The Blessing (rock Band)
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The Blessing (rock Band)
The Blessing was a British musical group led by William Topley, whose music featured elements of blues, gospel, soul, and rock. The group released two albums and had one UK Top 40 hit before disbanding. History The Blessing was founded in London in 1987, initially acting mostly as a blues and reggae cover band. The group began writing its own material and recorded in keyboardist Mike Westergaard's studio, eventually landing a recording contract in 1989 with MCA Records. Their debut, ''Prince of the Deep Water'', followed in 1991, with the lead single "Highway 5" reaching #42 on the UK Singles Chart.Paul Lester, liner notes to The Blessing, ''Best of the Blessing: Highway 5''. Castle Music, 2000 The single was remixed and re-released at the end of the year and re-charted early in 1992, this time peaking at #30.Search for "Blessing" performed aEveryhit.comdatabase on 25 July 2009. ''Prince of the Deep Water'' featured guest musicians Nicky Hopkins, Richard Tee, Jeff Porcaro, Ricki ...
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William Topley (musician)
William Topley is a British musician. He was the lead singer of the band The Blessing in the early 1990s, releasing two albums before breaking up. He was signed as a solo artist by Mercury Nashville after Luke Lewis, who had worked at The Blessing's label MCA, became president of Mercury. William Topleyat AllMusic Barry Beckett produced Topley's debut album, which appeared in 1997. He continued recording through the 2000s. Discography ;Solo * ''Black River'' (Polygram, 1997) * ''Mixed Blessing'' (Polygram, 1998) * ''Spanish Wells'' (Mercury, 1999) * ''Feasting With Panthers'' ( Lost Highway, 2002) * ''Sea Fever'' (Warner Bros., 2005) * ''All in the Downs'' (Self-released, 2007) * ''Water Taxi'' (Self-released, 2009) ith The Sea Gypsies* ''South on Velvet Clouds'' (Self-released, 2011) * ''Aristocrats of the South Seas'' (Self-released, 2012) ith The Sea Gypsies*''Halved Moons & Hooded Mountains'' (2016) ith The Black River Band*''Amidst the Alien Cane'' (2020) *Back at the Nap ...
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Castle Music
Castle Communications, also known as Castle Music, was a British independent record label and home video distributor founded in 1983 by Terry Shand, Cliff Dane, and Jon Beecher. Its video imprint was called Castle Vision. The label's production ceased in 2007, and its remaining rights are now chiefly vested in BMG Rights Management. Castle also operated a subsidiary label, Essential Records. History Castle Communications was acquired by American music distributor Alliance Entertainment (which at the time owned Concord Records and NCircle Entertainment) in 1994 and then by Sanctuary Records Group in 2000. The label was dissolved when Sanctuary became a Universal Music Group subsidiary in 2007. Since 2013 Sanctuary has been owned by BMG Rights Management, with global distribution handled by Warner Music Group. Starting out as a mid-price catalogue reissue specialist, with labels including The Collector Series and Dojo, it grew into the largest European owner of repertoire outsi ...
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Prince Of The Deep Water
''Prince of the Deep Water'' was the first of two studio albums by British band The Blessing. Released by MCA Records in 1991, it included the band's only UK Top 40 hit single, "Highway 5". The album was recorded and produced by Neil Dorfsman and mastered by Bob Ludwig. "Highway 5" initially reached #42 on the UK Singles Chart.Paul Lester, liner notes to The Blessing, ''Best of the Blessing: Highway 5''. Castle Music, 2000 The single was remixed and re-released at the end of the year, and early in 1992 re-charted, this time peaking at #30.Search for "Blessing" performed aEveryhit.comdatabase on July 25, 2009. ''Prince of the Deep Water'' featured guest musicians Nicky Hopkins, Richard Tee, Jeff Porcaro, Rickie Lee Jones, and Bruce Hornsby, and went on to sell 125,000 copies. Track listing # "Highway 5" # "Flames" # "Hurricane Room" # "Baby" # "Let's Make Love" # "Back From Managua" # "I Want You" # "Delta Rain" # "Birdhouse" # "Denial" # "Prince of the Deep Water" Personnel * ...
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Simon Hanson
Simon Hanson is an English drummer, songwriter and producer. He was the former drummer of Death in Vegas and is the current drummer of British band Squeeze (band), Squeeze. Early life Hanson's father and sister both died in a plane crash in 1983. Career In 1985, Hanson formed the band Shot, which was signed by IRS records. However nothing was ever released. He was then spotted by a member of the band The Blessing (rock band), The Blessing and joined them on tours. Together they signed with MCA Records and recorded Locusts and Wild Honey. Jimmy Miller was called in to produce three tracks on the album. Miller was hugely influential on Hanson's work as Miller had been himself a drummer. Miller taught him that being creative, is not always being in control. Unfortunately Miller died before the album's release, in 1994. In the early 1990s, Hanson worked with Tina Hamilton at Session Connection, playing drums with Ace of Base, Natalia Imbruglia, Hall and Oates and the P.F. Proje ...
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Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom and Japan (as Mercury Tokyo in the latter country), it is distributed by EMI Records. Since the separation of Island Records, Motown, Mercury Records, and Def Jam Recordings combining the Island Def Jam Music Group, Mercury Records has been placed under Island Records, although its back catalogue is still owned by the Island Def Jam Music Group (now Island Records). Background Mercury Records was started in Chicago in 1945 and over several decades, saw great success. The success of Mercury has been attributed to the use of alternative marketing techniques to promote records. The conventional method of record promotion used by major labels such as RCA Victor, Decca Records, and ...
