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Johnny Maddox
Johnny Maddox (August 4, 1927 – November 27, 2018) was an American ragtime pianist, historian, and collector of music memorabilia. Life and career John Sheppard Maddox Jr. was born in 1927 in Gallatin, Tennessee. His interest in the ragtime era was fueled by his great-aunt Zula Cothron. She played with an all-girls' orchestra at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and later played in vaudeville. Maddox studied classical music for nineteen years with Margaret Neal and Prudence Simpson Dresser, who studied in Europe for a short time with Franz Liszt. One of his teachers of popular music, Lela Donoho, accompanied silent movies in his hometown of Gallatin, Tennessee. He played his first public concert when he was five and began his professional career in 1939 playing with a local dance band, the Rhythmasters, led by J. O. "Temp" Templeton. Around 1946, Maddox started working for his friend Randy Wood at Randy's Record Shop in Gallatin, where Wood founded Dot Rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gallatin, Tennessee
Gallatin is a city in and the county seat of Sumner County, Tennessee. The population was 30,278 at the 2010 census and 44,431 at the 2020 census. Named for United States Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, the city was established on the Cumberland River and made the county seat of Sumner County in 1802. It is located about 30.6 miles northeast of the state capital of Nashville, Tennessee. Several national companies have facilities or headquarters in Gallatin, including Facebook, Gap, Inc., Beretta and Servpro Industries, Inc. Gallatin was formerly the headquarters of Dot Records. The city is also the site of Volunteer State Community College, a two-year college with more than 70 degree programs. In 2017, Gallatin was ranked as "The Nicest Place In America" by ''Reader's Digest''. History Gallatin was established in 1802 as the permanent county seat of Sumner County, in what is called the Middle Tennessee region of the state. The town was named after Albert Gallati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Wills
James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although Spade Cooley self-promoted the moniker "King of Western Swing" from 1942 to 1969). Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around the South and West until he formed the Texas Playboys in 1934 with Wills on fiddle, Tommy Duncan on piano and vocals, rhythm guitarist June Whalin, tenor banjoist Johnnie Lee Wills, and Kermit Whalin who played steel guitar and bass. Oklahoma guitar player Eldon Shamblin joined the band in 1937 bringing jazzy influence and arrangements. The band played regularly on Tulsa, Oklahoma, radio station KVOO and added Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar, pianist Al Stricklin, drummer Smokey Dacus, and a horn section that expanded the band's sound. Wills favored jazz-like arrangements and the band found national ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler (November 8, 1927 – January 1, 2013), known professionally as Patti Page, was an American singer and actress. Primarily known for pop and country music, she was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female artist of the 1950s, selling over 100 million records during a six-decade-long career. She was often introduced as "the Singin' Rage, Miss Patti Page". New York WBBR, WNEW disc-jockey William B. Williams (DJ), William B. Williams introduced her as "A Page in my life called Patti". Page signed with Mercury Records in 1947, and became their first successful female artist, starting with 1948's "Confess (song), Confess". In 1950, she had her first million-selling single "With My Eyes Wide Open, I'm Dreaming", and eventually had 14 additional million-selling singles between 1950 and 1965. Page's signature song, "Tennessee Waltz", was one of the biggest-selling singles of the 20th century, and is recognized today as one of the official songs of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Loco
José Estevez Jr. (March 27, 1921 in New York City - March 7, 1988), professionally known as Joe Loco, was a Latin jazz and Latin pop pianist and arranger of Puerto Rican ancestry. Life Loco, maybe born José Estevez Jr. but officially known as Joseph Esteves, first played with an ensemble called Montecino's Happy Boys in 1938. In the early 1940s, he served as Machito's pianist before joining the Air Force from 1945 to 1947. He then freelanced with many of the top Latin ensembles of the time well into the 1950s, working with Polito Galíndez, Marcelino Guerra, Pupi Campo, and Julio Andino. He scored a hit of his own in 1952 with the tune "Tenderly". Loco also did Latin arrangements of pop standards, and performed them with a quintet in many jazz venues that did not typically showcase Latin music. Discography * ''El Baión'' (Tico, 1954) * ''Loco Motion'' (Columbia 760, 1955) * ''¡Vaya! With Joe Loco'' (Columbia 827, 1956) * ''Joe Loco in the Philippines'' (Villar, 1961) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazel Scott
Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidad-born American jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representation of Black Americans in film. Born in Port of Spain, Scott moved to New York City with her mother at the age of four. Scott was a child musical prodigy, receiving scholarships to study at the Juilliard School when she was eight. In her teens, she performed at Café Society while still at school. She also performed on the radio. She was active as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first black American to host her own TV show, ''The Hazel Scott Show''. Her career in America faltered after she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950 during the era of McCarthyism. Scott subsequently moved to Paris in 1957 and began performing in Europe, not returning to the United States until 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texaco Star Theatre
