Life and Legacy of B. B. King

Life and Legacy of B. B. King PDF Author: Diane Williams
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439668590
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This biography of the iconic blues musician features interviews with family members, fellow musicians, and those who knew his best. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned “The King of the Blues.” Never wavering from his vocation, King gathered other musicians together and melded them into the unique blues sound that would become his signature. In this intimate portrait of B. B. King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members. The Life and Legacy of B. B. King offers an intimate view of the man behind the music.

Life and Legacy of B. B. King

Life and Legacy of B. B. King PDF Author: Diane Williams
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439668590
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description
This biography of the iconic blues musician features interviews with family members, fellow musicians, and those who knew his best. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned “The King of the Blues.” Never wavering from his vocation, King gathered other musicians together and melded them into the unique blues sound that would become his signature. In this intimate portrait of B. B. King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members. The Life and Legacy of B. B. King offers an intimate view of the man behind the music.

King of the Blues

King of the Blues PDF Author: Daniel de Vise
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802158072
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend “No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama “He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister’s guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King’s inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby “Blue” Bland simply called “the man.”

Life and Legacy of B.B. King, The: A Mississippi Blues Icon

Life and Legacy of B.B. King, The: A Mississippi Blues Icon PDF Author: Diane Williams
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467142409
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Blues legend B.B. King spent his life sharing the music of his soul, which shone relentlessly through hardship and triumph alike. Born on a cotton plantation in 1925, the man born Riley B. King would grow up to be one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, being crowned "The King of the Blues." He never wavered from his vocation, even as he gathered up other musicians in his wake and melded them into the harmony of his animating passion. In this intimate portrait of King, author Diane Williams offers a brief account of the monumental blues man's life before settling in for a series of interviews with his bandmates and beloved family members, offering readers an invaluable opportunity to feel like they know King too.

The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music

The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music PDF Author: Dean Alger
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574415468
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Lonnie Johnson (1894–1970) was a virtuoso guitarist who influenced generations of musicians from Django Reinhardt to Eric Clapton to Bill Wyman and especially B. B. King. Born in New Orleans, he began playing violin and guitar in his father’s band at an early age. When most of his family was wiped out by the 1918 flu epidemic, he and his surviving brother moved to St. Louis, where he won a blues contest that included a recording contract. His career was launched. Johnson can be heard on many Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong records, including the latter’s famous “Savoy Blues” with the Hot Five. He is perhaps best known for his 12-string guitar solos and his ground-breaking recordings with the white guitarist Eddie Lang in the late 1920s. After World War II he began playing rhythm and blues and continued to record and tour until his death. This is the first full-length work on Johnson. Dean Alger answers many biographical mysteries, including how many members of Johnson’s large family were left after the epidemic. It also places Johnson and his musical contemporaries in the context of American race relations and argues for the importance of music in the fight for civil rights. Finally, Alger analyzes Johnson’s major recordings in terms of technique and style. Distribution of an accompanying music CD will be coordinated with the release of this book.

Guitar King

Guitar King PDF Author: David Dann
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477318933
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 775

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Book Description
Named one of the world’s great blues-rock guitarists by Rolling Stone, Mike Bloomfield (1943–1981) remains beloved by fans forty years after his untimely death. Taking readers backstage, onstage, and into the recording studio with this legendary virtuoso, David Dann tells the riveting stories behind Bloomfield’s work in the seminal Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the mesmerizing Electric Flag, as well as on the Super Session album with Al Kooper and Stephen Stills, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, and soundtrack work with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. In vivid chapters drawn from meticulous research, including more than seventy interviews with the musician’s friends, relatives, and band members, music historian David Dann brings to life Bloomfield’s worlds, from his comfortable upbringing in a Jewish family on Chicago’s North Shore to the gritty taverns and raucous nightclubs where this self-taught guitarist helped transform the sound of contemporary blues and rock music. With scenes that are as electrifying as Bloomfield’s solos, this is the story of a life lived at full volume.

