Edgar
Charles Thompson, known professionally as Eddie Thompson (31 May 1925 – 6
November 1986) was a British jazz pianist.
Thompson
was born blind in Shoreditch, London, England. He attended the same school for
the blind (Linden Lodge, Wandsworth), as George Shearing and was introduced to
jazz through listening to the family radio and listening to Fats Waller, Earl
Hines, and especially Art Tatum. By 1947 he was part of the London jazz scene
and was able to supplement his jazz income, always precarious, with a career as
a piano tuner. In the late 1940's he recorded with Johnny Dankworth and a very
young Victor Feldman.
Eddie with Tommy Whittle's band
In
1949 he played at the Paris Jazz Fair with Carlo Krahmer band and worked for a
time with Victor Feldman's Sextet. He had his own quintet and trio during the
early 1950s and also worked with Tony Crombie, Freddy Randall, Vic Ash, Ronnie
Scott and Tommy Whittle (1957/8). At the end of the 1950s he again had his own
trio and quintet. He was house pianist at Ronnie Scott's 1959-60 and also did
solo work at the Downbeat Club, London during 1960 before emigrating to the USA
in 1962. He secured a residency at the Hickory House between 1963-67 and made
many musical friendships including Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, and
Thelonious Monk. He also performed at various clubs and recorded as leader and
soloist.
Thompson
returned to the London area in 1972 for regular BBC Jazz Club gigs, and he
recorded for the German BASF label and Doug Dobell's 77 label. He toured as a
soloist, in a duo with Roger Kellaway and with his trio, visiting the USA,
Australia. New Zealand and Europe. He played regularly at the Pizza Express in
London. He regularly travelled up to Stockport on Fridays, with his dog of
course. During the day he would perform piano tuning at Nield and Hardy's, one
of the two major musical instrument stores in the town. Just round the corner
from the store was the Warren Buckley pub and beneath was a jazz cellar where
Eddie (with dog under the piano) played during the evening with two local
musicians making up the trio. One notable evening touring American greats, Al
Grey and Buddy Tate who was deputising for Jimmy Forrest, played a memorable
session with Eddie's trio.
He
made further recordings in 1978, 1980 and 1983 including When Lights Are Low
and Memories Of You.. He performed on television and radio and played
frequently at various clubs in London. Eddie's strength other than his
prodigious technique was that he knew literally hundreds of tunes with a
preference for Gershwin.
He also had the ability, when he felt it necessary, to
drop into the style of his heroes Garner, Peterson, and Nat ColeHe was a
frequent first choice for accompanying visiting US musicians until the mid
1980s. He was at home playing mainstream or bop and
possessed a prodigious technique and the ability, when he felt it necessary, to
drop into the style of his heroes Garner, Peterson, and Nat Cole. Although
blind he travelled to evening work in London clubs by the Underground, and also
to clubs throughout the UK.
Derek
Sheinwald who knew Eddie for many years and played drums at times for him recollected
"Eddie always wore a waistcoat, 4 pockets, Jacket 3 pockets, Trousers 2
pockets. why? Ha'penny- Penny - Theepenny piece - sixpence -
Shilling - Florin - Half Crown - Ten shilling note - Pound note. each
distributed in order that when purchasing (for example drinks at a bar) he
could offer exact money and not hold his hand out for change which if not given
carefully could scatter.
Due
to a lifelong smoking habit, he developed emphysema which contributed to his
early death on 6th November, 1986, at the age of 61. At the time of his death
he was noted as being at "the height of his powers" as well as having
a considerable musical repertoire.
(Edited
from Wikipedia, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Henry Bebop)
George
"Pee Wee" Erwin (May 30, 1913 – June 20, 1981) was an American jazz
trumpeter.
An
excellent trumpeter who spent most of his career on the fringe of fame, Pee Wee
Erwin made many fine records during his career. He was born in Falls City,
Nebraska, United States. Erwin started on trumpet at age four and made his first radio
broadcast four years later.
