Funky Nothingness
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Funky Nothingness
''Funky Nothingness'' is an album by Frank Zappa, released on June 30, 2023. It is a 3CD set that primarily contains unreleased songs written and recorded in 1970, shortly after sessions concluded for the album ''Hot Rats''. Background While the first incarnation of the Mothers of Invention was in the process of disbanding, Frank Zappa embarked on a solo career and created the predominantly instrumental and jazz oriented ''Hot Rats'', which would become one of his most acclaimed works. The album, rather than having a core group of musicians, utilized various session players from track to track. In February and March of 1970, Zappa re-assembled a core group from these sessions to record new material. The group consisted of Ian Underwood, Max Bennett and Don "Sugarcane" Harris, as well as newcomer Aynsley Dunbar, who had recently relocated to Los Angeles and moved in with Zappa. Many of the tracks on ''Funky Nothingness'' were recorded by the five-piece group at the newly opened ...
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Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and ''musique concrète'' works; he additionally produced nearly all the 60-plus albums he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Musical improvisation, improvisation sound experimentation, Virtuoso, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation. As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century ...
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DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The standard was published in March 1999 and the first discs entered the marketplace in 2000. DVD-Audio was in a format war with Super Audio CD (SACD), and along with consumers' tastes tending towards downloadable music, these factors meant that neither high-quality disc achieved considerable market traction; DVD-Audio has been described as "extinct" by 2007. DVD-Audio remains a niche market but some independent online labels offer a wider choice of titles. Audio specifications DVD-Audio offers many possible configurations of audio channels, ranging from single-channel mono to 5.1-channel surround sound, at various sampling frequencies and sample rates. (The ".1" denotes a low-frequency effects channel (LFE) for bass and/or special audio e ...
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2023 Compilation Albums
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9th c ...
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Henry Glover
Henry Bernard Glover (May 21, 1921 – April 7, 1991) was an American songwriter, arranger, record producer and trumpet player. In the music industry of the time, Glover was one of the most successful and influential black executives. He gained eminence in the late 1940s, primarily working for the independent (and white-owned) King label. His duties included operating as a producer, arranger, songwriter (occasionally utilizing the alias of Henry Bernard), engineer, trumpet player, talent scout, A&R man, studio constructor, while later in his career he became the owner of his own label. Glover worked with country, blues, R&B, pop, rock, and jazz musicians, and he helped King Records to become one of the largest independent labels of its time. Thanks to the efforts of family, friends and fans, Glover's hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth in 2021 by inducting him into the downtown "Walk of Fame," the Mayor's "Proclamation," "Key to ...
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Hank Ballard
Hank Ballard (born John Henry Kendricks; November 18, 1927 – March 2, 2003) was an American singer and songwriter, the lead vocalist of the Midnighters and one of the first rock and roll artists to emerge in the early 1950s. He played an integral part in the development of the genre, releasing the hit singles " Work with Me, Annie" and answer songs " Annie Had a Baby" and "Annie's Aunt Fannie" with his Midnighters. He later wrote and originally recorded (in 1959) " The Twist" which was notably covered a year later by Chubby Checker, this second version spreading the popularity of the dance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Early years Born John Henry Kendricks in Detroit, Michigan, he and his brother, Dove Ballard, grew up and attended school in Bessemer, Alabama, after the death of their father. He lived with his paternal aunt and her husband, and began singing in church. His major vocal inspiration during his formative years was the "Singing Co ...
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Lightnin' Slim
Otis Verries Hicks (March 13, 1913 – July 27, 1974), known as Lightnin' Slim, was an American blues musician who played Louisiana blues and swamp blues for Excello Records. Biography According to most sources, Otis Hicks was born on a farm outside St. Louis, Missouri, but the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc stated, on the basis of his draft card, that he was born in Good Pine, Louisiana. Prison records from Louisiana State Penitentiary discovered by researcher Gene Tomko also corroborate his birthplace as Good Pine, Louisiana. He moved to Baton Rouge at the age of 13. Taught the rudiments of guitar playing by his father and older brother Layfield, Slim was playing in bars in Baton Rouge by the late 1940s. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Lightnin' Slim served time in Louisiana State Penitentiary (often known as 'Angola') for manslaughter. His first recording was "Bad Luck" ("If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all"), released by J. D. "Jay" Miller ...
