Mick Softley
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Mick Softley
Michael Softley (26 September 1939 – 1 September 2017) was an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A figurehead during the British folk scene, Softley set up his own folk club, released three albums and worked with performers such as Mac MacLeod, Donovan, and Maddy Prior. Donovan covered two of Softley's songs ("Goldwatch Blues" and "The War Drags On") in 1965. Dave Berry also covered two of Softley's songs ("Walk Walk Talk Talk" and "I Love You Baby") in 1966. Early life Born at Danbury Palace Emergency Maternity Hospital, South Woodford, Softley grew up in Essex near Epping Forest.Eder, BruceMick Softley Biography, Allmusic. Retrieved 6 November 2013 His mother was of Irish origin (from County Cork) and his father had East Anglian tinker roots, going back to a few generations. Softley first took up trombone in school and became interested in traditional jazz. He was later persuaded to become a singer by one of his school teachers, and this led to him listening to Big ...
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South Woodford
South Woodford is an area of east London, England, within the London Borough of Redbridge. It adjoins Woodford Green to the north, Walthamstow to the west, Snaresbrook and Wanstead to the south and Redbridge to the east, and is north-east of Charing Cross. Epping Forest runs adjacent to South Woodford in the west of the area. Historically part of the ancient parish of Woodford St Mary, in the Becontree hundred of Essex, the area was largely rural before developing rapidly in the 19th century. It became part of the Metropolitan Police District in 1840 and has been part of the London postal district since its inception in 1856, the same year that South Woodford station, now on the Central line of the London Underground, opened. South Woodford formed part of Woodford Urban District from 1894 to 1934, then part of the Municipal Borough of Wanstead and Woodford until 1965, when Greater London was created. Amenities South Woodford's retail and business area is cen ...
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Clive Palmer (musician)
Clive Harold Palmer (14 May 1943 – 23 November 2014) was an English folk musician and banjoist, best known as a founding member of the Incredible String Band. Biography Born in Edmonton, North London, Palmer first went on stage at the age of 8, and took banjo lessons from the age of 10. Around 1957 he began playing with jazz bands in Soho. He began busking with Wizz Jones in Paris in 1959–60, before moving to Edinburgh in late 1962. By now a virtuoso banjo player, he teamed up as a duo with singer and guitarist Robin Williamson in 1963, playing traditional and bluegrass songs. They became the Incredible String Band in 1965 when they decided to develop their sound and their own writing talents, and added a third member, Mike Heron. Early in 1966, he also ran "Clive's Incredible Folk Club" in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.Adrian Whittaker (ed.), ''Be Glad: The Incredible String Band Compendium'', 2003, After recording the first ISB album, ''The Incredible String Band'' with ...
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Tony Cox (record Producer)
Tony Cox is a British record producer and arranger. As such he was influential in late 1960s and 1970s folk rock developments and the fledgling progressive rock scene, and has since worked primarily as a composer and orchestrator. Career He entered the music business as a performer in 1966, and as a duo with Douglas MacRae-Brown released ''The Young Idea'' LP in 1967, and had a UK top ten hit single with a cover version of the Lennon-McCartney song "With a Little Help from My Friends". (The album was re-issued on CD in 2009 with previously unreleased tracks.) He continued performing in the studio with various acts he produced such as Trees and Mick Softley. He was an early adopter of the EMS VCS 3 synthesizer and in 1971 played on the Spirogyra album ''St. Radigunds'', and Mike Heron's album ''Smiling Men With Bad Reputations''. In 1972 he played piano with The Bunch alongside Sandy Denny on vocals, and in 1976 he played synth on Martin Carthy's ''Crown Of Horn'' LP. In 1974 ...
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Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as "This Land Is Your Land", written in response to the American exceptionalist song "God Bless America". Guthrie wrote hundreds of country, folk, and children's songs, along with ballads and improvised works. '' Dust Bowl Ballads'', Guthrie's album of songs about the Dust Bowl period, was included on '' Mojo'' magazine's list of 100 Records That Changed The World, and many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Songwriters who have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence on their work include Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Robert Hunter, Harry Chapin, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy ...
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Strange Fruit
"Strange Fruit" is a song written and composed by Abel Meeropol (under his pseudonym Lewis Allan) and recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939. The lyrics were drawn from a poem by Meeropol published in 1937. The song protests the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit of trees. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the Southern United States at the turn of the 20th century and the great majority of victims were black.Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma (New York, 1944), page 561. The song has been called "a declaration" and "the beginning of the civil rights movement". Meeropol set his lyrics to music with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan and performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden. Holiday's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978. It was also included in the "Songs of the Century" list of the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the ...
