Chick Corea gave a lot to the music world as a Jazz keyboard player but more so as the founder of one of the most prominent jazz-rock fusion acts of the late 1900s – Return to Forever. Return to Forever – like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report was formed by a former member of…
When Toby Keith first rode into Nashville in the early 1990s, no one paid any attention. After trying and failing to win a record deal, he cut his losses and headed home. But then a flight attendant and fan of his handed a copy of his demo to Harold Shedd at Mercury during a flight….
It’s hard to believe that Tori Amos has been performing professionally since 1976 and has done more than 1,000 shows throughout her career. Amos is one of the music industry’s true gems. She’s unlike any sound there is, and she continues to create music that moves and inspires. Amos is a prolific songwriter, and to…
Music has a way of making sense of the world and our lives, and there’s possibly a song about virtually anything out there. One subject matter that’s a popular topic for songwriters to create songs about is the weather—storms in particular. They could be about storms that pour out of the dark sky or ones…
It’s rare for any artist to be quite so consistent as Miranda Lambert. Since making her major-label debut with Kerosene in 2005, she’s hardly put a foot wrong. Her sassy persona and love for sharp, modern country have made her one of country music’s biggest crossover successes, while her appreciation for traditional country runs deep…
“The First Lady of Song” is the title held by jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald. She had a voice of crystal clarity, from which rivers of gossamer flowed without effort. Indeed, her ability to transform even the most mediocre song into a thing of beauty has never met its equal, as Frank Sinatra noted, “The best…
Gerald Maxwell Rivera, more commonly known as Maxwell, is known for his exceptional neo-soul music began singing as a child. By the time he was in his mid-teens, Maxwell was performing as a professional musician. Despite some long breaks between albums, the now forty-eight year old singer continues to bring the heat and passion fans…
In the early 1990s, boy bands were dominating the UK charts. Determined to give them a run for their money, Bob and Chris Herbert of Heart Management decided to create a girl group consisting of five drastically different characters that would each appeal to a different segment of the audience. The result was the Spice…
One of the most versatile artists of the past four decades, Boz Scaggs has enjoyed a fruitful, sometimes brilliant career as a solo artist, session man, and member of the Steve Miller Band. His post-Miller catalogue is filled with excellent material from both ends of his career. His debut album, “Boz Scaggs,” was released in…
At various points throughout her life, Etta James dealt with heroin addiction, painkiller addiction, physical abuse, and incarceration. Rather than being cowed by her experiences, James used them to inform her music, resulting in a legacy of work that, a decade after her death from leukemia at the age of 73, still touches, inspires, and…