Saturday, June 29, 8948

Ian Paice (b. 1948) - Deep Purple



Ian Anderson Paice (born June 29, 1948) is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the seminal rock band Deep Purple. As of Jon Lord's departure in 2002, he is the only founding member of the band still performing with the group and the only member to appear on every album the band has released.

***

Deep Purple is an English rock band formed in Hertford, UK, in 1968.

Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be simply categorised as belonging to any one genre.

The band also incorporated classical, blues-rock, pop, and progressive rock elements.

They were once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as "the loudest pop group," and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

Deep Purple was ranked #22 on VH1's Greatest Artists of Hard Rock programme.

The band has gone through many line-up changes and an eight-year hiatus (1976–84). The 1968–76 line-ups are commonly labelled Mark I, II, III and IV.[10][11] Their second and most commercially successful line-up featured Ian Gillan (vocals), Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (keyboards), Roger Glover (bass) and Ian Paice (drums).

This line-up was active from 1969 to 1973 and was revived from 1984 to 1989 and again in 1993, before the rift between Blackmore and other members became unbridgeable. The current line-up (including guitarist Steve Morse) has been much more stable, although Lord's retirement in 2002 has left Paice as the only original member never to have left the band.

***

"Smoke on the Water" is a song by the British hard rock band Deep Purple. It was first released on their 1972 album Machine Head. In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Smoke on the Water" at number twelve in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

***


Rudolf Schenker (born August 31, 1948) is a German guitarist and founding member of heavy metal band Scorpions, being the rhythm/lead guitarist and one of the main song-writers of the band.

After starting out with a Fender Stratocaster, Schenker is primarily known for playing Gibson Flying Vs and, more recently, Dean Vs. In the Acoustica DVD, he is seen playing an acoustic Flying V made especially for him by Dommenget. He now uses Dean acoustic V models.

In an interview on the 'World Wide Live' video, he mentioned that his goal is not to become the best or fastest guitarist, but to be a very good composer.

His younger brother Michael Schenker was a member of Scorpions in the band's earliest inception, before joining the band UFO.

***



Scorpions is a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, known for their 1980's rock anthem Rock You Like a Hurricane and their singles No One Like You, Send Me an Angel, Still Loving You, and Wind of Change. The band was ranked #46 on VH1's Greatest Artists of Hard Rock program.

Rock You Like a Hurricane is also #18 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs.

***


[Leadon, Meisner, Henley, Frey]

Glenn Lewis Frey (pronounced Fry; b. November 6, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as a founding member of the Eagles.

***



Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1971 by Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner.

With five number one singles, six Grammies, and six number one albums, the Eagles were one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, two of their albums, Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) and Hotel California, ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the U.S. according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Hotel California is ranked 37th in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and the band was ranked #75 on the magazine's 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[2] They also have the best selling album in the U.S. with Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), which sold more than 29 million copies.

The Eagles broke up in July 1980, but reunited in 1994 for Hell Freezes Over, a mix of live and new studio tracks.They have toured intermittently since then, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2007, Eagles released Long Road out of Eden, their first full studio album in 28 years. The album would top the album charts, release five singles on the Adult Contemporary Charts and win the band two grammys. The next year they launched The Long Road out of Eden Tour in support of the album.



***


LaDonna Adrian Gaines (b. December 31, 1948), known by her stage name, Donna Summer is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence and notoriety during the disco era of the 1970's with the majority of her early work produced by the team of Giorgio Moroder and Pete Belotte.

Summer was the first to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart and she had four number-one singles within a thirteen-month period.

***


Bad Girls is the seventh studio album by American pop singer Donna Summer, released April 25, 1979 on Casablanca Records. Originally issued as a double album, it incorporates such musical styles as disco, soul, and rock. Bad Girls became the best-selling album of Summer's recording career, achieving triple platinum sales certification in the United States and ultimately selling near seven million copies worldwide.

***


Bad Girls is a 1979 single released by American singer Donna Summer, co-written by Summer and the Brooklyn Dreams. The inspiration for her to write the song came after one of her assistants was offended by a police officer who thought she was a street prostitute. A rough version of the song had originally been written a couple of years before its release. Neil Bogart, upon hearing it, wanted Donna to give it to Cher for her upcoming album. Donna refused and put it away for a couple of years.

The song became a number-one hit on the Billboard pop, R&B and dance singles charts simultaneously becoming, alongside Hot Stuff, her most successful single. The song helped the album of the same name to reach the multi-platinum status in the United States. A 12" single of the song was released as a medley with Hot Stuff. Although Hot Stuff was extended for the 12" single, Bad Girls remained in the 4:55 album version. A Bad Girls 12" single with a time of 6:55 was produced but never released commercially.



[8949 Ocasek / 8948 Paice / 8948 Lloyd Webber]

Wednesday, May 15, 8948

Brian Eno (b. 1948)


Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (b. May 15, 1948), commonly shortened to Brian Eno and previously as simply Eno, is an English musician, composer, record producer, music theorist, singer and visual artist, best known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.

Eno studied at art school, taking inspiration from minimalist painting, but he had little musical education or playing experience when he joined the band Roxy Music as their keyboards and synthesisers player in the early 1970's. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry, and of touring, and he left the group after the release of For Your Pleasure (1973), beginning his solo career with the art rock records Here Come the Warm Jets (1974) and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974).

Eno extended his reach into more experimental musical styles with No Pussyfooting (1973) and Evening Star (1975), both collaborations with Robert Fripp, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) by Genesis where he is credited as Enossification, and his influential solo records Another Green World (1975) and Discreet Music (1975). His pioneering ambient efforts at "sonic landscapes" began to consume more of his time beginning with Ambient 1/Music for Airports (1978) and later Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983) which was composed for the documentary film For All Mankind. Eno nevertheless continued to sing on some of his records, ranging from Before and After Science (1977) to Wrong Way Up (1990) with John Cale to most recently Another Day on Earth (2005).

Eno's solo work has been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasizing "theory over practice."

He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences partly through collaborations with other musicians.

By the end of the 1970's, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal Berlin Trilogy, helped popularise the American punk rock band Devo and the punk-influenced "No Wave" genre, and worked frequently with Harold Budd, John Cale, Cluster, Robert Fripp and David Byrne, with whom he produced the influential My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including Remain in Light (1980); produced seven albums for U2, including The Joshua Tree (1987); and worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among others.

Eno pursues multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer and a regular column on society and innovation in Prospect magazine, and "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards in which each card has a cryptic remark or random insight meant to resolve a dilemma. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write.

***


My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, titled after Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel of the same name. The album was re-released in expanded form in 2006.
Receiving strong reviews upon its release, My Life is now regarded as a high point in the discographies of Eno and Byrne.

In a 1985 interview, singer Kate Bush remarked that the album "left a very big mark on popular music," while critic John Bush describes it as a "pioneering work for countless styles connected to electronics, ambience, and Third World music."

The extensive use of sampling on My Life is widely considered ground-breaking -- it was one of the first albums to do so -- but its actual influence on the sample-based music genres that later emerged continues to be debated.





[8948 Paice / 8948 Eno / 8948 Lloyd Webber]

Friday, March 22, 8948

Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948)


Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. March 22, 1948, South Kensington, London, UK) is the son of Jean Hermione (Johnstone), a violinist and pianist, and William Lloyd Webber, a composer. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a cellist.

As a child, he could not bear noises made by others. At the age of three, when brought to his first day of pre-school at a school where his mother worked, he covered his ears when other children produced sounds with musical instruments. Lloyd Webber began writing his own music at a young age. He wrote his first published suite of six pieces at nine. He also put on "productions" with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre, built at her suggestion. Later, he would be the owner of a number of West End theatres, including the Palace. Viola, an actress, took Lloyd Webber to see many of her shows and ushered him through the stage-door into the world of theatre.

