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Fool's Mate (album)
''Fool's Mate'' is the debut solo album by Peter Hammill of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. The title is both a chess and tarot reference. It was produced by Trident Studios' in-house producer John Anthony (producer), John Anthony. The album was recorded in 1971, in the midst of one of Van der Graaf Generator's most prolific periods. Hammill used the album to record a backlog of songs which were much shorter and simpler than his Van der Graaf Generator material, and declared on the original album sleeve: "This isn't intended to be any kind of statement of my present musical position, but at the same time, it is an album which involves a great deal of me, the person, basically a return to the roots." Guest musicians on the album included the members of Van der Graaf Generator, members of his label mates Lindisfarne (band), Lindisfarne, and guitarist Robert Fripp. ''Fool's Mate'' includes one of Hammill's most celebrated love songs, "Vision", which he still performs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Hammill
Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer-songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and produces his own recordings and occasionally those of other artists. In 2012, he was recognised with the Visionary award at the first Prog (magazine), Progressive Music Awards. Biography Early life Peter Hammill was born in Ealing, West London, and moved with his family to Derby when he was 12. He attended Beaumont College and Manchester University, where he studied Bachelor of Liberal Studies, Liberal Studies in Science. Hammill has stated that his grandfather was originally from Pakistan. Early career Hammill's solo career has coexisted with Van der Graaf Generator's activities. The band was offered a contract by Mercury Records in 1968, that only Hammill signed. When Van der Graaf Generator broke up in 1969 he wanted to record his firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backing Vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used in a broad range of popular music, traditional music, and world music styles. Solo artists may employ professional backing vocalists in studio recording sessions as well as during concerts. In many rock and metal bands (e.g., the power trio), the musicians doing backing vocals also play instruments, such as guitar, electric bass or keyboards. In Latin or Afro-Cuban groups, backing singers may play percussion instruments or shakers while singing. In some pop and hip-hop groups and in musical theater, they may be required to perform dance routines while singing through headset microphones. Styles of background vocals vary according to the type of song and genre of music. In pop and country songs, backing vocalists may sing harmony to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding Zoomusicology, zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.''The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and String instrument, chordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Jackson (rock Musician)
David Nicholas George Jackson (born 15 April 1947), nicknamed Jaxon, is an English progressive rock saxophonist, flautist, and composer. He is best known for his work with the band Van der Graaf Generator and his work in Music and Disability. He has also worked with Peter Gabriel, Keith Tippett, Osanna, Judge Smith, David Cross and others. His playing is characterized by the frequent use of double horns, wielding two saxophones at the same time, a style he emulates from Rahsaan Roland Kirk (whose style and technique influenced Jackson). He also plays flutes and whistles. In the ''NME'', reviewer Jonathan Barnett called David Jackson "the Van Gogh of the saxophone – a renegade impressionist, dispensing distorted visions of the world outside from his private asylum window". Van der Graaf Generator Jackson was a member of the English progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator for most of the 1970s and for their 2005 reunion tour. His speciality was then electric saxophon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the lips and tongue to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece (which covers one edge of the harmonica for most of its length). Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common type of harmonica is a diatonic Richter-tuned instrument with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called a blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, the reed alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce soun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lindsay Raymond Jackson
Lindsay Raymond "Ray" Jackson (born 12 December 1948, Wallsend, Northumberland) is an English mandolin and harmonica player. He was a member and also joint lead vocalist, with Alan Hull, of the folk-rock group Lindisfarne from their original formation in 1970 until his departure in 1990. The group's drummer Ray Laidlaw shared the same forename, and thus Jackson was generally known in the group as "Jacka". After leaving school he studied graphics at Newcastle College of Art and Industrial Design, where he met Laidlaw. With Lindisfarne He designed the group's logo and the sleeve of their debut album '' Nicely Out of Tune''. Alongside his activities in Lindisfarne, he also played mandolin on Rod Stewart's solo albums '' Every Picture Tells a Story'' (1971), '' Never a Dull Moment'' (1972), and '' Smiler'' (1974). His playing can be heard particularly on the songs " Maggie May", " Mandolin Wind" and " Farewell". He was not credited by name on the sleeve of ''Every Picture Tells ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nic Potter
