Stefan Grossman
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Stefan Grossman
Stefan Grossman (born April 16, 1945) is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs. Early life and influences Born in Brooklyn, United States, Grossman described his upbringing in Queens, New York, as "lower middle-class", and his parents as "very leftist", valuing education and the arts. He began playing acoustic guitar at the age of nine, when his father bought him an archtop-style (f-hole) acoustic guitar made by Harmony. Later he moved on to a Gibson archtop guitar which he played between the ages of nine and eleven, taking lessons and learning to read music. For a few years, he gave up playing but resumed again at the age of 15. Grossman's interest in the folk revival was sparked by attending the Washington Square Park "Hoots". He took guitar lessons for several years from Rev. Gary Davis, whom he later describe ...
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Ruisrock
Ruisrock is a rock festival held annually on the island of Ruissalo in Turku, Finland. Ruisrock, founded in 1970, is the second oldest rock festival in Europe (after Pinkpop) and the oldest in Finland. The festival has attracted international artists throughout its lifetime except around the start of the 2000s (decade), due to the organiser's economic issues. History The festival area is divided into two sections, Niittyalue ("meadow section") and Ranta-alue ("beach section"). In 2005, when the German industrial metal band Rammstein performed at the festival, 71,000 visitors attended the festival. In recent years, the number of visitors has fluctuated around 70,000. However, the all-time record was set in 1971, when there were about 100,000 visitors, with artists such as Canned Heat playing. The 2009 edition of the festival saw a rise in attendance, when during 3 days there was a total of 92,000 visitors. In 2009, musical acts such as Slipknot, Disturbed, Faith No More, Mew, ...
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Sound Hole
A sound hole is an opening in the body of a stringed musical instrument, usually the upper sound board. Sound holes have different shapes: * round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins; * F-holes in instruments from the violin family, archtop mandolins and in archtop guitars; * C-holes in viola da gambas and occasionally double-basses and guitars * rosettes in lutes and sometimes harpsichords; * D-holes in bowed lyras. Some instruments come in more than one style (mandolins may have F-holes, round or oval holes). A round or oval hole or a rosette is usually a single one, under the strings. C-holes, D-holes and F-holes are usually made in pairs placed symmetrically on both sides of the strings. Most hollowbody and semi-hollow electric guitars also have F-holes. Though sound holes help acoustic instruments project sound more efficiently, sound does not emanate solely from the sound hole. Sound emanates from the surface area of the sounding boards, with so ...
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Son House
Edward James "Son" House Jr. (March 21, 1902His date of birth is a matter of some debate. House alleged that he was middle-aged during World War I and that he was 79 in 1965, which would make his date of birth around 1886. However, all legal records give his date of birth as March 21, 1902. – October 19, 1988) was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing. After years of hostility to secular music, as a preacher and for a few years also working as a church pastor, he turned to blues performance at the age of 25. He quickly developed a unique style by applying the rhythmic drive, vocal power and emotional intensity of his preaching to the newly learned idiom. In a short career interrupted by a spell in Parchman Farm penitentiary, he developed his musicianship to the point that Charley Patton, the foremost blues artist of the Mississippi Delta region, invited him to share engagements and to accomp ...
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Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss. Life and career Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, United States, one of ten children of Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. Most sources date his birth to 1907, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc indicate 1904. After the death of his mother, he moved with his father to Rockingham, North Carolina. As a boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers the field hollers, country rags, traditional songs and blues popular in poor rural areas. He married young, to Cora Allen, and worked as a laborer. He began to lose his eyesight when he was in his mid-teens. According to the researcher Bruce Bastin, "While he was living in Rockingham he began to have trouble with his eyes. He we ...
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Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions. A revival of interest in Johnson's music began in the 1960s, following his inclusion on Harry Smith's '' Anthology of American Folk Music'', and by the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. Along with Davis, he has since been considered the dominant player of " holy blues" music, which conveyed religious themes in a blues idiom and often with the genre's sty ...
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Lightnin' Hopkins
Samuel John "Lightnin" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. The musicologist Robert "Mack" McCormick opined that Hopkins is "the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act". He was a notable influence on Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams, Jr., and a generation of blues musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan, whose Grammy winning song "Rude Mood" was directly inspired by the Texan's song "Hopkins' Sky Hop." Life Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas. As a child, he was immersed in the sounds of the blues. He developed a deep appreciation for the music at the age of 8, when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas.Allmusic biography/ref> He went on to ...
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Josh White
Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names Pinewood Tom and Tippy Barton in the 1930s. White grew up in the South during the 1920s and 1930s. He became a prominent race records artist, with a prolific output of recordings in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel music, and social protest songs. In 1931, White moved to New York, and within a decade his fame had spread widely. His repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, traditional folk songs, and political protest songs, and he was in demand as an actor on radio, Broadway, and film. However, White's anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance presented in many of his recordings and in his speeches at rallies were subsequently used by McCarthyites as a pretext for labeling him a communist to slander and harass him. From 1947 through the mid-1960s ...
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Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines", "Goodnight, Irene", "Midnight Special (song), Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil (song), Boll Weevil". Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and diatonic accordion, windjammer. In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. Lead Belly's songs covered a wide range of genres, including gospel music, blues, and folk music, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitl ...
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Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, he navigated a change in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working-class black audiences. In the 1950s, a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century. Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs, including adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in writing songs that reflected his rural-to-urban experiences.Barlow, William (1989). ''"Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture''. Temple University Press. pp. 301–303. . Life and ca ...
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Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten ( Nevills; January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987) was an American folk and blues musician. She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. This position meant that she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as "Cotten picking". Early life Cotten was born in 1893U.S. Federal Census, Chapel Hill. 1870, 1880, 1900. to a musical family near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in an area that would later be incorporated as Carrboro. Her parents were George Nevill (also spelled Nevills) and Louisa (or Louise) Price Nevill. Elizabeth was the youngest of five children. She named herself on her first day of school, when the teacher asked her name, because at home she was only called "Li'l Sis". By the age of eight, she was playing songs. At age nine, she was forced to quit school and began work as a domestic wo ...
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Tablature
Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica. Tablature was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and is commonly used today in notating many forms of music. Three types of organ tablature were used in Europe: German, Spanish and Italian. To distinguish standard musical notation from tablature, the former is usually called " staff notation" or just "notation". Etymology The word ''tablature'' originates from the Latin word ''tabulatura''. ''Tabula'' is a table or slate, in Latin. To tabulate something means to put it into a table or chart. Origin The first known occurrence in Europe is around 1300, and was first used for notating music for the organ. Concepts While standard notation represents the rhythm and duration of each ...
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Washington Square Park, New York
Washington Square Park is a public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. One of the best known of New York City's public parks, it is an icon as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. It is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks). The park is an open space, dominated by the Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park, with a tradition of celebrating nonconformity. The park's fountain area has long been one of the city's popular spots, and many of the local buildings have at one time served as homes and studios for artists. Many buildings have been built by New York University, while others have been converted from their former uses into academic and residential buildings. __TOC__ Location and features Located at the foot of Fifth Avenue, the park is bordered by Washington Square North (known as Waverly Place east and west of the park), Washington Square East (known ...
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