Lloyd Webber was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and studied history for a time at Magdalen College, Oxford, although he abandoned the course to pursue his interest in musical theatre.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's first major collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, a musical based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo. It was not performed, however, until as recently as 2005 when a production was staged at Lloyd Webber's Sydmonton Festival. Stylistically, The Likes of Us is fashioned after the Broadway musical of the '40s and '50s; it opens with a traditional overture comprising a medley of tunes from the show, and the score reflects some of Lloyd Webber's early influences, particularly Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, and Lionel Bart. In this respect, it is markedly different from the composer's later work which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed and closer in form to opera than to the Broadway musical.

Around this time, Lloyd Webber and Rice also wrote a number of individual pop songs that were recorded as singles for record labels. Wes Sands, Ross Hannaman, Paul Raven, and Gary Bond are among the many artists to have recorded early Lloyd Webber/Rice tunes. A selection of these early recordings were re-released on the 5-CD compilation, Andrew Lloyd Webber: Now and Forever (2003).

In 1967, Lloyd Webber and Rice wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called Try It and See, which was unsuccessful. The melody eventually became that of King Herod's Song in Jesus Christ Superstar.

In 1968, Lloyd Webber and Rice were commissioned to write a piece for Colet Court which resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiche a number of musical styles such as Calypso and country music. The musical follows the light-hearted, irreverent tone of The Likes of Us with rock'n'roll influences. Lloyd Webber, a devoted admirer of Elvis Presley, based the character of Pharaoh on the singer, who in turn recorded It's Easy for You, one of Lloyd Webber's compositions during his last session on October 29, 1976, and featured as the last track on the Moody Blue album.

Joseph began life as a short cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, the show underwent a number of revisions by the composer and librettist with the inclusion of additional songs that expanded the musical to a more substantial length. This culminated in a two-hour production being staged in the West End on the back of the success of Jesus Christ Superstar (1970).



Superstar was released as a concept album starring Ian Gillan prior to being staged in the West End at the Lyceum Theatre. The opera, is a staged passion, i.e. based on the last days in the life of Jesus Christ. While Joseph was intended as a light-hearted family show, the music in Superstar is at times dark and unsettling, particularly in the scenes that deal with the conflict between Jesus and Judas, the plotting priests, and the crucifixion. While billed as a Rock Opera advancing on the more oratorio-like Tommy of The Who, much of the music is informed by classical genres, including the Sergei Prokofievian rondo of Hosanna, the music concrete of The Crucifixion, and the string writing of John Nineteen: Forty-One.

***

Hosanna









G: Sol La Sol Fa Sol Fa Mi Re Do Re Do
Do Re Me Re Do Do Sol Do

with its nice borrowings, a la Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf main theme, from the flat side of reality --

Harmonically:

I V7 I bIII (V of vi) bVI

-- and even more interesting usages beyond, in evocations of Eb major and minor.

***



The film of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) was directed by Norman Jewison,

The planned follow up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a musical comedy based on the Jeeves and Wooster novels by P. G. Wodehouse. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he might not be able to do justice to the novels that he and Lloyd Webber so admired. After doing some initial work on the lyrics, he pulled out of the project and Lloyd Webber subsequently wrote the musical with Alan Ayckbourn who provided the book and lyrics. The musical, Jeeves, failed to make any impact at the box office and closed after a short run of only three weeks. Many years later Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn revisited this project, producing a thoroughly reworked and more successful version of the musical entitled By Jeeves (1996). Only two of the songs from the original production remained (Half a Moment and Banjo Boy).

Lloyd Webber's first wife was Sarah Hugill, whom he married on July 24, 1972, having with her two children, Imogen (b. March 31, 1977) and Nicholas (b. July 2, 1979).

Lloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write Evita (1976 in London/1979 in U.S.), a musical based on the life of Eva Peron. As with Jesus Christ Superstar, the work was released first as a concept album and featured Julie Covington singing the part of Eva Peron.

The song Don't Cry for Me Argentina became a hit single and the musical was staged at the Prince Edward Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Elaine Paige in the title role. Again, Much of the music in Evita evokes various classical styles. The music drama was highly successful and ran for ten years in the West End, transferring to Broadway in 1979. Rice and Lloyd Webber parted ways soon after Evita. The film of the work (1996) was directed by Alan Parker

Lloyd Webber then embarked on a solo project, Variations, with his cellist brother Julian, based on the 24th Caprice by Paganini. It was a hit in the United Kingdom reaching number two in the pop album chart (1978). The main theme is still used tune for London Weekend Television's long-running South Bank Show.

The composer embarked on his next project without living lyricist, turning instead to the poetry of T. S. Eliot (September, 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965). Cats (1981) is a dance musical based on Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favorite. The songs comprise Eliot's verse save the most famous song Memory, for which the lyrics were written by Trevor Nunn after an Eliot poem entitled Rhapsody on a Windy Night. A brief song entitled The Moments of Happiness was taken from a passage in Eliot's Four Quartets. An unusual musical in terms of its construction, the overture incorporates a fugue and there are occasions when the music accompanies spoken verse. The set, consisting of an oversized junk yard, remains the same throughout the show without any scene changes.

Cats was originally intended to be a song cycle but when Valerie Eliot provided some fragments of unpublished poetry by her late husband that included a character named Grizabella who is shunned by the tribe as well as the concept of a rebirth for a chosen Cat at the Jellicle Ball, it was apparent that there might be a story that could provide a possible framework for a music drama. It was to become the longest running musical on Broadway, spanning a reign of 18 years which later would be broken by another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

Starlight Express, also directed by Trevor Nunn, is similar in its theatrical concept to Cats. However, unlike the former, the music is mostly in the realm of disco and pop with one or two pastiche songs, in some ways a return to the style of Joseph. Starlight Express was a commercial hit but received negative reviews. It enjoyed a record run in the West End, but ran for less than three years on Broadway.

After Lloyd Webber and Hugill were divorced in 1983, he married singer/dancer Sarah Brightman on March 22, 1984.

Lloyd Webber wrote a Requiem Mass which premiered in New York on February 25, 1985, at St. Thomas Church. This composition had been inspired the plight of Cambodian orphans, and was dedicated to his father, William Lloyd Webber, who had died in 1982. Church music had been a part of the composer's upbringing and he had on a number of occasions written sacred music for the annual Sydmonton festival. The Pie Jesu section of the Dies Irae achieved a high placing on the UK pop charts.

In 1986, Lloyd Webber premiered The Phantom of the Opera, inspired by the 1911 Gaston Leroux novel. He wrote the part of Christine for Brightman, who played the role in the original London and Broadway productions alongside Michael Crawford as the Phantom. The production was directed by Harold Prince, who had also earlier directed Evita. Charles Hart wrote the lyrics for the musical with some additional material provided by Richard Stilgoe, and Lloyd Webber co-wrote the musical's book with Stilgoe. Here, Lloyd Webber affectionately pastiches various styles from the grand operas of Mozart and Meyerbeer and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Although the musical received mixed reviews from the critics, it became a phenomenal hit and is still running in both the West End and on Broadway; in January 2006 it overtook Cats as the longest running musical on Broadway.

Aspects of Love followed in 1989, a musical based on the story by David Garnett. The lyrics were by Don Black and Charles Hart and the original production was directed by Trevor Nunn. There was a noticeable shift of emphasis towards a quieter and more intimate theatrical experience; the staging and production values were less elaborate than Phantom of the Opera and Lloyd Webber chose to write for a smaller musical ensemble making the through composed score more akin to a chamber work. The musical had a successful run of four years in London but did not fare nearly as well on Broadway, where it closed after less than a year.

Lloyd Webber and Brightman divorced in 1990 but remained friends.

He married his third wife, Madeleine Gurdon, on February 9, 1991, and with her had three more children: Alastair (b. May 2, 1992), William (b. August 24, 1993), and Isabella (b. April 30, 1996).

Lloyd Webber was asked to write a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and composed Amigos Para Siempre - Friends for Life with lyrics by Don Black, performed by Sarah Brightman and Jose Carreras.