He
had his first professional engagement as a soloist with the radio station of
the Kansas City Star on a program called "The Night Hawks" on Station
WDAF in 1921. He also played with the
Coon-Sanders Band, which was well known in Chicago, in 1922-23. He then played
in several territory bands on the Orpheum circuit before joining the groups of
Joe Haymes (1931–33) and Isham Jones (1933–34).
He then moved to New York City.
His wide range and skills as a sight reader and improvisor
caused him to be much in demand for radio sessions. He played with Benny
Goodman in 1934-35, then with Ray Noble in 1935; the next year he rejoined
Goodman, taking Bunny Berigan's empty chair. In 1937, he again followed
Berigan, this time in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra, where he remained until 1939.
He
also became increasingly active in radio and TV work. On the NYC staff of CBS,
he played regularly for the Garry Moore, Carol Burnett, Candid Camera and
Jackie Gleason shows. From 1963 on he had a weekly radio jazz show with Ed
Joyce. His playing retained its spirit and verve throughout the following
decade, when he toured Europe with Warren Covington, the Kings of Jazz (his own
band, 1974) and the New York Jazz Repertory Company.
Carl
Story (May 29, 1916 – March 31, 1995 was an American bluegrass musician, and
leader of his band the Rambling Mountaineers. He was dubbed "The Father of
Bluegrass Gospel Music" by the governor of Oklahoma. He recorded more than 65 gospel albums, most of them on
the Starday label.
Story
was born in Lenoir, North Carolina, United States, into a musically inclined
family. His mother played the guitar and his father was an old-time fiddle
player who enjoyed collecting recordings of Charlie Poole, Grayson and Whitter,
and others. Carl took up the fiddle at
age nine and eventually learned guitar and clawhammer banjo. In the early
1930s, after winning a fiddle contest, he joined J. E. Clark and the Lonesome
Mountaineers performing at WLVA in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1934, he formed the
Rambling Mountaineers together with banjo player Johnny Whisnant and guitarists
Dudley Watson and Ed McMahan.
Within
a year they played over radio station WHKY in Hickory, North Carolina. It later
led to performances at WSPA in Spartanburg, South Carolina and WWNC in
Asheville, North Carolina. They recorded for ARC in 1939 and Okeh Records in
1940; however, these recordings were never issued. Story played with Bill
Monroe in 1942 as a fiddler - replacing Howdy Forrester who had been drafted -
but eventually Story was also drafted in October 1943.
After
his discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1945, he began reforming and performing
with his Rambling Mountaineers on the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round show at WNOX in
Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1947, he recorded for the Mercury label. At the
recording sessions of 1947, Story temporarily labelled his band the Melody Four
Quartet. During the 1950s, Carl Story's Rambling Mountaineers performed on the
Farm and Fun Time Show at WCYB in Bristol, Virginia and on the Cas Walker Show
over WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. His
Mountaineers also appeared on radio stations WAYS in Charlotte, North Carolina,
WEAS in Decatur, Georgia, and WLOS in Asheville, North Carolina.
He had a new
recording contract on Columbia Records in 1953. Two years later he was back to
Mercury Records. In 1957, he switched label to Starday Records, where he stayed
for eighteen years. Many of Carl Story's Starday Records albums featured the
talents of the Knoxville-based Brewster brothers, Bud and Willie G., along with
Claude Boone. It was an extremely talented line-up of musicians. They traveled the
country performing great shows and selling lots of records. In
early 1957, Carl and his band stopped in Monticello, Kentucky for a show. It
was there that he met his wife-to-be, Helen Guffey. In the fall of 1957, Carl
returned to Monticello and was hired as a disc jockey at WFLW radio station. He
re-met Helen and they started dating.
