Biography
Legendary British Progressive Giants
Posten on: 2006-01-30 06:58:52
The Moody Blues started of as an rock band with R&B influences in 1964. The lads from Birmingham, England were Denny Laine (vocals/harmonica/guitar), Mike Pinder (piano/keyboards), Ray Thomas (flute/vocals/harmonica), Graeme Edge (drums) and Clint Warwick (bass). They signed a contract with Decca Records after performing on Ready, Steady, Go!. The Moody Blues' second single, a cover version of Bessie Banks' "Go Now!," became a hit and reached Number 1 in the UK and Number 10 in the US in 1965. They did not have another hit single and Laine and Warwick left in 1966. On came Justin Hayward and John Lodge and this marked their change from R&B to progressive rock.The band moved to Decca's Deram Records and released in 1967 Days Of Future Passed. The album was recorded with a full orchestra, arranged and conducted by Peter Knight, and produced by Tony Clark. It contained "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon." that became instant hits. And so the band once again was on top and started to record a streak of massively successful albums with Knight and Clark on board, all of which hit at least the US and UK Top 20 or Top 10 and three that were number 1 in the UK: 1969's On The Threshold Of A Dream, 1970's A Question Of Balance (including the hit Question), 1970's To Our Children's Children's Children, 1971's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, and 1972's Seventh Sojourn (featuring I'm Just A Singer [In A Rock And Roll Band]).The band splits in 1974 and the members each go their own ways to pursue solo projects. Hayward and Lodge released the Blue Jays album, which had the hit "Blue Guitar". The Moody Blues returned in 1978's with another big album, Octave. Having released the album, Pinder left and was replaced with Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz. Clark also resigned as the their producer.The Moody Blues' next album, 1981's Long Distance Voyager, was huge and stayed at Number 1 in the US for three weeks. It had three hits, "Gemini Dream," "Meanwhile," and "The Voice." Their follow-up album, 1983's The Present, was not as successful, although it did contain the rock radio hit, "Sitting At The Wheel." The Moody Blues came back with their 1986 hit "Your Wildest Dreams" and The Other Side Of Life album. The 1988 album, Sur La Mer, had another sizable hit, "I Know You re Out There Somewhere." Patrick Moraz left before their next album, 1991's Keys Of The Kingdom, and was replaced by Paul Bliss. The band continued to tour throughout the 1990s and 2000's and released one more album in the '90s, 1999's Strange Times. Thomas left after their 2003 tour and later that year the trio of Lodge, Hayward and Edge released a Moody Blues Christmas album, December.The Moody Blues DiscographyGo Now! - 1965The Magnificent Moodies - 1966Days of Future Passed - 1967In Search of the Lost Chord - 1968On the Threshold of a Dream - 1969To Our Children's Children's Children - 1969Question of Balance - 1970Every Good Boy Deserves Favour - 1971Seventh Sojourn - 1972Caught Live + 5 - 1977Octave - 1978Long Distance Voyager - 1981The Present - 1983The Other Side of Life - 1986Sur La Mer - 1988Journey Through Time - 1990Keys of the Kingdom - 1991A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado... - 1993Strange Times - 1999Hall of Fame - 2000Melancholy Men - 2000December - 2003Lovely to See You: Live from the Greek - 2005
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From Prog Genesis To Pop Revelations
Posten on: 2006-01-25 06:31:59
Genesis was formed in January 1967 at Charterhouse Public School, England, by members of the school band and the fledgling local rock band, The Anon.At that time, the band consisted of Tony Banks (keyboard) and Mike Rutherford (bass) who teamed up with Peter Gabriel (flute, vocals), Anthony Phillips (guitar) and Chris Stewart (drums).In 1968 they signed a contract with Decca and helped by producer Jonathan King, released their first two singles, and an album 'From Genesis to Revelations' (Chris Stewart had been replaced on drums by John Silver) but was received with little succes.In 1970, the band came to the attention of Charisma and they began to work on 'Trespass' with producer John Anthony. The album became attracted a cult following.After having replaced Phillips and Mayhew with Phil Collins (drums) and Steve Hackett (guitar), the classic Genesis line-up was in place, and the band went on their now legendary 1971 tour, a colourful line-up of theatrically beautiful performances.It was with 'Foxtrot', however, that Genesis received their critical acclaim, followed by 'Selling England by the Pound' in 1973. It peaked the