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Spin (magazine)
''Spin'' (stylized in all caps as ''SPIN'') is an American music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr. Now owned by Next Management Partners, the magazine is an online publication since it stopped issuing a print edition in 2012. It returned as a quarterly publication in September 2024. History Early history ''Spin'' was established in 1985 by Bob Guccione, Jr. In August 1987, the publisher announced it would stop publishing ''Spin'', but Guccione Jr. retained control of the magazine and partnered with former MTV president David H. Horowitz to quickly revive the magazine. During this time, it was published by Camouflage Publishing with Guccione Jr. serving as president and chief executive and Horowitz as investor and chairman. In its early years, ''Spin'' was known for its narrow music coverage, with an emphasis on college rock, grunge, indie rock, and the ongoing emergence of hip-hop, while virtually ignoring other genres, such as country and metal. ...
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Jim Sherwood
Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood (May 8, 1942 – December 25, 2011) was an American rock musician notable for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band the Mothers of Invention, providing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects. He appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the 'posthumous' releases '' Burnt Weeny Sandwich'' and '' Weasels Ripped My Flesh'', as well as certain subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films ''200 Motels'', '' Video from Hell'' and '' Uncle Meat''. Biography Sherwood was born in Arkansas City, Kansas. He and Zappa met in high school in 1956. Sherwood was in a class with Zappa's brother Bobby, who introduced the two after learning that Sherwood was a collector of blues records. Sherwood sat in with Zappa's first band, R&B group The Black-Outs, at various performances, where he was often a highlight. Sherwood and Zappa subsequently played together in the On ...
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Roy Estrada
Roy Estrada (also known as "Roy Ralph Moleman Guacamole Guadalupe Hidalgo Estrada" and "Orejón"; born April 17, 1943) is an American former musician. He is best known for being the original bassist of both the Mothers of Invention and Little Feat. He was also later a member of Captain Beefheart's the Magic Band and occasionally still worked with Frank Zappa in Zappa's solo career following the Mothers' split. Estrada is currently incarcerated in the Texas State Prison System. He was convicted for sex offenses on at least three occasions between 1977 and 2012. He will not be eligible for release until 2037, at which time he will potentially be between 93 and 94 years old. Career With drummer Jimmy Carl Black and vocalist Ray Collins, Estrada was an original member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Previously, Estrada had been a founding member of the Soul Giants, the band from which the Mothers of Invention was formed. In addition to playing bass guitar, Estrada sang vo ...
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Uncle Meat
''Uncle Meat'' is the sixth album by the Mothers of Invention, and seventh overall by Frank Zappa, released as a double album in 1969. ''Uncle Meat'' was originally developed as a part of ''No Commercial Potential'', a project which spawned three other albums sharing a conceptual connection: ''We're Only in It for the Money'', '' Lumpy Gravy'' and '' Cruising with Ruben & the Jets''. The album also served as a soundtrack album to the film of the same name, which Zappa eventually finished and released direct-to-video in 1987. The music is diverse in style, drawing from orchestral, jazz, blues and rock music. The ''Uncle Meat'' album was a commercial success upon release, and has been highly acclaimed for its innovative recording and editing techniques, including experiments in manipulation of tape speed and overdubbing, and its diverse sound. Background Frank Zappa, who had been interested in film since high school, decided to develop a film vehicle for the Mothers of Invent ...
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The Lost Episodes
''The Lost Episodes'' is a 1996 posthumous album by Frank Zappa which compiles (with the exception of "I Don't Want to Get Drafted" and "Any Way the Wind Blows") previously unreleased material. Much of the material covered dates from early in his career, and as early as 1958, into the mid-1970s. Zappa had been working on these tracks in the years before his death in 1993. Album content The album is also notable for its five tracks which feature Captain Beefheart (known in early recordings by his birth name, Don Vliet, and later Don Van Vliet): "Lost in a Whirlpool", a blues parody from around 1958–59 in which Beefheart sings of being flushed down the toilet; "Tiger Roach", a rhythm and blues track from around three years later; "I'm a Band Leader" from 1969, a spoken word piece written by Zappa and read by Beefheart; "Alley Cat", a blues number in which Zappa plays guitar with two members of Beefheart's Magic Band, and "The Grand Wazoo", a spoken word piece recorded in 1969, t ...
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