Knighted in 1992, Lloyd Webber was made a life peer in 1997 as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire (his title is hyphenated but his surname is not).

Lloyd Webber had toyed with the idea of writing a musical based on Billy Wilder's critically acclaimed movie, Sunset Boulevard, since the early 1970's when he saw the film, but the project didn't come to fruition until after the completion of Aspects of Love when the composer finally managed to secure the rights from Paramount Pictures

The composer worked with two collaborators, as he had done on Aspects of Love; this time Christopher Hampton and Don Black shared equal credit for the book and lyrics. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on July 12, 1993, and ran for 1,529 performances. Patti LuPone, who had played the role of Eva Peron in the original Broadway production of Evita, was cast as Norma Desmond, a former silent film star who is shunned by Hollywood in the era of talking pictures. In spite of the show's popularity and extensive run in London's West End, it lost money due to the sheer expense of the production.

Lloyd Webber's many other musical theatre works include Whistle Down the Wind, Song and Dance, The Beautiful Game, and The Woman in White. While some of his works have had enormous commercial success, his career has not been without failures, especially in the United States. Song and Dance, Starlight Express, and Aspects of Love, all successes in London, did not meet the same reception in New York, and all lost money in short, critically panned runs.

In 1995, Sunset Boulevard became a very successful Broadway show, opening with the largest advance in Broadway history, and winning seven Tony Awards that year. However, owing to high weekly costs, it became the biggest economic musical failure in history, losing 25 million dollars. His subsequent shows (Whistle Down the Wind and The Beautiful Game) did not make it to Broadway, and his most recent musical The Woman in White closed after a very short run in New York. This closing is largely credited to many absences in the cast for many of the shows; only 39 of the 108 performances had the full cast. Maria Friedman and Michael Ball both missed shows frequently; the former was battling breast cancer and the latter suffered a throat infection.

Lord Lloyd-Webber is an art collector with a passion for Victorian art. An exhibition of works from his collection was presented at the Royal Academy in 2003 under the title Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters – The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. He is also a devoted supporter of Leyton Orient Football Club.

He also owns much of Watership Down, the grounds made famous by Richard Adams's novel of the same name. Politically, he has supported the UK's Conservative Party, allowing his song Take That Look Off Your Face to be used on a party promotional film seen by an estimated 1 million people in 80 cinemas before the 2005 UK General Election to accompany pictures of the country's Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly "smirking," the party said.

In 2006 Sunday Times Rich List ranked him the 87th richest Briton with an estimated 700 million pounds. His wealth increased to 750 million in 2007, but in the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 he slipped to the 95th richest British person. Life does have it ups and downs....

His company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London.

[8948 Eno / 8948 A.L. Webber / 8948 S. Schwartz]

Wednesday, March 6, 8948

Stephen Schwartz (b. c. 1948) - Godspell (1970)


Stephen Schwartz (b. 1948)



Godspell (1970)



Day by Day









Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is a well-known American musical theater lyricist and composer. In a career already spanning over four decades, Schwartz has produced such hit musicals as Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972) and Wicked (2003). He has also contributed lyrics for a number of successful films, including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and Enchanted (2007). Along the way, Schwartz has won three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and garnered six Tony Award nominations.

Stephen Schwartz was born in New York City and grew up in the area of Williston Park, where he attended Mineola High School. He studied piano and composition at the Juilliard School of Music while in high school and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a B.F.A. in Drama.

Upon returning to New York City, Schwartz went to work as a producer for RCA Records, but shortly thereafter began to work in the Broadway theatre. His first major credit was the title song for the play Butterflies Are Free; the song was eventually used in the movie version as well.



In 1971, he wrote music and new lyrics for Godspell, for which he won several awards including two Grammys. This was followed by the English texts, in collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, for Bernstein's Mass, which opened the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In 1972, the long-running Pippin premiered on Broadway. Schwartz had begun writing songs for Pippin while in college, although none of the songs from the college version ended up in the Broadway production. Both Pippin and Godspell continue to be frequently produced.

