Author: Thomas Newman

In 1958, a Las Vegas booking agent spotted Wayne Newton (who was still in his junior year at high school at the time) and his brothers performing on a local TV show. He signed them…

The Alan Parsons Project consisted of Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson, and an ever-evolving line of session musicians and vocalists. Active between 1975 and 1990, they never made too much headway in their native UK, but…

Ray Price was a country music singer, songwriter, and well-known record producer. He has been credited to have helped create the Nashville Sound. He was born in Texas in 1926 and was a piano student….

The Breakfast Club is a movie written and directed by John Hughes. It centers around four characters representing stereotypes you often see in high school. Hughes has a brief cameo in the film as one…

When Juice Newton released her version of the song, “Queen of Hearts” in 1981, even Juice herself did not realize that it would be such a big hit. However, the song peaked at #2 on…

Every location has unique features, regardless of whether it is a city or a rural village. Sometimes, songwriters take inspiration from their surroundings when writing music. While some songwriters or artists sing about a specific…

Hard though it is to believe, Almost Famous, director Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical account of his time as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone, is now over 20 years old. But even if the film’s starting…

Rickie Lee Skaggs is an American neotraditional country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer born in Cordell, Kentucky, on July 18, 1954. He is a player of multiple instruments: mandolin, fiddle, guitar, mandocaster, and…

Ambrosia is an American rock band best known for their 1980 hit, “Biggest Part of Me.” They formed in southern California in 1970. Ambrosia emerged from the same L.A. scene that produced hitmakers like The…