2020-01-30 00:36
Mary Lou Williams is probably the most important female African-American jazz pianist. Williams was also a fine songwriter and arranger and she worked with major figures in jazz including Be… Read More
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This blog is devoted to celebrating the best of 20th century popular music.
2020-01-17 11:36
The great jazz trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the musicians at the forefront of the development of be-bop music in the Fifties. Gillespie was born John Birkes Gillespie in Cheraw, So… Read More
2020-01-12 06:11
Nehemiah Curtis James was born near Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1902. James was raised just south of the Mississippi Delta near Bentonia, on the Whitehead plantation, where his mother was th… Read More
2019-12-22 12:11
Booker T and the M.G.’s was the house band for Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, and as such they appeared on virtually every single that Stax released during its heyday in the Sixti… Read More
2019-12-19 08:54
William Christopher Handy will forever be remembered as “The Father of the Blues.” It was Handy who was most responsible for taking this regional folk music of the American South… Read More
2019-12-17 14:22
Scott Joplin, born in Linden, Texas, in 1867, was a pianist and the most popular artist of ragtime music, the forerunner of jazz. Only Joseph Lamb, among ragtime performers, could rival Jopl… Read More
2019-12-16 03:02
Captain Beefheat, also know as Don Van Vliet, was one of the strangest artists in the history of rock music. His music might be off-putting for those whose tastes are limited to the mainstre… Read More
2019-11-18 01:50
Ella Fitzgerald is among the finest female singers in the history of jazz music. She was the first female singer to make use of scat singing, a wordless form of vocalization which Louis Arms… Read More
2019-10-30 13:27
Both Dorsey Brothers were major figures in the development of jazz music and especially, swing. Tommy Dorsey is the man who gave a young Frank Sinatra’s burgeoning career a major boost… Read More
2019-10-27 10:08
Southern rock and blues rock legends the Allman Brothers were formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. The band was named after brothers Greg and Duane Allman, the band’s lead singer… Read More
2019-10-17 01:13
Louis Jordan is another of the key figures in the development of rock and roll and R&B. He was a talented and colorful figure who was a saxophonist, songwriter, and bandleader. He has be… Read More
2019-10-16 13:39
Art Tatum is considered by many to be the greatest pianist in the history of jazz music whose technical skills were unrivaled. Tatum’s unmistakable sound was the result of his prodigio… Read More
2019-10-13 01:14
James Price Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1894. He was a ragtime turned stride pianist whose composition, “The Charleston,” became one of the anthems of the … Read More
2019-10-06 10:53
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band was originally an off-shoot of Stein’s Dixie Jass Band and started out under the leadership of cornetist, Nick LaRocca. By 1917, the band had moved fro… Read More
2019-10-06 02:30
Guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli were probably the two greatest European jazz musicians of the 20th century. Both men were founders and members of an outfit known… Read More
2019-10-05 12:13
Tommy Johnson was country blues singer and guitarist from Terry, Mississippi. Johnson was born in 1896, and by the Twenties he was an established figure in Mississippi blues. The Sixties blu… Read More
2019-09-29 23:53
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsDrummer Art Blakey and his band, The Jazz Messengers, are the pioneers of a jazz sub-genre called “hard… Read More
2019-09-28 15:35
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsLouis Armstrong is one of the most important figures in the history of Western popular music, and likely the… Read More
2019-09-21 13:45
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsMost jazz critics consider Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge as the successor of Louis Armstrong in the evolution of… Read More
2019-09-17 15:08
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsThem was perhaps the best of the British blues-rock bands that emerged during the Sixties. The band covered m… Read More
2019-09-16 01:46
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsFrom the freezing cold prairie town of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the Guess Who burst upon the music scene i… Read More
2019-09-15 14:53
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsSidney Bechet was a musical child prodigy born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1897. Bechet was so musically ad… Read More
2019-09-14 15:24
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsBenny Goodman and long-time rival, Artie Shaw, are the two greatest and best-known white clarinetists in the… Read More
2019-09-14 08:06
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsAli “Farka "Toure is among only a handful of African folk musicians who have found an audience for thei… Read More
2019-09-14 05:20
