Anthony Topham
Anthony "Top" Topham (born 3 July 1947, Southall, Middlesex) is an English musician and artist. He is best known as a blues guitarist and also for being the first lead guitarist of The Yardbirds. Topham left the band before they achieved mainstream popularity and was replaced by Eric Clapton, the first of three lead guitarists from the Yardbirds to gain an international reputation (the other two being Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page). Aside from his musical career, Topham also works as an interior designer and painter. Biography In May 1963, Topham and his friend at secondary school, Chris Dreja, visited the Railway Hotel in Norbiton. The hotel's entertainment featured traditional jazz music in the upstairs lounge, and allowed budding musicians to play during the breaks. There, Dreja and Topham met singer and harmonica player Keith Relf, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, and drummer Jim McCarty and decided to form The Yardbirds, with Topham as lead guitarist. Two weeks later, they played t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Southall
Southall () is a large suburban county of West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided in three parts: the mostly residential area around Lady Margaret Road (Dormers Wells); the main commercial centre at High Street and Southall Broadway (part of the greater Uxbridge Road); and Old Southall/Southall Green to the south consisting of Southall railway station, industries and Norwood Green bounded by the M4. It was historically a municipal borough of Middlesex administered from Southall Town Hall until 1965. Southall is located on the Grand Union Canal (formerly the Grand Junction Canal) which first linked London with the rest of the growing canal system. It was one of the last canals to carry significant commercial traffic (through the 1950s) and is still open to traffic and is used by pleasure craft. The canal separates it f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lead Guitarist
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featured guitar, which usually plays single-note-based lines or double-stops. In rock, heavy metal, blues, jazz, punk, fusion, some pop, and other music styles, lead guitar lines are usually supported by a second guitarist who plays rhythm guitar, which consists of accompaniment chords and riffs. History The first form of lead guitar emerged in the 18th century, in the form of classical guitar styles, which evolved from the Baroque guitar, and Spanish Vihuela. Such styles were popular in much of Western Europe, with notable guitarists including Antoine de Lhoyer, Fernando Sor, and Dionisio Aguado. It was through this period of the classical shift to romanticism the six-string guitar was first used for solo composing. Through the 19th century, t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eel Pie Island
Eel Pie Island is an island in the River Thames at Twickenham in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is on the maintained minimum head of water above the only lock on the Tideway and is accessible by boat or from the left (generally north) bank by footbridge. The island had a club that was a major venue for jazz and blues in the 1960s. Name and former names The name may have come from eel pies which were served by the inn on the island in the 19th century. Its earlier names chronologically were the Parish Ait and Twickenham Ait, the latter co-existing until at least the 1880s. Before the 19th century it was for many centuries three parts – the core of each safely above high water, if not narrowly separate which a map of 1607 figures them as. History Early history Some mesolithic red deer antler bone hand-made implements have been retrieved from the island's shore. Eel Pie House An inn was on the Ait by 1743 and in the 19th century it was a popular stoppin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jim McCarty
James Stanley McCarty (born 25 July 1943) is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the Yardbirds and Renaissance. Following Chris Dreja's departure from the Yardbirds in 2013, McCarty became the only member of the band to feature in every line up. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a member of the Yardbirds. Early life He was born at Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, but his family moved to London when he was two years old. He attended Hampton School in Hampton where Paul Samwell-Smith was a fellow pupil. When playing with the early Yardbirds, he worked as a stockbroker in the London Stock Exchange. Career McCarty has performed and recorded with the Yardbirds, Together, Renaissance, Shoot, Illusion, the Yardbirds reunion band Box of Frogs, Stairway, the British Invasion All-Stars, and Pilgrim, as well as under his own name and as the Jim McCarty Band. Since 1992 he has been playing with the reformed Yardbirds. The Yardbirds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Samwell-Smith
Paul Granville Samwell-Smith (born Paul Smith, 8 May 1943, in Richmond, Surrey, England) is an English musician and record producer. He was a founding member and the bassist of the 1960s English rock band the Yardbirds, which launched leading guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page to fame. As a youth, Samwell-Smith attended Hampton School with Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty. While in the Yardbirds, he co-produced and engineered much of their music, working with record producers such as Mickie Most, Simon Napier-Bell and Giorgio Gomelsky. Samwell-Smith was a major contributor to the original tracks written by the Yardbirds during his tenure with the band. He left the group in June 1966 to pursue a career as a record producer. The Yardbirds In late May 1963, he formed the Yardbirds with Keith Relf, Anthony Topham, Chris Dreja, and Jim McCarty. During this period his primary instrument was a short-scale Epiphone Rivoli bass. He played on the UK albums, ''Five Live Yard ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Keith Relf
