Cosimo Matassa
Cosimo Vincent Matassa (April 13, 1926 – September 11, 2014) was an American recording engineer and studio owner, responsible for many R&B and early rock and roll recordings. Life and career Matassa was born in New Orleans in 1926.Komorowski, Adam. Liner notes. ''The Cosimo Matassa Story'' (CD). In 1944 he began studies as a chemistry major at Tulane University, which he abandoned after completing five semesters of course work. In 1945, at the age of 18, Matassa opened the J&M Recording Studio at the back of his family's shop on Rampart Street, on the border of the French Quarter in New Orleans. In 1955, he moved to the larger Cosimo Recording Studio on Gov. Nichols Street, nearby in the French Quarter. As an engineer and proprietor, Matassa was crucial to the development of the sound of R&B, rock and soul of the 1950s and 1960s, often working with the producers Dave Bartholomew and Allen Toussaint. He recorded many hits, including Fats Domino’s " The Fat Man" (a contende ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nueva Orleans) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census, it is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, most populous city in Louisiana and the twelfth-most populous city in the southeastern United States. Serving as a List of ports in the United States, major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast region of the United States. New Orleans is world-renowned for its Music of New Orleans, distinctive music, Louisiana Creole cuisine, Creole cuisine, New Orleans English, uniq ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First Rock And Roll Record
The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music. The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but it was used by the early 20th century, both to describe a spiritual fervor and as a sexual analogy. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently – but still intermittently – in the late 1930s and 1940s, principally on recordings and in reviews of what became known as "rhythm and blues" music aimed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Music Of New Orleans
The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana, is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has sometimes been called traditional jazz, 'New Orleans', and 'New Orleans jazz'. However, the tradition of jazz in New Orleans has taken on various forms that have either branched out from original dixieland or taken entirely different paths altogether. New Orleans has also been a prominent center of funk, home to some of the earliest funk bands such as The Meters. Background The African influence on New Orleans music can trace its roots at least back to Congo Square in New Orleans in 1835, when slaves would congregate there to play music and dance on Sundays. African music was played as well as local music, including that of local white composers, such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Along wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Make It Funky (film)
''Make It Funky!'' is a 2005 American documentary film directed, written and co-produced by Michael Murphy. Subtitled in the original version as "It all began in New Orleans", the film presents a history of New Orleans music and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk and jazz. The film was scheduled for theatrical release in September 2005, but was pulled by distributor Sony Pictures Releasing so that they did not appear to take commercial advantage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Using an April 27, 2004 concert at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans as the backdrop, the film also includes archival performance footage, still photographs, and interviews with many musicians and others involved in the early years and heyday of New Orleans music. The film is narrated by Art Neville, and the interviewees include local music pioneers Allen Toussaint, Lloyd Price, Irma Thomas, and Aaron Neville, contemporary New Orleans musicians Kermit Ruffins and Trom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jimmy Clanton
Jimmy Clanton (born September 2, 1938) is an American singer who became known as the " swamp pop R&B teenage idol". His band recorded a hit song "Just a Dream" which Clanton had written in 1958 for the Ace Records label. It reached number four on the ''Billboard'' chart and sold a million copies. Clanton performed on Dick Clark's ''American Bandstand'' and toured with popular artists like Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Platters. History Clanton formed his first band called the Rockets in 1956 while attending Baton Rouge High School. One of the few white singers to come out of the New Orleans R&B/rock & roll sound, he rode the crest of the popular teen-music wave in the 1950s and 1960s. His records charted in the U.S. Top 40 seven times (all released on Ace); his Top 10 records were: the song "Just a Dream," (Pop #4, R&B #1 in August 1958, credited to 'Jimmy Clanton and His Rockets'), "Go, Jimmy, Go" (peaked at number five in early 1960) and "Venus in Blue Jeans" (peake ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vocal
