News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

This one is not going to be up the alley of most people but since it's my project to write these little bios of some musical icons I am feeling no shame to include the Father of Death Metal, the late Chuck Schuldiner. While I completely understand that death metal is not to everybody's liking, I am disgusted with the proclamations about it being "shit music" or that these bands glorify negativity. As far as the former, death metal is in my opinion some of the BEST rock music ever made. Bands like Atheist, Cynic, Sadus and Chuck's band Death...

Most people may not know his name but they will know his work. Norman Whitfield is one of the most important producers of R&B/funk/disco due to his imaginative work with Motown and his later disco material. He was originally from Harlem but moved to Detroit as a teenager and started hanging around the Motown studios. As early as 1963 he was being credited as a songwriter and wrote for Marvin Gaye, The Velvelettes and the Marvelettes ("Too Many Fish In The Sea"). His 1966 breakout hit "Ain't To Proud To Beg" with The Temptations afforded him the role as their...

Cockney-accented singer/songwriter/actor Ian Dury was a great punk poet, talented lyricist and cult hero. After getting polio at 8, he went to a school for the disabled that "toughened" him up. Indeed he strutted the stage with confidence, despite the handicap. His first band was Kilburn and the High Roads, who toured with The Who and broke up in '75. His next band was the entertaining music-hall spirited Ian Dury & the Blockheads and they had some lasting hits (mostly in the UK) of the new wave era. Their music was influenced by funk, reggae, disco and jazz and Dury...

An important voice in Cuba, Lázaro Ros is virtually unknown outside of Yoruba-oriented circles. One of Cuba's major Akpwons (praise singer), he was a Lucumí folkloricist and mentor to young singers & scholars serious about Santeria. Havana born, started singing at festivals at 13 and was singing on the radio by '49, around which time he was initiated. The new government formed the cultural/musical entity Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba and with this program Ros got to record and tour Europe, Mexico and the USA. In the '80s he lent his powerful voice, deep knowledge and blessing to a project...

Happy birthday to one of the early influential jazz greats, Joe "King" Oliver! Old enough to claim Buddy Bolden as an influence, he became one of New Orleans' star cornet & trumpet players (he also had professional experience playing trombone). Despite having one working eye he learned to read and write music and was also a notable composer. He was mentor and a lifelong friend to Louie Armstrong, whom he taught and helped in New Orleans and later hired in Chicago. From about 1908 or so he was one of the best musicians in NOLA's Storyville district, destroying competitors in...