James Armstrong (musician)
James Armstrong (born April 22, 1957, Los Angeles, California, United States) is an American soul blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He released three albums on HighTone Records and is signed with Catfood Records. His songs have been used in the soundtracks of three films; '' Speechless'', '' Hear No Evil'', and '' The Florentine''. Biography Armstrong's father was a jazz guitarist and his mother a blues singer. Having learned the guitar at a young age, Armstrong formed his first band at school, and was touring the United States in his late teens. Inspired by Albert King and Robert Cray, his musical education included backing musicians such as Albert Collins, Big Joe Turner and Smokey Wilson. Armstrong relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 1995, released his debut album, ''Sleeping with a Stranger'', on HighTone. However, in April 1997, Armstrong was almost stabbed to death by an intruder at his home. The shoulder injury necessitated months of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Florentine
''The Florentine'' is a 1999 film directed by Nick Stagliano and produced by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope. It stars Jeremy Davies,Michael Madsen, and Chris Penn. The film was shot in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania in the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and in the Lehigh Valley borough of Hellertown. Cast *Jeremy Davies as Truby *Michael Madsen as "Whitey" *Chris Penn as Bobby *Luke Perry as Frankie * Tom Sizemore as Teddy Finn *Virginia Madsen as Molly *Mary Stuart Masterson as Vikki *Hal Holbrook as "Smitty" *Burt Young as Joe McCollough *James Belushi as Billy Belasco * Lillo Brancato as "Pretty" *Jill Hennessy as Brenda *Maeve Quinlan Maeve Quinlan (born November 16, 1964, Chicago) is an American actress. She is best known for starring as Megan Conley for 11 years in ''The Bold and the Beautiful'' and for the series ''South of Nowhere''. Raised in Northfield, a North Shore su ... as Claire Reception References External links * 1999 drama ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rhythm Section
A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band. The rhythm section is often contrasted with the roles of other musicians in the band, such as the lead guitarist or lead vocals whose primary job is to carry the melody. The core elements of the rhythm section are usually the drum kit and bass. The drums and bass provide the basic pulse and groove of a song. The section is augmented by other instruments such as keyboard instruments and guitars that are used to play the chord progression upon which the song is based. The bass instrument (either double bass or electric bass guitar, or another low-register instrument, such as synth bass, depending on the group and its style of music) plays the low-pitched bassline. The bassline is a musical part that supports the chord progression, typically by playing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Recording Studio
A recording studio is a specialized facility for sound recording, mixing, and audio production of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single singer-guitarist, to a large building with space for a full orchestra of 100 or more musicians. Ideally, both the recording and monitoring (listening and mixing) spaces are specially designed by an acoustician or audio engineer to achieve optimum acoustic properties (acoustic isolation or diffusion or absorption of reflected sound echoes that could otherwise interfere with the sound heard by the listener). Recording studios may be used to record singers, instrumental musicians (e.g., electric guitar, piano, saxophone, or ensembles such as orchestras), voice-over artists for advertisements or dialogue replacement in film, television, or animation, foley, or to record their accompanying musical soundtracks. The typical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east. Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the nation with over 13 million residents as of 2020. It is the 33rd-largest state by area and ranks ninth among all states in population density. The southeastern Delaware Valley metropolitan area comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth most populous city. Another 2.37 million reside in Greater Pittsburgh in the southwest, centered around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest and Western Pennsylvania's largest city. The state's su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Doug MacLeod (musician)
Doug MacLeod (born April 21, 1946 in New York City, United States) is an American storytelling blues musician. Although now associated with his home in Memphis, he has lived and worked in North Carolina, St. Louis, New York, Los Angeles, and Norfolk, Virginia, where he was stationed in the United States Navy. He became acquainted with the blues in St Louis in his teens and started his career playing country blues on acoustic guitar, finding that singing eased a stutter and helped him to manage it. Although predominantly associated with acoustic guitar, his skills were developed as a blues bass player, and honed by his subsequent journeys into jazz and electric blues. Influences MacLeod's formative blues instruction is attributed to a man he knew as Ernest Banks who also gave him the guiding principles of his music and performances: *''"Never play a note you don't believe"'' *''"Never write or sing about what you don't know about"'' He also formed a strong friendship with George " ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker, also known as JLW (born December 25, 1949) is an American musician, best known as an electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. His knowledge of blues history is revealed by his use of older material and playing styles. ''NPR Music'' described him as "Powerful, soul-stirring, fierce and gritty...a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues." Another music journalist noted "If you define 'blues' by the rigid categories of structure rather than the flexible language of feeling allusion, Robert Cray... Larry Garner, Joe Louis Walker and James Armstrong are a new and uncategorizable breed, their music blues-like rather than blues, each of them blending ideas and devices from a variety of sources – soul, rock, jazz, gospel – with a sophistication beyond the reach of their forerunners". Career He was born Louis Joseph Walker Jr. in San Francisco, United States. He came from a musical family, amidst the early influences of T-Bone Wal ... [...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 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Governments to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties that do not border the bay such as Santa Cruz and San Benito (more often included in the Central Coast regions); or San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus (more often included in the Central Valley). The core cities of the Bay Area are San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. Home to approximately 7.76 million people, Northern California's nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a comp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Smokey Wilson
Robert Lee "Smokey" Wilson (July 11, 1936 – September 8, 2015) was an American West Coast blues guitarist. He spent most of his career performing West Coast blues and juke joint blues in Los Angeles, California. He recorded a number of albums for record labels such as P-Vine Records, Bullseye Blues and Texmuse Records. His career got off to a late start, with international recognition eluding him until the 1990s. Biography Wilson was born in Glen Allan, Mississippi, and raised in Lake Village, Arkansas, He played alongside Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, Big Jack Johnson, and Frank Frost, before his move to Los Angeles in 1970. He opened the Pioneer Club in Watts, where he was the frontman of the house band. He also In booked blues musicians to perform at the club, including Big Joe Turner, Percy Mayfield, Pee Wee Crayton and Albert Collins. His down-to-earth guitar playing was typical of his Mississippi Delta background. "I bring the cotton-field with me," he said, "and I got the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Big Joe Turner
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." His greatest fame was due to his rock-and-roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues. Career Early days Turner was born May 18, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. His father was killed in a train accident when Turner was four years old. He sang in his church, and on street corners for money. He left school at age fourteen to work in Kansas City's nightclubs, first as a cook and later as a singing bartender. He became known as "The Singing Barman", and worked in such venues as the Kingfish Club and the Sunset, where he and his par ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Albert Collins
Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man (October 1, 1932 – November 24, 1993),Skeely, Richard. "Albert Collins: Biography" Allmusic.com. was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title "The Master of the Telecaster". Early life Collins was born in Leona, Texas, on October 1, 1932. He was introduced to the guitar at an early age by his cousin Lightnin' Hopkins, also a Leona resident, who played at family gatherings. The Collins family relocated to Marquez, Texas, in 1938 and to Houston in 1941,Obrecht, Jas, ed. (1993). ''Blues Guitar: The Men Who Made the Music''. 2nd ed. Miller Freeman Books. pp. 246–259. . where he attended Jack Yates High School.''Albert Collins''. Vital Blues Guitar Series. Transcriptions by Richard DeVinck. Creative Concepts Publishing (California), 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |