Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, on February 20, 1941) has enjoyed a long career from stardom on the folk circuit to country, rock, soundtrack themes, acting, activism, and children's television. For most listeners, she remains identified with the material she wrote and sang for Vanguard in the mid-'60s. Her songs that addressed the plight of the Native American, particularly "Now That the Buffalo's Gone" and "My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying," were the ones that generated the most controversy. Yet she was also skilled at addressing broader themes of war and justice ("Universal Soldier") and romance ("Until It's Time for You to Go"). She was also a capable interpreter of outside material, although her idiosyncratic vibrato made large-scale commercial success out of the question.

Sainte-Marie was born to Cree Indian parents and adopted by a white family. Signed to Vanguard, she was one of the folk scene's more prominent rising stars in the '60s, and certainly the only widely heard performer articulating Native American viewpoints in song. Much of her best material from this era, however, gained its greatest commercial inroads via cover versions. "Universal Soldier" was one of Donovan's first hits. "Until It's Time for You to Go," perhaps her best composition, was covered by numerous pop singers, and became a big British hit for Elvis Presley in the early '70s. "Cod'ine," one of the few '60s songs to explicitly address the dangers of drugs, was covered by Californian rock bands Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Charlatans.

Sainte-Marie didn't pigeonhole herself as a folky, though, recording in Nashville in the late '60s in attempts to break into the country market. In the 1970s, she would make some rock records, including one (1971's She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina) with contributions from Ry Cooder and Crazy Horse. These country and rock outings were far less successful, both commercially and artistically, than her early folk efforts.

But Sainte-Marie was never as reliant on selling units as most musicians. She kept busy with a long-running stint on Sesame Street, performing benefits for and organizing on behalf of Native Americans, and composing for movies (she won an Oscar for the theme to An Officer and a Gentleman, co-written with her husband, producer Jack Nitzsche). She hadn't made an album for 15 years before issuing Coincidence and Likely Stories in 1992.

France named Buffy Sainte-Marie Best International Artist of 1993. That same year, she was selected by the United Nations to proclaim officially the International Year of Indigenous Peoples.She was inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame for her life-long contribution to music in 1995 and won a Gemini Award in 1997 for the Canadian TV special Buffy Sainte-Marie: Up Where We Belong. This also marked the first time she had performed her famous song to a live audience. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation in Canada in 1998, and was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1999, she received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. Find out more about her at: http://www.creative-native.com/

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Inez & Charlie Foxx

Inez Foxx (born 9 September 1942) and her brother Charlie Foxx (23 October 1939 – 18 September 1998) were an American rhythm and blues and soul duo from Greensboro, North Carolina. Inez sang lead vocal, while Charlie sang back-up and played guitar.

Their most successful record was with their novelty composition, "Mockingbird". Released in 1963, it made the Top 10 on both the rhythm and blues and pop charts; the song was later covered by James Taylor and Carly Simon, as well as Dusty Springfield and more recently by country music artist Toby Keith (featuring his daughter, Krystal).

Other notable recordings were "Hurt by Love," "Ask Me," and "(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days."

They were known for their exciting live performances, of which a highlight was Inez's rendition of "I Stand Accused", which finished with a supposedly distraught Inez singing the last verse, while being carried offstage by Charlie. They toured extensively in Europe and their music played a key role in the development of the Northern Soul movement.
Inez also had some success recording on her own, beginning in 1969, but her popularity faded in the 1970s. Charlie was already working as a record producer when they finally disbanded their act.

Charlie Foxx died in 1998, at the age of 58. Find out more about the sister/brother act at: www.last.fm/music/Inez%2B%2526%2BCharlie%2BFoxx

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Bobbie Gentry

Of Portuguese descent, Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Streeter in Chickasaw County, MS, on July 27, 1944; her parents divorced shortly after her birth and she was raised in poverty on her grandparents' farm. After her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, seven-year-old Bobbie composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog," years later self-deprecatingly reprised in her nightclub act; at 13, she moved to Arcadia, CA, to live with her mother, soon beginning her performing career in local country clubs. The 1952 film Ruby Gentry lent the singer her stage surname.

After graduating high school, Gentry settled in Las Vegas, where she appeared in the Les Folies Bergère nightclub revue; she soon returned to California, studying philosophy at U.C.L.A. before transferring to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. In 1964, she made her recorded debut, cutting a pair of duets — "Ode to Love" and "Stranger in the Mirror" — with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds. Gentry continued performing in clubs in the years to follow before an early 1967 recording a demo found its way to Capitol Records producer Kelly Gordon; upon signing to the label, she issued her debut single, "Mississippi Delta." However, disc jockeys began spinning the B-side, the self-penned "Ode to Billie Joe" — with its eerily spare production and enigmatic narrative detailing the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister, who flings himself off the Tallahatchie Bridge, the single struck a chord on country and pop radio alike, topping the pop charts for four weeks in August 1967 and selling three million copies. Although the follow-up, "I Saw an Angel Die," failed to chart, Gentry nevertheless won three Grammy awards, including Best New Artist and Best Female Vocal. She was also named the Academy of Country Music's Best New Female Vocalist.

With her second album, 1968's The Delta Sweete, Gentry returned to the country charts with the minor hit "Okolona River Bottom Band." Although her recordings were typically credited to Capitol staff producers, she later maintained she helmed the sessions herself and also wrote much of her own material, drawing on her Mississippi roots to compose revealing vignettes that typically explored the lifestyles, values, and even hypocrisies of the southern culture. Favoring more soulful and rootsy arrangements in vogue in Nashville at the time, Gentry's records sound quite unlike anything on either the country or pop charts at the time and her smoky, sensuous voice adapted easily to a variety of musical contexts. But to many listeners, she remained a one-hit wonder and her excellent third album, 1968's Local Gentry, received little notice. That same year, Gentry issued a duet album with Glen Campbell, returning to the country Top 20 with "Let It Be Me"; the duo regularly collaborated throughout the 1970s, scoring their biggest hit with a cover of "All I Really Want to Do."

In 1969, Gentry reached her creative zenith with Touch 'Em With Love — though cut in Nashville, the record owed far more to the gritty R&B sounds emanating across the state in Memphis and generated her first U.K. number one, a smoldering rendition of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David perennial "I'll Never Fall in Love Again."

In 1971, she issued her final Capitol effort, Patchwork, primarily confining her performing to her nightclub act for the next several years. A CBS summer replacement series, The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour, aired for four episodes in 1974; Gentry next surfaced on the big screen, credited as co-writer for a 1976 film adaptation of Ode to Billie Joe. After a second marriage, to fellow singer/songwriter Jim Stafford, ended in 1979 after only 11 months, Gentry gradually receded from public view, retiring from performing and eventually settling in Los Angeles. Find more about her at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbie_Gentry

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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

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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/

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Rick Nelson

Rick Nelson was born May 8, 1940 and entered professional entertainment before his tenth birthday, when he appeared with father Ozzie (once a jazz musician), mother Harriet, and brother David on a radio comedy series based around the family. By the early '50s, the series was on television, and Ricky grew into a teenager in public. He was just the right age to have his life turned around by rock & roll in 1956 and started his recording career almost accidentally the following year. The single, a cover of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" that went to number four, was helped immensely by plugs on the Ozzie & Harriet TV show.

Over the next five years he would offer his own brand of rockabilly music, albeit one with some smooth Hollywood production touches and occasional pure pop ballads. Nelson recruited one of the greatest early rock guitarists, Some of his best and toughest songs ("Believe What You Say," "It's Late") were written by Johnny and/or Dorsey Burnette, who had previously been in one of the best rockabilly combos, the Johnny Burnette Rock 'n Roll Trio. Ricky could rock pretty hard when he wanted to, as on "Be-Bop Baby" and "Stood Up," though in a polished fashion that wasn't quite as wild and threatening as rockabilly's Southern originators.

From 1957 to 1962, he was about the highest-selling singer in the U.S. except for Elvis, making the Top 40 about 30 times. "Poor Little Fool" and "Lonesome Town" (1958) were early indications of his ballad style; in the early '60s, "Travelin' Man," "Young World," "Teen Age Idol," and other hits pointed to a more countrified, mature style as he honed in on his 21st birthday (by which time he would shorten his billing from "Ricky" to "Rick"). He could still play rockabilly from time to time, the most memorable example being "Hello, Mary Lou" (co-written by Gene Pitney), with its electrifying James Burton solos.

He left the Imperial Record label for a 20-year contract with Decca in 1963 (which would be terminated prematurely in the mid-'70s), and for a year or so the hits continued, at a less frenetic pace. Early-1964's "For You," however, would be his last big smash of the '60s. Much of the material was either substandard pop or Tin Pan Alley standards, although isolated tracks still generated some sparks. He also continued to appear on Ozzie and Harriet. But by the mid-'60s even that institution was declining in popularity, leading to its cancellation in 1966.

Influenced by the music of Willie Nelson and Doug Kershaw, he formed one of the earliest country-rock groups, the Stone Canyon Band. A cover of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me" made the Top 40 in 1970, but his country-rock outings attracted more critical acclaim than commercial success, until 1972's "Garden Party." A rare self-composed number, based around the frosty reception granted his contemporary material at a rock & roll oldies show, it became his last Top Ten hit.

Nelson would continue to record off and on for the next dozen years and toured constantly, yet he was unable to capitalize on his assets. A big part of the problem was that although he wanted to play contemporary music, he didn't write much of his own material, which was a basic precept of self-respecting rock acts after the advent of the Beatles. Nor did he tap into good outside compositions, and there's little of interest on the albums he recorded over the last decade or so of his life. He died (along with his fiancée) in a private plane crash on December 31, 1985, on his way to a New Year's Eve gig in Dallas, at the age of 45. Find out more about him and his music at: www.rockhall.com/inductee/ricky-nelson

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Lavern Baker

LaVern Baker (November 11, 1929 – March 10, 1997) was an American Rhythm & Blues singer. She was one of the sexiest divas gracing the mid-'50s rock & roll circuit, boasting a brashly seductive vocal delivery tailor-made for belting the catchy novelties "Tweedlee Dee," "Bop-Ting-a-Ling," and "Tra La La" for Atlantic Records during rock's first wave of prominence.

Born Delores Williams, she was singing at the Club DeLisa on Chicago's south side at age 17, decked out in raggedy attire and billed as "Little Miss Sharecropper" (the same handle that she made her recording debut under for RCA Victor with Eddie "Sugarman" Penigar's band in 1949). She changed her name briefly to Bea Baker when recording for OKeh in 1951 with Maurice King's Wolverines, then settled on the first name of LaVern when she joined Todd Rhodes' band as featured vocalist in 1952 (she fronted Rhodes' aggregation on the impassioned ballad "Trying" for Cincinnati's King Records).

She signed with Atlantic as a solo in 1953, debuting with the incendiary "Soul on Fire." The coy, Latin-tempo "Tweedlee Dee" was a smash in 1955 on both the R&B and pop charts, although her impact on the latter was blunted when squeaky-clean Georgia Gibbs covered it for Mercury. An infuriated Baker filed suit over the whitewashing, but she lost. By that time, though, her star had ascended: Baker's "Bop-Ting-A-Ling," "Play It Fair," "Still," and the rocking "Jim Dandy" all vaulted into the R&B Top Ten over the next couple of years.

Baker's statuesque figure and charismatic persona made her a natural for TV and movies. She co-starred on the historic R&B revue segment on Ed Sullivan's TV program in November of 1955 and did memorable numbers in Alan Freed's rock movies Rock, Rock, Rock and Mr. Rock & Roll. Her Atlantic records remained popular throughout the decade: she hit big in 1958 with the ballad "I Cried a Tear," adopted a pseudo-sanctified bellow for the rousing Leiber & Stoller-penned gospel sendup "Saved" in 1960, and cut a Bessie Smith tribute album before leaving Atlantic in 1964. A brief stop at Brunswick Records (where she did a sassy duet with Jackie Wilson, "Think Twice") preceded a late-'60s jaunt to entertain the troops in Vietnam. She became seriously ill after the trip and was hospitalized, eventually settling far out of the limelight in the Philippines. She remained there for 22 years, running an NCO club on Subic Bay for the U.S. government.

Finally, in 1988, Baker returned stateside to star in Atlantic's 40th anniversary bash at New York's Madison Square Garden. That led to a soundtrack appearance in the film Dick Tracy, a starring role in the Broadway musical Black & Blue (replacing her ex-Atlantic labelmate Ruth Brown), a nice comeback disc for DRG (Woke Up This Mornin'), and a memorable appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival. Baker died on March 10, 1997. Find out more about this soul legend at: http://home.att.net/~marvy42/Lavern/lavern.html

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Georgie Fame

Georgie Fame (b. June 26, 1943) is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player whose real name is Clive Powell.

Fame was born in Leigh in Lancashire. At sixteen years of age he entered into a management agreement with Larry Parnes, who gave artists new names such as Marty Wilde and Billy Fury. Fame was already playing piano for Billy Fury in a backing band called The Blue Flames, which later became billed as “Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames”. The band had great success with rhythm and blues. Their greatest success was “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” in 1968, which was a number-one hit in the United Kingdom and in the United States; they also had UK number-one hits with “Yeh Yeh” (1965) and “Get Away” (1966). Although he enjoyed regular chart success with singles in the late 60s, it was a peculiar quirk of chart statistics that his only three Top 10 hits all made number one.