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Jimmy Miller
James Miller (March 23, 1942 – October 22, 1994) was an American record producer and musician. While he produced albums for dozens of different bands and artists, he is most closely associated for his work with several key musical acts of the 1960s and 1970s. Miller rose to prominence working with the various bands of vocalist Steve Winwood (including Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith). His best acclaimed work was his late 1960s-early 1970s work with the Rolling Stones for whom he produced a string of singles and albums that rank among the most critically and financially successful works of the band's career: '' Beggars Banquet'' (1968), ''Let It Bleed'' (1969), ''Sticky Fingers'' (1971), ''Exile on Main St.'' (1972) and ''Goats Head Soup'' (1973). In the late 1970s, he began working with Motörhead and continued to produce until his death in 1994. Early life Miller was the son of Anne Wingate and Bill Miller, a Las Vegas entertainment director and the man who ...
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Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Randall Hornsby (born November 23, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions. Hornsby has won three Grammy Awards, including a 1987 Grammy Award for Best New Artist with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, a 1990 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and a 1994 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Hornsby has worked with his touring band Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, his bluegrass project with Ricky Skaggs, and as a session and guest musician. He was a touring member of the Grateful Dead from September 1990 through March 1992, playing over 100 shows with the band. His 23rd album, Flicted'', was released in May 2022. Early life and education Bruce Randall Hornsby was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, son of Robert Stanley Hornsby (1920–1998), an attorney, real-estate developer and former musi ...
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Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones (born November 8, 1954) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and author. Over the course of a career that spans five decades, she has recorded in various musical styles including Rock music, rock, Rhythm and blues, R&B, Pop music, pop, Soul music, soul, and jazz. A two-time Grammy Awards, Grammy Award winner (from seven nominations), Jones was listed at No. 30 on VH1's The Greatest (TV series), 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999. She released her Rickie Lee Jones (album), self-titled debut album in 1979, to critical and commercial success. It peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200, and spawned the hit single "Chuck E.'s in Love", which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album went Music recording certification, Platinum later that year, and earned Jones four Grammy Award nominations in 22nd Annual Grammy Awards, 1980, including Grammy Award for Best New Artist, Best New Artist, which she won ...
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Jeff Porcaro
Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (; April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his work with the rock band Toto but is one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions. While already an established studio player in the 1970s, he came to prominence in the United States as the drummer on the Steely Dan album ''Katy Lied''. AllMusic has characterized him as "arguably the most highly regarded studio drummer in rock from the mid-'70s to the early '90s" and says that "it is no exaggeration to say that the sound of mainstream pop/rock drumming in the 1980s was, to a large extent, the sound of Jeff Porcaro." He was posthumously inducted into the ''Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 1993. Early life Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was born on April 1, 1954, in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest son of Los Angeles session percussionist Joe Porcaro (1930–2020) and his wife, Eil ...
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Richard Tee
Richard Edward Tee (born Richard Edward Ten Ryk; November 24, 1943 – July 21, 1993) was an American pianist, studio musician, singer and arranger, who had several hundred studio credits and played on such notable hits as "In Your Eyes", "Slip Slidin' Away", "Just the Two of Us", "I'll Be Sweeter Tomorrow (Than I Was Today)", "Crackerbox Palace", "Tell Her About It", " Don't Give Up" and many others. Biography Tee was born in Brooklyn, New York to Edward James Ten Ryk (1886–1963), who was from Guyana, and Helen G. Ford Skeete Ten Ryk (1902–2000), of New York. Tee spent most of his life in Brooklyn and lived with his mother in a brownstone apartment building. Tee graduated from The High School of Music & Art in New York City and attended the Manhattan School of Music. Though better known as a studio and session musician, Tee led a jazz ensemble, the Richard Tee Committee, and was a founding member of the band Stuff. In 1981, he played the piano and Fender Rhodes for Simo ...
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Nicky Hopkins
Nicholas Christian "Nicky" Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist. Hopkins performed on many popular and enduring British and American rock music recordings from the 1960s to the 1990s, most notably on songs recorded by the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, the Beatles, the Steve Miller Band, Jefferson Airplane, Rod Stewart, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Hollies, Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson, Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia, Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Art Garfunkel, Badfinger, Graham Parker, Gary Moore, and Donovan. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest studio pianists in the history of popular rock music. Early life Nicholas Christian Hopkins was born in Perivale, Middlesex, England, on 24 February 1944. He began playing the piano at the age of three. He attended Sudbury Primary School in Perrin Road and Wembley County Grammar School, which now forms part of Alperton Comm ...
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Paul Lester
Paul Lester is a British music journalist, author and broadcaster from Elstree, North London. Career He began his career as a freelance journalist, for ''Melody Maker'' in the early 1990s, as well as ''City Limits'', ''20/20'', ''Sky Magazine'' and ''The Jewish Chronicle''. He covered grunge, shoegaze, Madchester and Britpop, also spending time with bands touring the UK and internationally. In 1993, Lester became ''Melody Maker''s features editor; then in 1997, left to join Allan Jones in launching monthly music and film magazine ''Uncut'', remaining deputy editor until 2006. Lester has written more than a dozen rock / pop biographies, co-authored the '' Virgin Encyclopedia of Albums'' and often appears as a radio / television music pundit. He has interviewed hundreds of thespians and musicians including Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson, Mick Jagger and Snoop Dogg. He has also written sleeve notes on many, including: Todd Rundgren, Hall & Oates, The Smiths and The Sex Pistols. ...
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