Leonard Albert Kravitz is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. His "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, blues, soul, R&B, funk, jazz, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, pop, folk, and ballads. In addition to singing lead and backing vocals, Kravitz often plays all of the instruments himself when recording.
Jeffrey Scott Buckley, raised as Scott Moorhead, was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by playing cover songs at venues in Manhattan's East Village, such as Sin-é, gradually focusing more on his own material. After rebuffing much interest from record labels and his father Tim Buckley's manager Herb Cohen, he signed with Columbia, recruited a band, and recorded what would be his only studio album, Grace, in 1994.
American Beauty is the fifth studio album by rock band the Grateful Dead. Released November 1, 1970, by Warner Bros. Records, the album continued the folk rock and country music style of their previous album Workingman's Dead, issued earlier in the year. Though the Americana approach is still evident in the songwriting, comparatively the sound focused more on folk harmonies and major-key melodies, showing influence from Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.
Charles Allan Rich was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. His eclectic style of music was often difficult to classify, encompassing the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, soul, and gospel genres.
Leonard Harold Breau was an American guitarist and music educator. Breau blended many styles of music, including jazz, country, classical, and flamenco. Inspired by country guitarists like Chet Atkins, Breau used fingerstyle techniques not often used in jazz guitar. By using a seven-string guitar and approaching the guitar like a piano, he opened up possibilities for the instrument.
"All Shook Up" is a song recorded by Elvis Presley, published by Elvis Presley Music, and composed by Otis Blackwell. The single topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on April 13, 1957, staying there for eight weeks. It also topped the Billboard R&B chart for four weeks, becoming Presley's second single to do so, and peaked at No. 1 on the country chart as well. It is certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.
"In the Midnight Hour" is a song originally performed by Wilson Pickett in 1965 and released on his 1965 album of the same name, also appearing on the 1966 album The Exciting Wilson Pickett. The song was composed by Pickett and Steve Cropper at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King, Jr. would later be assassinated in April 1968. Pickett's first hit on Atlantic Records, it reached number one on the R&B charts and peaked at number 21 on the pop charts.
Bush Tetras are an American post-punk band from New York City, formed in 1979. They are best known for the 1980 song "Too Many Creeps", which exemplified the band's sound of "jagged rhythms, slicing guitars, and sniping vocals". Although they did not achieve mainstream success, the Bush Tetras were influential and popular in the Manhattan club scene and college radio in the early 1980s. New York's post-punk revival of the 2000s was accompanied by a resurgence of interest in the genre, with the Tetras' influence heard in many of that scene's bands.
"The Ballad of John and Yoko" is a song written by John Lennon, credited to Lennon–McCartney, and released by the English rock band the Beatles as a single in May 1969. The song, chronicling the events associated with Lennon’s marriage to Yoko Ono, was the Beatles’ 17th and final UK number one single.
Cindy Blackman Santana, sometimes known as Cindy Blackman, is an American jazz and rock drummer. Blackman has recorded several jazz albums as solo act and has performed with Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Ron Carter, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Buckethead, Bill Laswell and Joe Henderson. She was influenced early in her career by seeing Tony Williams perform. In 1997 she recorded the instructional video Multiplicity. "To me, jazz is the highest form of music that you can play because of the creative requirements", says Blackman. Blackman is married to rock guitarist Carlos Santana.
"Land of a Thousand Dances" is a song written and first recorded by Chris Kenner in 1962. The song is famous for its "na na na na na" hook, which Cannibal & the Headhunters added in their 1965 version, which reached number 30 on the Billboard chart. Thee Midniters, an American group out of East Los Angeles, was one of the first Chicano rock bands to cover "Land of a Thousand Dances", scoring a local hit in 1965. The song was also covered by Danny & the Memories, British group The Action, Ted Nugent, the J. Geils Band, and the stars of the 1980s-era World Wrestling Federation. Ike & Tina Turner often performed this song live and it was released on their 1971 album Live In Paris. The song's best-known version was Wilson Pickett's 1966 recording, which became a Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs No. 1 and his biggest ever pop hit. Some releases of the song credit Antoine "Fats" Domino as a co-author of the song with Kenner. Domino agreed to record the song in exchange for half of the song's royalties. One of the earliest covers of the song is on Major Lance's debut album on Okeh, The Monkey Time (1963).
"American Woman" is a song released by the Canadian rock band The Guess Who in January 1970, from their sixth studio album of the same name. It was later released in March 1970 as a single backed with "No Sugar Tonight", which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard magazine placed the single at number three on the Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970 list. On May 22, 1970, the single was certified as gold by the RIAA.
"Walking in Memphis" is a song composed and originally recorded by the American singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, for whom it remains his signature song. He has said the song is "100 percent autobiographical". He described it as a song about "a Jewish gospel-music-lover", and as
a pretty literal transcription of a visit I made ... in 1986. I went to Graceland, I heard Al Green preach the gospel, I saw W. C. Handy's statue. But the song is about more than just a place, it's about a kind of spiritual awakening, one of those trips where you're different when you leave.
Troy Andrews, also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is an American musician, producer, actor and philanthropist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known as a trombone and trumpet player but also plays drums, organ, and tuba. He has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. Other musical family members are cousins Glen David Andrews and the late Travis "Trumpet Black" Hill. Andrews began playing trombone at age four, and since 2009 has toured with his own band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.
Michael Lington is a Danish-American contemporary saxophonist, songwriter, producer, recording artist and a purveyor of soul and contemporary jazz.
William Alexander Chilton was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, best known as the lead singer of The Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton's early commercial success in the 1960s as a teen vocalist for The Box Tops was never repeated in later years with Big Star and in his subsequent indie music solo career on small labels, but he drew an intense following among indie and alternative music musicians. He is frequently cited as a seminal influence by influential rock artists and bands, some of whose testimonials appeared in the 2012 documentary Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.
Time Within Itself is a big band jazz album produced by Origin Records and released March 17, 2015. The concept for the recording came from the idea of a high level feature CD showcasing the Michael Waldrop Big Band. Most notably, music critic Jack Bowers gave the recording 4 and a half of 5 stars and notes, "...Waldrop's first visit to a recording studio with his own big band was worth the wait."