Moanin' at Midnight

Moanin' at Midnight PDF Author: James Segrest
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307831019
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 585

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Book Description
Howlin’ Wolf was a musical giant in every way. He stood six foot three, weighed almost three hundred pounds, wore size sixteen shoes, and poured out his darkest sorrows onstage in a voice like a raging chainsaw. Half a century after his first hits, his sound still terrifies and inspires. Born Chester Burnett in 1910, the Wolf survived a grim childhood and hardscrabble youth as a sharecropper in Mississippi. He began his career playing and singing with the first Delta blues stars for two decades in perilous juke joints. He was present at the birth of rock ’n’ roll in Memphis, where Sam Phillips–who also discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis–called Wolf his “greatest discovery.” He helped develop the sound of electric blues and vied with rival Muddy Waters for the title of king of Chicago blues. He ended his career performing and recording with the world’s most famous rock stars. His passion for music kept him performing–despite devastating physical problems–right up to his death in 1976. There’s never been a comprehensive biography of the Wolf until now. Moanin’ at Midnight is full of startling information about his mysterious early years, surprising and entertaining stories about his decades at the top, and never-before-seen photographs. It strips away all the myths to reveal–at long last–the real-life triumphs and tragedies of this blues titan.

Blues with a Feeling

Blues with a Feeling PDF Author: Tony Glover
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135353832
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Whenever you hear the prevalent wailing blues harmonica in commercials, film soundtracks or at a blues club, you are experiencing the legacy of the master harmonica player, Little Walter. Immensely popular in his lifetime, Little Walter had fourteen Top 10 hits on the R&B charts, and he was also the first Chicago blues musician to play at the Apollo. Ray Charles and B.B. King, great blues artists in their own right, were honored to sit in with his band. However, at the age of 37, he lay in a pauper's grave in Chicago. This book will tell the story of a man whose music, life and struggles continue to resonate to this day.

Tales of a Road Dog

Tales of a Road Dog PDF Author: Ron Levy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781492154747
Category : Blues (Music)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Ron Levy, blues keyboardist, has written his memories of being a musician on the road with artists like B.B. King, and also recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Melvin Sparks, David T. Walker, Idris Muhammad. He includes anecdotes covering his career as a back-up musician, a solo artist, as well as a producer and record label owner.

State of the Blues

State of the Blues PDF Author: Jeff Dunas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780898318432
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Glow

Glow PDF Author: Rick James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476764166
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Best known for his 1980s hit songs “Super Freak,” “Give it to Me Baby,” and “Mary Jane,” the late singer and funk music pioneer Rick James collaborated with acclaimed music biographer David Ritz in this posthumously published, no-holds-barred memoir of a rock star’s life and soul. He was the nephew of Temptations singer Melvin Franklin; a boy who watched and listened, mesmerized from underneath cocktail tables at the shows of Etta James and Miles Davis. He was a vagrant hippie who wandered to Toronto, where he ended up playing with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and he became a household name in the 1980s with his hit song “Super Freak.” Later in life, he was a bad boy who got caught up in drug smuggling and ended up in prison. But since his passing in August 2004, Rick James has remained a legendary icon whose name is nearly synonymous with funk music—and who popularized the genre, creating a lasting influence on pop artists from Prince to Jay-Z to Snoop Dogg, among countless others. In Glow, Rick James and acclaimed music biographer David Ritz collaborated to write a no-holds-barred memoir about the boy and the man who became a music superstar in America’s disco age. It tells of James’s upbringing and how his mother introduced him to musical geniuses of the time. And it reveals details on many universally revered artists, from Marvin Gaye and Prince to Nash, Teena Marie, and Berry Gordy. James himself said, “My journey has taken me through hell and back. It’s all in my music—the parties, the pain, the oversized ego, the insane obsessions.” But despite his bad boy behavior, James was a tremendous talent and a unique, unforgettable human being. His “glow” was an overriding quality that one of his mentors saw in him—and one that will stay with this legendary figure who left an indelible mark on American popular music.