Billy Branch
Billy Branch (born William Earl Branch, October 3, 1951) is an American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues. Branch is a three-time Grammy nominee, a retired two-term governor of the Chicago Grammy Chapter, an Emmy Award winner, and a winner of the Addy Award. In addition, he has received numerous humanitarian and music awards. Early life and career Branch was born at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in North Chicago, Illinois, United States. His family moved from Chicago to Los Angeles when he was five years old. At ten years of age he bought his first harmonica at a Los Angeles Woolsworth store. He immediately began playing simple tunes and melodies. After that initial purchase, Billy was never without a harmonica. In 1969 he moved back to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois. eventually he graduated from UIC with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science University of Illinois at Chicago. In August 1969, Branch attended the first Chicago Blue ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Great Lakes, Illinois
Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes) is the home of the United States Navy's only recruit training, boot camp, located near North Chicago, Illinois, North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Command, Training Support Center and Navy Recruiting District Chicago. Naval Station Great Lakes is the largest military installation in Illinois and the largest training station in the Navy. The base has 1,153 buildings situated on and has of roadway to provide access to the base's facilities. Within the naval service, it has several different nicknames, including "The Quarterdeck of the Navy", or the more derogatory "Great Mistakes". It is also referred to as "second boot camp" while at Training Support Command. The original 39 buildings built between 1905 and 1911 were designed by Jarvis Hunt. The base functions similarly to a small city, with its own fire department, Naval Security Forces (Police), and public works departme ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Human Voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the primary sound source. (Other sound production mechanisms produced from the same general area of the body involve the production of unvoiced consonants, clicks, whistling and whispering.) Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts; the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx (voice box), and the articulators. The lungs, the "pump" must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds. The vocal folds (vocal cords) then vibrate to use airflow from the lungs to create audible pulses that form the laryngeal sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the vocal folds to 'fine-tune' pitch and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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North Sea Jazz Festival
The North Sea Jazz Festival is an annual festival held each second weekend of July in the Netherlands at the Ahoy venue. It used to be in The Hague but since 2006 it has been held in Rotterdam. This is because the Statenhal where the festival was held before was demolished in 2006. As of 3 November 2017 the festival officially will be known as the NN North Sea Jazz Festival. Biography The founder of the three-day festival was Paul Acket, a businessman and jazz lover who made a fortune in the 1960s with his pop magazine publishing company. When Acket sold his company in 1975, he was able to start and sponsor the North Sea Jazz Festival. Acket wanted to present American jazz and European avant-garde jazz. In 1976 the first edition of the festival took place. It was an immediate success: six stages, thirty hours of music, and 300 performances drew over 9000 visitors. Acts included Count Basie, Miles Davis, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, James Taylor, Benny Goodman, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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San Francisco Blues Festival
The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States. History Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the blues festival to educate the public about the history and evolution of the blues. Many of the performers at the early concerts were the pioneers and originators of the West Coast blues sound. In 2008, Mazzolini announced that after 37 consecutive years, the festival was forced to cease production due to economic reasons. Notable performers The 1970s 1973 Jimmy McCracklin, Charlie Musselwhite, Dave Alexander, K. C. Douglas, Little Willie Littlefield, L. C. Robinson, Luther Tucker, Johnny Fuller, Gary Smith Blues Band, Mr. Boogie, The Hi Tide Harris Blues Band 1974 Little Joe Blue, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Mark St. Mary, Cool Papa, Robert Lowery, K. C. Douglas, L. C. Robinson, Boogie Jake, Dave Alexander 1975 Queen Ida, Sonn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Long Beach Blues Festival
The Long Beach Blues Festival, in Long Beach, California, United States, was established in full in 1980, and was one of the largest blues festivals and was the second oldest on the West coast of the United States, West Coast (first being the San Francisco Blues Festival). It was held on Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend. For many years it was held on the athletic field on the California State University, Long Beach campus. The 2009 festival, the 30th annual, was held at Rainbow Lagoon in downtown Long Beach. The Festival went on hiatus in 2010, and has not been held since. The festival was organized and used as a Fundraising, fund raiser by KKJZ, a publicly supported radio station on the CSULB campus broadcasting blues and jazz in Southern California. History The Festival was started in 1980 by jazz radio station KLON (later renamed to KKJZ) in Long Beach, California under the direction of Bernie Pearl, who was the host of a blues program "Nothing But The Blues" on KLO ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blues Music Award
