HOME
*





Muruga Booker
Steven Bookvich known as Muruga Booker (born December 27, 1942) is an American drummer, composer, inventor, artist, recording artist, and an autonomous Eastern Orthodox priest. Biography Booker was born in Detroit, Michigan, on December 27, 1942, at Highland Park General Hospital, and is of Serbian descent. His father, Melvin Bookvich, was a shoemaker who played accordion. He is married to Patti, aka Shakti, and they have a daughter named Rani, and a son named Aaron from a previous marriage. He previously lived in Detroit, New York City and Oakland, California. Since 1985, Booker and his family have lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he has his own recording studio called ''Sage Ct. Studio'',''Muruga Booker and Musart''
on

picture info

Conga
The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). Congas were originally used in Afro-Cuban music genres such as conga (hence their name) and rumba, where each drummer would play a single drum. Following numerous innovations in conga drumming and construction during the mid-20th century, as well as its internationalization, it became increasingly common for drummers to play two or three drums. Congas have become a popular instrument in many forms of Latin music such as son (when played by conjuntos), descarga, Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, songo, merengue and Latin rock. Although the exact origins of the conga drum are unknown, researchers agree that it was developed by Cuban people of African descent during the late 19th century or early 20th century. Its direct ancestors are thought to be ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Uncle Jam
''Uncle Jam Wants You'' is the eleventh studio album by American funk rock band Funkadelic. It was originally released by Warner Bros. Records on September 21, 1979, and was later reissued on CD by Charly Groove Records and Priority Records. It was produced by George Clinton under the alias Dr. Funkenstein. It is the first Funkadelic album since ''America Eats Its Young'' in 1972 not to sport a cover illustrated by Funkadelic artist Pedro Bell, though Bell did provide artwork for the album’s back cover and interior. ''Uncle Jam Wants You'' was the second Funkadelic album to be certified gold. The album peaked at #18 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US ''Billboard'' Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. Significance In some ways, ''Uncle Jam Wants You'' (a reference to the "Uncle Sam wants you!" US Army recruitment posters) is a more militant sequel to the group's previous album, ''One Nation Under a Groove''. Whereas that album described an ideal country ruled by Funk, "Uncle J ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Babatunde Olatunji
Michael Babatunde Olatunji (April 7, 1927 – April 6, 2003) was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist, and recording artist. Early life Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Ogu people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at an early age. His name, Bàbátúndé, means 'father has returned', because he was born two months after his father, an Ogu (Egun) man, Zannu died, and Olatunji was considered to be a reincarnation. His father was a local fisherman who was about to rise to the rank of chieftain, and his mother was a potter who was a member of the Ogu people. Olatunji grew up speaking the Gun (Ogu/Egun) and Yoruba languages. His maternal grandmother and a great-grandmother were priestesses of the Vodun and Ogu religions, and they worshipped the Vodun, such as Kori, the goddess of fertility. Because of his father's premature death, from an early age he was groomed to take ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions. Ginsberg is best known for his poem "Howl", in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. San Francisco police and US Customs seized "Howl" in 1956, and it attracted widespread publicity in 1957 when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it described heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made (male) homosexual acts a crime in every state. The poem reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relatio ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning more than 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and " The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised mainly traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' the following year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex " A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Many of his s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 1960s. Although he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader of the band. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead. As one of its founders, Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for the band's entire 30-year career (1965–1995). Garcia also founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Saunders–Garcia Band (with longtime friend Merl Saunders), the Jerry Garcia Band, Old & In the Way, the Garcia/ Grisman and Garcia/Kahn acoustic duos, Legion of Mary, and New Riders of the Purple Sage (which he co-founded with John Dawson and David Nelson). He also released several solo albums, and contributed to a number of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Rainforest Band
The Rainforest Band was an American jam band that spans several genres, including jazz, rock, world music, R&B, and funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m .... Founded in 1990, it produced four albums and performed for ten years. History The Rainforest Band began in 1990 with the Grammy Award-nominated album ''Blues From the Rainforest'', a collaboration between jazz keyboardist Merl Saunders, percussionist Muruga Booker, and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, with Shakti Booker (vocals), Eddie Moore (percussion), Melvin Seals (sound effects) and Bill Thompson (drum & sampled sound midi-technician). This fusion of world music and jazz was an early hit in a genre which became a category for the Grammys that same year. The music itself was written by Saunders and Booke ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Merl Saunders
Merl Saunders (February 14, 1934 – October 24, 2008) was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ. Biography Born in San Mateo, California, United States, Saunders attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. In his first band in high school was singer Johnny Mathis. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957. He worked as musical director of the Billy Williams Revue and served in a similar capacity in Oscar Brown Jr.'s off-Broadway show, ''Big Time Buck White''. He gained notice in the 1970s when he began collaborating with Jerry Garcia, with whom he had begun playing in 1971 at a small Fillmore Street nightclub called The Matrix. He sat in with the Grateful Dead, and co-founded the Saunders/Garcia Band which produced three albums, and which became the Legion of Mary, with the addition of Martin Fierro (sax) in 1974. It disbanded the following year, but he and Garcia continued to collaborate in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American funk rock band formed in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1968 and active until 1982. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, pioneered the funk music culture of the 1970s.John, Bush. Funkadelic: Biography ''AllMusic''. Initially formed as a backing band for Clinton's vocal group the Parliaments, Funkadelic eventually pursued a heavier, more psychedelic rock-oriented sound. They released acclaimed albums such as ''Maggot Brain'' (1971) and ''One Nation Under a Groove'' (1978). History Background The group that would become Funkadelic was formed by George Clinton in 1964, as the unnamed backing section for his doo wop group The Parliaments while on tour. The band originally consisted of musicians Frankie Boyce, Richard Boyce, and Langston Booth plus the five members of the Parliaments on vocals. Boyce, Boyce, and Booth enlisted in the Army in 1966, and Clinton recruited bassist Billy Bass Nelson and guitarist Eddie Hazel in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

