Williie Dixon

Since the early 1950s, Willie Dixon has been the studio kingpin of Chicago blues, having written, produced, and played bass on countless classics by Muddy Waters, Howlin? Wolf, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, and many others. Dixon has always managed to find time away from the studio to work as a performer, slapping his upright bass and singing his own tunes in a highly compelling, conversational baritone. He was working the coffeehouse circuit with pianist Memphis Slim when he cut this, his first album as a leader, in 1959. Besides his unique interpretations of "Nervous" and "Built for Comfort", it includes eight lesser known compositions from Dixon?s prolific pen. It is unlike all other albums by Dixon, as he and Slim are accompanied, not by the usual crew of Chicago blues players, but by a group of New York mainstream jazzmen, including tenor saxophonist Hal Ashby, guitarist Wally Richardson and drummer Gus Johnson.

Willie Dixon sings his originals on this album, even though many were written for other artists to perform previously. The album offers a unique perspective in comparing how Dixon interprets his music to how other performers (Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf for example) have interpreted it.

Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, is releasing Stranger Things: Soundtrack from the Netflix Series, Season 4 in digital, CD and cassette configurations with the digital edition of Season 4, Volume I premiering online today. Season 4, Volume II (featuring all of Volume I plus additional music from the season’s closing episodes) will debut online Friday, July 1.

William James Dixon (July 1, 1915 – January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post–World War II sound of the Chicago blues.

“Stranger Things,” Netflix’s sci-fi success story, hit the zeitgeist last year with the force of an invisible telekinetic blast from a psychic pre-teen on the run from government operatives. It did this by unabashedly culling references from 1980s pop culture, repurposing the pulpy horror tropes of the era into a story that resonated with a contemporary audience. There’s nothing wrong with “style over substance” as a guiding aesthetic for a series like this; when done well, that sense of surface-level nostalgia can help create a world that feels both familiar and intriguing. With music, however, the same effect can be trickier to pull off. More often than not, when artists wholesale copy well-known motifs and themes, you’re left with an empty pastiche or an uninspired facsimile of a better musician.

Willie Dixon is one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. He is a Grammy Award winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Blues Hall of Fame Inductee and Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductee.

The edge of chaos is the constantly shifting battle zone between stagnation and anarchy, the one place where a complex system can be spontaneous, adaptive and alive. With this album guitarist Dixon Nacey has produced a knockout debut as bandleader. Seven superb compositions beautifully played by a stellar line-up, The Edge of Chaos is a stunner.

Original Series Soundtrack (OST) from the drama mini-series Butterfly (2018). The music composed by Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein (Valley of the Boom, Stranger Things). Butterfly is a 2018 television drama series created by Tony Marchant for ITV. The series stars Anna Friel, Emmett J. Scanlan, Callum Booth-Ford, Sean McGinley, Millie Gibson, Lorraine Burroughs, Amy Huberman, Alison Steadman.

John Patton, Grant Green and Ben Dixon were introduced to Blue Note by Lou Donaldson and quickly became the quintessential rhythm section for Blue Note's funkier session. They came together for this, John Patton's first album, with two of the label's tenor saxophonists Fred Jackson and Harold Vick. The double tenors and organ trio make an unbeatable combination for some soulful, swinging music. The title tune and "The Silver Meter" were radio hits that remain among the most popular of Patton's recorded performances.

There are a handful of landmark albums in any genre. In the blues, one of them is Muddy Waters' "Folk Singer". Originally released in 1964, "Folk Singer" was the only acoustic album Waters ever recorded, thus becoming the first and perhaps best blues concept album ever. Now, "Folk Singer", which includes fellow blues greats Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon backing up Waters, is being re-released in an expanded version that features two bonus tracks recorded during the two 1964 sessions that followed those for the album - "The Same Thing" and "You Can't Lose What You Never Had". Muddy Waters was the king of electric Chicago blues, but on Folk Singer he proved to be, simply, one of the greats of 20th century music.