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Joe Meek may very well be rock's first independent producer/auteur. He is like an early rock & roll Lee Perry, a man with a strong artistic inclination and a home studio, eccentric tendencies and behaviors, and experimental processes to create otherwordly results. He had a background as an electrician and started cutting his own records in the '50s. He set up perhaps the first home recording studio in rock (he loved to bother his neighbors). He produced "Tornado", a major international hit by the Telstars in '62, becoming the first British group to top the US charts. He utilized separation...

Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros is my favorite of the great Cuban trumpeters. He had a powerhouse sound that could be brash and forceful, or sweet and lyrical. He got his professional start while still in Cuba, cutting his first sides in '49 with René Álvarez. The '50s saw him busy with Arsenio Rodriguez and Beny Moré. He also played with Nat King Cole on the pianists' Cuban sessions. He came to NYC in 1960 and got a lot of work doing sessions and playing in several bands. He played consistently with Eddie Palmieri from the late '60s through the '70s. In...

McKinley Morganfield's name was awesome enough but he had to go and start being called Muddy Waters, which is like the old bluesman equivilent of a punk rock name. But that is an appropriate analogy since his loud & electrified folk-blues was the punk of its generation. Without Muddy, the path to Chicago blues, rock, metal and punk might've taken other roads. Of questionable birth year, Muddy came from the musically fertile area of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He started playing harmonica but switched to guitar after hearing Son House. Alan Lomax was the first to record him (in '41, right in...

Although he only lived to be 25, Scott LaFaro is one of the most advanced and influential jazz bassists the music had ever seen. His playing brought melodicism, exploration, voice and intuitive interplay to a whole new level and subsequently inspired generations of bassists since. Although best known for his work with Bill Evans and Ornette Coleman, he also played with Hampton Hawes, Booker Little, Stan Getz & Cal Tjader, Elvin Jones, Stan Kenton, John Lewis, Chet Baker and Benny Goodman, among others. He was one of the two bassists (with Charlie Haden) on the classic 1960 Ornette session that...

Here's a birthday shout to Jimmy "Chank" Nolen, the "chicken scratch" guitar player with the James Brown band, and a crucial part of his sound. He came from Oklahoma City, first playing the violin before switching to guitar, inspired by T Bone Walker. He then went to Los Angeles in the mid-'50s and cut some tunes as a leader before joining the Johnny Otis band in '57. In fact, Nolen's "chicken scratch" sound can be heard on Otis' seminal "Willie & the Hand Jive" from '58. He brought the sound to J.B. in '65, just in time to contribute to...