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Billy Davis (guitarist)
J.C. Davis (born April 29, 1938), known as Billy Davis, is an American rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who is best known for his work with Hank Ballard & The Midnighters. Life and career Davis was born in Bentonia, Mississippi and moved to Memphis, Tennessee in childhood. He became inspired to play guitar at the age of 8, when he heard " That's All Right" by Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup. In 1951, at the age of 13, Davis moved to Detroit, Michigan. There he lived in the predominantly black area of the city known as " Black Bottom" and took guitar lessons from Bosie Gatlin, who taught him how to play the Muddy Waters' song " Baby, Please Don't Go". In 1951, Davis met his mother's friend from Mississippi, John Lee Hooker. Hooker in turn introduced Davis and Jackie Wilson, who became close friends and collaborated musically throughout their lives. In 1957, after graduating from Miller High School in Detroit, he formed Billy ...
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Bentonia
Bentonia is a town in Yazoo County, Mississippi, United States. The population as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census was 319. The Bentonia School of blues singing and guitar-playing is named for Bentonia. History Bentonia began as a postal town along the Illinois Central Railway. It is named for an early resident. Bentonia had a population of 167 in 1900. Bentonia Blues The Bentonia School, "Bentonia-style" or "Bentonia Blues" describe a country blues style that originated in and immediately around Bentonia. The annual Bentonia Blues Festival is held in June in Bentonia. The festival's stage is set up in front of the Blue Front Cafe, which is operated by Jimmy "Duck" Holmes who, as a young man, learned the local style from Bentonia Blues musician Jack Owens (blues singer), Jack Owens. Three markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail are located in Bentonia: one each to musicians Skip James and Jack Owens (blues singer), Jack Owens, and one located at the Blue Front C ...
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Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississipp ...
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Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard (born John Henry Kendricks; November 18, 1927 – March 2, 2003) was an American singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of The Midnighters and one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. He played an integral part in the development of the genre, releasing the hit singles "Work With Me, Annie" and answer songs " Annie Had a Baby" and "Annie's Aunt Fannie" with his Midnighters. He later wrote and originally recorded (in 1959) " The Twist" which was notably covered a year later by Chubby Checker, this second version spreading the popularity of the dance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Early years Born John Henry Kendricks in Detroit, Michigan, he and his brother, Dove Ballard, grew up and attended school in Bessemer, Alabama, after the death of their father. He lived with his paternal aunt and her husband, and began singing in church. His major vocal inspiration during his formative years was the "Singing Cowboy ...
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Marv Johnson
Marvin Earl Johnson (October 15, 1938 – May 16, 1993) was an American R&B singer, songwriter and pianist. He was influential in the development of the Motown style of music, primarily for the song " Come to Me," which was the first record issued by Tamla Records, the precursor to the famous label. Despite his early success in the United States, Johnson ultimately enjoyed more popularity overseas than in his native country. His music was especially popular in the United Kingdom and Australia. Biography Johnson was born in Detroit. His early musical influences included gospel and blues, but he began his singing career with a doo-wop group, the Junior Serenaders, in the mid-1950s. He was discovered by Berry Gordy while performing at a carnival; Gordy had already decided to form his first record label, Tamla, and Johnson's recording of the song " Come to Me" became the label's first single, released in May 1959. The fledgling label did not have national distribution, so the song ...
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The Miracles
The Miracles (also known as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles from 1965 to 1972) were an American vocal group that was the first successful recording act for Berry Gordy's Motown Records, and one of the most important and most influential groups in pop, rock and roll, soul and R&B music history. Referred to as Motown's "soul supergroup", the Miracles recorded 26 Top 40 Pop hits, sixteen of which reached the ''Billboard'' Top 20, seven top 10 singles, and a number one single ("The Tears of a Clown") while the Robinsons and Tarplin were members. Following the departure of Tarplin and the Robinsons, the rest of the group continued with singer Billy Griffin and managed by Martin Pichinson who helped rebuild the Miracles, they scored two final top 20 singles, "Do It Baby" and " Love Machine", a second No. 1 hit, which topped the charts before the group departed for Columbia Records in 1977, recording as a quintet with Billy's brother Donald Griffin replacing Marv Tarplin, where afte ...