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 to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Spiders (American Band)
The Spiders were an American R&B vocal group from New Orleans who recorded in the 1950s. Within a span of two years, the group had all five of their entries on the US ''Billboard'' R&B chart. The group was founded as a gospel group in 1947 under the name Zion City Harmonizers, and later sang as the Delta Southernaires, recording and performing on radio under the latter name in 1952–1953. Cosimo Matassa convinced them to begin singing secular music, and in 1953 the five-piece, based around brothers Hayward "Chuck" Carbo (1926–2008) and Leonard "Chick" Carbo (1927–1998), signed with Imperial Records, under the name The Spiders.Steve Huey, "The Spiders" AllMusic. Retrieved 24 June 2019 They had several U.S. hits on the R&B chart in the middle of the decade, including their first single "I Didn't ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tommy Ridgley
Thomas Herman Ridgley (October 30, 1925 – August 11, 1999)Tony Rounce, Tommy Ridgley 'In The Same Old Way': The Complete Ric, Ron and Sho-Biz recordings, Ace records UK (2015). was an American R&B singer, pianist, songwriter and bandleader in New Orleans, Louisiana.Jeff Hanusch, The Soul Of New Orleans: A Legacy of Rhythm and Blues, Chapter four on Tommy Ridgley: The New Orleans King Of The Stroll, Swallow publications, Ville Platte, Louisiana, USA (2001). In a musical career lasting half a century Ridgley was a stalwart of the New Orleans rhythm and blues scene. Although he never had a national hit , unlike several of his contemporaries, he made numerous, popular recordings that sold mainly in New Orleans and Louisiana beginning in 1949 with a final release in 1995. His voice was variously described as similar to Roy Brown and Bull Moose JacksonNew Orleans Soul 60s: The Watch label, Mardi Gras records , sleeve notes (2000) and thus able to adapt to a variety of styles: B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bobby Mitchell (singer)
Bobby Mitchell (August 16, 1935 – March 17, 1989) was an American, New Orleans-based, rhythm & blues singer and songwriter. Mitchell was born in the Algiers section of New Orleans. He was a popular recording artist in the 1950s and early 1960s, making records for Imperial Records, Show Biz Records and Rip Records. He first recorded in his teens with the doo-wop group "The Toppers", which was broken up as most of the members were drafted. Mitchell's single "Try Rock 'n Roll," hit the top 20 of the US ''Billboard'' R&B chart in 1956. Many of his sessions were arranged by Dave Bartholomew. His single "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday" was a hit, pre dating the more famous cover of the tune by Fats Domino and got Mitchell an appearance on ''American Bandstand''. In the early 1980s he did radio shows at WWOZ WWOZ (90.7 FM) is a non-profit community-supported radio station in New Orleans. It is owned by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. The station specializes in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Smiley Lewis
A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such as emoticons. The smiley began as two dots and a line to represent eyes and a mouth. More elaborate designs in the 1950s emerged, with noses, eyebrows, and outlines. A yellow and black design was used by New York-based radio station WMCA for its ''" Good Guys"'' campaign in the early 1960s. More yellow-and-black designs appeared in the 1960s and '70s, including works by Franklin Loufrani and Harvey Ross Ball.Ethridge, Mark. “Several Firms Claim to Be Originators of Smile Button.” ''Nashua Telegraph''. September 9, 1971. https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-sep-09-1971-3502894/ Today, The Smiley Company holds many rights to the smiley ideogram and has become one of the biggest licensing companies globally. In October o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lee Dorsey
Irving Lee Dorsey (December 24, 1924 – December 1, 1986) was an American pop and R&B singer during the 1960s. His biggest hits were "Ya Ya" (1961) and " Working in the Coal Mine" (1966). Much of his work was produced by Allen Toussaint, with instrumental backing provided by the Meters. Career Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Dorsey was a childhood friend of Fats Domino. He moved to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old. He served in the United States Navy in World War II and began a career in prizefighting. Boxing as a featherweight in Portland in the early 1950s, he fought under the name Kid Chocolate and was not successful, fighting only one time and being knocked out in the second round. He returned to New Orleans in 1955, where he opened an auto repair business as well as singing in clubs at night. His first recording was "Rock Pretty Baby/Lonely Evening" on Cosimo Mattasa's Rex label, in 1958. This was followed by "Lottie Mo/Lover of Love", for the small Valiant l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |