Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician and is generally considered "the Father of Chicago blues".

Muddy Waters was the leading exponent of Chicago blues in the '50s. With him, the blues came up from the Delta and went electric, and his guitar licks and repertoire have fueled innumerable blues bands. Muddy Waters was the son of a farmer and, following his mother's death in 1918, was raised by his grandmother. He picked up his nickname because he fished and played regularly in a muddy creek. He learned to play harmonica, and as a teen he led a band that frequently played Mississippi Delta clubs. His singing was influenced by the style of local bluesman Son House. At 17, Waters began playing guitar by studying Robert Johnson records. In 1940 he traveled to St. Louis and in 1941 joined the Silas Green tent show as a singer and harmonica player. Sometime around 1941–42, Waters was recorded by folk archivists/researchers Alan Lomax and John Work in Mississippi for the Library of Congress.

In 1943 he moved to Chicago, where he found employment in a paper mill. The following year, Waters got an electric guitar and began performing at South Side clubs and rent parties. He cut several sides in 1946 for Columbia’s Okeh subsidiary, but none was released until 1981, when they appeared on a Columbia blues reissue, Okeh Chicago Blues. In 1946 bluesman Sunnyland Slim helped Waters get signed to Aristocrat Records, where he cut several unsuccessful singles, and Waters continued playing clubs every night and driving a truck six days a week.

In 1948 the Chess brothers changed Aristocrat to Chess. Waters’ first single on the new label was “Rollin’ Stone,” a major blues hit. “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and “I Feel Like Going Home” from that year secured his position as a major blues performer. Most of Waters’ early recordings featured him on electric guitar, Big Crawford or writer/producer Willie Dixon on bass, and occasionally Little Walter on harmonica. By 1951 he was supported by a complete band with Otis Spann on piano, Little Walter on harmonica, Jimmie Rodgers on second guitar, and Elgin Evans on drums.

“Honey Bee” in 1951; “She Moves Me” (#10 R&B) in 1952; “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” (#8 R&B), “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” (#4 R&B), “I’m Ready” (#5 R&B), and “Got My Mojo Working” in 1954; and “Mannish Boy” (#9 R&B) in 1955 are all regarded as blues classics and have been recorded by numerous rock groups. During the ’50s, many of the top Chicago bluesmen passed through Waters’ band, including Walter Horton, Junior Wells, Jimmie Rodgers, James Cotton, and Buddy Guy. In addition, Waters was helpful in the early stages of both Howlin’ Wolf’s and Chuck Berry’s careers.

During his peak years as a record seller, most of Waters’ sales were confined primarily to the Mississippi Delta, the New Orleans area, and Chicago. But his reputation and music were internationally known, as the attendance at concerts on his 1958 English tour revealed. The Rolling Stones named themselves after his song “Rollin’ Stone.” In the early ’70s Waters left Chess and sued Chess’s publishing arm for back royalties.

He signed with Steve Paul’s Blue Sky records in 1976, the year he appeared at the Band’s farewell concert. Using members of his ’50s bands and producer/guitarist Johnny Winter, Waters made three of his best-selling albums, Hard Again, I’m Ready, and King Bee. Winter and Waters frequently performed together in the ’70s and ’80s. He last performed publicly at a June 1982 Eric Clapton show. Waters died of a heart attack. In 1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004 Waters was ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Find his official website at: http://www.muddywaters.com/

Research info gathered at: www.rollingstone.com


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Lou Reed

Lou Reed (born March 2, 1942) is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, originally from Brooklyn, New York. Especially while a member of the The Velvet Underground in the 1960s, Reed broke new ground for the rock genre in several important dimensions, influencing the rock and roll movement in general, introducing more mature and intellectual themes to what was then considered a music genre for children and teenagers.

Reed first found prominence as the guitarist and principal singer-songwriter of The Velvet Underground. The band, which lasted from 1965 until 1973 (with Reed departing in late 1970 after the Loaded sessions), gained relatively little notice during its life but is often considered the seed from which most alternative and underground traditions of rock music sprang. As the Velvet's songwriter, Reed wrote about such taboo subjects as S&M (Venus in Furs), transvestites and transsexuals (Sister Ray, and Lady Godiva's Operation), prostitution (There She Goes Again), and drug addiction (I'm Waiting for the Man, White Light/White Heat, Heroin). As a guitarist, he made innovative use of abrasive distortion, volume-driven feedback, and nonstandard tunings. Reed's flat, New York voice, stripped of superficial emotions and, like Bob Dylan's, flaunting its lack of conventional training, was no less important to the music's radical effect.

Reed began a long and varied solo career in 1972. He scored a hit that year with Walk on the Wild Side off the Bowie-produced Transformer. For more than a decade he then seemed purposely to evade mainstream commercial success. Transformer was followed by the dark and challenging Berlin, an album that shed his fan base just as he'd cultivated it.

