Hugh Masekela

Hugh Ramopolo Masekela (b. Witbank, South Africa, April 4, 1939) is a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer, and singer. He began singing and playing piano as a child. At age 14, after seeing the film Young Man With a Horn (in which Kirk Douglas portrays American jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke), he took up playing the trumpet. His first trumpet was given to him by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the anti-apartheid chaplain at St. Peters Secondary School.

Huddleston asked the leader of the then Johannesburg "Native" Municipal Brass Band, Uncle Sauda, to teach Masekela the rudiments of trumpet playing. Masekela quickly mastered the instrument. Soon, some of Masekela's schoolmates also became interested in playing instruments, leading to the formation of the Huddleston Jazz Band, South Africa's very first youth orchestra. By 1956, after leading other ensembles, Masekela joined Alfred Herbert's African Jazz Revue.

Masekela began to play music that closely reflected his life experience. The agony, conflict, and exploitation South Africa faced during 1950’s and 1960’s, all inspired his music. His music also protested about apartheid, slavery, government; the hardships individuals were living under and reached a large population of people that also felt oppressed due to the country situation.

Following a Manhattan Brothers tour of South Africa in 1958, Masekela wound up in the orchestra for the musical King Kong, written by Todd Matshikiza. King Kong was South Africa's first blockbuster theatrical success, touring the country for a sold-out year with Miriam Makeba and the Manhattan Brothers' Nathan Mdledle in the lead. The musical later went to London's West End for two years.

Following the March 21, 1960, Sharpeville Massacre - where 69 peacefully protesting Africans were shot dead in Sharpeville, and the South African government banned gatherings of ten or more people - and the increased brutality of the Apartheid state, Masekela left the country. He was helped by Trevor Huddleston who got him admitted into London's Guildhall School of Music. He visited the United States, and was befriended by Harry Belafonte. There he recorded the pop jazz tunes "Up, Up and Away" and the number one smash "Grazin' in the Grass" (1968), which sold four million copies.

In 1987, he had a hit single with "Bring Him Back Home" which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela. A renewed interest in his African roots led him to collaborate with West and Central African musicians, and finally to reconnect with South African players when he set up a mobile studio in Botswana, just over the South African border, in the 1980s. Here he re-absorbed and re-used mbaqanga strains, a style he has continued to use since his return to South Africa in the early 1990s. In the 1980s, he toured with Paul Simon in support of Simon's album Graceland, which featured other South African artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, and other elements of the band Kalahari, which Masekela recorded with in the 1980s. He also collaborated in the musical development for the Broadway play, Sarafina!

In 2003, he was featured in the documentary film Amandla!. In 2004, he released his autobiography, Grazin' in The Grass: The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela, which details his struggles against apartheid, as well as his personal struggles against alcoholism from the late 1970s through to the 1990s, a period when he began to blend South African sounds to an adult contemporary sound through two albums he recorded with Herb Alpert, and solo recordings, Techno-Bush, Tomorrow, Uptownship, Beatin' Aroun' de Bush, Sixty, Time, and his most recent studio recording, "Revival". His song, "Soweto Blues", sung by his former wife, Miriam Makeba, is a blues/jazz piece that mourns the carnage of the Soweto riots in 1976. Since October 2007, he is a Board Member of the Woyome Foundation. Find out more at: www.ritmoartists.com/Hugh/Masekela.htm

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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The Doors

The Doors, one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLA film students Ray Manzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals; with drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. The group never added a bass player, and their sound was dominated by Manzarek's electric organ work and Morrison's deep, sonorous voice, with which he sang and intoned his highly poetic lyrics. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1966 and released its first album, The Doors, featuring the hit "Light My Fire," in 1967.

Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a massive hit, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other. With his rich, chilling vocals and somber poetic visions, Morrison explored the depths of the darkest and most thrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience. Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that the Doors were hard-pressed to match it, and although their next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also began running up against the limitations of their recklessly disturbing visions. By their third album, they had exhausted their initial reservoir of compositions, and some of the tracks they hurriedly devised to meet public demand were clearly inferior to, and imitative of, their best early work.

