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Guitar Shorty
David William Kearney (September 8, 1934 – April 20, 2022), known as Guitar Shorty, was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was known for his explosive guitar style and wild stage antics. Credited with influencing both Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy, Guitar Shorty recorded and toured from the 1950s until the 2020s. In 2017, ''Billboard'' magazine said, "his galvanizing guitar work defines modern, top-of-the-line blues-rock. His vocals remain as forceful as ever. Righteous shuffles...blistering, sinuous guitar solos." History Shorty was born in either Houston, Texas, or Loughman, Florida. He grew up mainly in Kissimmee, Florida. He was taught by his uncle to play the guitar at an early age, and began leading a band not long after. During his time in Tampa Bay, Florida, at age 16 he received his nickname, Guitar Shorty, when it mysteriously showed up on the marquee of the club he was playing as 'The Walter Johnson Band featuring Guitar Shorty.' He steadily ...
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Ottawa Bluesfest
The Ottawa Bluesfest (currently known as RBC Bluesfest under a naming rights sponsorship) is an annual outdoor music festival that takes place each July in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. While the festival's lineup historically focused on blues music at its inception, it has increasingly showcased mainstream pop, hip hop, reggae, rock and EDM in recent years. Bluesfest has become the third largest music festival in Canada and the fourth largest music festival in North America. There was a hiatus in 2020–21. Organization Since its inception, the festival has been managed by executive and artistic director Mark Monahan. The organization also manages CityFolk Festival (2011-) and the Ontario Festival of Small Halls. In 2002, Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest won the Best Event Award from the Ottawa Tourism and Convention Authority and in 2003 the organization received the Keeping the Blues Alive (KBA) award for arts education from the Memphis Blues Foundation. Mark Monahan is a pa ...
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Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential musicians in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians, he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining elements of blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and Gospel music, gospel into his music during his time with Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two ''Modern Sounds'' albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles' 1960s hit "Georgia on My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits ...
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Gong Show
''The Gong Show'' is an American amateur talent contest franchised by Sony Pictures Television to many countries. It was broadcast on NBC's daytime schedule from June 14, 1976, through July 21, 1978, and in first-run syndication from 1976 to 1980 and 1988 to 1989, and was revived in 2017 for broadcast on ABC. The show was created and originally produced by Chuck Barris, who also served as host for the NBC run and from 1977 to 1980 in syndication. Its most recent version was executive-produced by Will Arnett and hosted by Tommy Maitland, a fictional character performed by Mike Myers (uncredited in Season 1). ''The Gong Show'' is known for its absurdist humor and style, with the actual competition secondary to the often outlandish acts presented; a small cash prize has typically been awarded to each show's winner. Format Each show presented a competition of amateur performers of often dubious talent, with a panel of three celebrity judges. If any judge considered an act to be par ...
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Chuck Barris
Charles Hirsch Barris (June 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017) was an American game show creator, producer, and host, author, and songwriter. A key crew member of several hugely successful game shows, he was the creator of ''The Dating Game'' (1965–2021), the original producer of ''The Newlywed Game'' (1966–2013) both for the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network and syndication, and the host and producer of ''The Gong Show'' from 1977 to 1980, for the National Broadcasting Company, NBC network and syndication. His songwriting credits include "Palisades Park (Freddy Cannon song), Palisades Park", first recorded by Freddy Cannon in 1962 and also recorded by the Ramones in 1989, and he wrote three novels and four memoirs. Barris made unsubstantiated claims that in parallel to his career on television, he was an active international assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA in the 1960s and the 1970s, including in his 1984 memoir ''Confessions of a Dangerous Mind'', which ...
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Wah Pedal
A wah-wah pedal, or simply wah pedal, is a type of effects unit, effects pedal designed for electric guitar that alters the timbre of the input signal to create a distinctive sound, mimicking the human voice saying the onomatopoeia, onomatopoeic name "wah-wah". The pedal sweeps a band-pass filter up and down in frequency to create a spectral glide. The wah-wah (music), wah-wah effect originated in the 1920s, with trumpet or trombone players finding they could produce an expressive crying tone by moving a mute in, and out of the instrument's bell. This was later simulated with electronic circuitry for the electric guitar when the wah-wah pedal was invented. It is controlled by movement of the player's foot on a rocking pedal connected to a potentiometer. Wah-wah effects may be used without moving the treadle as a fixed filter to alter an instrument’s timbre (known as a "cocked-wah"), or to create a "wacka-wacka" funk-styled rhythm for rhythm guitar playing. An auto-wah pedal ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as compact discs (CDs) replaced LP record, LPs and cassette (format), cassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he res ...
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Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the county seat of King County, the most populous county in Washington. The Seattle metropolitan area's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-most populous in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities. Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about south of the Canadian border. A gateway for trade with East Asia, the Port of Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling . The Seattle area has been inhabited by Native Americans (such as the Duwamish, who had at least 17 villages a ...
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Sam Cooke
Samuel Cooke (; January 22, 1931  – December 11, 1964) was an American singer and songwriter. Considered one of the most influential soul music, soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the "King of Soul" for his distinctive vocals, pioneering contributions to the genre, and significance in popular music. During his eight-year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, as well as 20 singles in the Top 10 of ''Billboard Magazine, Billboard'' Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks, Black Singles chart. In 1964, he was shot and killed by the manager of a motel in Los Angeles. After an inquest and investigation, the courts ruled Cooke's death to be a justifiable homicide. His family has since questioned the circumstances of his death. In 2015, Cooke was ranked number 28 in ''Billboard'' magazine's list of the "35 Greatest R&B Artists of All Time". Early life Sam Cooke was born Samuel Cook ...
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West Coast Of The United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contiguous U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington (state), Washington, but it occasionally includes Alaska and Hawaii in bureaucratic usage. For example, the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau considers both states to be part of a larger U.S. geographic division. Definition There are conflicting definitions of which states comprise the West Coast of the United States, but the West Coast always includes California, Oregon, and Washington (state), Washington as part of that definition. Under most circumstances, however, the term encompasses the three contiguous states and Alaska, as they are all located in North America. For census purposes, Hawaii is part of the West Coast, along with the other four states. ''Encyclopædia ...
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Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding backbeat and powerful raspy vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including Soul music, soul and funk. He influenced singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations. "Tutti Frutti (song), Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom. ...
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Big Joe Turner
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him". Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock and roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues. AllMusic called Turner "the premier blues shouter of the postwar era". Life and career Early days Turner was born May 18, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. His father was killed in a train accident when Turner was four years old. He sang in his church, and on street corners for money. He left school at age fourteen to work in Kansas City's nightclubs, first as a cook and later as a singing bartender. He became known as "The Singing B ...
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T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker (May 28, 1910 – March 16, 1975) was an American blues musician, composer, songwriter and bandleader, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues, West Coast blues, and electric blues sounds. In 2018 ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Biography 1910–1941: early years Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas. His parents, Movelia Jimerson and Rance Walker, were both musicians. His stepfather, Marco Washington (a member of the Dallas String Band), taught him to play the guitar, ukulele, banjo, violin, mandolin, and piano. Walker began his career as a teenager in Dallas in the 1920s. His mother and stepfather were musicians, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, a family friend, sometimes came over for dinner. Walker left school at the age of 10, and by 15, he was a professional performer on the blues circuit. Initially, he was Jefferson's protégé and would guide hi ...
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