News & Updates — folk

The King of the Congas, Tata Güines was a shoe-maker and a bassist before he became one of the most prestigious and important percussionists in Cuban music. After some early study with Chano Pozo, his professional career took off in the '50s, playing in Havana with the likes of Arsenio Rodriguez, Bebo Valdés, Chico O'Farrill, Peruchín, Cachao, Frank Emilio Flynn and others. In '52 he toured South America with Jose Fajardo. In 1957 he went to NYC, where he worked with Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Josephine Baker and others. He became a featured soloist on the NYC scene, helping...

Bill Broonzy had a long and distinguished career, from spirituals to jazz to country blues to urban and back to folksy. One of 17 children born to a Southern family (precise date and location, unsure), he grew up in Arkansas. His first instrument was a cigar-box fiddle and he sang spirituals. He was a preacher, farmer, soldier and husband for awhile before he went north to Chicago around 1920. In Chicago he started playing guitar and gigging, signed to Paramount and released his first sides in 1927. He did some recording in NYC and toured with Memphis Minnie as her...

Happy birthday to the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier, born on this day in 1925. A multi-instrumentalist from a musically-accomplished family, his music combined blues, cajun, jazz, rock & roll, waltzes and R&B to modernize and popularize the zydeco style. He recorded for Chess, Arhoolie, Specialty, Crazy Cajun and other labels, in a recording career that started in 1954 (he had been performing since the mid '40s) and continued until his death in '87 from diabetes. He sang, played accordion, harmonica and guitar. He came from a musical family and he dug early on into the burgeoning rock & roll scene,...

The great Kaw/Creek saxophonist Jim Pepper was born today in 1941. His career covered jazz, pop, R&B, psychedelic rock and indigenous music and he is best known to '60s pop music fans as the composer of "Witchi-Tai-To". He also played clarinet, flute, sang and tap-danced. Pepper grew up in Portland OR and his first band of note was the Free Spirits, a mid-'60s NYC-based group that was one of the very earliest to explicitly fuse rock and jazz. The group also had Larry Coryell, Bob Moses & Chris Hills as members. They made a killer album in 1967 for ABC...

A huge talent lost much too early, Angá was an ace Cuban percussionist who employed an army of congas, as well as timbales and other percussion instruments. A lifelong follower of Santería, he was born in Pinar del Rió, Cuba, to a musical family. He played professionally with jazz group Opus 13 while studying college before joining the greatest Cuban group of all time, Irakere, in 1987. He's worked with Buena Vista Social Club (and member projects), hiphop group Orishas, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Afro-Cuban legend Tata Güines, progressive jazz pianist Omar Sosa, Malian jeli musician Baba Sissoko, avant-jazz/M-Base saxophonist Steve...