Godfrey Townsend is an American guitarist from New York. He has been the lead guitarist for The Yardbirds since 2018.
Townsend was born in New York City, to parents who were trained in opera singing. [1] Townsend took lessons on how to play the piano when he was seven, [1] and formed his first band, Alexis, when he was seventeen. [2] He turned professional in the 1990s, and spent thee months with artists as Mitch Ryder, Spencer Davis, Joey Molland of Badfinger, Merrilee Rush, Pat Upton of Spiral Starecase, Sal Valentino of Beau Brummels, Cub Koda from Brownsville Station, Dennis Yost of The Classics IV, Len Barry of the Dovells and Tiny Tim. [2]
Townsend has also performed for Jack Bruce and Dave Mason. [2] He was a member of The John Entwistle Band, replacing Mark Hitt. [1] He was also in Kenny Vance and the Planotones, and was in Alan Parsons' touring band from 2001 to 2009. [3] [4] Godfrey was in The Association in 2012, and was a guitarist for many 1960s summer tours, backing The Turtles, The Buckinghams, The Grass Roots, Mark Lindsay, Felix Cavaliere, Gary Wright, Rick Derringer, and Mark Farner. [5] In July 2018, Godfrey replaced Johnny A. as lead guitarist and backing vocalist for The Yardbirds. [6] [7]
John Alec Entwistle was an English musician, best known as the bass guitarist for the rock band the Who. Entwistle's music career spanned over four decades. Nicknamed "The Ox" and "Thunderfingers", he was the band's only member with formal musical training and also provided backing and occasional lead vocals. Entwistle was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Who in 1990.
Mark Fredrick Farner is an American musician. He was the original singer and guitarist of the rock band Grand Funk Railroad, which he co-founded in 1969, and later as a contemporary Christian musician.
Sham 69 are an English punk rock band that formed in Hersham in Surrey in 1975. They changed their musical direction after seeing the Sex Pistols play live in early 1976. They were one of the most successful punk bands in the United Kingdom, achieving five top 20 singles, including "If the Kids Are United" and "Hurry Up Harry". The group's popularity saw them perform on the BBC’s Top of the Pops, and they appeared in the rockumentary film, D.O.A.. The original unit broke up in 1979, with frontman Jimmy Pursey moving on to pursue a solo career.
Rick Derringer is an American musician, producer, and songwriter. He gained success in the 1960s with his band, the McCoys. Their debut single, "Hang on Sloopy", became a number-one hit in 1965 and is now regarded as a classic track from the garage rock era. The McCoys had seven songs chart in the top 100, including covers of "Fever" and "Come on Let's Go".
"Hang On Sloopy" is a 1964 song written by Wes Farrell and Bert Berns. Rhythm and blues vocal group the Vibrations were the first to record the tune in 1964. Atlantic Records released it as a single, which reached No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song is associated with Ohio State University and is Ohio's official rock song.
John Voorhis "Tim" Bogert III was an American musician. As a bass guitarist and vocalist he was best known for his powerful vocal ability and his fast runs, fluid agility and ground-breaking sound on his Fender Precision Bass. He was one of the pioneers of using distortion with his bass to help it cut through the mix with the low-powered amps of his time which also imparted a very sharp-edged sound to it. He was a frequent collaborator with drummer Carmine Appice; the duo performed in such bands as Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice.
Clifford Williams is an English musician, best known as the bassist and backing vocalist of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. He started his professional music career in 1967 and had previously been in the English groups Home and Bandit. His first studio album with AC/DC was Powerage in 1978. Williams was inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of AC/DC in 2003. Williams announced his retirement from AC/DC in 2016, but returned for their 2020 comeback album Power Up along with band mates Brian Johnson and Phil Rudd. His side projects include benefit concerts.
Alan Merrill was an American vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. In the early 1970s, he was one of the few resident foreigners in Japan to achieve pop star status there. He wrote the song "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", and was the lead singer on the original recording of it, made by the band the Arrows in 1975. The song became a breakthrough hit for Joan Jett in 1982.