On The Soft Parade, the group experimented with brass sections, with mixed results. Accused (without much merit) by much of the rock underground as pop sellouts, the group charged back hard with the final two albums they recorded with Morrison, on which they drew upon stone-cold blues for much of their inspiration, especially on 1971's L.A. Woman. From the start, the Doors' focus was the charismatic Morrison, who proved increasingly unstable over the group's brief career. In 1969, he was arrested for indecent exposure during a concert in Miami, an incident that nearly derailed the band.

Nevertheless, the Doors managed to turn out a series of successful albums and singles through 1971, when, upon the completion of L.A. Woman, he decamped for Paris. He died there, apparently of a drug overdose. The three surviving Doors tried to carry on without him, but ultimately disbanded. Yet the Doors' music and Morrison's legend continued to fascinate succeeding generations of rock fans: In the mid-'80s, he was as big a star as he'd been in the mid-'60s, and Elektra has sold numerous quantities of the Doors' original albums plus reissues and releases of live material over the years, while publishers have flooded bookstores with Doors and Morrison biographies. In 1991, director Oliver Stone made The Doors, a feature film about the group starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.

The surviving Doors continued for some time, initially considering replacing Morrison with a new singer. Instead, Krieger and Manzarek took over on vocals and The Doors released two more albums before disbanding. The recording of Other Voices took place from June to August 1971, and the album was released in October, 1971. The recordings for Full Circle took place during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August, 1972. The Doors went on tour after the releases in support of the albums. The last album expanded into jazz territory.

While neither album has been reissued on CD in the United States, they have been released on 2-on-1 CDs in Germany and Russia. The legality of the re-issues is debatable.
Both albums sold less than the Morrison era releases, and The Doors stopped performing and recording at the end of 1972, effectively dissolving in March, 1973, during a stay in London while looking for a vocalist. Find out more at: http://www.thedoors.com/

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Brenda Holloway

Brenda Holloway (born June 21, 1946) is a singer and songwriter best known for her period as a recording artist for the Motown label during the 1960s and is best known for the soulful hits, "Every Little Bit Hurts" and "You've Made Me So Very Happy", which later became a pop smash by Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Born in Atascadero, California, she grew up in the Watts section of Los Angeles where she took up violin and sung in her church choir. At 14, she and sister Patrice Holloway began working on demonstration records and singing backup for local L.A.-based R&B acts. In 1962, Brenda made her recording debut with the single, "Poor Fool". That same year, she recorded the song that she would later be famously known for in the coming decades, "Every Little Bit Hurts".

After being overheard singing Mary Wells' "My Guy", Motown Records CEO Berry Gordy signed her to the label's Tamla imprint. For her first single, she was required to re-record "Every Little Bit Hurts" much to the budding singer-songwriter's chagrin. Released in May of 1964, "Every Little Bit Hurts" became a smash hit for Holloway reaching number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100 helping to win the singer a concert spot on Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars tour. She followed "Every Little Bit Hurts" with the more modest follow-up, "I Will Always Love You", before hitting the top forty again with the number 25 pop hit, "When I'm Gone", released shortly after now-former Motown star Mary Wells' Motown contract expired. Wells ironically recorded "When I'm Gone" before Holloway. Motown produced Holloway with songs that were originally recorded by Wells including "Operator" and "I'll Be Available". She became a fixture to several sixties television shows including Shindig! and later was asked by The Beatles to open for them on their U.S. tour in 1966.

She performed in the first rock stadium concert at Shea Stadium for the Beatles as their opening act. Holloway was only one of three female acts who opened for the Beatles including Mary Wells and Jackie DeShannon. Despite her modest success, Holloway felt out of place at the Detroit-based label. Being the first West Coast-based artist on the label, she also was one of the few female artists in Motown to write her own songs and had a much grittier approach to songs than her contemporaries in the label.

Between 1966 and early 1968, she recorded a string of singles that was to be put on her second album, Hurtin' & Cryin'. Its first single was "Just Look What You've Done", which hit the top 30 on the R&B chart. Its follow-up would have a stronger span: the Holloway co-penned "You've Made Me So Very Happy", was one of the few singles written by Holloway allowed to be released. Upon its release, the single peaked at number 40 on the pop chart and number 39 on the R&B chart. Its momentum was stopped when Holloway suddenly left Motown in 1968. A year later, Holloway received royalties for "You've Made Me So Very Happy" when jazz-rock troupe Blood, Sweat & Tears took it to number 2 on the US pop chart and the top 40 in the UK. A year afterwards, Holloway retired from performing.