''Texaco Star Theater'' was an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr. Television". The classic 1940–1944 version of the program, hosted by radio's Fred Allen, was followed by a radio series on ABC (the former NBC Blue) in the spring of 1948. When Texaco (now Chevron Corporation) first took it to television on NBC on June 8, 1948, the show had a huge cultural impact. Once Texaco ended its sponsorship in 1953, the show became known as ''The Milton Berle Show'' for its final few seasons. Radio The roots of ''Texaco Star Theater'' were in a 1930s radio hit, ''Ed Wynn, the Fire Chief'', featuring the manic "Perfect Fool" in a half-hour of vaudevillian routines interspersed with music. Wynn's ratings began to slide and the comedian lapsed amidst personal and professional crises, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel music, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelic music, psychedelia; for Concert, live performances of lengthy jam session, instrumental jams that typically incorporated mode (music), modal and tonality, tonal musical improvisation, improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in its "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, The Greatest Artists of All Time" issue. The ... [...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] |
Bill Randle
Bill Randle (March 14, 1923 – July 9, 2004) was an American disc jockey, lawyer and university professor. Randle was born William McKinley Randle Jr. in Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit, he hosted a popular show on WJLB-AM radio (now WDTK) called ''The Interracial Goodwill Hour'', featuring rhythm and blues music and hot jazz. As a pioneering disc jockey at radio station WERE in Cleveland, Ohio, he helped change the face of American music. In the 1950s, ''Time'' magazine called Randle the top DJ in America. His popularity and huge listening audience allowed him to bolster the careers of a number of young musicians, including the Four Lads, Bobby Darin, and Fats Domino. Nicknamed "The Pied Piper of Cleveland", a 1955 musical documentary film was made about him titled '' The Pied Piper of Cleveland: A Day in the Life of a Famous Disc Jockey''. The film includes a Cleveland concert at Brooklyn High School on October 20, 1955, featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets with Elvis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Schulz-Reichel
Fritz Schulz-Reichel (July 4, 1912 – February 14, 1990) was a German jazz and pop pianist. Schulz-Reichel was born in Meiningen. His father was a classical musician, and he began playing piano at the age of six. He developed an unusual technique where he played the melody of a tune with the left hand and the rhythm with the right hand. While he trained to be a concert pianist, he chose a career in pop music, playing light jazz and pop tunes. He invented a device called the Tipsy Wire Box, which could be attached to a piano to make it sound like an out-of-tune barrelhouse upright. (Another interpretation is that "Tipsy Wire Box" was a slang expression for the piano itself, which was merely "detuned"; that is, one of the three strings that make up each note of the main section of the piano is slightly flatted, giving the piano the characteristic sound.) In 1953 he adopted the moniker ''Schräger Otto'' (Crazy Otto), and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. His tunes became hits in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. In turn, Polydor distributes Interscope releases in the United Kingdom. Polydor Records Ltd. was established in London in 1954 as a British subsidiary of German company Deutsche Grammophon/Schallplatte Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972. Notable current and past artists signed to the label include ABBA, Cream, The Moody Blues, The Who, Ringo Starr, Bee Gees, The Jam, Bing Crosby, The Shadows, James Brown, Level 42, Ellie Goulding, Juice WRLD, Piri & Tommy, James Last, Eric Clapton, Marie Osmond, Keith O'Conner Murphy, Yngwie Malmsteen, Lana Del Rey, Haim, and Buckingham Nicks. Label history Beginnings Polydor Records was founded on 2 April 1913 by German Polyphon-Musikwerke AG in Leipzig and registered on 25 July 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Play A Simple Melody
"Play a Simple Melody" is a song from the 1914 musical, '' Watch Your Step'', with words and music by Irving Berlin. The show was the first stage musical that Berlin wrote. It ran for 175 performances at the New Amsterdam Theater in New York City. The one song from the show that is well-remembered today is "Play a Simple Melody," one of the few true examples of counterpoint in American popular music — a melody running against a second melody, each with independent lyrics. Two other of Berlin's so-called "double" songs are "You're Just in Love," and "An Old-Fashioned Wedding". In the printed music, first the "simple melody" plays alone. Then comes the contrasting melody. Finally, the two play together. The lyrics of "Play a Simple Melody" also track the counterpoint duet in that one singer yearns for the music which mother sang (the style of a bygone generation), but the other singer disdains such classic fare as lacking interest and rhythm. When "Play a Simple Melody" was published ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