He continued playing into the 1970s, enjoying a hit with Alan Price (ex-keyboard player of The Animals), “Rosetta”, in 1971. He has also toured as one of the Rhythm Kings, with his friend Bill Wyman playing bass.From the late 1980s, until the 1997 album The Healing Game he was a core member of Van Morrison’s band, as well as his musical producer, playing keyboards and singing harmony vocals on tracks like “In the Days before Rock ‘n’ Roll”. In 1998, Fame split with Morrison to record and tour with former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman's new group the Rhythm Kings, contributing organ and vocals to several albums. In 2000, now signed to Ben Sidran's Go Jazz label, Fame released the acclaimed Poet in New York, which established him as an impressive student of jazz's vocalese tradition. He frequently plays residences at jazz clubs such as Ronnie Scott’s. Find more at: http://www.geocities.com/mikegriffiths6/thegeorgiefamediscography.html

Research info gathered at: www.lastfm.com


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Jerry Butler

Jerry Butler (born Jerry Butler Jr., December 8, 1939, Sunflower, Mississippi) is an American soul singer and songwriter also known as "The Ice Man" because of his cool demeanour while singing often intensely emotional lyrics. He is also noted as being the original lead singer of the legendary R&B vocal group, The Impressions, as well as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

The mid-1950s had a profound impact on Butler’s life. He grew up poor, having lived in Chicago’s rough Cabrini Green housing complex. Music and the church provided solace from a city that was as segregated as those in the Deep South. He performed in a church choir with Curtis Mayfield. As a teenager, Butler sang in a gospel quartet called Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, along with Mayfield. Mayfield, a guitar player, became the lone instrumentalist for the six-member Roosters group, which later became The Impressions.

At age 18, Butler wrote the song "For Your Precious Love" and wanted to record a disc. The Impressions auditioned for Chess Records and VeeJay Records and were eventually signed with Vee-Jay, where they released "For Your Precious Love" in 1958, which became The Impressions' first hit and gold record. Due to conflicts between the group and Vee-Jay, which wanted to bill the group as "Jerry Butler and The Impressions," which neither Butler nor the other group members wanted, he left the group shortly thereafter.

He co-wrote, with Otis Redding, the song "I've Been Loving You Too Long" in 1965. Butler’s solo career had a string of hits, including the Top 10 successes "He Will Break Your Heart (He Don't Love You, Like I Love You)," "Find Another Girl," "I'm A-Telling You" (all written by fellow Impression Curtis Mayfield and featuring Mayfield as harmony vocal), "Only the Strong Survive," "Moon River," "Need To Belong" (recorded with the Impressions after he went solo), "Make It Easy On Yourself," "Let It Be Me" (with Betty Everett), "Brand New Me," "Ain’t Understanding Mellow" (with Brenda Lee Eager), "Hey, Western Union Man," and "Never Gonna Give You Up." Butler released two successful albums, The Ice Man Cometh (1968) and Ice On Ice (1970). The Iceman Cometh garnered Butler three Grammy nominations. He collaborated on many of his successful recordings with the Philadelphia-based songwriting team, Gamble and Huff.

Butler continues to perform while serving as a Cook County Board Commissioner since the 1980s. In recent years, he has served as host of PBS TV music specials, such as Doo Wop 50 and 51, Rock Rhythm and Doo Wop, and Soul Spectacular: 40 years of R&B, among others. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 1991, Butler was inducted, along with the other original members of the Impressions, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Gooden, Fred Cash, and Arthur and Richard Brooks, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He currently resides in Chicago with his wife Annette. He has two sons, Randy and Tony, and a grandson. Find out more at about the singer at: http://shs.starkville.k12.ms.us/mswm/MSWritersAndMusicians/musicians/ButlerJerry/Butler.Jerry.html

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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The Troggs

Remembered chiefly as proto-punkers who reached the top of the charts with the "caveman rock" of "Wild Thing" (1966), the Troggs were also adept at crafting power pop and ballads. Hearkening back to a somewhat simpler, more basic British Invasion approach as psychedelia began to explode in the late '60s, the group also reached the Top Five with their flower-power ballad "Love Is All Around" in 1968.

Hailing from the relatively unknown British town of Andover, the Troggs hooked up with manager/producer Larry Page (who was involved in the Kinks' early affairs) in the mid-'60s. After a flop debut single, they were fortunate enough to come across a demo of Chip Taylor's "Wild Thing" (which had already been unsuccessfully recorded by the Wild Ones). In the hands of the Troggs, "Wild Thing" — with its grungy chords and off-the-wall ocarina solo — became a primeval three-chord monster, famous not only in its original hit Troggs version, but in its psychedelic revamping by Jimi Hendrix, who used it to close his famous set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

"Wild Thing" made number one in the States, but the Troggs' momentum there was impeded by a strange legal dispute which saw their early records simultaneously released on two different labels. Nor did it help that the band didn't tour the U.S. for a couple of years. As a consequence, the fine follow-up singles "With a Girl Like You" and "I Can't Control Myself" didn't do as well as they might have. In Britain, it was a different story — they were smashes, although "I Can't Control Myself" had such an open-hearted lust that it encountered resistance from conservative radio programmers all over the globe.