George Clinton (funk Musician)
George Edward Clinton (born July 22, 1941) is an American musician, singer, bandleader, and record producer. His Parliament-Funkadelic collective (which primarily recorded under the distinct band names Parliament and Funkadelic) developed an influential and eclectic form of funk music during the 1970s that drew on science fiction, outlandish fashion, psychedelia, and surreal humor. He launched his solo career with the 1982 album '' Computer Games'' and would go on to influence 1990s hip hop and G-funk. Clinton is regarded, along with James Brown and Sly Stone, as one of the foremost innovators of funk music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, alongside 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. In 2019, he and Parliament-Funkadelic were given Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards. Career Beginnings George Edward Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, and currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida. During his t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched a successful solo career with "Solsbury Hill" as his first single. His fifth studio album, '' So'' (1986), is his best-selling release and is certified triple platinum in the UK and five times platinum in the US. The album's most successful single, " Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and, according to a report in 2011, it was MTV's most played music video of all time. Gabriel has been a champion of world music for much of his career. He co-founded the WOMAD festival in 1982. He has continued to focus on producing and promoting world music through his Real World Records label. He has also pioneered digital distribution methods for music, co-founding OD2, one of the first online music download ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


James Gurley
James Martin Gurley (December 22, 1939 – December 20, 2009) was an American musician. He is best known as the principal lead guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic/acid rock band from San Francisco which was fronted by singer Janis Joplin from 1966 to 1968. Early life Gurley was born in Detroit, Michigan. He taught himself to play the guitar when he was nineteen. He spent four years at Detroit's Catholic Brothers of the Holy Cross, studying to be a priest. 1960s–1970s He and his wife Nancy moved to San Francisco in 1962. He played with JP Pickens and the Progressive Bluegrass Boys for a time. He joined Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1965. His fearlessly wild guitar playing made the band's reputation for "far-out" psychedelic experimentation. He said it developed from his admiration of John Coltrane's barrier-breaking saxophone solos. With Joplin's departure, Big Brother and the Holding Company briefly disbanded in 1968, but a new lineup ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]