John Wesley Dearth III is an American guitarist and singer, best known as touring guitarist for Porcupine Tree between 2002 and 2010, and also for performing with Mike Tramp, Fish, Sound of Contact, Edison's Children and Vertical Horizon, as well as for his solo work.
Terry Knight and the Pack was an American garage rock band formed in Flint, Michigan in 1965. The band was signed to the Lucky Eleven label through most of its brief recording career. They produced one national hit with their cover version of the song, "I ". Despite their inability to replicate their success, the band was a frequent attraction in the Michigan rock scene. The Pack was fronted by singer Terry Knight. In 1969 the group disbanded but two members, drummer/vocalist Don Brewer and guitarist Mark Farner, would go on to form another band, Grand Funk Railroad.
Kenny Aaronson is an American bass guitar player. He has recorded or performed with several notable artists such as Bob Dylan, Rick Derringer, Billy Idol, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Foghat, Sammy Hagar, Billy Squier, New York Dolls, and Hall and Oates. Since 2015, he has been the bass player for The Yardbirds.
Alan Parsons is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer.
Music from Van-Pires is the only studio album recorded by the John Entwistle Band and is Entwistle's final studio album before his death in 2002. It was a soundtrack for the Sci-Fi Award-winning UPN animated children's computer-generated television series Van-Pires, which only aired between 1997 and 1998, shooting 13 episodes, which Entwistle had been involved with. Some of the tracks appear on his solo compilation album So Who's the Bass Player? The Ox Anthology (2005), despite this. The album was not re-released alongside Entwistle's other solo studio albums in 2005.
Gwyn Ashton is a Welsh–Australian blues, rock guitarist and singer-songwriter. He has released ten albums and toured Australia, Europe and North America.
Steve Luongo is an American drummer, singer, songwriter and record producer who hails from Westchester, New York.
Alan Parsons' A Walk Down Abbey Road was a concert tour that was launched in North America in 2001 to pay tribute to The Beatles and promote the hits of various headlining band members. Similar to Ringo Starr's All Starr Band tours, each successive year the band members swapped out and featured the songs of the new line-up.
The Yardbirds are an English rock band formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists. The band's other members during 1963–1968 were vocalist/harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, with Dreja switching to bass when Samwell-Smith departed in 1966. The band had a string of hits throughout the mid-1960s, including "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul", "Shapes of Things", and "Over Under Sideways Down".
Left for Live is a live album by John Entwistle, who was the bassist for The Who.
10x10 is a posthumous solo album by Ronnie Montrose. Ronnie had been touring with bassist Ricky Phillips and Eric Singer (Kiss) in the early 2000s. Over three days in 2003 at Doug Messenger's studio in North Hollywood, the sessions produced 10 strong tracks of rhythm guitar, bass and drums with the intention to get a singer for the vocals. Eventually Ronnie decided on the 10x10 concept, 10 tracks and 10 different singers. Early on, he was able to secure contributions from close friends and collaborators like Sammy Hagar, Edgar Winter and Davey Pattison. In the intervening years Ronnie battled prostate cancer and, at one point, hadn't touched a guitar for 2 years. Conflicts in scheduling led to the record remaining unfinished for years up until Montrose's passing in 2012. Along with completion of the vocals, the songs also needed lead guitar as well. Rickey Phillips, with the blessing of Ronnie's wife Leighsa and assistance of Eric Singer, picked up the reigns and completed the album. "After he passed, I had to carry on with what Ronnie wanted, because he was such a purist. The songs were cut to 2-inch tape and then transferred to digital, but I really needed it to be a cohesive record. I've done enough records to know how easily the levels of 10 different singers can sound disjointed if you don't stay on top of the production." As per Singer, "I have to give a lot of credit to Ricky Phillips. Ricky really wanted to see this thing through. It was more for Ronnie than just for himself, or for ourselves. We really believed what we had originally captured had a certain vibe and a certain magic to the people in that room when it was created. We felt like, 'Hey, this thing needs to get done. We need to see this thing through, for every good reason.'"