The Troggs tempered their image on subsequent ballads, which utilized a sort of pre-"power ballad" approach. These weren't bad, and a few of them were British hits, but they weren't as fine as the initial blast of singles which established the band's image. "Love Is All Around," which restored them to the American Top Ten in 1968, was their finest effort in this vein. It was also their final big hit on either side of the Atlantic.By 1970, they were struggling.

They continued to release a stream of singles, most of which had a straightforward simplicity that was out of step with the progressive rock of the time, all of which flopped, though some were fairly good. They found enough live work (sometimes on the punk/new wave circuit) to keep going, although their intermittent records generally came to naught. In 1992, they rose to their highest profile in ages when three members of R.E.M., which had covered "Love Is All Around," backed the Troggs on the comeback album Athens Andover.

In 1994 The Troggs single from 1960s, Love is all Around, was used in the hit Hugh Grant English comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. This usage of the song revived it completely, so much so that it hit #1 on the UK charts for 15 weeks straight. Find out more about them at their website: www.my-generation.org.uk/Troggs

Research info gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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Irma Thomas

Irma Thomas (b. February 18, 1941, Ponchatoula, Louisiana) is a Grammy Award winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans."

She is a contemporary of Aretha Franklin and Etta James, but never experienced their level of commercial success; still, she has a large cult following among soul aficionados. In 2007, she won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album for "After The Rain", her first Grammy in an acclaimed career spanning over 45 years.

Born Irma Lee, as a teen she sang with a Baptist church choir, auditioning for Specialty Records as a 13 year old. By the age of 19 she had been married twice and had four children. Keeping her second ex-husband's surname, she worked as a waitress in New Orleans. Her first single, "(You Can Have My Husband But) Don't Mess With My Man," was released in spring 1960, and reached the number 22 spot on the Billboard R&B chart.

She then began recording on the Minit label, working with songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint on songs including “It’s Raining” and “Ruler of my Heart”, which was later reinterpreted by Otis Redding as "Pain In My Heart". Imperial Records acquired Minit in 1963, and a string of successful releases followed, including "I Wish Someone Would Care” (her biggest national hit), its B-side " Break-a-Way” (later covered by Tracey Ullman among others), "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is”, and "Time Is on My Side" (a song later by the Rolling Stones).

Although her first four Imperial singles all charted on Billboard's pop chart, later releases were less successful, and, unlike her contemporaries she never managed to cross over into mainstream commercial success. She recorded for Chess Records in 1967/68 with some success, the Otis Redding song "Good To Me" reaching the R&B chart. She then relocated to California, releasing records on various small labels, before returning to Louisiana, and in the early 1980s opened her own club, the Lion's Den.

After several years’ break from recording, she was signed by Rounder Records, and in 1991 earned her first-ever Grammy nomination for "Live! Simply the Best". She subsequently released a number of traditional gospel albums, together with more secular recordings. The album “Sing It !” was nominated for a Grammy in 1999.

She is still active as a performer, appearing annually at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. She reigned as Queen of the Krewe du Vieux for the 1998 New Orleans Mardi Gras season. She often headlined at her own club, which is now out of business due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Thomas relocated to Gonzales, Louisiana, 60 miles from New Orleans, after Hurrican Katrina, but, according to her web site, she is now back in her home in New Orleans. In 2007, The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame honored her contributions to Louisiana music by inducting her into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame.Visit her official website at: http://www.irmathomas.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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Kay Starr

Kay Starr (born July 21, 1922) is an American jazz and popular singer. She was born Katherine Laverne Starks on an Indian reservation in Dougherty, Oklahoma. Her father was a full-blooded Iroquois Indian; her mother, Annie, was of mixed Irish and American Indian heritage. When her father got a job installing water sprinkler systems for the Automatical Sprinkler Company, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. There, her mother raised chickens, whom Kay used to serenade in the coop. Kay's aunt Nora was impressed by her 7-year-old niece's singing and arranged for her to sing on a Dallas radio station, WRR. Eventually she had her own 15-minute show, singing pop and "hillbilly" songs with a piano accompaniment. By age 10 she was making $3 a night, which was quite a salary in the Depression days.

When her father changed jobs, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued performing on the radio. She sang "Western swing music," still mostly a mix of country and pop. During this time at Memphis radio station WMPS,misspellings in her fan mail inspired her and her parents to change her name to "Kay Starr."

At 15, she was chosen to sing with the Joe Venuti orchestra. Venuti had a contract to play in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis which called for his band to feature a girl singer, which he did not have. Venuti's road manager heard Kay Starr on the radio and suggested her to Venuti. She was still in junior high school and her parents insisted on a midnight curfew.

