with unhappiness with having to fill Thompson's shoes, led him to decide to move on and in 1971 he left the band, the last of the original members to do so. Just about the time that Nicol left Fairport Convention, Hutchings had quit Steeleye Span and began to work on the first incarnation of the Albion Country Band to provide backing for his wife Shirley Collins.
Nicol joined the long list of musicians, including former Fairport members Richard Thompson and Dave Mattacks, to contribute to No Roses considered one of the most important British folk rock albums. In 1972 Simon Nicol was part of the by now reduced six-piece-line up of the Albion Country Band featuring vocalists Royston Wood and Steve Ashley, Sue Draheim on fiddle, Ashley Hutchings on bass guitar and Dave Mattacks on drums; this band played a session for BBC Radio 1 and contributed one lengthy song to Steve Ashley's debut album. Along with Dave Mattacks, Ashley Hutchings, singer Royston Wood and multi-instrumentalist Steve Ashley and American fiddler Sue Draheim Nicol teamed up with Richard Thompson and Linda Peters to form the trio Hokey Pokey in 1973. In 1974 this trio expanded into the band Sour Grapes, assembled to tour in support of the Thompsons' I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight album; that year Nicol played on and co-produced the Thompsons' Hokey Pokey album. In 1973 he played on what is considered one of the seminal folk/jazz albums of all time, John Martyn's Solid Air.
When Hutchings tried to reform the Albion Band for an album in 1973, Nicol joined again, but the resulting work, Battle of the Field was not released until 1976. Nicol took part in some of sessions for Hutchings' next project the Etchingham Steam Band, but never formally joined the group. Instead, he added electric guitar and occasional drums to Hutchings' and accordionist John Kirkpatrick's project The Compleat Dancing Master which collects excerpts of English literature and both acoustic and electrified traditional dance music. In 1974-5 he played guitar on Cat Stevens' Numbers and formed a band with Chris Spedding, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway. However, this ` supergroup' proved abortive. Nicol produced the album Rough Diamonds for the regarded Jack the Lad, began to play with Swarbrick and Pegg in a low key trio, Three Desperate Mortgages, which toured student venues across Britain. In 1976 Nicol was the main guitarist on Ashley Hutchings' second Morris dance revival project, Son of Morris On.
This album featured Morris tunes Nicol had played with the Albion Country Band in 1972. Nicol came back to work with Fairport as a sound engineer on what was a solo project for Swarbrick, album Gottle O' Geer, he played s
Conga
The conga known as tumbadora, is a tall, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto, tres dos or tres golpes, tumba or salidor. Congas were used in Afro-Cuban music genres such as conga and rumba, where each drummer would play a single drum. Following numerous innovations in conga drumming and construction during the mid-20th century, as well as its internationalization, it became common for drummers to play two or three drums. Congas have become a popular instrument in many forms of Latin music such as son, Afro-Cuban jazz, songo and Latin rock. Most modern congas have a staved wooden or fiberglass shell, a screw-tensioned drumhead, they are played in sets of two to four with the fingers and palms of the hand. Typical congas stand 75 centimetres from the bottom of the shell to the head; the drums may be played. Alternatively, the drums may be mounted on a rack or stand to permit the player to play while standing. While they originated in Cuba, their incorporation into the popular and folk music of other countries has resulted in diversification of terminology for the instruments and the players.
In Cuba, congas are called tumbadoras. Conga players are called congueros, while rumberos refers to those who dance following the path of the players; the term "conga" was popularized in the 1930s. Cuban son and New York jazz fused together to create what was termed mambo, but became known as salsa. In that same period, the popularity of the Conga Line helped to spread this new term. Desi Arnaz played a role in the popularization of conga drums. However, the drum he played was similar to the type of drum known as bokú used in his hometown, Santiago de Cuba; the word conga came from the rhythm la conga used during carnaval in Cuba. The drums used in carnaval could have been referred to as tambores de conga since they played the rhythm la conga, thus translated into English as conga drums. There are five basic strokes: Open tone is played with the four fingers near the rim of the head, producing a clear resonant tone with a distinct pitch. Muffled or mute tone: like the open tone, is made by striking the drum with the four fingers, but holding the fingers against the head to muffle the tone.
Bass tone: played with the full palm on the head. It produces a low muted sound. Slap tone: the most difficult technique producing a loud clear "popping" sound. Touch tone: as implied by the name, this tone is produced by just touching the fingers or heel of the palm to the drum head, it is possible to alternate a touch of the palm with a touch of the fingers in a maneuver called heel-toe, which can be used to produce the conga equivalent of drumrolls. The moose call or glissando is done by rubbing the third finger, supported by the thumb, across the head of the drum; the finger is sometimes moistened with saliva or sweat, sometimes a little coat of beeswax is put on the surface of the conga head to help make the sound. The moose call is done on the bongos. To bend the pitch of the congas, a conguero sometimes uses his elbow to shift around on and apply pressure to different parts of the head; this is not a traditional stroke. Guaguancó uses three congas; the smallest conga is the lead drum known as quinto.
The following nine-measure quinto excerpt is from the guaguancó “La polémica” by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. This passage moves between the main modes of playing; the A section is the basic ride, as it is known in North America. It spans one clave. An alternate phrase is one measure in length. Cross-beats, the basis of the third section, contradict the meter. By alternating between the lock and the cross, the quinto creates larger rhythmic phrases that expand and contract over several clave cycles; the great Los Muñequintos quintero Jesús Alfonso described this phenomenon as a man getting “drunk at a party, going outside for a while, coming back inside.” The basic son montuno conga pattern is called tumbao. The conga was first used in bands during the late 1930s, became a staple of mambo bands of the 1940s; the primary strokes are sounded on the last offbeats of a two-beat cycle. The fundamental accent—2& is referred to by some musicians as ponche; the basic tumbao sounds open tones on the "and" offbeats.
There are many variations on the basic tumbao. For example, a common variant sounds a single open tone with the third stroke of clave, two tones preceding the three-side of clave; the specific alignment between clave and this tumbao is critical. Another common variant sounds bombo on the tumba. For example: The conga marcha can be heard on countless recordings, including these: Conga by Miami Sound Machine Oye Como Va by Tito Puente Pedro Navaja by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades Se Le Ve by Andy Montañez and Daddy Yankee Watermelon Man by Mongo Santamaría Los Dos Jueyes by Domingo Quiñones and Zion Amor Verdadero and A María Le Gusta by Afro-Cuban All Stars Quizás, Quizás, Quizás by Omara Portuondo and Teresa García Cartula Armonías del Romañe by Tomatito Soy Guanaco Salvadoreño by Bobby Rivas Hoy tenemos by Sidestepper Ahora Vengo Yo by Anthonious Meer, Richi
Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have focused on CD and MP3 formats; the audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s. An album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places; the time frame for recording an album varies between a few hours to several years. This process requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live" when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes. Recordings, including live, may contain sound effects, voice adjustments, etc..
With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, lyrics or librettos; 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 short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums; when long-playing records were introduced, a collection of pieces on a single record was called an album. An album, in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees and other public notices were inscribed in black, it was from this that in medieval and modern times album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, sketches and the like are collected. Which in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.
In the early nineteenth century "album" was used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Schumann's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. When 78rpm records came out, the popular 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of the seventeen-minute Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, it ran for 8m 59s. Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in 1908. German record company Odeon released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in 1909 on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package; this practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been taken up by other record companies for many years. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records.
These albums came in both 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album; the 12-inch LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, it was adopted by the record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as Compact audio cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, in the United States, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In the United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" i
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