About the time that Carl began living and
working in Monticello, Mercury Records released the very first bluegrass gospel
album ever: "Gospel Quartet Favorites" by Carl Story, which contained
timeless classics like There's A Light At The River, Family Reunion and My Lord
Keeps a Record, all of which exemplified Story’s raw-edged, “mountain style” of
bluegrass singing defined by his distinctive high baritone harmony part and
excellent songwriting ability. Following the album's release, Carl and Helen
were married. The date was July 17, 1959. They moved to South Carolina, but
returned to Monticello in November of 1960, where Carl began a second tenure at
WFLW.
Helen and Carl Story
Carl
and his wife Helen left Monticello in late 1960 or early 1961 and moved to
nearby Albany, Kentucky, where Carl worked for a few months at WANY radio
station. Soon, Carl and Helen left Albany and moved to South Carolina. Carl
Story spent the last thirty years of his life in Greer, South Carolina.
In
the 1970s, Carl recorded for several labels, most notably Atteiram Records of
Marietta, Georgia, and the newly founded CMH label of Los Angeles, a joint
venture involving Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith and former Starday staffer
Martin Haerle. Initial releases on CMH
usually consisted of lavishly produced two-LP sets that featured re-recorded
versions of past hits. Such was the case
with Carl’s The Bluegrass Gospel Collection.
Single CMH albums included Mountain Music and A Lonesome Wail From the
Hills.
Carl
spent the last thirty years of his life in Greer, South Carolina, where he
headquartered the Rambling Mountaineers.
As he had done throughout the earlier portions of his career, he
supplemented his touring schedule by working during the week as a disc
jockey. His last DJ work was a five-year
stint on WESC in nearby Greenville, South Carolina. Carl passed away in March of 1995 from complications
of heart bypass surgery. He was 78 years old.
His funeral was attended by bluegrass royalty, from Bill Monroe on down.
He
was placed in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2007.
John
Henry Creach (May 28, 1917 – February 22, 1994), better known as Papa John
Creach, was an American blues violinist who also played classical, jazz, R&B,
pop and acid rock music. Early in his career, he performed as a journeyman musician with Louis
Armstrong, Fats Waller, Stuff Smith, Charlie Christian, Big Joe Turner, T-Bone
Walker, Nat King Cole and Roy Milton.
Following
his rediscovery by drummer Joey Covington in 1967, he fronted a variety of
bands (including Zulu and Midnight Sun) in addition to playing with Jefferson
Airplane, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Starship, the San Francisco All-Stars
(1979–1984), Dinosaurs (1982–1989) and Steve Taylor.
Creach
recorded a number of solo albums and guested at several Grateful Dead and
Charlie Daniels Band concerts. He was a regular guest at the early annual Volunteer
Jams, hosted by Charlie Daniels, which exposed him to a new audience that was
receptive to fiddle players.
Creach
was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, near the border of Ohio. As a child, he
was introduced to the violin by an uncle, and he received both tutoring in the
instrument and conservatory training. Creach and his family moved to Chicago in
1935. Once he
relocated to Chicago, the teenager began playing violin in bars. He performed
some symphonic work with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra when he was in his
early 20s, which was unusual for a black musician at the time. At one point, he
joined a local cabaret trio called the Chocolate Music Bars and toured the
Midwest and Canada with them.
According
to Creach, knowing how to play in a variety of styles was a necessity to
survive as a musician in Chicago at the time: “Because of all the nationalities
there, I had to learn to play everything. At some jobs it was strictly German
music, or Polish. Now, they used to dance and knock holes in the floor.”
He
had some difficulty in learning to play jazz violin, having to adjust his
bowing technique, but was helped when he purchased an electric violin in 1943.
Moving to Los Angeles in 1945, he played in the Chi Chi Club, worked on an
ocean liner for five years, appeared in several films, including with Nat King
Cole in Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia, and performed as a duo with Nina
Russell. He performed in cocktail lounges all over California for the next 20
years with the Johnny Creach Trio.
