Van Dyke Parks is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer who has composed various film and television soundtracks. He is best known for his 1967 album Song Cycle and for his collaborations with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. In addition to producing or arranging albums by Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Phil Ochs, Little Feat, Happy End, Ry Cooder and Joanna Newsom, Parks has worked with performers such as Syd Straw, Ringo Starr, U2, Grizzly Bear, Inara George, Kimbra, Suzy Williams, Bob Dylan and Silverchair.
Klaus Otto Wilhelm Voormann is a German artist, musician, and record producer.
Lord Melody was a popular Trinidadian calypsonian, best known for singles such as "Boo Boo Man", "Creature From The Black Lagoon", "Shame & Scandal", "Jonah and the Bake", "Juanita", and "Rastaman Be Careful". Melody's career spanned forty years, from the beginnings of popular calypso music to his embrace of the more dance oriented Soca style by the late 1970s.
Aldwyn Roberts HBM DA, better known by the stage name Lord Kitchener, was a Trinidadian calypsonian. He has been described as "the grand master of calypso" and "the greatest calypsonian of the post-war age".
Slinger Francisco ORTT CM OBE, better known as Mighty Sparrow, is a Trinidadian calypso vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist. Known as the "Calypso King of the World", he is one of the best-known and most successful calypsonians. He has won Trinidad's Carnival Road March competition eight times, Calypso King/Monarch eight times, and has twice won the Calypso King of Kings title.
Trevor David Pinnock is a British harpsichordist and conductor.
Pachelbel's Canon is an accompanied canon by the German Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel. The canon was originally scored for three violins and basso continuo and paired with a gigue, known as Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo. Both movements are in the key of D major. Although a true canon at the unison in three parts, it also has elements of a chaconne. Neither the date nor the circumstances of its composition are known, and the oldest surviving manuscript copy of the piece dates from 1838 to 1842.
Discreet Music is the fourth studio album by Brian Eno, and the first released under his full name. The album is a minimalist work, with the titular A-side consisting of one 30-minute piece featuring synthesizer and tape delay. The B-side features three variations on Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel, performed by the Cockpit Ensemble and conducted by Gavin Bryars.
"Sail On, Sailor" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1973 album Holland. It was written primarily by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson with Ray Kennedy, Tandyn Almer, and Jack Rieley. The lead singer on the song is Blondie Chaplin, making this one of the band's few well-known songs not sung by Mike Love, Brian Wilson, or Carl Wilson. The song was released as a single in 1973, backed with "Only with You", and peaked at No. 79 on the Billboard singles chart. A 1975 reissue charted higher, at No. 49.
"Cabinessence" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1969 album 20/20 and their unfinished Smile project. Written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, Wilson described the song as a "rock and roll waltz" about railroads, while Parks offered that the pair were attempting to write a song that would end on "a freeze frame of the Union Pacific Railroad". The instrumentation includes banjo, cello, dobro, bouzouki, fuzz-tone bass, trumpet, accordion, and percussion that was arranged to sound like the pounding of rail spikes.
The Beach Boys: An American Family is a 2000 American miniseries written by Kirk Ellis and directed by Jeff Bleckner. It is a dramatization of the early years of The Beach Boys, from their formation in the early 1960s to their peak of popularity as musical innovators, through their late-1960s decline, to their re-emergence in 1974 as a nostalgia and "goodtime" act.
Song Cycle is the debut album by American recording artist Van Dyke Parks, released in November 1967 by Warner Bros. Records. With the exception of three cover songs, Song Cycle was written and composed by Parks, while its production was credited to Warner Bros. staff producer Lenny Waronker.
Discover America is the second album by American recording artist Van Dyke Parks, released in May 1972 by Warner Bros. Its sound is a major departure from his debut album, Song Cycle (1967), featuring all cover versions of previously written songs.
William McKendree Carleton was an American poet from Michigan. Carleton's poems were most often about his rural life.
Robert Lamar Thompson was a composer, arranger, and orchestra leader from the 1950s through the 1980s. Active in Los Angeles, Thompson was a recording artist for RCA Victor and Dot Records, scored film and television soundtracks, and wrote musical accompaniments for commercials. He composed, arranged, and conducted the orchestra for such wide-ranging artists as Rosemary Clooney, Mae West, Julie London, Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters, Chet Atkins, Duane Eddy, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, and Phil Ochs.
Winston "Spree" Simon was a Trinidadian inventor, pioneer and musician of the steelpan.
A Sideman's Journey is the first solo album by German musician and artist Klaus Voormann, released in July 2009. Voormann is best known as the creator of the cover art for The Beatles' album Revolver as well as for being a much-in-demand session musician during the 1970s. He played bass on a large number of well-known albums by ex-Beatles John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr − including All Things Must Pass, Imagine and The Concert for Bangladesh − and by artists such as Harry Nilsson, Doris Troy, Lou Reed, Gary Wright, Carly Simon and Randy Newman. Before then, Voormann had been a member of the 1960s pop group Manfred Mann. A Sideman's Journey is notable for including performances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Yusuf Islam, among others.
Songs Cycled is the seventh studio album by Van Dyke Parks, released on Bella Union in 2013. It is his first of original material since 1995's Orange Crate Art. It features relatively new compositions, re-recordings, and covers by Parks.
Andrew Wickham was a British native who became prominent in the U.S. music business as a producer, A&R director, and talent scout in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