After finishing high school, she moved to Los Angeles and signed with Wingy Manone's band; then from 1943 to 1945 she sang with Charlie Barnet's band. She then retired for a year because she developed pneumonia and later developed nodes on her vocal cords, and lost her voice as a result of fatigue and overwork. In 1946 she became a soloist, and in 1947 signed a solo contract with Capitol Records. In 1948 when the American Federation of Musicians was threatening a strike, Capitol wanted to have all its singers record a lot of songs for future release. Since she was junior to all these other artists, every song she wanted to sing got offered to all the others, leaving her a list of old songs from earlier in the century, which nobody else wanted to record.

Around 1950 she made a trip back home to Dougherty and while there heard a fiddle recording of Pee Wee King's song, "Bonaparte's Retreat". She liked it so much that she wanted to record it, and contacted Roy Acuff's publishing house in Nashville, Tennessee, and spoke to Acuff directly. He was happy to let her record it, but it took a while for her to make clear that she was a singer, not a fiddler, and therefore needed to have some lyrics written. Eventually Acuff came up with a new lyric, and "Bonaparte's Retreat" became her biggest hit up to that point, with close to a million sales.

In 1955, she signed with RCA Victor Records. However, at this time, traditional pop music was being superseded by rock and roll, and Kay had only one hit, which is sometimes considered her attempt to sing rock and roll and sometimes as a song making fun of it, "The Rock And Roll Waltz". She stayed at RCA Victor until 1959, then returned to Capitol.

Most of her songs have jazz influences, and were sang in a style that sounded decidedly close to the rock and roll songs that follow. These include her smash hits "Wheel of Fortune" (her biggest hit, number one for 10 weeks), "Side by Side", "The Man Upstairs", and "Rock and Roll Waltz". One of her biggest hits was her cover version of "The Man with the Bag", a Christmas song, which can be heard non-stop every holiday season in stores, restaurants, and on the radio. Her career declined in the late 1950s but she continued to work.

In 2006 a remix by Stuhr of Starr's vocal of the classic "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" was used in a commercial for Telus. As of 2007 she resides in Bel Air, California; married six times, she has a daughter and a grandchild. Find out more at: http://www.members.tripod.com/~Kay_starr/biography.html

Research gathered at: http://www.wikipedia.org/


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Dobie Gray

Dobie Gray (born Lawrence Victor Ainsworth, 26 July 1940) is a musician/singer best known for his cover of the song "Drift Away", which was one of the biggest hits of 1973, and still remains a staple of radio airplay.

He was born in Texas although the exact place is unknown, Simonton being one of the most generally agreed on locations. There is also some argument as to his date of birth, but it is generally placed in the early 1940s. His birth name is also disputed, being listed as "Leonard Victor Ainsworth" or "Laurence Darrow Brown". However, Gray is listed in the Fort Bend County Birth Records in Texas, as being born on 26 July 1940, to Jane P. Spencel and Jethro Clifton Brown.

He moved from Texas to California in the 1960s, where he was mentored by Sonny Bono and later took up residence in Nashville, Tennessee. Both the original "Drift Away" single, and album of the same title, were the final records pressed on the Decca Records label. MCA absorbed the Decca label (along with its other subsidiaries) shortly thereafter.

Gray had other hits though, with songs such as "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965, and "Out On The Floor" a decade later. "The 'In' Crowd" is the song which first brought international recognition to Gray. Written by Billy Page, it extolled the cool sassiness and hipness of being "In" in the mid-sixties. The record was in the charts for three months. The Ramsey Lewis Trio's hit version of it came two years later.

"Drift Away" became a hit again in 2003, when it was covered by Uncle Kracker on his No Stranger to Shame album. The recording is a duet between Kracker and Gray, who is also featured in the video. Gray is still in the entertainment business and has a website at: http://www.dobiegray.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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Chris Montez

Chris Montez (born Ezekiel Christopher Montanez, January 17, 1943, in Los Angeles, California, the last of twenty children), is a Mexican American singer. He grew up in Hawthorne, California, influenced by the Latino flavored music of his community and the success of Ritchie Valens.

In 1962, he recorded the single, “Let’s Dance” on Monogram Records. It went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the U.S. and to #2 on the U.K. Singles Chart. Though he would tour with Clyde McPhatter, Sam Cooke, the Platters, and the Miracles, there would be no more hits for Montez until four years later. This was despite a relatively new and highly popular group of Liverpudlians, who called themselves The Beatles, opening a London show for him.

He returned to the recording studio in 1965, this time at A&M Records. Montez was searching for the same rock and roll formula that would replicate the success of “Let’s Dance”. During a recording session, A&M co-founder Herb Alpert dropped in and suggested that Montez try a different approach: a Middle of the road, soft ballad sound.