third position in the UK charts and gave the band a reputation in America, and also provided their first UK hit-single.A year later, Genesis (famous worldwide) released the concept double album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'. This album was also the last one to be made by the golden lineup of Genesis as manny critics consider.In May 1975 Peter Gabriel announced his departure, and almost two years later, Steve Hackett also left, both embarking on a solo career.In 1978 Collins, Banks and Rutherford moved from their prog-rock origins towards a light rock sound of the type that would dominate the worldwide charts in the 1980s. A number of albums were recorded during this period, most of them extremely successful.But when, in March 1996, Phil Collins suddenly announced that he had left the band, the Genesis-era finally ended.DiscographyFrom Genesis to Revelations - 1969Trespass - 1970Nursery Crime - 1971Foxtrot - 1972Live - 1973 (live)Selling England by the Pound - 1973The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - 1974Trick of the Trail - 1976Wind & Wuthering - 1976Seconds Out - 1977 (live)And Then There Were Three - 1978Duke - 1980Abacab - 1981The Silent Sun - 1981 (live)Three Sides Live - 1982 (live)Genesis - 1983Invisible Touch - 1986And the Word Was - 1987We Can't Dance - 1991 Genesis Live: The Way We Walk, Vol. 1 (The Shorts) - 1992Genesis Live: The Way We Walk, Vol. 2 (The Longs) - 1993Calling All Stations - 1997
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Definition Of Hard Rock Purity
Posten on: 2006-01-13 06:59:59
Deep Purple was born in 1968 following sessions to form a band around ex Searchers band member, drummer Chris Curtis. Jon Lord on keyboards and Nick Simper on bass, veterans, respectively, of the Artwoods and Johnny Kidd And The Pirates, joined guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in rehearsals for this new act. Curtis dropped out of the bad quite fast, and when Dave Curtis (bass) and Bobby Woodman (drums) also proved inappropriate, former members of Maze, Rod Evans on vocals and Ian Paice drums, replaced them.Having taken the name of Deep Purple following a brief Scandinavian tour, the five lads began recording their first album, which they patterned on US band Vanilla Fudge. Shades Of Deep Purple included covers on well known tracks including "Hey Joe" and "Hush", the latter becoming a Top 5 US hit when issued as a single. Lengthy tours got the band a bit of fame as the band, all but ignored at home, steadfastly courted the burgeoning American concert circuit. The Book Of Taliesyn and Deep Purple also features reshaped tunes, notably "Kentucky Woman" (Neil Diamond) and "River Deep - Mountain High" (Ike And Tina Turner), but the unit also drew acclaim for its original material and the dramatic musical conversation between Lord and Blackmore.In July 1969, both Evans and Simper were cast aside from the group, which were soon replace by Ian Gillan on vocals and Roger Glover on bass from the pop band Episode Six. The new reassembled band is regarded by most critics as the "classic" Deep Purple line-up, the reshaped quintet made a most spectaculous entrance with Concerto For Group And Orchestra, scored by John Lord and recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra). Its orthodox successor, In Rock, established the band as a leading heavy metal attraction and introduced such enduring favourites as "Speed King" and "Child in Time". Gillan's powerful intonation brought a third dimension to their sound and this new-found popularity in the UK was enhanced when an attendant single, "Black Night", reached number 2. "Strange Kind Of Woman" followed it into the Top 10, while Fireball and Machine Head topped the album chart. The latter included the riff-laden "Smoke On The Water", now lauded as a seminal example of the hard rock oeuvre and a Top 5 hit in America. The album was also the first release on the band's own Purple label.Although the platinum-selling Made In Japan captured Deep Purple's live prowess, relations within the band grew increasingly strained, and Who Do We Think We Are! marked the end of this highly successful line-up. The departures of Gillan and Glover robbed Deep Purple of an expressive frontman and imaginative arranger, although David Coverdale (b. 22 September 1951, Saltburn-By-The Sea, North Yorkshire, England; vocals) and Glenn Hughes (b. 21 August 1952, Cannock, Staffordshire, England; bass, ex-Trapeze) brought a new impetus to the act. Burn and Stormbringer both reached the Top 10, but Blackmore grew increasingly dissatisfied with the band's direction and in May 1975 left to form Rainbow. US guitarist Tommy Bolin (b. Thomas Richard Bolin, 1 August 1951, Sioux