William Keith Relf (22 March 194312 May 1976) was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for rock band the Yardbirds. He then formed the band Renaissance with his sister Jane Relf, The Yardbirds ex-drummer Jim McCarty and ex-The Nashville Teens keyboardist John Hawken. Early life Relf was born in the Richmond Institution on 22 March 1943 to Mary Elsie Relf (née Vickers) and William Arthur Percy Relf. Keith had a sister Jane. His father was a builder, while his mother stayed at home. Musical career Relf started playing in bands around the summer of 1956 as a singer, guitarist, and harmonica player. His blues harp and vocals were as key to the Yardbirds' sound and success as were the group's three superstar lead guitarists Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Relf co-wrote many of the original Yardbirds songs ("Shapes of Things", "I Ain't Done Wrong", "Over Under Sideways Down", "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago"), later showing a leaning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Traditional Jazz
Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a revival of New Orleans Dixieland jazz, on trumpets, trombones, clarinets, tambourines, banjos, double basses, saxophones, Hammond organs, pipe organs, pianos, electric basses, guitars (typically electric guitars) and drums and cymbals, with a populist repertoire which also included jazz versions of pop songs and nursery rhymes. Beginnings of revival A Dixieland revival began in the United States on the West Coast in the late 1930s as a backlash to the Chicago style, which was close to swing. Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, and trombonist Turk Murphy, adopted the repertoire of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and W. C. Handy: bands included banjo and tuba in the rhythm sections. A New Orleans-based traditional re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norbiton
Norbiton is an area within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London. It lies approximately east of Kingston upon Thames town centre, and from Charing Cross. Its main landmarks include Kingston Hospital, Kingsmeadow football stadium, Kingston Cemetery and St Peter's Anglican parish church which serves the area. Norbiton was part of the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames from its creation in 1835, and became part of the larger Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in 1965. History Its name was originally Norberton(e) and it was named in a similar way to Surbiton on the opposite side of the Hogsmill River. The origin of the place-name is from the Old English words ''north'', ''bere'' and ''tun'' (meaning northern grange or outlying farm). The area was originally a part of the parish of All Saints Church, Kingston upon Thames. In 1840 a separate Norbiton parish was created, with St Peter's Church built between 1840 and 1842 to a design of Gilbert Scott and W ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chris Dreja
Christopher Walenty Dreja (born 11 November 1945 in Surbiton, Surrey) is an English musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist and bassist for rock band the Yardbirds for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Early life Chris Dreja was born in Surbiton, and raised in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. His father was of Polish descent. His brother Stefan Dreja happened to meet guitarist Top Topham, and introduced him to his brother. Topham and Dreja were influenced by folk/blues guitarist Gerry Lochran, who influenced them to switch from acoustic to electric guitars according to Greg Russo in his book ''The Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up''. They made their debut with electric guitars at a concert with Duster Bennett and a young Jimmy Page. The Yardbirds Dreja and Topham became core members of the Metropolitan (or Metropolis) Blues Quartet. During the space of a year Keith Relf, Jim McCarty, and Paul Samwell-Smith joined the group which became the Y ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used. In art, the term ''painting ''describes both the act and the result of the action (the final work is called "a painting"). The support for paintings includes such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper and concrete, and the painting may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects. Painting is an important form in the visual arts, bringing in elements such as drawing, composition, gesture (as in gestural painting), narration (as in narrative art), and abstraction (as in abstract art). Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, nar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Interior Designer
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordinates, and manages such enhancement projects. Interior design is a multifaceted profession that includes conceptual development, space planning, site inspections, programming, research, communicating with the stakeholders of a project, construction management, and execution of the design. History and current terms In the past, interiors were put together instinctively as a part of the process of building.Pile, J., 2003, Interior Design, 3rd edn, Pearson, New Jersey, USA The profession of interior design has been a consequence of the development of society and the complex architecture that has resulted from the development of industrial processes. The pursuit of effective use of space, user well-being and functional design has contributed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jimmy Page
James Patrick Page (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page is prolific in creating guitar riffs. His style involves various alternative guitar tunings and melodic solos, coupled with aggressive, distorted guitar tones. It is also characterized by his folk and eastern-influenced acoustic work. He is also noted for occasionally playing his guitar with a cello bow to create a droning sound texture to the music. Page began his career as a studio session musician in London and, by the mid-1960s, alongside Big Jim Sullivan, was one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Britain. He was a member of the Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968. When the Yardbirds broke up, he founded Led Zeppelin, which was active from 1968 to 1980. Following the death of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, he participated in a number of musical groups throughout the 1980s and 1990s, more specifically X ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |