Copper
Erykah Badu: The First Lady of Neo-Soul
Born Erica Abi Wright 1971 in Dallas, by her teens Erykah Badu was performing hip-hop on live radio shows. She chose the name “Badu” after her favorite syllables in jazz...
Roy Acuff: Country Music Originator
It’s fair to say that singer Roy Acuff was one of the inventors of country music. He was among a handful of innovators who shifted the sounds of old-time mountain...
Aretha Franklin: Queen of Soul
It’s been said that the way people respond to your death is the best indicator of how you were regarded in life. When Aretha Franklin passed away in 2018 at...
Randy Newman: Cinematic Storyteller
Randy Newman’s uncles Lionel, Andrew, and Emil Newman were all composers of Hollywood movie scores. As opposed to their sweeping, cinematic sounds, Randy became known for understated, sardonic lyrics with...
The Band: Pulling Their Weight
When Canadian rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins put together a backing band in 1958 called the Hawks, probably no one realized it would morph into one of the major groups in...
Alicia Keys – She’s Ready
From grooving on Chopin and Satie at the piano and listening to her mom’s jazz records as a girl to selling 12 million copies of her first pop single when...
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Let Her Into Your Heart
Winning five Grammy Awards is impressive enough, but when four of them are wins in consecutive years for Best Female Country Music Performance, that is a unique achievement. Mary Chapin...
Kate Bush: Musical Heights
There was always music, poetry, and dancing in the house when Kate Bush was growing up in Kent, England. Both her parents and her two older brothers were amateur musicians,...
Beastie Boys: Licensed to Thrill
The experimental music scene in New York City in the late 1970s was transfixed by British punk innovators like Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Among the American bands...
John Legend: A Modern Twist on R&B
It’s no surprise that John Legend wasn’t born with that name, but it’s a bit surprising how recently he started using it. In 2003, at age 25, he was still...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: The Unbroken Circle
If you know anything about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, you know to take jug bands seriously. Although this CMA and Grammy Award-winning country rock group has come a long...
Beck: Where He's At
Let’s talk lo-fi. Not on the listening end, of course, but as an approach in the recording studio. Singer-songwriter Beck is a pioneer of this strategy that lets the listener...
Joan Armatrading: Showing Some Emotion
Joan Armatrading never caught on in a big way in the US. She didn’t quite fit in to any recognizable genres, and because she was Black she also didn’t meld...
Chet Atkins: The Country Gentleman
He was known as The Country Gentleman, and his guitar playing was a major factor in developing the so-called Nashville Sound. Chet Atkins (1924 – 2001) wrapped his long fingers...
Shining Stars
When he was a teenager, Tennessee native Maurice White moved to Chicago to live with his mother. He started gigging on the drums in nightclubs, while by day he attended...
Reflections on Echo & the Bunnymen
When his Liverpool-based band called the Crucial Three broke up in 1978, singer Ian McCulloch formed a trio with guitarist Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson on bass. Echo & the...
Otis Redding: Deep Soul
Few musicians in history have been industry game-changers to the degree that Otis Redding was. And he barely made it past the age of 25. The soul singer seems to...
ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas
In 1969, songwriter and guitarist Billy Gibbons started a band with a couple of fellow Houston musicians. They named themselves ZZ Top as a tribute to bluesmen Z.Z. Hill and...
Patty Griffin: Finding True Purpose
Sometimes it takes a while to find your true purpose in life. Patty Griffin had just been through a divorce when she decided to try singing professionally in 1994 at...
Sonic Youth: No-Wave Wavemakers
They never had a Top 10 album, but Sonic Youth amassed legions of devoted fans during its nearly three decades together. That makes them an ideal subject for Off the...
About Faces! (and the Small Faces)
They were Mod until they turned psychedelic. They were Small Faces until they became just plain Faces, only to become Small Faces again. This London-based band, started in 1965, is...
Wanda Jackson: the Queen of Rockabilly
In the tiny town of Maude, Oklahoma, Wanda Jackson came into the world in 1937. Her dad bought her a guitar and took her to lots of western swing concerts...
Pat Benatar: Rock is Her Battlefield
Brooklyn-born Patricia Andrzejewski wanted to be an opera singer. Instead, she ended up as one of the most successful female rock stars of all time. She’d started singing lessons as...
The Strokes: Indie Rock from The Big Apple
Plenty of major groups have made their name in New York City, but not many are actually made up of New Yorkers. Four of The Strokes’ five members grew up...
Johnny Cash: American Icon
Johnny Cash is part of America’s DNA. In a way, he was a one-man melting pot. His rich bass voice could praise the Almighty as effectively as it could tell...
Diving Into Dire Straits
It was the late 1970s in London. Two guitar-playing brothers from Newcastle, Mark and David Knopfler, had been active in the music scene. Sometimes they crossed paths with bass guitarist...
Tracy Chapman, Redux
Some pop stars wear the glamour of fame and fortune, like a suit they’ve longed to try on since they first picked up a guitar or a mic. Keeping the...
Steely Dan, Redux
Steely Dan has such a smooth sound, it’s easy to imagine them appearing fully-formed from the musical ether. Needless to say, that wasn’t the case. Singer/keyboardist Donald Fagen had met...
Grand Funk Railroad: Chuggin' Along
All over America in the late 1960s, teens were forming bands. The one started by Flint, Michigan high school friends Mark Farner (guitar/vocals), Don Brewer (drums/vocals), and Mel Schacher (bass)...
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Rod Stewart
Born in 1945 in North London, Rod Stewart grew up listening to a variety of music, from Al Jolson to Little Richard. When he got his first guitar at age...
Patsy Cline: Country Music Groundbreaker
Country music groundbreaker Patsy Cline was born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1932. In fact, her first name was Virginia; family and friends called her Ginny. She was not, however, born...
Tina Turner: Finding Her Own Voice
Tina Turner is a textbook case of a talented woman finding her own voice by freeing herself from an abusive man. Born in 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee, she became an...
Talking Heads: This Ain't No Fooling Around
Recently I had the pleasure of seeing the live show David Byrne’s American Utopia on Broadway (more on that later), and it gave me the urge to revisit the weird and wonderful...
Led Zeppelin: Into the Rock and Roll Stratosphere
When the British band The Yardbirds split up in 1968, guitarist Jimmy Page was left with contracts to perform shows in Scandinavia but no band to play them with, so...
The Pogues
When a band’s original name – Pogue Mahone – is an English spelling of the Irish for “Kiss My Arse,” you can expect some attitude. The concept was a unique...
Melissa Etheridge
With her raw, unabashed voice and truthful lyrics, Melissa Etheridge has inspired three decades of fans to be true to themselves and rock out while doing so. She was born...
The Isley Brothers
While the Isley Brothers may have started out singing gospel in church, it was having a father on the vaudeville circuit that guaranteed there was showbiz in their blood. The...
Leon Russell
One of his best-known songs was named after a science fiction novel. He sang while wearing a top hat and shades, and he sported a long, scraggly beard. His sound...
Siouxsie and the Banshees
There once was a time before “goth” was a meaningful word to describe black-clad young people who viewed the world with deep irony and high curmudgeon. Singer Siouxsie Sioux (born...
The Killers
Until the Killers came on the scene, the phrase “Las Vegas music” tended to conjure up images of late-career crooners in casino supper clubs. But in 2001, when singer and...
Journey
Journey didn’t start out as a stadium band roaring out power ballads. It germinated in the progressive rock scene, an outgrowth of the bands Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch. The new group,...
Steve Winwood & the Spencer Davis Group
It was 1963 in Birmingham, UK, when guitarist/songwriter Spencer Davis convinced Muff Winwood and his little brother Steve, only 14 years old, to join him in a band. With the...
Spandau Ballet
The London punk scene was wearing some musicians out. People like songwriting guitarist and keyboardist Gary Kemp, who wanted to seem like a rebellious musician, but not in the same...
Etta James
Born to a single teen mom and passed around foster care, Etta James did not come into this world with many advantages. Even the choir director at her church in...
Billy Joel
He hasn’t made a rock album since 1993, but he sells out Madison Square Garden every month. As of this writing, 70-year-old Billy Joel has performed at MSG for 64...
Howard Jones
Just a scrawny English kid with spiky hair, a bunch of synthesizers, and chipper lyrics? Or is there more to Howard Jones? I would argue that there is. For one...
Rush
Intelligent, philosophical, and complex, yet still hard-rocking enough to keep a stadium thrumming. That’s the legacy of the Canadian band Rush. They read science fiction, took a side road through...
Tori Amos
Crossover artists seem to become fashionable in waves. Still, there aren’t many who have combined classical chops and a pop sensibility with as much popular and critical success as Tori...
Cream
While American audiences obsessed over four mop-topped Liverpudlians called the Beatles, some British rockers were becoming equally fascinated by American blues music. They studied it, learned to play it, and...
Al Green
Al Green loved Elvis Presley as much as he loved Mahalia Jackson. His vocal showmanship paired with the faith that grounds his singing is all the evidence you need. He...