National Blues Legends
Lowell Fulson
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 21:37
SAD NEWS...3/11/99:
This is to inform you that Lowell Fulson passed away on Saturday 3/6/99, in Los Angeles. Memorial services will be held for him on 3/12/99 Friday evening 7:00pm and Saturday 3/13/99 at 12:00 noon at Angelus Funeral Home in Los Angeles. If you need further information please contact me at my e-mail address or land line (310) 767-1294.
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The Lowell Fulson Story
Fulson joined Chess Records in 1954 and had an immediate smash hit with "Reconsider Baby" on the Checker label. Though he had no other commercial successes for Checker, he continued to record for them until late 1963. By 1965, he began recording for Kent Records in Los Angeles (owned by the Bihari family of Modern/RPM/Flair fame). Once again he scored an enormous hit with "Tramp" and had other strong items with "Black Nights" and "Make a Little Love." Moving to Jewel in 1969, he began recording albums with some rock background. Since that time his recordings have been album projects with varying degrees of success. He has also recorded in France and Japan. Invariably Fulson's performances are fine -- if the results are less than satisfactory as a whole, it is usually a failed concept or an inappropriate accompaniment that is at fault.
-- Bob Porter, All-Music Guide
John Mayall
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 21:36
Photo by Caroline Greyshock
courtesy of Silvertone Records and Zomba Recording Corp.
Junior Wells
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 21:36
Photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives
and Rhino Records
Lightnin' Hopkins
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 21:36
Photo courtesy of Showtime Archives
and Rhino Records, 310-828-1980
Billie Holiday
Written by Administrator Monday, 29 June 2009 21:36
(photo courtesy of Michael Ochs Archives and
Rhino Records, (310) 828-1980)
Original name ELEANORA FAGAN (b. April 7, 1915, Baltimore, Md., U.S.--d. July 17, 1959, New York, N.Y.), American jazz singer, one of the greatest from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Holiday was the daughter of an itinerant guitarist. She first became acquainted with jazz when the brothel keeper for whom she ran errands as a child allowed her to hear recordings by trumpeter Louis Armstrong and singer Bessie Smith. After an interlude as a prostitute, she made her professional singing debut in obscure Harlem nightclubs in 1931 and recorded for the first time two years later.
She was not recognized until 1935, and her small group of recordings of that period are today acknowledged as jazz masterpieces. She toured briefly with the Count Basie and Artie Shaw orchestras before becoming a nightclub solo attraction in 1940--never, however, severing her jazz affiliations. Her last years were a pathetic struggle against heroin addiction, which eventually killed her; but her later recordings show that, although her voice was ravaged, her technique remained supreme.
Holiday had style and personality, and, with no technical training, she created sophisticated musical effects, her diction being unique and her phrasing dramatically intense. Her vintage years were perhaps 1936-43, when her professional and private liaison with the saxophonist Lester Young was perpetuated by some of the best recorded examples of the interplay between a vocal line and an instrumental obbligato. Her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, written with W. Dufty, appeared in book form in 1956 and as a motion picture in 1972.
Copyright (c) 1995 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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