City, Iowa, USA, d. 4 December 1976, Miami, Florida, USA), formerly of the James Gang, joined Deep Purple for Come Taste The Band, but his jazz soul style was incompatible with the band's heavy metal sound, and a now-tiring act folded in 1976 following a farewell UK tour.Coverdale formed Whitesnake, Paice and Lord joined Tony Ashton in Paice, Ashton And Lord, while Bolin died of a heroin overdose within months of Purple's demise. Judicious archive and "best of' releases kept the band in the public eye, as did the high profile enjoyed by its several ex-members. Pressure for a reunion bore fruit in 1984 when Gillan, Lord, Blackmore, Glover and Paice completed Perfect Strangers. A second set, The House Of Blue Light, ensued, but recurring animosity between Gillan and Blackmore resulted in the singer's departure following the in-concert Nobody's Perfect. Former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner (b. Joseph Linquito, 2 August 1951, Hackensack, New Jersey, USA) was brought into the line-up for 1990"s Slaves And Masters as the band steadfastly maintained their revitalized career. Gillan rejoined in 1993 only to quit, yet again, shortly afterwards, while his old sparring partner, Blackmore, also bailed out the following year, to be replaced briefly by Joe Satriani (b. 15 July 1956). The line-up that recorded the credible Purpendicular and Abandon in the late 90s comprised Steve Morse (b. 28 July 1954, Hamilton, Ohio, USA) on guitar, with Lord, Gillan, Glover and Paice. At the start of the new millennium, Lord announced his retirement and was replaced in the line-up by rock veteran Don Airey. He was featured on the band's 2003 studio album, Bananas.Time and time again Deep Purple is cited as the band that crafted heavy rock to a fine art. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath they remain the genre's undisputed leaders.
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The Masters Of Progressive Folk
Posten on: 2006-01-11 05:42:00
Jethro Tull was a one of a kind phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of folk, hard rock, blues licks, surreal, powerfully dense lyrics, improvisation and overall resonance defied easy analysis, but that didn't stop eager fans from giving them 11 gold and 5 platinum albums. At the same time, music critics rarely took them seriously, and they were more part of a undergroung music scene at the end of the 70's. But all this time no record store would ignore the demand for this sort of sound and got multiple copies of each of their most popular albums (Benefit, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, Living in the Past), or their various best-of compilations resealed very early, and few would knowingly ignore their latest releases. Along the years Jethro Tull remarkably stable and consistent. As co-founded and led bywildman-flautist-guitarist-singer-songwriter Ian Anderson, the group has won a much deserved place in popular music.Tull had its roots in the British blues boom of the late '60s. Ian Anderson (b. Aug. 10, 1947, Edinburgh, Scotland) moved houses to Blackpool when he was 12. He first played in a band called the Blades, named after James Bond's club, with Michael Stephens on guitar, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (b. July 30, 1946) on bass and John Evans (b. Mar. 28, 1948) on drums, playing a mix of jazzy blues and soulful dance music on the northern club circuit. In 1965 the band changes it's name to John Evan Band (Evan having dropped the "s" in his name at Hammond's suggestion) and later the on to John Evan Smash. In the late part of 1967, Glenn Cornick (b. Apr. 24, 1947, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England) replaces Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond on bass. The group moved to Luton So they would be closer to London, the center of the British blues boom, and the group began to show early differences, when Anderson and Cornick met guitarist/singer Mick Abrahams (b. Apr. 7, 1943, Luton, Bedfordshire, England) and drummer Clive Bunker (b. Dec. 12, 1946), who had previously played together in the Toggery Five and were now members of a local blues group called McGregor's Engine.In December of 1967, the 4 lads agree to form a new group. They began playing two shows a week and went around using different names to get inside a club, such names as Navy Blue and Bag of Blues. One of them stuck. It that was of course Jethro Tull, and it came from an 18th-century british farmer/inventor. Early in 1968 they release a single called "Sunshine Day," released by MGM Records (under the misprinted name Jethro Toe) the following month. The single went nowhere, but the group managed to regularily play at the Marquee