Nic Potter (18 October 1951 – 16 January 2013) was a British bassist, composer and painter, best known for his work with the group Van der Graaf Generator in the 1970s. Biography Nic Potter was born in Wiltshire and left school at 15, originally to train in carpentry. His older sister Sally, is a well-known film director. At the age of 16, he joined a late line-up of The Misunderstood, at the same time as drummer Guy Evans, who had joined from Van der Graaf Generator, then on a brief hiatus. When Van der Graaf decided to reform after the release The Aerosol Grey Machine, and earlier bassist Keith Ellis deciding to join Juicy Lucy instead, Evans recommended that Potter join as a replacement. Potter first appeared on the album '' The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other'', also playing some electric guitar on a few tracks in addition to his usual bass. Halfway during the recording of the following album '' H to He, Who Am the Only One'' (1970), he left the group after re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rod Clements
Roderick Parry Clements (born 17 November 1947) is a British guitarist, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He formed the folk-rock band Lindisfarne (band), Lindisfarne with Alan Hull in 1970, and wrote "Meet Me on the Corner", a UK Top 5 hit in March 1972, which won Clements an Ivor Novello Award. Lindisfarne broke up in 1973 and Clements became a founding member of Jack the Lad, also working with Ralph McTell and Bert Jansch. Lindisfarne reformed in 1977 and Clements continued to be part of the line-up until 2003. Rod rejoined Lindisfarne in 2015 and is currently touring and performing with the band. Career Clements was an only child, and grew up in a household in which neither parent was especially active musically, though his mother did play the piano. His father was a lover of classical music and he encouraged his son to attend concerts. Clements attended The King's School, Tynemouth after which, at the age of 12, he was sent to Durham School. He subsequently atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Banton
Hugh Robert Banton (born 25 April 1949) is a British musician and electronic Organ (music), organ builder, most widely known for playing organ and keyboards with the group Van der Graaf Generator. Career Banton was born in April 1949 in Yeovil, Somerset, into a musical family. His father played the piano, his mother regularly sang along to music on the radio, and two uncles were church organists. He started playing the piano at age four, and began taking formal lessons at age seven. He was influenced by the family classical record collection and by music heard on Radio Luxembourg (English), Radio Luxembourg. In his teens he studied classical piano and organ while attending Silcoates School in Yorkshire under Dr Percy G. Saunders, the organist at Wakefield Cathedral. He continued to enjoy both rock 'n' roll and classical music. After leaving school, he trained as a television engineer with the BBC in Evesham, and subsequently in London. He joined Van der Graaf Generator in May 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guy Evans
Guy Randolph Evans (born 17 June 1947) is an English drummer. He is best known as a member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator, appearing on each of their studio albums. He is also a member of Echo City and Subterraneans. Career Whilst at the University of Warwick (1965–68), Evans played in the university band The New Economic Model. The band, which mainly played American soul music of the 1960s, played at university dances and supported bands such as Pink Floyd and The Move. There is a picture of Evans with the rest of the New Economic Model in "Van der Graaf Generator – The Book". Evans has been a member of Van der Graaf Generator from 1968 until 1978, and since their reformation in 2005. In addition to his work in Van der Graaf Generator, Evans has collaborated with other musicians, frequently with other (ex-) members of Van der Graaf Generator, as on '' The Long Hello'' project and in the K Group. He also works with Echo City, building outdoor cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Judge Smith
Christopher John Judge Smith (born 1 July 1948) is an English songwriter, author, composer and performer, and a founder member of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Initially working under the name Chris Judge Smith, he has been known simply as Judge Smith since 1994. After Van der Graaf Generator, he has written songs, stage musicals and operas, and from the early 1990s on he has released a number of solo CDs, including three "Songstories". Biography Early years In 1967, with Peter Hammill, Judge Smith founded the band Van der Graaf Generator. He was originally a singing drummer and percussionist (sometimes playing a typewriter),Album notes for four-double CD box ''The Box'' by Van der Graaf Generator (2000), page 6. Virgin Records but after drummer Guy Evans joined the band, Smith realized that there was not a great deal left for him to do, since his role was reduced to being a backing vocalist. After recording the first Van der Graaf Generator-single ("People Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
