Cameo
While attending a community talent show he struck up the beginnings of a long artistic collaboration with Larry Blackmon. Upon being asked, he joined Blackmon's band. Later on in their initial association, they began calling themselves "The Mighty Gees."
Larry Ernest Blackmon is an American vocalist and musician who gained acclaim as the lead singer and founder frontman of the funk and R&B band Cameo. Starting the band "East Coast", Blackmon formed the "New York City Players" as a compliment to the Ohio Players. Having to rename the group because of a conflict, Blackmon later called the group Cameo. Blackmon lived in Harlem and played drums on several hits for the band Black Ivory. He is the son of Lee Black, a former boxer.
Initially, Blackmon and Johnson sought success through backing up Howard Kinney, and the vocal group Top Shelf. They eventually became part of Willie Feaster and 'The Mighty Magnificent's Concrete Wall'. Along the way, they evolved into East Coast, featuring Gwen Guthrie, then, morphed into The New York City Players. However, just before the release of the group's first single, the popular group The Ohio Players took issue with the similarity in the groups' names. This led them finally in 1973 to establish the band's name as Cameo. Johnson eventually received five gold records for his work with Cameo.
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and pianist, who also sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Peter Tosh, and Madonna, among others, and who wrote songs made famous by Ben E. King, Angela Bofill and Roberta Flack. Guthrie is well known for her 1986 anthem, "Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent", and for her 1986 cover of The Carpenters song (They Long to Be) Close to You.
Cameo is an American soul-influenced funk group that formed in the early 1970s. Cameo was initially a 14-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo to avoid being confused with Ohio Players another funk group in the 1970s.
Changes
Johnson left Cameo in October 1982 to re-evaluate his life and pursuits. Thereafter, he focused on finishing his education in music. After auditioning, Mr. Johnson was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music. He received his bachelor's degree in jazz composition and a master's degree in jazz piano as well.
Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory in New York City. The school offers bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition.
A bachelor's degree or baccalaureate is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to seven years. In some institutions and educational systems, some bachelor's degrees can only be taken as graduate or postgraduate degrees after a first degree has been completed. In countries with qualifications frameworks, bachelor's degrees are normally one of the major levels in the framework, although some qualifications titled bachelor's degrees may be at other levels and some qualifications with non-bachelor's titles may be classified as bachelor's degrees.
A master's degree is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. A master's degree normally requires previous study at the bachelor's level, either as a separate degree or as part of an integrated course. Within the area studied, master's graduates are expected to possess advanced knowledge of a specialized body of theoretical and applied topics; high order skills in analysis, critical evaluation, or professional application; and the ability to solve complex problems and think rigorously and independently.
Gregory continues to be actively engaged in music. He has performed as a solo pianist and played keyboard for various groups, such as Slave. He enjoys continuing in the education of other aspiring musicians by teaching piano, and is currently a consultant for a large audio department in a major retail establishment. Through a writing credit, he received a platinum record for Boyz II Men's album Evolution.
Slave was an American Ohio-based funk band popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Trumpeter and multi musician Steve Washington, born in New Jersey, attended East Orange High School, and was one of the first users of the "electric trumpet". He and Trombonist Floyd Miller formed the group in Dayton, Ohio in 1975.
Boyz II Men is an American R&B vocal group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are currently a trio composed of baritone Nathan Morris alongside tenors Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman. During the 1990s, Boyz II Men found fame on Motown Records as a quartet including bass Michael McCary, who left the group in 2003 due to health issues.
In 2007, he released a solo jazz album titled A New Hip. In 2012 he released a solo funk album titled "Funk Funk (Just For A Little Time)"
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
John Scofield, often referred to as "Sco", is an American jazz-rock guitarist and composer whose playing spans bebop, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul, and rock.
Stanley Clarke is an American bassist and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. He has composed music for films and television and has worked with musicians in many genres. Like Jaco Pastorius, Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist/electric keyboardist and composer. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta" and "Windows", are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed the fusion band Return to Forever. With Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
Stephen Paul Motian was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.
Roger Troutman, also known mononymously as Roger, was an American singer, composer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenced west coast hip hop due to the scene's heavy sampling of his music over the years. Troutman was well known for his use of the talk box, a device that is connected to an instrument to create different vocal effects. Roger used a custom-made talkbox—the Electro Harmonix "Golden Throat," through a Moog Minimoog and later in his career a Yamaha DX100 FM synthesizer. As both band leader of Zapp and in his subsequent solo releases, he scored a bevy of funk and R&B hits throughout the 1980s.
Cardiac Arrest is the first album by the funk/R&B band Cameo.
Ugly Ego is the third album by the funk/soul band Cameo, released in 1978.
We All Know Who We Are is the second album by the funk/R&B band Cameo, released early in 1978.
Secret Omen is the fourth album by the funk/R&B band Cameo, released in 1979.
Cameosis is the fifth album by the funk/soul band Cameo, released in 1980.
Feel Me is the sixth album by the funk/R&B band Cameo, released in 1980.
Alligator Woman is a 1982 album by American Funk/R&B band Cameo. Released on March 22, 1982 by Casablanca Records, This is the group's eighth studio album. The cover artwork model is Canadian singer/model Vanity.
Style is the ninth album by the funk/R&B band Cameo, released in 1983. It was their first album to introduce their "Atlanta Artists" label, with which they maintained their distribution through Polygram Records.
Best of Cameo is a compilation album released by the funk/R&B group Cameo in 1998. It is not to be confused with 1993 release, The Best of Cameo. The band's biggest hits are not included in this 11-track release. This title was re-released under the Collectables Records label on November 23, 2004, under the slightly different title, The Best of Cameo.
Carsten Dahl is a pianist.
Fernando Otero is a Grammy-award-winning Argentine pianist, vocalist, and composer.
Tim Cashion is the current keyboardist for the classic-rock band Grand Funk Railroad. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Anna Dagmar is an independent American pianist/singer-songwriter, based in Manhattan, New York. She is known for incorporating elements of folk music, classical music and jazz in her performances.