Club, where they won some fame.Even from the beginning they had a problem of image to face. In the late spring of 1968, managers Terry Ellis and Chris Wright first thought that that Anderson should give up playing the flute and thus allow Mick Abrahams to take the center stage. At the time, the band was still playing mainly blues tunes but a lot of blues enthusiasts weren't much into wind instruments at all, especially the flute as the entire sound of the group was just a bit too strange for what there were looking for. Mick Abrahams was a fanatic of british godfather Alexis Korner and wanted the band to orientate more towards a traditional blues was brilliant configuration with him playing the guitar on front. As it turned out, both frontmen were right. Abrahams' blues sensibilities were excellent but one could not deny Anderson's antics on-stage, jumping around in a ragged overcoat and standing on one leg while playing the flute, and his use of folk sources as well as blues and jazz, gave the band the potential to grab a bigger audience and some much-needed press attention.They opened for Pink Floyd on June 29, 1968, at the first free rock festival in London's Hyde Park, and in August they were the hit of the Sunbury Jazz & Blues Festival in Sunbury-on-Thames. By the end of the summer, they had a recording contract with Island Records. The resulting album, This Was, was issued in November. By this time, Anderson was the dominant member of the group on-stage, and at the end of the month Abrahams exited the band. The group went through two hastily recruited and rejected replacements, future Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi (who was in Tull for a week, just long enough to show up in their appearance on the Rolling Stones' Rock 'N Roll Circus extravaganza), and Davy O'List, the former guitarist with the Nice. Finally, Martin Barre (b. Nov. 17, 1946), a former architecture student, was the choice for a permanent replacement.It wasn't until April of 1969 that This Was got a U.S. release. Ironically, the first small wave of American Jethro Tull fans were admiring a group whose sound had already changed radically; in May of 1969, Barre's first recording with the group, "Living in the Past," reached the British number three spot and the group made its debut on Top of the Pops performing the song. The group played a number of festivals that summer, including the Newport Jazz Festival. Their next album, Stand Up, with all of its material (except "Bouree," which was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach) written by Ian Anderson, reached the number one spot in England the next month. Stand Up also contained the first orchestrated track by Tull, "Reasons for Waiting," which featured strings arranged by David Palmer, a Royal Academy of Music graduate and theatrical conductor who had arranged horns on one track from This Was. Palmer would play an increasingly large role in subsequent albums, and finally join the group officially in 1977.Meanwhile, "Sweet Dream," issued in November, rose to number seven in England, and was the group's first release on Wright and Ellis' newly formed Chrysalis label. Their next single, "The Witch's Promise," got to number four in England in January of 1970. The group's next album, Benefit, marked their last look back at the blues, and also the presence of Anderson's longtime friend and former bandmate John Evan -- who had long since given up the drums in favor of keyboards -- on piano and organ. Benefit reached the number three spot in England, but, much more important, it ascended to number 11 in America, and its songs, including "Teacher" and "Sossity, You're A Woman," formed a key part of Tull's stage repertory. In early July of 1970, the group shared a bill with Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Johnny Winter at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, GA, before 200,000 people.By the following December, after another U.S. tour, Cornick had decided to leave the group, and was replaced on bass by Anderson's childhood friend Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond. Early the following year, they began working on what would prove to be, for many fans, the group's magnum opus, Aqualung. Anderson's writing had been moving in a more serious direction since the group's second album, but it was with Aqualung that he found the lyrical voice he'd been seeking. Suddenly, he was singing about the relationship between man and God, and the manner in which -- in his view -- organized religion separated them. The blues influences were muted almost to non-existence, but the hard rock passages were searing and the folk influences provided a refreshing contrast. That the album