Creach
initially met and befriended drummer Joey Covington at a union hiring hall in
Los Angeles in 1967. When Covington joined Jefferson Airplane in 1970, he
introduced Creach to them. In autumn 1970, he was invited to join both
Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady's side band. He
was nicknamed Papa due to being much older than the other band members. He
remained with both groups while also recording and touring as a solo artist for
Jefferson Airplane's Grunt Records. During this period, his backing band Zulu
included guitarist Keb' Mo'.
Creach
left Hot Tuna in 1973, but remained on board when Jefferson Airplane was
reorganized as Jefferson Starship in 1974. He toured and recorded with
Jefferson Starship from 1974 to 1975, a period that included platinum selling
album Red Octopus (1975). In August 1975, Creach left the band to focus on his
solo career. Nevertheless, he remained on amicable terms with the group and
briefly returned as a touring member for the band's spring 1978 engagements.
A
year later, Creach renewed his working relationship with Covington as a member
of the San Francisco All-Stars. He also performed with Covington's Airplane predecessor
Spencer Dryden as a member of Dinosaurs. Creach continued to make occasional
guest appearances with Hot Tuna. He was performing with them at the Fillmore
Auditorium in 1988 when Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna reunited
with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick for the first time on stage since 1972.
In
1992, Mr. Creach recorded "Papa Blues," his first CD and his first
all-blues set, with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band. The album received widespread
acclaim. Also that year Creach joined Kantner as a member of the relaunched Jefferson Starship and performed with them until his
death. In1993 the Memphis-based Blues Foundation presented him with its W. C.
Handy Award as an outstanding blues musician.
Creach
succumbed to congestive heart failure on February 22, 1994 at Midway Hospital,
Los Angeles, California. He had been suffering from a heart condition that had
been causing continual fluid build-up in his lungs, resulting in bouts of
pneumonia. He was 76 years old .
Albert
Nicholas (May 27, 1900 – September 3, 1973) was an American jazz clarinetist
and saxophonist.
A
superb clarinetist with an attractive mellow tone, Albert Nicholas had a long
and diverse career but his playing was always consistently rewarding. He
studied with Lorenzo Tio, Jr. in his hometown of New Orleans, and late in the
1910’s he played with cornet legends Buddy Petit, King Oliver, and Manuel Perez
while in his teens. It was in his late teens that he learned to play alto sax
and led his own band at Tom Anderson’s Annex in 1922. After three years in the
Merchant Marines, he joined King Oliver in Chicago for much of 1925-1927,
recording with Oliver's Dixie Syncopators.
He
spent a year in the Far East and Egypt, arriving in New York in 1928 to join
Luis Russell for five years. Nicholas, who had recorded in several settings in
the 1920s, sounded perfectly at home with Russell, taking his solos alongside
Red Allen, J.C. Higginbottham, and Charlie Holmes. He also played with Chick
Webb and would later re-join Russell when the pianist had the backup orchestra
for Louis Armstrong a few years later. Nicholas also worked with Jelly Roll
Morton in 1939 (he had recorded with Morton previously in 1929).
By
1948, the clarinetist was playing regularly with Ralph Sutton's trio at Jimmy
Ryan's. In 1953, Nicholas followed Sidney Bechet's example and moved to France
where he happily remained until his move to Switzerland in 1970. Aside from two brief visits
to the United states in 1959 and 1960, he spent the rest of his career in
Europe, playing concerts and touring twice a year with the Dutch Swing College
Band.
Nicholas
must be considered one of the outstanding clarinetists in the New Orleans
tradition, and the recordings from the last two decades of his life show a
sensitivity to the changes that had taken place in jazz. His style was
influenced by the blues and he frequently made use of the rich, lower register
of his instrument and, in the higher register, dirty “whiskey-toned”
inflections.
Nicholas
died on 3 September 1973 in a hospital at Basel, Switzerland, after failing to
recover from a recent operation. He was 73.
(Edited
from AllMusic, Music Rising at Tulane, New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz &
Wikipedia)
Louis
Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as
Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, music theoretician,
poet and inventor of musical instruments.