Despite his best efforts, the 70's were not without artistically and commercially successful albums. He had a major success with the live Rock 'n Roll AnimalLP, recorded following the release of Transformer, which received vast FM airplay in the mid-to late '70s due in no small part to the superb guitar solos of Steve Hunter. Coney Island Bady contained some of the best written and performed songs in Reed's oeuvre and Street Hassle saw Reed brave new-wave stylings.

His work won him wide recognition by the late 1980s as an essential elder statesman of rock. For decades he has written about intense subjects including heroin, transexuals, and S&M - not to mention the horror stories on Berlin - which had never been presented in rock and roll before. The industry had matured, to the extent that his commercial position as an "art rocker" was secure. Recently Lou Reed has teamed up with "The Killers" on a song called Tranquilize for their new compilation album "Sawdust". Which was released on Nov. 13, 2007. Find out more about this prince of rock at: http://www.loureed.com/

Research info gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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Kim Weston

Best known as a duet partner of Marvin Gaye, Kim Weston also charted with some of her own solo sides during the '60s, although she never had the breakout success of a Martha Reeves or Diana Ross.

Born Agatha Natalie Weston in Detroit in 1939, she started singing in her church choir at age three, and by her teenage years had joined a touring gospel group called the Wright Specials. She signed with Motown during the company's early days, scoring a minor R&B hit in 1963 with "Love Me All the Way." The following year, she recorded her first duet with Gaye, "What Good Am I Without You," but made the tactical error of turning down a chance to record "Dancing in the Street," which subsequently became a smash hit for Martha & the Vandellas. She enjoyed her biggest solo hit in 1965 with "Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)" and followed it up in 1966 with the equally soulful "Helpless," both of which helped make her reputation among soul collectors.

Also in 1966, she cut an entire album of duets with Gaye, Take Two, which produced the Top Five R&B classic "It Takes Two." By the time it was peaking on the charts in early 1967, however, Weston had already left Motown; she and her husband, producer William "Mickey" Stevenson, moved to MGM, but a pair of albums there (For the First Time and This Is America) proved to be commercial failures. Weston subsequently recorded for Volt (Kim Kim Kim), People (Big Brass Four Poster, an album of jazz standards with the Hastings Street Jazz Experience), and Johnny Nash's Banyan Tree, all without much success.

She did, however, chart with her version of the anthem "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" in 1970. Weston largely disappeared from the music industry during the '70s; in 1987, Weston became the first of many Motown artists to work with British producer Ian Levine on the Motorcity label, re-recording many of her old hits for the Northern soul market; her two albums for Motorcity, 1990's Investigate and 1992's Talking Loud, also featured some new material.

Today she is a disc jockey on a local Detroit, Michigan radio station, where she sponsors the summer events at Hart Plaza. She also tours sporadically, often alongside former Motown colleagues Mary Wilson, Martha Reeves and Brenda Holloway. She is also featured on the 2006 four CD release of the Motortown Revue series. Find out more at her website: http://home.imprimus.com.au/Stephenbardsley/Kim%20Weston.htm

Research info gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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The Zombies

The group formed in 1961 in St Albans, England, and gained their initial reputation playing the Old Verulamians Rugby Club in that town. The group was formed whilst the members were at school. Some sources state that Argent, Atkinson and Grundy were at St Albans School, while Blunstone and White were students at St Albans Boys' Grammar School (since renamed Verulam School). Other sources claim they were all at St Albans Boys' Grammar School.

After winning a beat-group competition sponsored by the London Evening News, the Zombies signed to Decca and recorded their first hit, "She's Not There" (Argent's second song, written specifically for this session), which was released in mid-1964 and peaked at number 12 in the UK, where it would be their only Top 40 hit. This minor-key, jazz-tinged number, distinguished by its musicianship and Blunstone's breathy vocal, was unlike anything previously heard in British rock and would become a bona fide classic. It was first aired in the United States in early August 1964 on New York City rock station WINS by Stan Z. Burns, who debuted the song on his daily noontime "Hot Spot" segment during which new songs were played. The tune began to catch on in early fall and eventually climbed to #2.

In early 1965, "Tell Her No" became another big seller in the United States (where it was a hit a second time in 1983 for American vocalist Juice Newton), but had failed to make the Top 40 in the band's native UK. Although subsequent recordings such as "I Love You" (which became a hit for People! in 1968), "Indication", "Whenever You're Ready", and "Is This the Dream" were of uniformly high quality, none achieved the success of the previous two singles.

In 1967, the Zombies signed to CBS Records for one final LP, only the second of their career and the first one produced as a single unit. Their previous LP, Begin Here (1965), was a collection of early singles, half a dozen original songs combined with several R&B covers. The resulting album, Odessey and Oracle, was one of the very first to utilize a Mellotron keyboard, as the band's budget did not allow for the hiring of session musicians. The band discovered too late that "odyssey" had been misspelled by the cover designers and were reportedly deeply embarrassed.