Montez trusted Alpert’s insticts enough to give it a try. “Call Me” was the first single released from his 1966 A&M album, “The More I See You”. The title single from the album, making its way to primarily adult-formatted radio stations, confused some non-rock and roll DJs, who were unfamiliar with Chris’ past work. When back-announcing the song, the DJs would often refer to Chris as a female ( Likely because these songs were sung in a falsetto). But by the time the album was released, Montez’ pictures on the front and back of the jacket cleared up any mystery surrounding his gender.

“The More I See You” album yielded three top 40 singles for Montez: The title cut, plus “Call Me” and “There Will Never Be Another You”. Unfortunately, it was this album that would yield the most Top 40 hits for Montez.He would record three more albums for A&M: “Time After Time”, “Foolin’ Around”, and “Watch What Happens”. None of these albums mirrored the success of The More I See You album. The title cut album, “Time After Time”, did hit the Top 40, but no other hits followed. Following the release of “Watch What Happens” in 1968, Montez left A&M Records.In November, 1972, Montez charted a Latin hit in Brazil: “Loco por ti (Crazy about you)” became very popular in that country. Montez resurfaced in 1974 at CBS Records, with the release of a new LP, “The Best of Chris Montez”, a mix of both old and new recordings, with the new ones having little to no resemblance of his past hits.[citation needed] This, and Chris’ more mature appearance on the cover, with longer hair, a mustache, and a stylish (for the mid-1970s) patterned shirt, was proof that the album marked time.

He recorded one more album for CBS: Raza: Ay No Digas, which did well internationally, but failed to make an impact in the U.S. His final album, with exclusively Spanish-language material, was Cartas de Amor, released on the independent label AYM in 1983 and later released on A&M Records (A&M Discos) of Mexico.

He continues to perform, mainly to foreign audiences, but still maintains a series of concert dates stateside. Most of his American appearances are in Branson, Missouri, where he performs with Dick Clark's “Original Stars at American Bandstand” show on stage along with Fabian, Bobby Vee, Brian Hyland, and The Chiffons. Find out more about him and his career at: http://www.chrismontez.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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Les McCaan

Born in 1935 in Lexington, Kentucky, Les McCann is a self-taught musician (other than the four piano lessons he took as a youth from a nice old lady who lived in the neighborhood). In the early fifties, he left the South and joined the Navy. While stationed in California, he took every opportunity to visit San Francisco’s jazz clubs, where he first experienced Miles Davis and his music. His first major influence though, was pianist Erroll Garner, who shared the same exuberance and bursting vocalizations. After his discharge from the military, McCann moved to Los Angeles and formed a trio, Les McCann Ltd., which became a favorite on the Sun Strip in the late fifties.

He reached the peak of his career at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival, recording "Compared to What" and "Cold Duck Time" for Atlantic (Swiss Movement) with Eddie Harris and Benny Bailey. Although he has done some worthwhile work since then, much of it has been anti-climatic.McCann first gained some fame in 1956 when he won a talent contest in the Navy as a singer that resulted in an appearance on television on The Ed Sullivan Show. After being discharged, he formed a trio in Los Angeles. McCann turned down an invitation to join the Cannonball Adderley Quintet so he could work on his own music.

He signed a contract with Pacific Jazz and in 1960 gained some fame with his albums Les McCann Plays the Truth and The Shout. His soulful funk style on piano was influential and McCann's singing was largely secondary until the mid-'60s. He recorded many albums for Pacific Jazz during 1960-64, mostly with his trio but also featuring Ben Webster, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Blue Mitchell, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Pass, the Jazz Crusaders and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra.

He switched to Limelight during 1965-67 and then signed with Atlantic in 1968. After the success of Swiss Movement, McCann emphasized his singing at the expense of his playing and he began to utilize electric keyboards, notably on 1972's Layers. His recordings became less interesting to traditional jazz fans from that point on, and after his Atlantic contract ran out in 1976, McCann appeared on records much less often. However he stayed popular and a 1994 reunion tour with Eddie Harris was quite successful.

A mid-1990's stroke put him out of action for a time and weakened his keyboard playing (his band began carrying an additional keyboardist) but Les McCann returned to a more active schedule during 1996 and was still a powerful singer. His comeback was solidified by 2002's Pump it Up, a guest-heavy celebration of funk and jazz released on ESC Records. Find out more about this jazz legend at: http://www.lesmccann-officialsite.com/biography.html

Research info gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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Ten Years After

Ten Years After are an English blues rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group was form after several years of local success in the Nottingham/Mansfield area as a band known as The Jaybirds (its core was formed in late 1960 as Ivan Jay and the Jaycats), and later as Ivan Jay and the Jaymen, Ten Years After was founded by Alvin Lee and Leo Lyons. Ivan Jay sang lead vocals from late 1960 to 1962 and was joined by Ric Lee in August 1965, replacing original drummer Dave Quickmire, who had joined in 1962. In 1966 The Jaybirds moved to London, where Chick Churchill joined the group.