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsArt Tatum is considered by many to be the greatest pianist in the history of jazz music whose technical skill… Read More
2019-09-13 15:00
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsBessie Smith was known as the “Empress of the Blues,” so it’s only fitting that her mentor… Read More
2019-09-13 14:23
This article contains affiliate links from which I can earn affiliate commissionsAlberta Hunter was one of the first female blues singers to record. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 18… Read More
2019-09-08 10:25
Lonnie JohnsonJohnson was one of the best of the early acoustic blues guitarists. He possessed a technical proficiency that separated him from his peers, and he was always in high demand as… Read More
2019-09-05 13:40
Leadbelly is a legendary figure in both the fields of folk music and the blues. Leadbelly’s life is the stuff of American popular legend. He was a hard man who was convicted of murder… Read More
2019-09-03 01:16
When guitar heroes of rock music are discussed, Jimi Hendrix’s name is often mentioned as perhaps the best of them all. Of course, the topic is highly subjective, and Hendrix status as… Read More
2019-08-28 01:47
George Gershwin was an American pianist and modern classical composer whose contributions to popular music fall within the realm of jazz. Gershwin was the first classical musician or compose… Read More
2019-08-12 16:42
The Delmore Brothers were one of the most important and influential acts from the early days of country music. The duo consisted of the brothers, Altonand Rabon Delmore, a pair of guitarist/… Read More
2019-08-06 00:07
Kid Ory, born in La Place, Louisiana, in 1886, was the king of the trombone in the early years of jazz music in New Orleans. He started out played banjo, but later switched to trombone. Or… Read More
2019-08-02 00:57
Kate and Anna McGarrigle are sisters from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who in 1975 formed a folk duo and went on to write and record some of the best contemporary folk music of the last 30 yea… Read More
2019-07-31 13:43
Leonard Cohen, born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1936, is one of the most enduring of the folk music heroes that emerged during the Sixties. As a songwriter, he is only rivaled by Bob Dyl… Read More
2019-07-30 01:11
Little Feat was formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1969, by guitarist/songwriter Lowell George and bassist Roy Estrada. Both men were former members of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Inve… Read More
2019-07-27 02:48
Carl Perkins, born in Tipton, Tennessee, in 1932, is one of the fathers of rock and roll music. Perkins started his career playing country music and then became a rockabilly performer when t… Read More
2019-07-18 22:51
Little Richard was probably the most flamboyant of the early fathers of rock and roll. Richard’s flamboyance, which usually manifested itself in colorful clothing and animated behavior… Read More
2019-07-09 16:23
David Allen Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, in 1939, along with Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, helped to pave the way for a country subgenre of music called “outlaw country.” The s… Read More
2019-07-04 12:14
The Beatles are almost universally regarded as the greatest act in the history of post-war popular music, and that claim is hard to deny when one considers their status as the biggest sellin… Read More
2019-07-02 15:30
The Bobby Fuller Four was one of the best American rock and roll bands from the early to mid-Sixties-a time when good rave-up rock and roll was in short supply. The band formed in Baytown, T… Read More
2019-06-28 18:49
Fats Domino was one of the most successful of the founding fathers of rock and roll. Domino hailed from New Orleans and started his career as a New Orleans R&B performer. He is forever r… Read More
2019-06-27 16:06
Lewis’s musical journey started in his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, where he was born on September 29, 1935. Lewis was a cousin of television evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart and country… Read More
2019-06-26 15:21
Jackie Wilson was among the first soul singers who followed in Ray Charles footsteps after Charles created the music in the mid-Fifties. Wilson, also known as “Mr. Excitement,” f… Read More
2019-06-24 10:11
Clarinettist Johnny Dodds was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1892. Johnny Dodds was one of the greatest jazz clarinetists of the Twenties and he possessed a very soulful and emotion… Read More
2019-06-23 14:49
Singer Johnny Burnette was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1934, and was a boyhood friend of Elvis Presley. Burnette and the Rock ‘n Roll Trio is often credited as the “pioneers&r&hell…Read More
2019-06-21 22:50
Among the ranks of female singer/songwriters, no woman has equaled the artistry or output of Joni Mitchell. Mitchell’s catalogue includes a slew of classic albums that run the musical… Read More
2019-06-20 15:40
Saxophonist Charlie Parker is considered by many to be the best musician in the history of jazz. He is one of the few jazz musicians who could rival the technical brilliance and originality… Read More
2019-06-19 13:19