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Smokey Robinson
William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. (born February 19, 1940) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and former record executive director. He was the founder and front man of the Motown vocal group the Miracles, for which he was also chief songwriter and producer. He led the group from its 1955 origins as "the Five Chimes" until 1972, when he announced his retirement from the group to focus on his role as Motown's vice president. However, Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist the following year. Robinson left Motown Records in 1990, following the sale of the company two years earlier. Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was awarded the 2016 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for his lifetime contributions to popular music. In 2022, he was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame. Early life and early career William Robinson Jr. was born to an African-American father and a mother of African-American and ...
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Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy III (born November 28, 1929), known professionally as Berry Gordy Jr., is a retired American record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades. As a songwriter, he composed or co-composed a number of hits including "Lonely Teardrops" and "That's Why" ( Jackie Wilson), "Shop Around" (the Miracles), and "Do You Love Me" (the Contours), all of which topped the US R&B charts, as well as the international hit "Reet Petite" ( Jackie Wilson). As part of the Corporation, he wrote many hit songs for the Jackson 5, including "I Want You Back" and "ABC". As a record producer, he launched the Miracles and signed acts like the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Stevie Wonder. He was known for carefully directing the public image, dress, manners, an ...
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Motown
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''motor'' and ''town'', has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned label that achieved crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels (including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the US) were the most of the Motown sound, a style of soul music with a mainstream pop appeal. Motown was the most successful soul music label, with a net worth of $61 million. During the 1960s, Motown achieved 79 records in the top-ten of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 between 1960 and 1969. Following the events of the Detroit Riots of 1967, and the loss of key songwriting/production team Holland–Dozier– ...
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Sidney D
Sidney may refer to: People * Sidney (surname), English surname * Sidney (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Sidney (footballer, born 1972), full name Sidney da Silva Souza, Brazilian football defensive midfielder * Sidney (footballer, born 1979), full name Sidney Santos de Brito, Brazilian football defender Characters *Sidney Prescott, main character from the ''Scream'' horror trilogy * Sidney (''Ice Age''), a ground sloth in the ''Ice Age'' film series * Sidney (''Pokémon''), a character of the ''Pokémon'' universe *Sidney, one of ''The Bash Street Kids'' * Sidney Jenkins, a character in the British teenage drama '' Skins'' *Sidney Hever, Edward's fireman from ''The Railway Series'' and the TV series ''Thomas and Friends'' *Sidney, a diesel engine from the TV series ''Thomas and Friends'' *Sidney Freedman, a recurring character in the TV series ''M*A*S*H'' Places Canada *Sidney, British Columbia *Sidney, Manitoba United Kingdom * Sidney Sussex ...
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John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie. Hooker was ranked 35 in ''Rolling Stone''s 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists. Some of his best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "Crawling King Snake" (1949), "Dimples" (1956), " Boom Boom" (1962), and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including '' The Healer'' (1989), '' Mr. Lucky'' (1991), ''Chill Out'' (1995), and '' Don't Look Back'' (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and UK. ''The Healer'' (for the song "I'm In The Mood") and ''Chill Out'' (for the album) both e ...
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Baby, Please Don't Go
"Baby, Please Don't Go" is a traditional blues song that was popularized by Delta blues musician Big Joe Williams in 1935. Many cover versions followed, leading to its description as "one of the most played, arranged, and rearranged pieces in blues history" by French music historian Gérard Herzhaft. After World War II, Chicago blues and rhythm and blues artists adapted the song to newer music styles. In 1952, a doo-wop version by the Orioles reached the top ten on the R&B chart. In 1953, Muddy Waters recorded the song as an electric Chicago-ensemble blues piece, which influenced many subsequent renditions. By the early 1950s, the song became a blues standard. In the 1960s, "Baby, Please Don't Go" became a popular rock song after the Northern Irish group Them recorded it in 1964. Jimmy Page, a studio guitarist at the time, participated in the recording session, possibly on rhythm guitar. Subsequently, Them's uptempo rock arrangement also made it a rock standard. AC/DC and Aer ...
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Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude". Muddy Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, emulating the local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson."His thick heavy voice, the dark colouration of his tone, and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote the music historian Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments, which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." He was recorded in Mississippi by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941. In 1943, he moved to Chicago to become a full-time professi ...
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