That November the quartet signed a manager, Chris Wright, and decided to change their name to Blues Trip, Blues Yard and finally in November 1966, to Ten Years After ( in honour of Elvis Presley, an idol of Lee's whose momentous year in rock, 1956, helps to better explain the band's title). They became the first band of the soon-to-be Chrysalis Agency. They received an invitation to play at the renowned Windsor Jazz Festival in 1967. That performance led to a contract with Deram, a subsidiary company of Decca – the first band so signed without a hit single. In October, their 1967 self-titled debut album was released.

In 1968, after touring Scandinavia and the United States, Ten Years After released their second album, live Undead, which brought their first classic, "I'm Going Home." This was followed in February 1969 by studio issue, Stonedhenge, a British hit, that included another classic, "Hear Me Calling" (it was released also as a single, and covered in 1972 by British glam rock rising stars, Slade). In July 1969 they appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival, in the first event to which rock bands were invited. In August, the band performed at Woodstock; their furious-to-soft-to-furious rendition of "I'm Going Home" was featured in both the subsequent film and soundtrack album and catapulted them to star status.

During 1970, they released "Love Like a Man," their only hit in the UK Singles Chart. This song was on their fifth album, Cricklewood Green. It was the first record to be issued with a different playing speed on both sides – one a three-minute edit at 45rpm, the other, a nine-minute live version at 33rpm. In August, Ten Years After played the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 to an audience of 600,000.

In 1971, the band released the album A Space in Time which marked a move toward more commercial material. It featured their biggest hit, "I'd Love To Change The World". But a few albums later, the band broke up after the 1974 album "Positive Vibrations". In 1988, they re-united for a few concerts and recorded the album About Time (1989).

Alvin Lee has since then mostly played and recorded under his own name. In 2004, the other band members substituted him with Joe Gooch and recorded the album Now. Material from the following tour was used for the 2005 double album Roadworks. Ric Lee is currently in a band called The Breakers, along with Ian Ellis (Clouds). Find out more about this British musical contribution to the world at: http://tenyearsafter.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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Bettye LaVette

Bettye LaVette (born Betty Haskins in Muskegon, Michigan, 1946) is an American soul singer who cut her first record at 16, but achieved only intermittent fame until her 2005 record, I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. Her style combines elements of country, rock, soul, funk, and gospel, which has prevented her from being easily marketed.

She grew up in Detroit, where she was discovered by a Detroit record producer. In 1962, aged 16, she recorded a single, "My Man - He's A Lovin' Man" which became a national hit after Atlantic Records bought distribution rights. This led to a tour with R&B musicians Clyde McPhatter, Ben E. King, Barbara Lynn and then-newcomer Otis Redding, and then a stint touring with James Brown. Her next single was "Let Me Down Easy", which has become her theme song. She would cut numerous other singles for various labels, without an album contract.

An album to be titled Child of the Seventies was produced in 1972, but it was shelved and was not released until 2000. Despite drawing enthusiastic live crowds across the country, she continued to be rebuffed by labels. She spent six years on Broadway and touring with the musical Bubbling Brown Sugar opposite Cab Calloway. During the disco era, she managed a small hit with the ironically titled "Doin' The Best That I Can".

In 1982 Motown finally offered her a contract to fill the void left by the departing Diana Ross, and LaVette recorded Tell Me A Lie, with the single "Right in the Middle of Falling in Love" which was a modest hit. Still her career languished, though she found steady work on the European festival circuit. In 1991, she completed the album Not Gonna Happen Twice for Ian Levine's Motorcity label.

In 1999, Gilles Petard, a French soul collector, discovered the masters of Child of the Seventies. He licensed the album from Atlantic and released it on his Art and Soul label as Souvenirs (2000). (Child of the Seventies was reissued by Rhino Handmade in 2006 with additional tracks.) This led to a LaVette revival which has so far included a live album and two brand new albums, including 2005's I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, an album whose title is taken from the lyrics of the Fiona Apple hit Sleep to Dream, which is covered on the album. Other notable songwriters on the album were Aimee Mann, Sinead O'Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, and Dolly Parton. The album was relased by ANTI- Records and produced by Joe Henry.

Her 2007 album, The Scene of the Crime, was recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. She recorded Child of the Seventies not at FAME but at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, which ceased operation in 2005. LaVette talks about her experiences at Muscle Shoals Sound and FAME in a Knoxville Voice interview conducted by Edd Hurt in September 2007. Rock/Alt-Country outfit Drive-By Truckers served as the back-up band for the album. Drive-By Truckers frontman, Patterson Hood, produced the album alongside LaVette. The album also features one song co-written by LaVette and Patterson Hood. Find out more at: http://www.bettyelavette.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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