For more than ten years, she married a pastor and became a housewife while occasionally singing with her sister Patricia. In 1980, she briefly stepped out of retirement to record a gospel album. She divorced her husband shortly afterward, and returned to performing secular music in 1988 recording for the UK label, Motorcity Records. In 1990, she issued the album, All It Takes. After the 1992 death of her friend, Mary Wells, from throat cancer, she came out of retirement from performing and has since kept a healthy performing schedule while recording sporadically. Her most recent album was the 2003 recording, My Love is Your Love. Her vocals, alongside her sister's, were prominently featured in the background of Joe Cocker's hit version of The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends". In the UK, she's regarded as a "Northern Soul legend" while in the U.S., she's often considered the "lost" Motown artist among other Motown acts that didn't get the recognition that many felt they deserved. Still, she is looked upon as a "sixties Motown legend". Find out more at: www.soullyoldies.com/brenda-holloway-biography.html

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Traffic

Traffic was an English rock band from Birmingham, formed in 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason. They began as a psychedelic rock group influenced by The Beatles when releasing early pop singles, and diversified their sound through the use of instruments such as keyboards, reed instruments, and by incorporating jazz and improvisational techniques in their music.

Traffic's singer and keyboardist Steve Winwood experienced success as a musician prior to joining Traffic, becoming the frontman of the Spencer Davis Group at age 15 in 1963 . The Spencer Davis Group released four Top Ten singles and three Top Ten albums in the United Kingdom, as well as two Top Ten singles in the United States. Winwood left that group in April 1967, and formed Traffic with drummer Jim Capaldi, guitarist Dave Mason and multi-instrumentalist Chris Wood, after playing together as musicians at a club called The Elbow Room in Aston, Birmingham. Soon afterwards, Traffic's four members went to a cottage in Aston Tirrold, Berkshire to write and rehearse new music.

Traffic signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records label (of which Steve Winwood's elder brother Muff Winwood later became an executive) and their debut single "Paper Sun" was a UK hit in mid-1967. The second single, Mason's psych-pop classic "Hole in My Shoe", was an even bigger hit, and it became one of their best-known tracks, but it set the stage for increasing friction between Winwood and Mason, the group's principal songwriters. From the beginning, they were quite popular in their native England, though success elsewhere was slower in coming. Their first three albums combined psychedelic rock with elements of folk and soul music.

Around 1971, Mason left for good (having been in and out of the band from the beginning), and the the band experienced a variety of personnel changes. The resulting band added some jazzy elements to their style, and the compositions tended to stretch out over longer lengths. With their albums The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971) and Shootout at the Fantasy Factory (1973) their popularity in the US grew. After one more album, personnel problems resulted in the band calling it quits (but for a brief reunion in 1994 without Wood, who had died in 1983). Winwood, Mason, Capaldi, and Wood all pursued solo careers, with Winwood garnering the most success.

Capaldi and Winwood reunited as Traffic in 1994 for a one-off tour, and they recorded and released a CD of all-new material Far From Home, but it was made without Chris Wood, who had died in 1983 from alcohol-related causes. Traffic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2004. Find out more at: http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=:difixqr51dse~T1

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Etta James

Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins January 25, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. James is an American Blues, R&B and gospel singer also known by the nickname Miss Peaches.Born to an unmarried 14 year old mother (although she believes that Minnesota Fats was her father), she received her first professional vocal training at the age of 5, from James Earle Hines, musical director of the Echoes of Eden choir at St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

Her family moved to San Francisco, California in 1950, and in 1952 the trio (the Creolettes) she had formed with two of her friends came to the attention of Johnny Otis. Otis reversed the syllables of her first name to give her her stage name and began recording her. Her first record, and her first R & B hit, was her own composition, “The Wallflower (Dance with Me, Henry.Drug-related and romantic problems interfered with her career, but James managed to maintain a career throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Later in life, James struggled with obesity.

She reached more than 400 pounds, experienced mobility and knee problems, and often needed a wheelchair. In 2003, James underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost over 200 pounds.

James was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. Her pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2003 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She still tours. Find out more about her life and career at: http://www.etta-james.com/

Research info gathered at: www.lastfm.com


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