was a unified whole impressed the more serious critics, while the kids were content to play air guitar to Martin Barre's high-speed breaks. And everybody, college prog rock mavens and high-school time-servers alike, seemed to identify with the theme of alienation that lay behind the music.Aqualung reached number seven in America and number four in England, and was accompanied by a hugely successful American tour. Bunker quit the band to get married, and was replaced by Anderson's old John Evan Smash bandmate Barriemore Barlow (b. Sept. 10, 1949). Late in 1971, they began work on their next album, Thick as a Brick. Structurally more ambitious than Aqualung, and supported by an elaborately designed jacket in the form of a newspaper, this record was essentially one long song steeped in surreal imagery, social commentary, and Anderson's newly solidified image as a wildman-sage. Released in England during April of 1972, Thick as a Brick got as high as the number five spot, but when it came out in America a month later, it hit the number one spot, making it the first Jethro Tull album to achieve greater popularity in American than in England. In June of 1972, in response to steadily rising demand for the group's work, Chrysalis Records released Living in the Past, a collection of tracks from their various singles and British EPs, early albums, and a Carnegie Hall show, packaged like an old-style 78 rpm album in a book that opened up.At this point, it seemed as though Jethro Tull could do no wrong, and for the fans that was true. For the critics, however, the group's string ran out in July of 1973 with the release of A Passion Play. The piece was another extended song, running the length of the album, this time steeped in fantasy and religious imagery far denser than Aqualung; it was divided at the end of one side of the album and the beginning of the other by an A.A. Milne-style story called "The Hare That Lost His Spectacles." This time, the critics were hostile toward Anderson and the group, attacking the album for its obscure lyrical references and excessive length. Despite these criticisms, the album reached number one in America (yielding a number eight single edited from the extended piece) and number 13 in England. The real venom, however, didn't start to flow until the group went on tour that summer. By this time, their sets ran to two-and-a-half hours, and included not only the new album done in its entirety ("The Hare That Lost His Spectacles" being a film presentation in the middle of the show), but Thick As a Brick and the most popular of the group's songs off of Aqualung and their earlier albums. Anderson was apparently unprepared for the searing reviews that started appearing, and also took the American rock press too seriously. In the midst of a sell-out U.S. tour, he threatened to cancel all upcoming concerts and return to England. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, especially once he recognized that the shows were completely sold out and audiences were ecstatic, and the tour continued without interruption.It was 16 months until the group's next album, War Child -- conceived as part of a film project that never materialized -- was released, in November of 1974. The expectations surrounding the album gave it pre-order sales sufficient to get it certified gold upon release, and it was also Tull's last platinum album, reaching number two in America and number 14 in England. The dominant theme of War Child seemed to be violence, though the music's trappings heavily featured Palmer's orchestrations, rivaling Barre's electric guitar breaks for attention. In any case, the public seemed to respond well to the group's return to conventional length songs, with "Bungle in the Jungle" reaching number 11 in America. Tull's successful concert tour behind this album had them augmented by a string quartet.During this period, Anderson became involved with producing an album by Steeleye Span, a folk-rock group that was also signed to Chrysalis, and who had opened for Tull on one of their American tours. Their music slowly begun influencing Anderson's songwriting over the next several years, as the folk influence grew in prominence, a process that was redoubled when he took up a rural residence during the mid-'70s. The next Tull album, Minstrel in the Gallery, showed up ten months later, in September of 1975, reaching number seven in the United States. This time, the dominant theme was Elizabethan minstrelsy, within an electric rock and English folk context. The tracks included a 17-minute suite that recalled the group's earlier album-length epic songs, but the album's success was rather more limited.The Jethro Tull lineup had been remarkably stable ever since Clive Bunker's exit after Aqualung, remaining constant across four albums in as many years. In January of 1976, however, Hammond-Hammond left the band to pursue a career in art. His replacement, John Glascock (b. 1953), joined in time for the recording of Too Old to Rock 'n Roll, Too Young to Die, an album made up partly of songs from an un-produced play proposed by Anderson and Palmer, released in May of 1976. The group later did an ITV special built around the album's songs. The title track, however (on which Steeleye Span's Maddy Prior appeared as a guest backing vocalist), became a subject of controversy in England, as critics took it to be a personal statement on Anderson's part.In late 1976, a Christmas EP entitled Ring Out Solstice Bells got to number 28. This song later turned up on their next album, Songs From the Wood, the group's most artistically unified and successful album in some time (and the first not derived from an unfinished film or play since A Passion Play). This was Tull's folk album, reflecting Anderson's passion for English folk songs. Its release also accompanied the band's first British tour in nearly three years. In May of 1977, David Palmer joined Tull as an official member, playing keyboards on-stage to augment the richness of the group's concert sound.Having lasted into the late '70s, Jethro Tull now found itself competing in a new musical environment, as journalists and, to an increasing degree, fans became fixated on the growing punk rock phenomenon. In October 1977, Repeat (The Best of Jethro Tull, Vol. 2), intended to fill an anticipated 11 month gap between Tull albums, was released on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, it contained only a single new track and never made the British charts, while barely scraping into the American Top 100 albums. The group's next new album, Heavy Horses, issued in April of 1978, was Anderson's most personal work in several years, the title track expressing his regret over the disappearance of England's huge shire horses as casualties of modernization. In the fall of 1978, the group's first full-length concert album, the double-LP Live-Bursting Out, was released to modest success, accompanied by a tour of the United States and an international television broadcast from Madison Square Garden.1979 was a pivotal and tragic year for the group. John Glascock died from complications of heart surgery on November 17, five weeks after the release of Stormwatch. Tull was lucky enough to acquire the services of Dave Pegg, the longtime bassist for Fairport Convention, which had announced its formal (though, as it turned out, temporary) breakup. The Stormwatch tour with the new lineup was a success, although the album was the first original release by Jethro Tull since This Was not to reach the U.S. Top 20. Partly thanks to Pegg's involvement with the Tull lineup, future tours by Jethro Tull, especially in America, would provide a basis for performances by re-formed incarnations of Fairport Convention.The lineup change caused by Glascock's death led to Anderson's decision to record a solo album during the summer of 1980, backed by Barre, Pegg, and Mark Craney on drums, with ex-Roxy Music/King Crimson multi-instrumentalist Eddie Jobson on violin. The record, A, was eventually released as a Jethro Tull album in September of 1980, but even the Tull name didn't do much for its success. Barlow, Evan, and Palmer, however, were dropped from the group's lineup with the recording of A, and the new version of Jethro Tull toured in support of the album. Jobson left once the tour was over, and it was with yet another new lineup -- including Barre, Pegg, and Fairport Convention alumnus Gerry Conway (drums) and Peter-John Vettesse (keyboards) -- that The Broadsword and the Beast was recorded in 1982. Although this album had many songs based on folk melodies, its harder rocking passages also had a heavier, more thumping beat than earlier versions of the band had produced, and the use of the synthesizer was more pronounced than on previous Tull albums.In 1983, Anderson confined his activities to his first official solo album, Walk Into Light, which had a very different, synthesizer-dominated sound. Following its lackluster performance, Anderson revived Jethro Tull for the album Under Wraps, released in September of 1984. At number 76 in the U.S., it became the group's poorest selling album, partly a consequence of Anderson's developing a throat infection that forced the postponement of much of their planned tour. No further Tull albums were to be released until Crest of a Knave in 1987, as a result of Anderson's intermittent throat problems. In the meantime, the group appeared on a German television