Albert Hammond

Albert Hammond is one of the more successful pop/rock songwriters to come out of England during the 1960s and 1970s, and has also enjoyed a long career as a recording artist, his work popular in two languages on three continents across four decades. Hammond was born in London in 1944 – his family actually came from the British colony on Gibraltar, but wartime considerations caused his mother to be evacuated to London, where she gave birth. He spent his childhood and youth on Gibraltar, where he became fluent in both English and Spanish – that bilingual ability would serve him well in his later career. His family lived modestly on his father's fireman's pay, and one of his early diversions was music – he sang in church and became head choir boy. He also became interested in popular music, sang for his own enjoyment, and also took up the guitar.

Pop/rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is the lead and rhythm guitarist and songwriting member of the GRAMMY® and BRIT Awards-winning band The Strokes. He has released 4 solo albums to date, most recently the acclaimed “Francis Trouble” in 2018 which spawned the radio single “Far Away Truths”. In the 4 years, since then, The Strokes released their US Top 10 charting GRAMMY® nominated rock record “The New Abnormal” and toured the world extensively. Albert also began the songwriting process for his 5th solo album “Melodies on Hiatus”, a 19-track album, crafted in a most experimental style.

Albert Hammond has been writing hit songs for over fifty years. This is not to just to say that it has been fifty years since his first hit. This is to say that there has not been a single decade in which Albert has not written multiple hits songs since he scored his first hit with “Little Arrows” at the age of 24. His songs have been responsible for the sale of over 360 million records worldwide including over 30 chart-topping hits. Many of his most beloved songs, like “The Air That I Breathe” and “When I Need You,” have become hits multiple times with various artists, decade after decade.

Albert Hammond is one of the more successful pop/rock songwriters to come out of England during the 1960s and 1970s, and has also enjoyed a long career as a recording artist, his work popular in two languages on three continents across four decades. Hammond was born in London in 1944 – his family actually came from the British colony on Gibraltar, but wartime considerations caused his mother to be evacuated to London, where she gave birth. He spent his childhood and youth on Gibraltar, where he became fluent in both English and Spanish – that bilingual ability would serve him well in his later career. His family lived modestly on his father's fireman's pay, and one of his early diversions was music – he sang in church and became head choir boy. He also became interested in popular music, sang for his own enjoyment, and also took up the guitar.

As his Strokes cohort Julian Casablancas prepares to drop his sophomore album with The Voidz, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is readying a new release of his own. Entitled Francis Trouble, Hammond Jr.’s fourth solo full-length is due out March 9th.

From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's Christian Singers, the Golden Gate Quartet, James P. Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Terry.