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Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues. Unlike his contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. His vocal style, a smooth and often laid-back tenor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voices of Delta bluesmen such as Charley Patton. McTell performed in various musical styles, including blues, ragtime, religious music and hokum. McTell was born in Thomson, Georgia. He learned to play the guitar in his early teens. He soon became a street performer in several Georgia cities, including Atlanta and Augusta, and first recorded in 1927 for Victor Records. He never produced a major hit record, but he had a prolific recording career with different labels and under different names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax (September 23, 1867 – January 26, 1948) was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lomax Hawes, also distinguished collectors of folk music. Early life The Lomax family originally came from England with William Lomax, who settled in Rockingham County in what was then "the colony of North Carolina." John Lomax was born in Goodman in Holmes County in central Mississippi, to James Avery Lomax and the former Susan Frances Cooper. In December 1869, the Lomax family traveled by ox cart from Mississippi to Texas. John Lomax grew up in central Texas, just north of Meridian in rural Bosque County.Porterfield, p. 10. His father raised horses and cattle and grew cotton and corn on the of bottomland that he had purchased near the Bosque River.Porterfield, p. 12. He was exposed to cowboy songs as a child.Porterfield, p. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi Germany, Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group). Label name The name dates back to a portable phonograph, gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gospel Music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in a call and response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand-clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "The changing nature of gospel music: A southern case study." ''African American Review'' 29.2 (1995): 185. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. October 5, 2010. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern (the blues scale and specific chord progressions) of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charley Patton
Charley Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century. Patton (who was well educated by the standards of his time) spelled his name ''Charlie'', but many sources, including record labels and his gravestone, use the spelling ''Charley''. Biography Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in April 1891, but the years 1881, 1885 and 1887 have also been suggested. Patton's parentage and race also are uncertain. His parents were Bill and Annie Patton, but locally he was regarded as having been fathered by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slide (guitar)
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position (flat against the body) with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle. The term bottleneck was historically used to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked (not strummed) while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar (lap steel guitar). Creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to African stringed instruments and also to the origin of the steel guitar in Hawaii. Near the beginning of the tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelve-string Guitar
A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in octaves, with those of the upper two courses tuned in unison. The gap between the strings within each dual-string course is narrow, and the strings of each course are fretted and plucked as a single unit. The neck is wider, to accommodate the extra strings, and is similar to the width of a classical guitar neck. The sound, particularly on acoustic instruments, is fuller and more harmonically resonant than six-string instruments. The 12-string guitar can be played like a 6-string guitar as players still use the same notes, chords and guitar techniques like a standard 6-string guitar, but advanced techniques might be tough as players need to play or pluck two strings simultaneously. Structurally, 12-string guitars, especially those built befo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fingerstyle Guitar
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectrum, commonly called a "pick"). The term "fingerstyle" is something of a misnomer, since it is present in several different genres and styles of music—but mostly, because it involves a completely different technique, not just a "style" of playing, especially for the guitarist's picking/plucking hand. The term is often used synonymously with fingerpicking except in classical guitar circles, although fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues and country guitar playing in the US. The terms "fingerstyle" and "fingerpicking" also applied to similar string instruments such as the banjo. Music arranged for fingerstyle playing can include chords, arpeggios (the notes of a chord played one after the other, as opposed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate McTell
Kate McTell (born Ruthy Kate Williams; August 22, 1911 – October 3, 1991) was an American blues musician and nurse from Jefferson County, Georgia. She is known primarily as the former wife of the blues musician Blind Willie McTell, whom she accompanied vocally on several recordings. She may have recorded as Ruby Glaze, but there is some uncertainty about whether she and Glaze were the same person, despite the fact that she claimed to be Glaze. Early life and marriage to Blind Willie McTell Ruthy (later changed to Ruth) Kate Williams was born in Savannah, Georgia. She was singing for a high-school ceremony in Augusta, Georgia, in 1933 when she was noticed by McTell, who regularly performed in the area. In an interview conducted by the musicologist David Evans and his family, she stated that she and Willie met at a Christmas concert at her school in 1931.Gray (2007). p. 230. She went on to explain that Willie invited her to record with him, that they did so in Atlanta over the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curley Weaver
Curley James Weaver (March 25, 1906 – September 20, 1962) was an American blues musician, also known as Slim Gordon. Biography Early years Weaver was born in Covington, Georgia, and raised on a farm near Porterdale. His mother, Savannah "Dip" Shepard Weaver, was a well-respected pianist and guitarist, who taught Curley and her friend's sons, "Barbecue Bob" and Charlie Hicks. The three formed a group with the harmonica player Eddie Mapp and played locally. Early career Weaver moved to Atlanta in 1925, where he worked as a laborer and performed on the streets and at social events. He first recorded in 1928, for Columbia Records, and subsequently released records on several different labels. He recorded on his own during the 1920s and 1930s, first in the style taught by his mother and later in the spreading Piedmont style, but he was best known for duets with Blind Willie McTell, with whom he worked until the 1950s, and for his work with Barbecue Bob, Fred McMullen, and the ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transatlantic Records
Transatlantic Records was a British independent record label. The company was established in 1961, primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom. Within a few years, the company had started recording British and Irish artists. The company's philosophy was intentionally eclectic. History The label was founded by Englishman Nat Joseph who started the company at the age of 21 after visiting the US and realizing that there was a wealth of recorded music that was unavailable in the UK. Transatlantic licensed recordings from the US, such as the jazz labels Prestige and Riverside and the Tradition folk music label. From the outset, many of the covers included photography and design by Brian Shuel. Transatlantic were also instrumental in the importation of MK Records (a Russian classical label), which were then issued with the original Russian labels, but with an English printed sleeve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