Two years after Pippin debuted, Schwartz wrote music and lyrics to The Magic Show, which ran for just under 2,000 performances. Next were the music and lyrics for The Baker's Wife, which closed before reaching Broadway after a disastrous out-of-town tryout tour in 1976.

However, the cast album went on to attain cult status, leading to several subsequent productions, including a London production directed by Trevor Nunn in 1990 and, in 2005, a highly-acclaimed production at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey.

In 1978, Schwartz's next Broadway project was a musical version of Studs Terkel's Working, which he adapted and directed, winning the Drama Desk Award as best director, and for which he contributed four songs. He also co-directed the television production, which was presented as part of the PBS American Playhouse series. In 1977, Schwartz wrote a children's book called The Perfect Peach. In the 1980's, Schwartz wrote songs for a one-act musical for children, The Trip, which 20 years later was revised, expanded and produced as Captain Louie.

He then wrote music for three of the songs of an Off-Broadway revue, Personals, and lyrics to Charles Strouse's music for the musical Rags.

In 1991, Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics for the popular musical Children of Eden. He then began working in film, collaborating with composer Alan Menken on the scores for the Disney animated features Pocahontas (1995), for which he received two Academy Awards, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). He also provided songs for DreamWorks' first animated feature, The Prince of Egypt (1998), winning another Academy Award for the song When You Believe. He wrote music and lyrics for the original television musical, Geppetto (2000), seen on The Wonderful World of Disney. A stage adaptation of this piece premiered in June of 2006 at The Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, and was entitled Geppetto and Son.

In 2003, Schwartz returned to Broadway, as composer and lyricist for Wicked, a musical based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which tells the story of the famous Oz characters from the point of view of the witches. Schwartz won a Grammy Award for his work as composer and lyricist and producer of Wicked's cast recording. On March 23, 2006, the Broadway production of Wicked passed the 1,000 performance mark, making Schwartz one of four composers (the other three being Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerry Herman, and Richard Rodgers) to have three shows last that long on Broadway (the other two were Pippin and The Magic Show). In 2007, Schwartz joined Jerry Herman as being one of only two composer/lyricists to have three shows run longer than 1,500 performances on Broadway.

Schwartz also wrote lyrics for the successful 2007 Disney film Enchanted, again collaborating with Menken. Three songs from the film, "Happy Working Song," "That's How You Know," and "So Close," were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. A recent project is incidental music for his son Scott Schwartz's adaptation of Willa Cather's My Antonia. He has also written the theme song for the new Playhouse Disney show Johnny and the Sprites, starring John Tartaglia.

He is currently writing an opera based on the film Seance on a Wet Afternoon.

[8948 A.L. Webber / 8948 S. Schwartz / 8947 R. Van Zant]

Monday, January 15, 8948

Ronnie Van Zant (1948-1977) - Lynyrd Skynyrd


Ronnie [Ronald Wayne] Van Zant (January 15, 1948 - October 20, 1977) was the lead vocalist, primary lyricist, and a founding member of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was the older brother of .38 Special founder and vocalist Donnie Van Zant and current Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant.

Van Zant formed Skynyrd late in the summer of 1964 with friends and schoolmates Allen Collins (guitar), Gary Rossington (guitar), Larry Junstrom (bass), and Bob Burns (drums). Lynyrd Skynyrd's name was inspired by a gym teacher the boys had in high school, Leonard Skinner, who disapproved of students with long hair.

The band's national exposure began in 1973 with the release of their debut album, which included their signature song, Free Bird which he later dedicated to the late Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's biggest hit single, although Freebird was a close second, was Sweet Home Alabama, which came off the album Second Helping.

Despite the unflattering mention of Neil Young in Sweet Home Alabama, the two musicians were close friends and mutually admired each other's work.

On October 20, 1977, a Convair 240 carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina to Baton Rouge, Louisiana crashed outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi. The passengers had been informed about problems and told to brace for impact.