The Blues Music Awards, formerly known as the W. C. Handy Awards (or "The Handys"), are awards presented by the Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to foster blues heritage. The awards were originally named in honor of W. C. Handy, "Father of the Blues." The first award was presented in 1980 and is "universally recognized as the highest accolade afforded musicians and songwriters in blues music." In 2006, the awards were renamed Blues Music Awards in an effort to increase public appreciation of the significance of the awards. The are presented annually in Memphis, Tennessee, where the Blues Foundation is located, although the 2008 award ceremony was held in Tunica, Mississippi. The 39th Blues Music Awards was held on May 10, 2018, at the Memphis Cook Convention Center in Memphis. Two new award categories had been announced (Instrumentalist-Vocals and Blues Rock Artist of the Year) bringing the number of awards to be presented up to 26 in total. The 40th Blues Music Aw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. (born May 17, 1942), better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments,Evans, et al., xii. often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.Komara, 951. Early life Mahal was born Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. on May 17, 1942, in Harlem, New York City. Growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was raised in a musical environment: his mother was a member of a local gospel choir and his father, Henry Saint Claire Fredericks Sr., was an Afro-Caribbean jazz arranger and piano player. His family owned a shortwave radio which received music broadcasts from around the world, exposing him at an early age to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Syl Johnson
Sylvester Johnson (born Sylvester Thompson; July 1, 1936 – February 6, 2022) was an American blues and soul singer, musician, songwriter and record producer. His most successful records included "Different Strokes" (1967), " Is It Because I'm Black" (1969) and " Take Me to the River" (1975). Biography Early life and recording debut Born near Holly Springs, Mississippi, the sixth child of a harmonica-playing farmer, he moved with his family in about 1950 to Chicago, where blues guitarist Magic Sam was his next-door neighbor. Mark Winegardner, "Syl Johnson", ''Oxford American'', November 21, 2011 Retrieved February 8, 2022 Johnson sang and played with Magic Sam and other blues artists, such as [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Honeyboy Edwards
Honey Boy may refer to: People * Honeyboy Edwards (1915–2011), American Delta blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi *George "Honey Boy" Evans George Evans (10 March 1870 – 5 March 1915) known as "Honey Boy" Evans was a Welsh-born songwriter, comedian, entertainer, and musician active in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Biography Evans was born in Pontlott ... (1870–1915), Welsh-born songwriter and vaudeville entertainer *Honey Boy Martin (born c. 1949), Jamaican reggae singer on 2001's '' How to Cut and Paste Mix Tape Vol.2'' * Honey Boy (singer) (born c. 1955), Jamaican-born English reggae singer best known for his recordings in 1970s Other uses * Honey Boy (song), Tin Pan Alley song for voice and piano written by Jack Norworth and composed by Albert Von Tilzer first published in 1907 * ''Honey Boy'' (film), 2019 American drama {{dab ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eddy Clearwater
Edward Harrington (January 10, 1935 – June 1, 2018), better known by his stage name Eddy Clearwater, was an American blues musician who specialized in Chicago blues. ''Blues Revue'' said he plays "joyous rave-ups…he testifies with stunning soul fervor and powerful guitar. One of the blues' finest songwriters." Early life Edward Harrington was born in Macon, Mississippi, on January 10, 1935. He was raised by his part-Cherokee grandmother in Mississippi. His family moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1948. He was a cousin of the blues harmonica player Carey Bell. He began playing guitar at age 13, teaching himself left-handed and upside down. He began performing with gospel groups, including the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. He moved to Chicago in 1950, playing predominantly gospel, and later developed his blues artistry after working with Magic Sam, Otis Rush, and others. Career Clearwater is best known for his activity in the Chicago blues scene since the 1950s. He performe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Koko Taylor
Koko Taylor (born Cora Anna Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. Life and career Born on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee, Taylor was the daughter of a sharecropper. She left Tennessee for Chicago in 1952 with her husband, Robert "Pops" Taylor, a truck driver. In the late 1950s, she began singing in blues clubs in Chicago. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to more opportunities for performing and her first recordings. In 1963 she had a single on USA Records, and in 1964 a cut on a Chicago blues collection on Spivey Records, called ''Chicago Blues''. In 1964 Dixon brought Taylor to Checker Records, a subsidiary label of Chess Records, for which she recorded "Wang Dang Doodle", a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf five years earlier. The re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lou Rawls
Louis Allen Rawls (December 1, 1933 – January 6, 2006) was an American record producer, singer, composer and actor. Rawls released more than 60 albums, sold more than 40 million records, and had numerous charting singles, most notably his song "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine". He worked as a film, television, and voice actor. He was also a three-time Grammy-winner, all for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Early life Rawls was born in Chicago on December 1, 1933, and raised by his grandmother in the Ida B. Wells projects on the city's South Side. He began singing in the Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church choir at the age of seven and later sang with local groups through which he met Sam Cooke, who was nearly three years older, and Curtis Mayfield. Career After graduating from Dunbar Vocational High School, he sang briefly with Cooke in the Teenage Kings of Harmony, a gospel group, and then with the Holy Wonders. In 1951, he replaced Cooke in the Highway QC's aft ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |