Denny Bruce | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1944 |
| Known for | Music Producer and Artist Manager |
Denny Bruce (born in 1944 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) is an American record producer and artist manager. He produced over 60 albums, and managed and produced albums by John Fahey, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Leo Kottke, John Hiatt and many others over his 50 year career in the music business.
While living in Los Angeles in 1965, Bruce was hired by Frank Zappa as a second drummer with The Mothers of Invention. After six months, he contracted mononucleosis and was forced to leave the group. He was replaced by Billy Mundi. [1]
Bruce launched a career in artist management and record production with his first artist signed, Lisa Kindred, and soon added Magic Sam, [2] Albert Collins and Earl Hooker. He later became A&R consultant to Blue Thumb Records, working with such artists as Ike and Tina Turner, Charlie Musselwhite, and Robbie Basho.
After the death of Magic Sam in 1969, Bruce worked as Tour Manager of Buffy Sainte-Marie. He formed a production company with Jack Nitzsche [3] and songwriter Gerry Goffin. They worked out of Goffin's new Larabee Studios in West Hollywood.
While working for Vanguard Records he started producing John Fahey and through Fahey and his label, Takoma Records, he began his management and producer's relationship with Leo Kottke. He produced all seven albums for Kottke on Capitol Records. [4]
He later teamed up with Chrysalis Records in 1979 to purchase Fahey's Takoma Records. Bruce brought Jon Monday into the company to continue as General Manager. Monday had been with Takoma since 1970, and was their first full-time employee. Bruce signed and produced The Fabulous Thunderbirds, [5] [6] and signed T-Bone Burnett, Charles Bukowski, and other notable artists to the new Takoma label. [7] [8]
In 1984, he managed 'The Blasters' who released the album Hard Line on Slash/Warner Bros., as well as 'The Gun Club'.
He served as pop music consultant to UCLA's Department of Fine Arts as well as at the Austin Performing Arts Center in Austin, Texas.
In 2000, Bruce and Bill Coben launched Benchmark Recordings with the original four The Fabulous Thunderbirds albums and a live album by Mike Bloomfield. In 2008, Bruce retired as president and the company brought in long-time friend of the founders, Jon Monday, to run the label. The company is now co-owned by Bill Coben and Jon Monday. [9]
Leo Kottke is an American acoustic guitarist. He is known for a fingerpicking style that draws on blues, jazz, and folk music, and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies. He has overcome a series of personal obstacles, including partial loss of hearing and a nearly career-ending bout with tendon damage in his right hand, to emerge as a widely recognized master of his instrument. He resides in the Minneapolis area with his family.
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by guitarist John Fahey in the late 1950s. It was named after Fahey's hometown, Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Jimmie Lawrence Vaughan Jr. is an American blues rock guitarist and singer based in Austin, Texas. He is the older brother of the late, great Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was a founding member of the The Fabulous Thunderbirds.
John Van Hamersveld is an American graphic artist and illustrator who designed record jackets for pop and psychedelic bands from the 1960s onward. Among the 300 albums are the covers of Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles, Crown of Creation by Jefferson Airplane, Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones, and Hotter Than Hell by Kiss. His first major assignment, in 1963, was designing the poster for the surf film The Endless Summer, after which he served as Capitol Records' head of design from 1965 to 1968. During that time, he worked on the artwork for albums by Capitol artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys. He also oversaw the design of the psychedelic posters for the Pinnacle Shrine exposition.
Blind Joe Death is the first album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. There are three different versions of the album, and the original self-released edition of fewer than 100 copies is extremely rare.
John Aloysius Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been enormously influential and has been described as the foundation of the genre of American primitive guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate 20th-century classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian influences into his work.
Leo Kottke is the first album on the Chrysalis label by American guitarist Leo Kottke, released in 1976. It reached #107 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.
Greenhouse is American guitarist Leo Kottke's fifth album, his second on the Capitol label, released in 1972. It was recorded in three days. From the liner notes: "In the sense that my guitars were once plants, this record's a greenhouse.” There are seven instrumentals and four vocals. It reached No. 127 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Leo Kottke/Peter Lang/John Fahey is a split album by American guitarists Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, and John Fahey, released in 1974.
Girls Go Wild is the alternate title of the 1979 debut studio album by the Texas-based blues rock band The Fabulous Thunderbirds. The album was an eponymous release, but due to the prominence of the words "Girls Go Wild" on the cover it has often been referred to by that name. The album was reissued via Benchmark Recordings in 2000.
What's the Word is the second studio album by the Austin, Texas-based blues band the Fabulous Thunderbirds, released in 1980. Like its predecessor, the album initially sold poorly, but is now regarded as a noteworthy blues recording of the period. The 2000 CD reissue on Benchmark Records contains three bonus tracks, two of which were recorded live at Club Koda, Austin, Texas.
Dharma Blues is the title of a recording by American folk and blues guitarist Peter Lang, released in 2002.
Jon Monday is an American producer and distributor of CDs and DVDs across an eclectic range of material such as Swami Prabhavananda, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Huston Smith, and Chalmers Johnson. In 1980 Monday filmed what turned out to be the very last live poetry reading Charles Bukowski gave, at the Sweetwater in Redondo Beach, which was released as The Last Straw on DVD. Monday directed and co-produced with Jennifer Douglas the feature-length documentary Save KLSD: Media Consolidation and Local Radio. He is also President of Benchmark Recordings, which owns and distributes the early catalog of The Fabulous Thunderbirds CDs and a live recording of Mike Bloomfield. After retiring, his work with Huston Smith and the Vedanta Society of Southern California has created audio and video commercial releases as well as establishing free online archives of the historic material.
Benchmark Recordings is a record label that was founded in 2000 by music industry veterans Bill Coben and Denny Bruce.
Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes is a 1963 album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey. Various sources show either a 1963 or 1964 original release. It was Fahey's second release and the first to gain a national distributor.
The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites is the third album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1965. The 1999 reissue contained four previously unreleased tracks.
After the Ball is an album by the American folk musician John Fahey, released in 1973. It was his second and last recording on the Reprise label and like its predecessor, Of Rivers and Religion, it sold poorly.
The Best of John Fahey 1959–1977 is a compilation album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1977. The songs are collected from four of Fahey's dozen or so releases up to that point.
John Fahey Visits Washington D.C. is an album by American fingerstyle guitarist and composer John Fahey, released in 1979.
The Best of the Fabulous Thunderbirds: Early Birds Special is a 2011 compilation album by Texas-based blues rock band The Fabulous Thunderbirds released on Benchmark Recordings. The album features a collection of songs from the original tracks from their first four albums, live versions, and the hits from their later albums, spanning their first decade of recording and touring.