special in March of 1985, and participated in a presentation of the group's work by the London Symphony Orchestra. To make up for the shortfall of new releases, Chrysalis released another compilation, Original Masters, a collection of highlights of the group's work, in October of 1985. In 1986, A Classic Case: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays the Music of Jethro Tull was released on record; and Crest of a Knave performed surprisingly well when it was issued in September of 1987, reaching number 19 in England and number 32 in America with the support of a world tour.Crest of a Knave was something of a watershed in Tull's later history, though nobody would have guessed it at the time of its release. Although some of its songs displayed the group's usual folk/hard rock mix, the group was playing louder than usual, and tracks like "Steel Monkey," had a harder sound than any previous record by the group. In 1988, Tull toured the United States as part of the celebration of the band's 20th anniversary. In July, Chrysalis issued 20 Years of Jethro Tull, a 65-song boxed-set collection covering the group's history up to that time, containing most of their major songs and augmented with outtakes and radio performances. In February of 1989, the band won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance for Crest of a Knave. Suddenly, they were stars again, and being declared as relevant by one of the top music awards in the industry; a fact that kept critics buzzing for months over whether the group deserved it before finally attacking the voting for the Grammy Awards and the membership of its parent organization, the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.Rock Island, another hard rocking album, reached a very healthy number 18 in England during September of the same year, while peaking only at 56 in America, despite a six-week U.S. tour to support the album. In 1990, the album Catfish Rising did less well, reaching only 27 in England and 88 in America after its release in September. And A Little Light Music, their own "unplugged" release, taped on their summer 1992 European tour, only got to number 34 in England and 150 in the United States.Despite declining numbers, the group continued performing to good-sized houses when they toured, and the group's catalog performed extremely well. In April of 1993, Chrysalis released a four-CD 25th Anniversary Box Set -- evidently hoping that most fans had forgotten the 20th anniversary set issued five years earlier -- consisting of remixed versions of their hits, live shows from across their history, and a handful of new tracks. Meanwhile, Anderson continued to write and record music separate from the group on occasion, most notably Divinities: Twelve Dances with God, a classically-oriented solo album (and a distinctly non-Tull one) on EMI's classical Angel Records. J-Tull.Com followed in 1999.
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Guitar Legend Still Shows Hidden Subtleness And Fantasy
Posten on: 2006-01-09 06:24:29
Jimi Hendrix was born as Johnny Allen Hendrix on November 27, 1942 in Seattle. His father Al and mother Lucille married young, and divorced early after. He changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix on September 11, 1946. He got his first electric guitar when he was twelve. Jimi did all right in school, but got kicked out when he was sixteen, for holding a white girls hand, as he recalls. He played some rock and roll in some bands before enlisting in the army when he was only seventeen. He was with the 101st Airborne when on his 26th jump, he broke his ankle and was discharged after 14 months. This is when he caught up with Billy Cox, a friend who Jimi would play bass with him later on. After the experience in the Army, Jimi entered the music field, and started playing blues in the Village, and then played backup guitar for Little Richard, Wilson Pickett and the Isely Brothers. Jimi Hendrix started Jimmy James & the Blue Flames in late 1965. Chas Chandler bass player and rock producer, saw Jimi perform in July 1966, and noticed his incredible talent and charisma. He told Hendrix that if he will go to England, he'll make him a star. And so, Jimi and Chas arrive in England on September 24, 1966, the day of his first performance in England. The Jimi Hendrix Experience is set up around Jimi with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums on October 5, 1966. The newly formed group recorded Hey Joe and Purple Haze in the next few months to go on their first album, Are you Experienced? Less than a year after his start in England and already a star in Europe, Jimi returned to America on June 18, 1967 to play the Monterey Pop Festival. This