Hardin
was born in Marysville, Kansas, to Louis Thomas Hardin, an Episcopalian minister,
and Norma Alves. Hardin started playing a set of drums that he made from a
cardboard box at the age of five. His family relocated to Wyoming, where his
father opened a trading post at Fort Bridger.
On
July 4, 1932, the 16-year-old Hardin found an object in a field which he did
not realise was a dynamite cap. While he was handling it, the explosive
detonated in his face and permanently blinded him. His older sister, Ruth,
would read to him daily after the accident for many years. Here he had his
first encounters with philosophy, science and myth that formed his character.
One book in particular, The First Violin, inspired him to pursue music. Up to
that point he had been interested mainly in percussion instruments, but from
then on, he became obsessed with the desire to become a composer.
After
learning the principles of music in several schools for blind young men across
middle America, he taught himself the skills of ear training and composition.
He studied with Burnet Tuthill at the Iowa School for the Blind.He
then moved to Batesville, Arkansas, where he lived until 1942, when he obtained
a scholarship to study in Memphis, Tennessee. Although he was largely
self-taught in music, learning predominantly by ear, he learned some music
theory from books in braille during his time in Memphis.
In
1943, Hardin moved to New York, where he met classical musicians including
Leonard Bernstein and Arturo Toscanini, as well as jazz performers such as
Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, whose upbeat tempos and often humorous
compositions would influence Hardin's later work. One of his early street posts
was near the 52nd Street nightclub strip, and he was known to jazz musicians.
By 1947, Hardin had adopted the name "Moondog" in honour of a dog
"who used to howl at the moon more than any dog I knew of." From
the late 1940s until 1972, Moondog lived as a street musician and poet in New
York City, playing in midtown Manhattan, eventually settling on the corner of
53rd or 54th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. He was rarely if ever
homeless, and maintained an apartment in upper Manhattan and had a country
retreat in Candor, New York, to which he moved full-time in 1972.
He partially
supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy.
In addition to his music and poetry, he was also known for the distinctive
fanciful "Viking" cloak that he wore. Already bearded and
long-haired, he added a Viking-style horned helmet to avoid the occasional
comparisons of his appearance with that of Christ or a monk, as he had rejected
Christianity in his late teens. He developed a lifelong interest in Nordic
mythology, and maintained an altar to Thor in his country home in Candor.
In
1949, he traveled to a Blackfoot Sun Dance in Idaho where he performed on
percussion and flute, returning to the Native American music he first came in
contact with as a child. It was this Native music, along with contemporary jazz
and classical, mixed with the ambient sounds from his environment (city
traffic, ocean waves, babies crying, etc.) that created the foundation of
Moondog's music.
In
1954, he won a case in the New York State Supreme Court against disc jockey
Alan Freed, who had branded his radio show, "The Moondog Rock and Roll
Matinee", around the name "Moondog", using "Moondog's
Symphony" (the first record that Moondog ever cut) as his "calling
card" Moondog believed he would not
have won the case had it not been for the help of musicians such as Benny
Goodman and Arturo Toscanini, who testified that he was a serious composer.
Freed had to apologize and stop using the nickname "Moondog" on air,
on the basis that Hardin was known by the name long before Freed began using it.
Along
with his passion for Nordic culture, Moondog had an idealised view of Germany,
where he settled in 1974. He revisited the United States briefly in 1989, for a
tribute at the New Music America Festival in Brooklyn, in which festival
director Yale Evelev asked him to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber
Orchestra, stimulating a renewed interest in his music.
Eventually,
a young German student named Ilona Goebel (later known as Ilona Sommer) helped
Moondog set up the primary holding company for his artistic endeavors and
hosted him, first in Oer-Erkenschwick, and later on in Münster in Westphalia.
Moondog lived with Sommer's family and they spent time together in Münster.
