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James Cotton
James Henry Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career. Cotton began his professional career playing the blues harp in Howlin' Wolf's band in the early 1950s. He made his first recordings in Memphis for Sun Records, under the direction of Sam Phillips. In 1955, he was recruited by Muddy Waters to come to Chicago and join his band. Cotton became Muddy's bandleader and stayed with the group until 1965. In 1965, he formed the Jimmy Cotton Blues Quartet, with Otis Spann on piano, to record between gigs with the Muddy Waters band. He eventually left to form his own full-time touring group. His first full album, on Verve Records, was produced by the guitarist Mike Bloomfield and the singer and songwriter Nick Gravenites, who later were members of the band Electric Flag. In the 1970s, Cotton playe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunica, Mississippi
Tunica is a town in and the county seat of Tunica County, Mississippi, United States, near the Mississippi River. Until the early 1990s when casino gambling was introduced in the area, Tunica had been one of the most impoverished places in the United States. Despite this economic improvement, Tunica's population continues to decline from its peak in 1970. History The community derives its name from the Tunica Indians which once were numerous in the area. Tunica is the fourth community to serve as county seat of Tunica County, succeeding earlier county seats at Commerce (1839–1842, 1842–1847), Peyton (1842, temporary) and Austin (1847–1888). Tunica gained national attention for its deprived neighborhood known as "Sugar Ditch Alley", named for the open sewer located there.Mehta, Stephanie N. "Legalized gambling saves a depressed town." ''Fortune'' at ''CNN''/''Money''. March 15, 2007. p 1 Retrieved on June 3, 2013. Its fortunes have improved since development of a gambling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Born into poverty in Mississippi, Burnett became a protégé of Delta blues musician Charley Patton in the 1930s. In the Deep South, he began a solo career by performing with other notable blues musicians of the day. By the end of the decade, he had established himself in the Mississippi Delta. Following a number of legal issues, a stint in prison, and Army service, he was recruited by A&R man Ike Turner to record for producer Sam Phillips in Memphis. His first record "Moanin' at Midnight" (1951) led to a record deal with Chess Records in Chicago. Between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Gravenites
Nicholas George Gravenites ( '; October 2, 1938 – September 18, 2024) was an American Blues music, blues, Rock music, rock and Folk music, folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his work with Electric Flag (as their lead singer), Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield, and several influential bands and individuals of the generation springing from the 1960s and 1970s. He sometimes performed under the stage names Nick "The Greek" Gravenites and Gravy. Biography Gravenites was born in Chicago on October 2, 1938 to a Greek-speaking family; his parents were from Palaiochori, Arcadia (regional unit), Arcadia, in Greece. After his father died when he was 11, he worked in the family candy store before he was enrolled at St. John's Northwestern Military Academy; he was expelled for fighting shortly before he was due to graduate. He then attended the University of Chicago, met Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield, became a fan of blues music, and learned guitar. He regularly pat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard Bloomfield (July 28, 1943 – February 15, 1981) was an American blues guitarist and composer. Born in Chicago, he became one of the first popular music stars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, as he rarely sang before 1969. Respected for his guitar playing, Bloomfield knew and played with many of Chicago's blues musicians before achieving his own fame and was instrumental in popularizing blues music in the mid-1960s. In 1965, he played on Bob Dylan's '' Highway 61 Revisited'', including the single "Like a Rolling Stone", and performed with Dylan at that year's Newport Folk Festival. Bloomfield was ranked No. 22 on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2003 and No. 42 by the same magazine in 2011. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2012 and, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Early years Bloomfield was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verve Records
Verve Records is an active American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Jon Batiste, and Diana Krall among others as well as a diverse mix of other recordings that fall outside of jazz including albums from disparate artists like the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records. The label has continued to be the home to an eclectic mix of modern artists, including Kurt Vile, Everything But the Girl, Samara Joy and Arooj Aftab. The restructured Verve Records is now part of the Verve Label G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otis Spann
Otis Spann (March 21, 1924, or 1930April 24, 1970) was an American blues musician many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist. Early life Sources differ over Spann's early years. Some state that he was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1930, but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc concluded, based on census records and other official information, that he was born in 1924 in Belzoni, Mississippi. Spann's father was, according to some sources, a pianist called Friday Ford. His mother, Josephine Erby, was a guitarist who had worked with Memphis Minnie and Bessie Smith, and his stepfather, Frank Houston Spann, was a preacher and musician. One of five children, Spann began playing the piano at seven, with some instruction from Friday Ford, Frank Spann, and Little Brother Montgomery.Harris, S. (1981). ''Blues Who's Who''. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 477–479. . Career By age 14, he was playing in bands in the Jackson area. He moved to Chicago in 1946, where Big Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Phillips
Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the career of Presley. In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton. Phillips was the owner and operator of radio stations in Memphis; Florence, Alabama; and Lake Worth Beach, Florida. He was also an early investor in the Holiday Inn chain of hotels and an advocate for racial equality, helping to break down racial barriers in the music industry. Early life Phillips was the youngest of eight children, born on a 200-acre farm near Florence, Alabama to Madge Ella ( Lovelace) and Charles Tucker Phillips. Sam's parents owned their farm, though it was mortgaged. As a child, he picke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Records
Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee on February 1, 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash. Prior to that, Sun had concentrated mainly on African-American musicians because Phillips loved rhythm and blues and wanted to bring it to a white audience. On January 28, 2021, Sun Records was acquired by Primary Wave for $30 million. History Sam Phillips opened his Memphis Recording Service studio on January 3, 1950, at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis. It was founded with the financial aid of Jim Bulliet, one of many record executives for whom Phillips had scouted artists before 1952. In March 1951, Phillips produced " Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. Because of Turner's Delta blues connections, he was contracted by Phillips as a talent scout and he was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tennessee, second-most populous city in Tennessee, the fifth-most populous in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the List of United States cities by population, 28th-most populous in the nation. Memphis is the largest city proper on the Mississippi River and anchors the Memphis metropolitan area that includes parts of Arkansas and Mississippi, the Metropolitan statistical area, 45th-most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. with 1.34 million residents. European exploration of the area began with Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. Located on the high Chickasaw Bluffs, the site offered natural protection from Mississippi River flooding and became a contested location in the colonial era. Modern Memphis was founded in 181 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues Harp
The Richter-tuned harmonica, 10-hole harmonica (in Asia) or blues harp (in America), is the most widely known type of harmonica. It is a variety of diatonic scale, diatonic harmonica, with ten holes which offer the player 19 notes (10 holes times a draw and a blow for each hole minus one repeated note) in a three-octave range. The standard diatonic harmonica is designed to enable playing chords and melody in a single key. Because of this design, playing in different keys requires the player to have a separate instrument for each key they play in. Harps labeled G, A, A, B or B start (on hole 1 blow) below middle C, while those labeled D through F start above middle C (C4). Here is the layout for a standard diatonic harmonica, labeled C, starting on middle C (C4): :: Although there is a three-octave distance between 1 and 10 "blow", there is only one full major scale available on the harmonica, using holes 4 through 7. The lower holes are designed around the tonic chord, tonic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the lips and tongue to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece (which covers one edge of the harmonica for most of its length). Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common type of harmonica is a diatonic Richter-tuned instrument with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called a blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, the reed alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce soun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballad (music), ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the Call and response (music), call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in Pitch (music), pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffle note, shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove (popular music), groove. Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, Bassline, bass lines, and Instrumentation (music), instrumen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
