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Mike Kappus
Mike Kappus (born May 24, 1950) is an American music manager and record producer. Kappus was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. The Blues Foundation described Kappus as "the kind of manager and booking agent any musician would want" and "one of the most respected men in the business." In addition to naming Kappus 'Manager / Agent of the Year' an unprecedented four times, Kappus was chosen to induct Eric Clapton (2015), Elvin Bishop (2016), and Mavis Staples (2017) into the Blues Hall of Fame. Biography Mike Kappus was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States. He and some of his friends at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire promoted regional bands and, in 1970 at age 19, Kappus became a licensed booking agent. During this time Kappus promoted Ted Nugent at the State Theater in Eau Claire for $1,000. In 1971, he joined an established agency based in Milwaukee. During the next five years, Kappus procured various musical talent for various clubs and music festiva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Eau Claire (; ) (French for "clear water") is a city mostly located in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, of which it is the county seat, and with a small portion in Chippewa County, Wisconsin. It had a population of 69,421 in 2020, making it the state's eighth-largest city. Eau Claire is the principal city of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin Metropolitan Statistical Area, locally known as the Chippewa Valley, and is also part of the larger Eau Claire-Menomonie Combined Statistical Area. Eau Claire is at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa Rivers on traditional Ojibwe, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk land. The area's first permanent European American settlers arrived in 1845, and Eau Claire was incorporated as a city in 1872. The city's early growth came from its extensive logging and timber industries. After Eau Claire's lumber industry declined in the early 20th century, the city's economy diversified to encompass manufacturing and Eau Claire became an educational center with the opening ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is the 31st largest city in the United States, the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States, and the second largest city on Lake Michigan's shore behind Chicago. It is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee metropolitan area, the fourth-most densely populated metropolitan area in the Midwest. Milwaukee is considered a global city, categorized as "Gamma minus" by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, with a regional GDP of over $102 billion in 2020. Today, Milwaukee is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the U.S. However, it continues to be one of the most racially segregated, largely as a result of early-20th-century redlining. Its history was heavily influenced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Dixon
William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.Trager, Oliver (2004). ''Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia''. Billboard Books. pp. 298–299. . Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated. A short list of his most famous compositions includes "Hoochie Coochie Man", " I Just Want to Make Love to You", "Little Red Rooster", "My Babe", "Spoonful", and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". These songs were written during the peak years of Chess Records, from 1950 to 1965, and wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude". Muddy Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, emulating the local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson."His thick heavy voice, the dark colouration of his tone, and his firm, almost solid, personality were all clearly derived from House," wrote the music historian Peter Guralnick in ''Feel Like Going Home'', "but the embellishments, which he added, the imaginative slide technique and more agile rhythms, were closer to Johnson." He was recorded in Mississippi by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1941. In 1943, he moved to Chicago to become a full-time professi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Styx (band)
Styx () is an American rock band from Chicago that formed in 1972 and is best known for melding hard rock guitar balanced with acoustic guitar, synthesizers mixed with acoustic piano, upbeat tracks with power ballads, and incorporating elements of international musical theatre. The band established itself with a progressive rock sound in the 1970s, and began to incorporate pop rock and soft rock elements in the 1980s. Beginning with '' Styx'' in 1972, the band usually released an album every year throughout the 1970s. '' Styx II'' (1973) had the sleeper hit "Lady", a power ballad which reached No. 6 in the US, helping the album make the top 20. "Lady" was also a top 20 hit in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. ''Equinox'' (1975) and ''Crystal Ball'' (1976) reached the US top 70 with the first featuring "Lorelei", a No. 6 hit in Canada, while the latter marked the addition of Tommy Shaw to the band. Styx's commercial breakthrough in North America came with ''The Grand Illusion'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Benson
George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album ''Breezin''' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the ''Billboard'' album chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. Benson has won ten Grammy Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Biography Early career Benson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of seven, he first played the ukulele in a corner drug store, for which he was paid a few dollars. At the age of eight, he played guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (born Ronald Theodore Kirk; August 7, 1935Kernfeld, Barry.Kirk, Roland" ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'', 2nd ed. Ed. Barry Kernfeld. ''Grove Music Online''. ''Oxford Music Online''. Retrieved February 1, 2009-. "The year of his birth has been widely given as 1936, but his birth certificate gives 1935 and confirms Ronald, not Roland." – December 5, 1977), known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously. Life Ronald Theodore Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he lived in a neighborhood known as Flytown. He became blind at two years old, which he said was a result of improper medical treatment. As a teenager, Kirk studied at the Ohio State School for the Bli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian virtuoso keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer and vocalist Alphonse Mouzon as well as American percussionists Don Alias and Barbara Burton. The band was initially co-led by co-frontmen Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter but, subsequently as the 1970s progressed, Joe Zawinul largely became the sole musical leader of the group. Other prominent members at various points in the band's lifespan included Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson, Victor Bailey, Chester Thompson, Peter Erskine, Airto Moreira, and Alex Acuña. Throughout most of its existence, the band was a quintet consisting of Zawinul, Shorter, a bass guitarist, a drummer, and a percussionist. The band started as a free improvising jazz group with avant-garde and experimental electronic leanings (pioneered by Zawinul); when Vitouš left Weathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grover Washington, Jr
Grover Washington Jr. (December 12, 1943 – December 17, 1999) was an American jazz-funk and soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with Wes Montgomery and George Benson, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre. He wrote some of his material and later became an arranger and producer. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Washington made some of the genre's most memorable hits, including "Mister Magic", "Reed Seed", "Black Frost", "Winelight", "Inner City Blues", "Let it Flow (For 'Dr. J')" and "The Best is Yet to Come". In addition, he performed very frequently with other artists, including Bill Withers on "Just the Two of Us", Patti LaBelle on "The Best Is Yet to Come" and Phyllis Hyman on "A Sacred Kind of Love". He is also remembered for his take on the Dave Brubeck classic "Take Five", and for his 1996 version of "Soulful Strut". Early life Washington was born in Buffalo, New York, United States, on December 12, 1943. His mother was a church choriste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brother Granville "Sticks"(or "Stick") McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the famous song "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-o-Dee," was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board. McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with a local harmony group, the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet, and teaching himself to play guitar. He also played the five-string banjo and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occasionally imitations of trains and fox hunts. Career Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia. His father, a farmer, taught him to play basic blues harp as a youth. He sustained injuries to his eyes and went blind by the time he was 16, which prevented him from doing farm work, and was forced to play music in order to earn a living. Terry played "Campdown Races" to the plow horses which improved the efficiency of farming in the area. He began playing blues in Shelby, North Carolina. After his father died, he began playing with Piedmont blues–style guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. When Fuller died in 1941, Terry established a long-standing musical relationship with Brownie McGhee, and they recorded numerous songs together. The duo became well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bo Diddley
Ellas McDaniel (born Ellas Otha Bates; December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, George Thorogood, and The Clash. His use of African rhythms and a signature beat, a simple five- accent hambone rhythm, is a cornerstone of hip hop, rock, and pop music. In recognition of his achievements, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2017. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Diddley is also recognized for his technical innovations, including his use of tremolo and reverb effects to enhance the sound of his distinctive rectangular-shaped guitars. Early life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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