Benny Goodman and long-time rival, Artie Shaw, are the two greatest and best-known white clarinetists in the history of jazz. Both men achieved huge commercial and critical success during th… Read More
2019-06-17 16:46
The Beach Boys were the one band that could rival the commercial and artistic greatness of the Beatles during the Sixties. The two bands would become friendly rivals in that decade, trying t… Read More
2019-06-17 04:56
Blind Willie McTell was a country blues singer/guitarist and probably the greatest performer of the Piedmont style of blues playing. He also played ragtime music. McTell was born blind as Wi… Read More
2019-06-15 15:26
Blind Lemon Jefferson was born in Coutchman, Texas, in 1893. He was an enormously influential country blues singer whose songs have been covered by rock performers as diverse as the Beatles… Read More
2019-06-12 03:59
Blind Willie Johnson was born near Brenham, Texas, in 1897. Johnson is one of the greatest guitarists in the history of blues music and likely the greatest slide-guitarist in the country blu… Read More
2019-06-11 15:40
Southern rock and blues rock legends The Allman Brothers were formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. The band was named after brothers Greg and Duane Allman, the band’s lead singer… Read More
2019-06-10 05:13
The Ink Spots were a hugely-influential jazz vocal group that forms a direct link from the jazz and popular music of the Thirties to the R&B music of the Forties and rock and roll of the… Read More
2019-06-07 08:25
Isaac Hayes had a long career as a soul songwriter and session musician prior to the launch of his own solo career in the early Seventies. Hayes was born in Covington, Tennessee, in 1942. H… Read More
2019-06-06 03:17
Prior to the meteoric rise of Elvis Presley and rock and roll, Frank Sinatra was the biggest male singing phenomenon that popular music had ever seen. Sinatra’s rise to prominence was… Read More
2019-06-06 03:15
Ethel Waters was one of the most popular African-American singers and actresses of the Twenties. She was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1896. Waters attained success of a level that saw h… Read More
2019-06-06 03:14
Billie Holiday’s life is the stuff of jazz legend. She rose from poverty and abuse to become one of the biggest stars of jazz during the Thirties and Forties. Holidaywas a great singer… Read More
2019-06-06 03:12
Artie Shaw was the greatest white clarinetist of jazz, save perhaps, Benny Goodman. Like Goodman, Shaw was a classically trained musician that excelled at playing other styles of music besid… Read More
2019-06-06 03:07
Bing Crosby was among the most important singers in the history of American popular music. His bass-baritone was immediately recognizable on even his earliest pop/jazz recordings. His relaxe… Read More
2019-06-06 03:06
Camel is a progressive rock band from Guildford, England. The band came together in 1971, and had guitarist Andrew Latimer, bassist Doug Ferguson, drummer Andy Ward, and keyboardist Peter Ba… Read More
2019-06-05 04:31
Bob Seger was one of the most popular and mainstream of the rock singers of the Seventies. Seger, born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1944, had, in his initial incarnation, been a blues-rock/soul… Read More
2019-06-04 02:20
The great jazz trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the musicians at the forefront of the development of be-bop music in the Fifties. He was born John Birkes Gillespie in Cheraw, South Car… Read More
2019-06-01 00:43
Caravan, from Canterbury, England, was a progressive rock band that reached the peak of its creative and commercial success in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The band was one of the c… Read More
2019-05-26 11:06
Bob Marley is the most famous figure in the history of reggae music and the first “Third World” music superstar. Marley was not the first star of the indigenous Jamaican music, r… Read More
2019-05-25 00:32
Charlie Poole was one of a handful of individuals recording country music in the days before The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers made the music popular in the late Twenties. Poole and his b… Read More
2019-05-24 15:52
Frankie Trumbauer, born in Carbondale, Illinois, in 1901, is one of the first great jazz saxophonists. He became famous as a player of the rare C-melody saxophone, an instrument with a pitch… Read More
2019-05-23 09:23
James Brown, born in Macon, Georgia, in 1938 was known by a number of titles including “The Godfather of Soul,” “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” “Sou… Read More
2019-05-22 15:32
Jelly Roll Morton is among the most important figures in the history of American popular music. He was a pianist, composer, and bandleader and one of the first musicians to play jazz music… Read More
2019-05-15 15:54
Bix Beiderbecke, born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903, is generally regarded as the greatest white jazz cornettist of all time. His playing was soft and lyrical, unlike the “hot” pl… Read More
2019-05-14 00:54
Led Zeppelin was one of the first hard rock supergroups, and a band which enjoyed unprecedented popularity in the hard rock arena. The band came together from the ashes of the last incarnati… Read More
2019-05-13 15:55