Ronnie was thrown from the mangled wreckage and died of a blunt trauma injury to his head.

Band associates Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray were also killed. Remaining band members survived, although all were seriously injured.

Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, took over as the new lead singer when the band reunited in 1987.

Ronnie Van Zant was buried in Orange Park, Florida in 1977, but was relocated after vandals broke into his and band member Steve Gaines's tombs on June 29, 2000. Van Zant's casket was pulled out and dropped on the ground. The bag containing Gaines' ashes was torn open and some scattered onto the grass.

Their mausoleums at Orange Park remain as memorials.

According to the cemetery listing website Find-a-Grave, Van Zant was reburied at Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville, near the grave of his father Lacy and mother Marion.

***

Free Bird









Free Bird was first featured on Lynyrd Skynyrd's debut album in 1973, and reached #19 on the U.S. Billboard charts. The group's longest song, it is used as a finale by the band during their live performances.

[8948 S. Schwartz / 8948 R. Van Zant / 8947 John]

Wednesday, January 10, 8948

Donald Fagen (b. 1948) - Steely Dan


Donald Jay Fagen (b. January 10, 1948) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan (along with partner Walter Becker). Fagen is known for his use of jazz harmonies, elaborate arrangements, and attention to detail. Fagen launched a successful, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning three albums to date.

***


Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop.

Rolling Stone magazine has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies."

The band's music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies played by Becker and Fagen along with a revolving cast of rock and pop studio musicians.

Steely Dan's "cerebral, wry and eccentric" lyrics, often filled with sharp sarcasm, touch upon such themes as drugs, love affairs, crime, and their true-to-life "contempt of west coast hippies."

The pair are well-known for their near-obsessive perfectionism in the recording studio, with one notable example being that Becker and Fagen used at least 42 different studio musicians, 11 engineers, and took over a year to record the tracks that resulted in 1980's Gaucho — an album that contains only seven songs.

Steely Dan toured from 1972 to 1974, but in 1975 became a purely studio-based act. The late 1970's saw the group release a series of moderately successful singles and albums. They disbanded in 1981, and throughout most of the next decade, Fagen and Becker remained largely inactive in the music world. During this time, the group steadily built and maintained "a cult following."

In 1993, the group resumed playing live concerts; the early 21st century saw Steely Dan release two albums of new material, the first of which earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

They have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001.

***


The Royal Scam is the fifth album by Steely Dan, originally released by ABC Records in 1976.

The album went gold and peaked at #15 on the charts. The Royal Scam features more prominent guitar work than other Steely Dan albums. Guitarists on the recording include Walter Becker, Denny Dias, Larry Carlton, Elliott Randall and Dean Parks.

With irony-laden verses about drug dealers, safe sex, extramarital affairs and hardships faced by immigrants, The Royal Scam is arguably Steely Dan at its most cynical. The mood of the album stands in contrast with the band's mellower and hugely successful follow-up, Aja.

The album cover, which shows a possibly homeless man sleeping underneath (or perhaps dreaming of) images of mutating skyscrapers, is a satirical take on the American Dream.

The drawing and painting of the skyscrapers topped with various animal heads (snake, etc.), was considered dark, eerie, gothic, and very much ahead of its time.

The cover was designed by Larry Zox, and was originally created for Van Morrison's unreleased 1975 album, Mechanical Bliss. In the liner notes for the 1999 remaster of the album, Fagen and Becker claim it to be "the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill)."

In common with other Steely Dan albums, The Royal Scam is littered with cryptic allusions to people and events both real and fictional. In a BBC interview in 2000, Becker revealed that Kid Charlemagne is loosely based on Augustus Owsley Stanley, the notorious drug "chef" who created hallucinogenic compounds for, among others, Jim Morrison of The Doors, the Grateful Dead, and The Beatles.

The album was re-issued by MCA Records in 1979 following the sale of the ABC Records label to MCA.