is important because this is when the band debutes in America ven before the American release of Are you Experienced? Jimi was to play the last day of acts, coming right after The Who, who seemed to dominate the audience with their maniacal destruction of the stage. Like responding to this challage, he played “Wild Thing,” picking his guitar strings with his teeth and playing behind his back all while pouring a magnificent rock tune from his big white strat. The audience seemed hypnotized. Finally, to end it all, Jimi Hendrix laid his guitar between his knees in front of him, jammed his tremolo bar and burned his guitar on stage. He then totally destroyed the set and his guitar, the audience clearly his now. This performance is easily the most memorable not only in the Monterey Pop Festival, but in live concerts in general. The Jimi Hendrix Experiences second album, Axis: Bold as Love was released on Oct 30, 1967. This album puts more emphasis on the voice tracks and the drums than the first albums guitar rock theme. On this album you will find Jimi’s most beautiful and poetic songs. With more stress on voice and less on guitar, the hidden lyrics to some of these ballads such as Little Wing, Castles Made of Sand, and Bold as Love hold doors to other sides of Jimi’s talent. The songs seem to be more mellow, not as hard driven as thos on his first album. Jimi takes us for a mystical ride on his guitar with the introduction to Little Wing, riddles us with irony in the lyrics of Castles Made of Sand, and “blows everyone’s mind” with the colorful explosions of Bold as Love. Jimi actually seems to be able to convey colors and emotions with his guitar on the last track. For their next album, The Jimi Hendrix Experience worked hard - touring, traveling and recording what he could. The group fell into the habit of block booking the studio for a night, traveling down to the bar or local spot, jam a while, and bring the crew back to the studio and record. One creation birthed this way was called Voodoo Chile. The track is a 15 minute long marathon jam session with Steve Winwood fron Traffic on a Hammond organ and Jimi on his guitar. A stream of energy seems to flow from one to the other as the two weave the blues selection with no chord sheets, lyrics or anything. None of the people there even knew it would be on the album. By this time, The Jimi Hendrix Experience had changed so much because this was the third album, entitled Electric Ladyland. “My initial success was a step in the right direction, but it was only a step, just a change. Now I plan to get into many other things.” Jimi said in before the Oct. ‘68 release of Ladyland. This album also revealed Jimi’s talent on the mixing board with such works as 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be). Jimi had the same fondness for the fantasy and powers of the mind that started it for him with Purple Haze. Also apparent at this time was Jimi’s fondness for his gateway to this fantasy world in his own mind. He had found LSD, by this time a fashionable new drug everyone was trying. He is rumored to have cut his forehead and place a hit of acid on the cut and wore his headband over it before playing concerts. While never openly condoning drug use, Jimi was never secretive about it. He was arrested in Montreal for drug charges, but later aquitted although having admitted possesion. This side of Jimi’s life may have given us some of his deepest works, but it also cost him his life on September 18th, 1970. He died in his sleep from inhalation of vomit (in the same manner John "Bonzo" Bonham from Led Zeppelin would die) following barbiturate intoxication. We will never know how much farther his influence would have gone, but we do know that modern day hard rock bands show something of Jimi’s work, with the emphasis of volume, feedback and riffs. At the same time, however, they do not show a fraction of Jimi’s subtleness or imagination. He also pioneered the wide spread use of various pedals, sometime going so far as to change the types of transistors and other circuitry in order to get a certain sound. The life of Jimi Hendrix was not very long, and his music career was rather short too. Most of the things he acomplished, those that we know and love, on about 4 years. But rarely does an artist change so much in such a short period of time, like Hendrix. His music is still played on the radio, in the movies, and by his thousands of surviving fans everywhere. His techniques are used by many modern artists as well. The memory of Jimi Hendrix and his life live on in many ways, but mostly by his beautiful music.
Posted in: Biography | Jimi Hendrix | 0 Comments
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