marți, 31 mai 2022

Roxy Music ( B16 )

 They were specialists in their field. Paul Thompson brought a lot, with his very powerful, earthy drumming."

Roxy Music was one of the first rock music groups to create and maintain a carefully crafted look and style that included their stage presentation, music videos, album and single cover designs, and promotional materials such as posters, handbills, cards and badges. They were assisted in this by a group of friends and associates who helped to sculpt the classic Roxy Music 'look', notably fashion designer Antony Price, hair stylist Keith Mainwaring, photographer Karl Stoecker, the group's "PR consultant" Simon Puxley (a former university friend of Mackay's) and Ferry's art school classmate Nicholas De Ville. Well-known critic Lester Bangs went so far as to say that Roxy represented "the triumph of artifice". Ferry later attributed the band's look to his interest in American music and popular culture icons including Marilyn Monroe, Motown and Stax Records artists. He also stated he wanted to create an alternative image to publicity shots of pop and rock groups at the time which would feature artists "in a dreary street, looking rather sullen. Which was the norm."

The band's self-titled debut album, produced by King Crimson's Pete Sinfield, was the first in a series of albums with increasingly sophisticated covers, with art direction by Ferry in collaboration with his friend Nick De Ville. The album artwork imitated the visual style of classic "girlie" and fashion magazines, featuring high-fashion shots of scantily clad models Amanda Lear, Marilyn Cole and Jerry Hall, each of whom had romances with Ferry during the time of their contributions, as well as model Kari-Ann Muller who appears on the cover of the first Roxy album but who was not otherwise involved with anyone in the band, and who later married Mick Jagger's brother Chris.


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luni, 30 mai 2022

Dave Davies ( b7 )

 The music video for their 1982/83 single "Come Dancing" helped hoist the record to number 12 on the UK chart, and number 6 in the US – their biggest hit since "Tired of Waiting for You" in 1965.

The Kinks' popularity faltered in 1985, and soon their records ceased to chart altogether. Mick Avory left the band after the Kinks' last album for Arista, Word of Mouth, mainly due to the growing animosity between him and Dave Davies. Bob Henrit was brought in to take Avory's place. At the invitation of Ray Davies, Avory agreed to manage Konk Studios, where he also served as a producer and occasional contributor on later Kinks albums.

The group switched to MCA (US) and London (UK) records in late 1985, and began work on their next album, Think Visual. The record was released in 1986, but only reached number 81 on the Billboard charts. Critics were lukewarm towards it, and it did not receive significant radio play. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.com later commented that the album "represented an artistic dead end for the Kinks, as Ray Davies continued to crank out a series of competent, but undistinguished hard rockers." Dave Davies contributed two songs to Think Visual, "Rock 'n' Roll Cities" and "When You were a Child".

The group recorded several more records for MCA, their last studio effort for them being 1989's UK Jive. It was received slightly better than Think Visual, but it failed to enter into the Top 100.


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sâmbătă, 28 mai 2022

The Shadows ( B13 )

 The Shadows never used the logo on the front of the bass drum, preferring to allow Meehan and Bennett to use their names instead. Belatedly, the logo was used once on the front artwork of the 1975 original studio album Specs Appeal. As of 2009, the logo still remains untrademarked and uncopyrighted.

In lieu of a proper band logo, four silhouettes of the original line-up, in ascending order of height, were used as a pseudo-logo on concert programme covers and artwork projects such as sheet music, EP and album covers. From left to right after the drum-kit were Meehan, Harris, Marvin, and Bruce Welch. The original artwork group silhouette was modified each time a member changed: the last version featured Brian Bennett and Rostill in the late 1960s. During the 1970s, EMI dropped the silhouettes, preferring to use two guitar necks or colour photos of the Shadows. During the later 1980s, Polydor used a red Fender Stratocaster (with white scratch plate) as a symbol.

The Shadows' walk

In 1958, Bruce Welch went to a concert as part of the 1958 Jerry Lee Lewis tour of the UK of which he said:

On the show was this black American band called the Treniers. Hank Marvin and I were at the back, and we were really impressed at the way the saxophone players moved in unison, taken, I suppose, from the Glenn Miller days. It looked fantastic and we thought, "We must do something like that because it looks so interesting from the front."


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joi, 26 mai 2022

Roxy Music ( B15 )

 As writer Michael Bracewell notes in his book Roxy: the band that invented an era, Roxy Music was created expressly by Ferry, Mackay and Eno as a means of combining their mutual interests in music, modern art and fashion.

Ferry studied at Newcastle University in the Sixties under renowned pop artist and educator Richard Hamilton, and many of Ferry's university friends, classmates and tutors – e.g. Rita Donagh and Tim Head – became well-known artists in their own right. Eno studied at Winchester School of Art and although his iconoclastic style became apparent early and caused some conflict with the college establishment, it also resulted in him meeting important artists and musicians including Cornelius Cardew and Gavin Bryars. His interest in electronic music also resulted in his first meetings with Andy Mackay, who was studying at Reading University and who had likewise developed a strong interest in avant garde and electronic music.

The three eventually joined forces in London during 1970–71 after meeting through mutual friends and decided to form a rock band.

Roxy Music was initially influenced by other contemporary artists at the time including The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, The Animals, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground and The Who, as well as American rock'n'roll acts and genres such as Elvis Presley and Motown. Ferry stated that Roxy Music's unique sound came as a result of the diverse and eclectic musical backgrounds of the band's members; "I had lots of musical influences, Phil Manzanera had this Latin heritage, being born in South America. Saxophone and oboe player Andy Mackay was classically trained. Eno with his deep interest in experimental music. 


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miercuri, 25 mai 2022

Istoric ( 314 )

 18.05.1967 - John Lennon si Paul Mc Cartney canta backing vocal pe o inregistrare Rolling Stones, mai exact pentru piesa We Love You.