After starting out as an unsuccessful pop singer (working under the name Vance Arnold), Joe Cocker found his niche singing rock and soul in the pubs of England with his superb backing group, the Grease Band. He hit number one in the U.K. in November 1968 with his version of the Beatles' "A Little Help from My Friends." His career really took off after he sang that song at Woodstock in August 1969…
All of Billy Squier's best material is dished out on 16 Strokes, from the simplistic contagiousness of "The Stroke" to the Van Halen-like fervency of "Tied Up." His rock & roll flamboyancy, a mix of hard but not heavy guitar riffs wrapped around spirited just-for-fun three-minute outpourings, was best established through his singles and not the entirety of his albums.
There's a good reason why the Move's eponymous 1968 debut album sounds like the work of two or three different bands – actually, befitting a band with multiple lead singers, there's more than one reason. First, there's that lead singer conundrum. Carl Wayne was the group's frontman, but Roy Wood wrote the band's original tunes and sometimes took the lead, and when the group covered a rock & roll class, they could have rhythm guitarist Trevor Burton sing (as they did on Eddie Cochran's "Weekend") or drummer Bev Bevan (as they did on the Coasters' "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart").
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio…
St. Elmo's Fire is a 1985 coming-of-age film directed by Joel Schumacher. The film, starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham, is a prominent movie of the Brat Pack genre, and revolves around a group of friends that have just graduated from Georgetown University and their adjustment to their post-university lives and the responsibilities of encroaching adulthood.
In June 2016, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore made his much-anticipated return to rock music as Ritchie Blackmor' s Rainbow played three concerts in Europe, two in Germany and one in England. Recordings from the two German shows at Loreley and Bietigheim make up this live album Memories In Rock. The setlist, combining classic tracks from both Deep Purple and Rainbow, was exactly what the fans had wished for…
"Key to Bixiga 70’s style is how the group both breaks ground and can sling a universally appealing tune…balancing a sense of modernity with retro brass and hand percussion that draws on the centuries-old West African-Caribbean connection still so crucial to Brazilian musical aesthetics today." – Pop Matters. São Paulo's Afro-Brazilian groove visionaries Bixiga 70 return with an ecstatic 5th album - Vapor - their first in four years. The sound is joyful, a series of potent horn driven melodies and infectious polyrhythms. More than a return, Vapor is a rebirth. An exuberant, full-tilt party.
The Blues Brothers: Music from the Soundtrack was released on June 20, 1980 as the second album by the Blues Brothers Band, which also toured that year to promote the film. "Gimme Some Lovin'" was a Top 20 Billboard hit, peaking at number 18. The album was a followup to their debut, the live album, Briefcase Full of Blues. Later that year they released a second live album, Made in America, which featured the Top 40 track, "Who's Making Love".