By the time Odessey and Oracle was released in April 1968, the band had broken up. The album sold little, and was only released in the U.S. because musician Al Kooper vouched for it. An album track called "Time of the Season" was released as a single and eventually (1969) it became a huge nationwide hit (Billboard #3) after a radio DJ discovered it and put it on heavy rotation. Since the group declined to perform, various concocted groups tried to capitalize on the success and falsely toured under the band's name. Find out more about them at: http://www.rodargent.com/

Research info gathered at: www.last.fm.com

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The Spinners

The Spinners were the greatest soul group of the early '70s, creating a body of work that defined the lush, seductive sound of Philly soul. Ironically, the band's roots lay in Detroit, where they formed as a doo wop group during the late '50s. Throughout the '60s, the Spinners tried to land a hit by adapting to the shifting fashions of R&B and pop. By the mid-'60s, they had signed with Motown Records, but the label never gave the group much consideration.

"It's a Shame" became a hit in 1970, but the label continued to ignore the group, and dropped the band two years later. Unsigned and featuring new lead singer Phillipe Wynne, the Spinners seemed destined to never break into the big leagues, but they managed to sign with Atlantic Records, where they began working with producer Thom Bell. With his assistance, the Spinners developed a distinctive sound, one that relied on Wynne's breathtaking falsetto and the group's intricate vocal harmonies. Bell provided the group with an appropriately detailed production, creating a detailed web of horns, strings, backing vocals, and lightly funky rhythms.

Between 1972 and 1977, the Spinners and Bell recorded a number of soul classics, including "I'll Be Around," "Could It Be I'm Fallin in Love," "Mighty Love," "Ghetto Child," "Then Came You," "Games People Play," and "The Rubberband Man." Wynne left in 1977 and the Spinners had hits for a few years after his departure, but the group will always be remembered for its classic mid-'70s work. Not only were their singles hits, but their albums constantly went gold and charted in the Top 20.Wynne left the band to pursue a solo career in 1977; he was replaced by John Edwards. Though none of Wynne's solo records were big hits, his tours with Parliament-Funkadelic were well-received, as were his solo concerts. In October 1984, he died of a heart attack during a concert in Oakland, CA. The Spinners, meanwhile, had a number of minor hits in the late '70s, highlighted by their disco covers of "Working My Way Back to You" and the medley "Cupid/I've Loved You for a Long Time." During the early '80s, they had several minor hits before fading away from the charts and entering the oldies circuit, reprising their earlier material for 1999's new studio effort At Their Best. They were inducteed into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Find out more about this classic act at: www.vocalgroup.org/inductees/the_spinners.html

Research gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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Lulu

Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie OBE (born 3 November 1948), best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer and songwriter most known for the 1960s international hit record "To Sir, With Love".

A native of Glasgow, Lulu shot to fame at the age of fifteen with her version of "Shout!", delivered in a raucous and extremely mature voice. Her backing group were called "The Luvvers", but after several more British hits she left the group to become a solo artist.

In 1966, Lulu toured Poland with the British rock and roll band The Hollies, making her the first British female singer to appear live behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1967 she made her debut as a film actress in To Sir, with Love, a British vehicle for Sidney Poitier. She had a major hit with the film's title song, which shot to No. 1 in the United States (in the U.K., it was released only on the B-side of Let's Pretend, a much less successful hit). In the meantime, she continued with a thriving pop career in the U.K. and several television series of her own. On 29 March 1969, she represented the United Kingdom by performing the song "Boom bang-a-bang" at the Eurovision Song Contest, and was joint winner with the representatives of Spain, the Netherlands and France—there had never been a draw before, and the rules were altered to prevent it ever happening again.

In the same year, Lulu married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in a ceremony in Gerrards Cross. Their careers forced them apart, and they divorced, childless, in 1973. Lulu then married her hairdresser, John Frieda, and remained with him for twenty years until another divorce. They had one son, Jordan Frieda. She became interested in Eastern mysticism and joined Siddha Yoga Meditation.In 1974 she performed the title song in the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun. After that, her singing career waned, but she remained in the public eye, continuing to act. In 1987, she played Adrian Mole's mother on television, and in the 1990s she made a comeback, guesting on the cover version of the Dan Hartman song "Relight My Fire", with Take That. The single reached number one in the British charts. She also appeared as herself in 2 episodes of the hugely popular BBC television programme Absolutely Fabulous.

In 2000 she was awarded an OBE by the British Government. Her 2003 autobiography is called Don't Wanna Fight No More after a hit song she wrote for Tina Turner. In 2002 her gold album Together was a collection of duets with the likes of Elton John and Paul McCartney. In 2004 she released the album Back on Track and went on a UK-wide tour to celebrate 40 years in the business. In late 2004, Lulu became the host of her own 2-hour radio show, on BBC Radio 2, playing an eclectic blend of music from the 1950s to the 2000s, all having to do with the influence of songwriting. In 2005, Lulu released "A Little Soul In Your Heart", a collection of Motown Soul Covers and Soul classics, which entered the UK charts at #28.She has more recently appeared in the BBC's reality TV show Just The Two Of Us in 2006 as a judge. Find out more about one of my favorite UK artist at: http://www.luluofficial.com/

Research info gathered at: www.allmusic.com


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