During that period, Moondog created hundreds of compositions which were
transferred from Braille to sheet music by Sommer. Moondog spent the remainder
of his life in Germany.
On
8 September 1999, he died in Münster from heart failure. He is buried at the
Central Cemetery Münster. (Edited
from Wikipedia)
Bill
Dicey (May 25, 1936 – March 17, 1993) was an American blues harmonicist, singer
and songwriter. He recorded two live albums and one studio album in his own
name, as well as playing the harmonica and singing on a number of other
musician's recordings. He was a regular fixture in the New York blues scene
from the 1970s to the time of his death.
William
J. Dicey was born in Annapolis, Maryland, United States, and first played the
harmonica at the age of three, but began an interest in blues harmonica styling
five years later. Having been given a Hohner Marine Band model, Dicey began
playing on street corners with black musicians from his neighborhood. By his
mid-teens, Dicey was playing the drums in an otherwise all-black group, playing
R&B numbers of the time. In 1953, the whole ensemble were drafted with
Dicey joining the United States Air Force. Interest in music had waned by the
time all the individuals had returned to civilian life, with Dicey giving up
playing music in 1959.
He
relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in the mid-1960s and took up playing the
harmonica again, working with Buddy Moss on some ultimately unreleased
recordings. Together they formed the Atlanta Blues Band, which toured colleges
and clubs in the South in the late-1960s. Around this time, Dicey settled in
New York City, where he became associated with Charles Walker. Dicey also
became a regular session musician with Spivey Records. As a part of Victoria
Spivey's house band, Dicey subsequently provided backing on recordings made by
Roosevelt Sykes, Big Joe Turner, Lloyd Glenn, Washboard Doc, Louisiana Red,
Sugar Blue and Eunice Davis.
Bill Dicey & Robert Ross
Dicey
became a vital member of the New York blues scene over the next two decades. He
was the founder and host of the Sunday jam session at the New York blues club,
Dan Lynch's Bar and Grill, where his duties including booking acts and leading
the club's resident musical ensemble. His tutelage provided an early musical
outlet for both the Holmes Brothers and Popa Chubby.
Dicey became known for
being able to play the "C" harmonica in five keys. Still associated
with Spivey Records, Dicey recorded a live album, Caught in the Act, at Dan
Lynch's in 1980. In 1983, Operator! Operator! I'm Trying to Get in Touch With
My Baby Again! was another live album issued by Spivey Records, accredited to
'Bill Dicey With the Fabulous Holmes Brothers With Popsy'.
The
only studio album recorded by Dicey in his own name took place in London in
1987. Dicey's regular Dan Lynch's Bar and Grill guitarist, Richard Studholme,
had moved back to his native England, and Dicey visited him there when the
notion of recording an album bore fruit. Bill Dicey (harmonica, guitar,
vocals), Richard 'Ted' Studholme (guitar), Phil Kitto (bass), and Kevin Spratt
(drums) provided the music which was recorded at Samurai Studio, close to Borough
High Street, London, with recording engineer, Jack Ezra. The resultant
recording was released as Fool In Love, on JSP Records. Three other tracks were
recorded around that time for a BBC Radio session at the Maida Vale Studios by
the same musicians; these comprised the bonus tracks that were included in the
Fool in Love – The Complete Sessions re-release in 2019.
Dicey
died of cancer in March 1993, at Rock Hall, Maryland. He was 56 years old. His
last words were, "This sucks".
In
addition to those recordings described above, Dicey's harmonica playing, and
sometimes vocals, can be heard on Louisiana Red's Louisiana Red Sings the Blues
(1972, Atco Records), Jerry McCain, Frank Frost, and Arthur "Big Boy"
Crudup's Harpin' on It (1972, Carnival Gold Standard), Paul Oscher's New York
Really Has the Blues (1975, Spivey Records), The Best of Louisiana Red (1995,
Evidence Records), and Pinetop Perkins' posthumous compilation, Chicago Boogie
Blues Piano Man (2020, JSP Records).
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