"Kid Charlemagne" – 4:38
Guitar solo by Larry Carlton

"The Caves of Altamira" – 3:33
Alto saxophone solo by John Klemmer



"Don't Take Me Alive" – 4:16
Guitar solo by Larry Carlton

"Sign in Stranger" – 4:23
Piano Solo by Paul Griffin
Guitar Solo by Elliott Randall



"The Fez" (Becker, Fagen, Paul Griffin) – 4:01
Guitar solo by Walter Becker

Side Two

"Green Earrings" – 4:05
Guitar solos by Denny Dias (1st) and Elliott Randall (2nd)



"Haitian Divorce" – 5:51
Talk box guitar solo by Dean Parks, altered by Walter Becker

"Everything You Did" – 3:55
Guitar solo by Larry Carlton

"The Royal Scam" – 6:30
Guitar solo by Larry Carlton


***


Aja (pronounced "Asia") is the sixth album by Steely Dan. Originally released in 1977, it became the group's best-selling album. Peaking at #3 on the U.S. charts and #5 in the United Kingdom, it was the band's first platinum album, eventually selling over 5 million copies.

In July 1978, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 145 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The album is ambitious and sophisticated, and features several leading session musicians. The eight-minute-long title track features complex jazz-based changes and a solo by renowned saxophonist Wayne Shorter, as well as dextrous drumming by Steve Gadd - most notably at the end of the track.

Aja is also the subject of one of the Classic Albums series of documentaries about the making of famous albums. The documentary includes a song-by-song study of the album (the only omission being I Got the News, which is played during the closing credits), interviews with Steely Dan co-founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (among others) plus new, live-in-studio versions of songs from the album, and the opportunity to hear some of the rejected (and uncredited) guitar solos for Peg, before Jay Graydon produced the satisfactory take.

When DTS attempted to make a 5.1 version, it was discovered that the multitrack masters for both Black Cow and the title track were missing. For this same reason, a multichannel SACD version was cancelled by Universal Music. Donald Fagen has offered a $600 reward for the missing masters or any information that leads to their recovery.

All songs written by Becker and Fagen.

Side One

"Black Cow" – 5:10

"Aja" – 7:57

"Deacon Blues" – 7:37

Side Two

"Peg" – 3:57



"Home at Last" – 5:34

"I Got the News" – 5:06



"Josie" – 4:33

Donald Fagen - synthesizer, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, whistle
Walter Becker - bass, guitar, electric guitar, vocals
Chuck Rainey - bass
Timothy B. Schmit - vocals
Paul Griffin - keyboards, electric piano, vocals, background vocals
Don Grolnick - keyboards, clavinet
Michael Omartian - piano, keyboards
Joe Sample - keyboards, electric piano, clavinet
Larry Carlton - guitar, electric guitar
Denny Dias - guitar
Jay Graydon - guitar, electric guitar
Steve Khan - guitar
Dean Parks - guitar
Lee Ritenour - guitar
Pete Christlieb - flute, tenor saxophone
Chuck Findley - horn, brass
Jim Horn - flute, saxophone
Richard "Slyde" Hyde - trombone
Plas Johnson - flute, saxophone
Jackie Kelso - flute, horn, saxophone
Lou McCreary - brass
Bill Perkins - flute, horn, saxophone
Tom Scott - conductor, flute, tenor saxophone, lyricon
Wayne Shorter - flute, tenor saxophone
Bernard Purdie - drums ("Home at Last", "Deacon Blues")
Steve Gadd - drums ("Aja")
Ed Greene - drums ("I Got the News")
Lee Price - Fire Shards
Paul Humphrey - drums ("Black Cow")
Jim Keltner - percussion, drums ("Josie")
Rick Marotta - drums ("Peg")
Gary Coleman - percussion
Victor Feldman - percussion, piano, keyboards, electric piano, vibraphone
Venetta Fields - vocals, background vocals
Clydie King - vocals, background vocals
Rebecca Louis - vocals, background vocals
Sherlie Matthews - vocals, background vocals
Michael McDonald - vocals, background vocals

[8948 R. Van Zant / 8948 Fagen / 8947 Allman]