|
Gary Katz
Gary Katz is an American record producer, best known for his work on albums by Steely Dan. Katz has also produced numerous other recording artists and assisted in the discovery and signing of a number of subsequently successful acts. Career A lifelong music fan, Katz grew up in Brooklyn listening to Chuck Berry and Fats Domino on a transistor radio. He had friends in the band Jay and the Americans who were his connection to the music business. The band worked with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who produced hit records for the Coasters and the Drifters. After Katz spent time with Leiber and Stoller in the studio, he realized he wanted to be a record producer. His first job after graduating from school was with singer Bobby Darin. Darin admired Bobby Kennedy, and when Kennedy was shot, Darin dropped out of music. Katz found work at Avco Embassy, but two years later the company closed. A friend in Los Angeles who was working for Dunhill Records suggested Katz write a letter to J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 in New York by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Initially the band had a stable lineup, but in 1974, Becker and Fagen retired from live performances to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. ''Rolling Stone'' has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies". Becker and Fagen played together in a variety of bands from their time together studying at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. They later moved to Los Angeles, gathered a band of musicians, and began recording albums. Their first album, ''Can't Buy a Thrill'' (1972), established a template for their career, blending elements of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, bluesAllMusic Steely Dan: Biography and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics. The band enjoyed critical and commercial success through seven studio album ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaka Khan
Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan (), is an American singer. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the " Queen of Funk", Khan was the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with " I Feel for You" in 1984. Khan has won ten Grammy Awards and has sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide. With Rufus, she achieved four gold singles, four gold albums, and two platinum albums. In the course of her solo career, Khan achieved three gold singles, three gold albums, and one platinum album with '' I Feel for You''. She has collaborated with Steve Winwood, Ry Cooder, Robert Palmer, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Guru, Chicago, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, among others. In December 2016, ''Billboard'' magazine ranked her as the 65th most successful dance artist of all time. She was ranked at No. 17 in VH1's original list of the 100 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Jefferson Kaye
Thomas Jefferson Kontos (1940 – September 16, 1994), better known as Thomas Jefferson Kaye, was an American record producer, singer-songwriter and musician. He collaborated with The Shirelles, Loudon Wainwright III, and Gene Clark, and also recorded solo albums. Life and career He claimed to have been born in North Dakota in 1940, though some sources suggest a date around 1942. By 1956, when known as Tommy Kontos, he started a vocal group, The Blaretones, in New York City, before forming a new group, the Rock-Abouts, the following year. They changed their name to The Ideals in 1958, and recorded two singles for Decca Records. The group regularly backed singer Joey Dee, before he formed the Starliters. Kontos then joined Scepter Records as an A&R man, reputedly at the age of 18, and changed his name to Kaye at the suggestion of company owner Florence Greenberg. During the 1960s, he wrote and produced material at Scepter and its subsidiary Wand Records for The Shirelles (for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zazu (album)
''Zazu'' (1986) is the debut (and, to date, only) album released by American model and singer-songwriter Rosie Vela. The album was produced by Gary Katz, best known for his work in that capacity with Steely Dan, and many of the songs feature Steely Dan's Donald Fagen on keyboards and Walter Becker on guitar. Also noteworthy is that Tony Levin plays Chapman stick on the songs "Tonto" and "Zazu". Despite receiving positive reviews and the single "Magic Smile" reaching No. 29 on the ''Billboard'' Adult Contemporary chart, ''Zazu'' was a commercial failure in Vela's native United States. However it was more successful in Europe, notably in the United Kingdom where it reached No. 20 on the national albums chart and earned a Silver disc. The single "Magic Smile" was also a UK Top 30 hit. The CD album has been out of print in North America and Europe since the early 1990s but was rereleased in the UK by Cherry Red Records in 2011. In addition to "Magic Smile", two other tracks ("Int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