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Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills. After a turbulent childhood, Holiday began singing in nightclubs in Harlem, where she was heard by producer John Hammond, who liked her voice. She signed a recording contract with Brunswick in 1935. Collaborations with Teddy Wilson produced the hit " What a Little Moonlight Can Do", which became a jazz standard. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Holiday had mainstream success on labels such as Columbia and Decca. By the late 1940s, however, she was beset with legal troubles and drug abuse. After a short prison sentence, she performed at a sold-out c ...
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Extended Play
An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.Official Charts Company , access-date=March 21, 2017 Contemporary EPs generally contain four or five tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of other than 78
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Geoff Stephens
Geoffrey Stephens (1 October 1934 – 24 December 2020) was an English songwriter and record producer, most prolific in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s. He wrote a long series of hit records, often in conjunction with other British songwriters including Tony Macaulay, John Carter, Roger Greenaway, Peter Callander, Barry Mason, Ken Howard, Alan Blaikley, Don Black, Mitch Murray, and Les Reed. He also formed The New Vaudeville Band, and their song " Winchester Cathedral" won Stephens the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording. Early life Stephens was born in New Southgate, North London in 1934. At the end of the Second World War, the family moved to Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex to open a guesthouse. There on its easterly location Stephens was able to listen to jazz and American pop on the American Forces Network broadcast from Germany and Radio Luxembourg, which together with listening to classical music at home, instilled a love of music in ...
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Peter Eden
Peter Eden (born 1943) is a British former record producer and record label executive, best known for his work in the mid-1960s with Donovan, and later with jazz musicians such as John Surman. Biography Eden was born in Hadleigh, Essex. In his teens, he became the drummer in the New Deal Skiffle Group, and then in local groups the Colin Dale Combo and The Problems. He turned professional in the early 1960s, and became a backing musician for such singers as Susan Maughan and Mike Sarne. After his group split up, he helped run the Studio Club at Westcliff-on-Sea, and managed local R&B band The Cops’n’Robbers. Daryl Easlea, "The managers that built prog: Peter Eden", ''LouderSound.com'', 21 February 2017
Retrieved 1 Septembe ...
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Immediate Records
Immediate Records was a British record label, started in 1965 by The Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder, and concentrating on the London-based blues and R&B scene. History Immediate Records was started in 1965. Signed musicians included Rod Stewart, P.P. Arnold, songwriter Paul Korda, Billy Nicholls, John Mayall, Savoy Brown, Small Faces, The Nice, Fleetwood Mac, The Groundhogs, Chris Farlowe, Duncan Browne and Humble Pie. Due to financial problems, the label ceased operations in 1970, and it has been the subject of controversy ever since. This is especially true in regard to unpaid royalties owed to the Small Faces, who made numerous hit recordings for the label between 1967 and 1969. Despite their success, the band received virtually no income from these often re-released records, until legal action finally secured payments from the present licencees in the early 2000s. According to Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones, most of Immediate Records' asse ...
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St Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and became the city of Verulamium. It is within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area. Name St Albans takes its name from the first British saint, Alban. The most elaborate version of his story, Bede's '' Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', relates that he lived in Verulamium, sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, when Christians were suffering persecution. Alban met a Christian priest fleeing from his persecutors and sheltered him in his house, where he became so impressed with the priest's piety that he converted to Christianity. When the authorities searched Alban's house, he put on the priest's cloak and presented himself in place of his gu ...
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Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500. Developed after the Second World War as a new town, it has existed since the 8th century and was granted its town charter by Henry VIII in 1539. Nearby towns are Watford, St Albans and Berkhamsted. History Origin of the name The settlement was called by the name Henamsted or Hean-Hempsted in Anglo-Saxon times and in William the Conqueror's time by the name of Hemel-Amstede. The name is referred to in the Domesday Book as Hamelamestede, but in later centuries it became Hamelhamsted, and, possibly, Hemlamstede. In Old English, ''-stead'' or ''-stede'' simply meant "place" (reflected in German ''Stadt'' and Dutch ''stede'' or ''stad'', meaning "city" or "town"), such as the site of a building or pasture, as in clearing in the woods, and this suffix is used in the names of other Engli ...
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