Jazz singer/songwriter/pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller was born in New York City, in 1904. While he is not a household name to the extent of fellow jazz legends, Armstrong, Ellingto… Read More
2019-03-29 15:33
Fletcher Henderson was a jazz pianist and bandleader born in Cuthbert, Georgia, in 1897. Hendersonwas the leader of one of the best African-American jazz bands of the Twenties. Henderson wa… Read More
2019-03-28 06:51
2019-03-27 14:33
Johnny Cash, originally from the cotton country of Kingsland, Arkansas, began his career in music in Memphis, Tennessee as a rockabilly performer with Sam Phillip’s legendary Sun Recor… Read More
2019-03-19 15:51
James Price Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1894. He was a ragtime turned stride pianist whose composition, “The Charleston,” became one of the anthems of the … Read More
2019-03-14 15:24
The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers are the two artists most responsible for the early development of the country music industry. Before them, the folk music of the Appalachian region of th… Read More
2019-03-09 12:48
Flying Burrito Brothers (The)In 1968, Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman were members of the Byrds and with their band had recorded the classic album, “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the… Read More
2019-02-28 12:13
Black Sabbath is a seminal band in the history of rock music. The band played a brand of hard rock that would tragically spawn much of the regrettable heavy metal/death metal music of recent… Read More
2019-02-15 13:24
The Band never achieved the fame of legendary rock bands such as the Beatles or Rolling Stones, but in the opinion of critics and fellow musicians, they were one of the greatest bands to eve… Read More
2019-02-13 23:23
2019-02-13 23:15
Louis Armstrong is one of the most important figures in the history of Western popular music, and likely the most important figure in the history of jazz music. He is not only the most famou… Read More
2019-02-12 11:43
Bill Monroe is among the most important figures in the history of country music, and it was Monroe who almost single-handedly invented bluegrass music. He is known as the “Father of Bl… Read More
2019-02-08 12:24
Of all the Chicago Bluesman who recorded for Chess Records in the Fifties and Sixties, Howlin’ Wolf may have produced the most affecting music. Howlin Wolf was a 300-pound powerhouse o… Read More
2019-02-07 13:23
Sippie Wallace was another of the early female blues singers who started her recording career in the Twenties on the heels of Mamie Smith’s 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues,”… Read More
2019-02-06 14:38
Joe “King” Oliver is among the seminal figures in the history of jazz music. Oliver was an influential musician in the early days of jazz whose hot cornet playing influenced all… Read More
2019-02-05 16:04
Blues singer Bessie Smith is one of the finest vocalists in the history of American popular music. Her voice was a powerful and versatile instrument that she employed in a variety of musical… Read More
2019-02-04 02:20
2019-02-04 01:56
James Reese Europe was one of the earliest figures of jazz music. He was a great bandleader and an inspiration to African-Americans in the early years of the last century. Europe was the lea… Read More
2019-02-01 08:02
Elvis Presley will forever be known as The King of Rock and Roll or more simply, “The King,” to his legions of fans. His title is not only acknowledged by his fans, but by the br… Read More
2019-01-31 15:59
2019-01-31 03:15
Robert Johnson was born Robert Spencer in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, around 1910. As a youth, he adopted the name of his biological father whom he had never met. As a child, he learned to play… Read More
2019-01-25 07:00
Most jazz critics consider Roy Eldridge as the successor of Louis Armstrong in the evolution of jazz trumpet players. Armstrong is almost universally considered as the greatest jaz… Read More
2019-01-22 06:56
Roy Orbison was one of the early greats of rock and roll music who is now best remembered for his hit song, “Pretty Woman.” In the Fifties and early Sixties, however, Orbison had… Read More
2019-01-19 14:00
Sam and Dave are perhaps the finest vocal duo in the history of soul music. The duo was part of Stax Records’ fine roster of soul recording artists. Sam Moore was born in Miami, Florid… Read More
2019-01-15 06:46
Leon Redbone is one of the most unique musical performers of the last 40 years. He is one of the few current performers of ragtime music, although he is generally classified as a folk/blues… Read More
2019-01-12 06:43
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Joe Walsh embarked on his solo career following the release of The James Gang’s “Thirds” album. Walsh had led the James Gang through the initial… Read More
2019-01-09 06:39
John Prine was one of the best of the folk-flavoured singer/songwriters that emerged alongside Neil Young and others in the early Seventies. Prine, who is still active today, is one of the w… Read More
2019-01-06 13:00
Singer Johnny Burnette was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1934, and was a boyhood friend of Elvis Presley. Burnette and the Rock ‘n Roll Trio is often credited as the “pioneers&r&hell…Read More
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