News & Updates — guitar

Cherokee folk singer Karen Dalton was a tragic story, a talent underheard and another tale of harsh and damaging substance abuse. Her sad, world-weary voice brings to mind Billie Holiday and her own compositions took a backseat to cover tunes. She came from Oklahoma, ditching a husband & children for who knows why, and came to NYC where she was on the Greenwich Village folk scene along with Bob Dylan, the Holy Modal Rounders and her good friend Fred Neil. She played a twelve-string guitar and banjo and mentioned Bessie Smith as her biggest influence as a singer. She made very...

One of the first ladies of rock & roll, Peggy Jones Malone aka "Lady Bo" was a guitarist and occasional songwriter & arranger for Bo Diddley. A Harlem native, she started playing guitar at 15, influenced by Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell and Charlie Parker. She was a doo wop singer with the Bop Chords and a professional dancer. She played on several of Bo's '50s and early '60s tunes, such as "Hey! Bo Diddley", "Roadrunner", "Say Man", "Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger", "Crackin' Up" and others. She played mostly rhythm but her and Bo would sometimes alternate leads on stage. (Later...

Feliz aniversario to Djalma de Andrade aka "Bola Sete" ("seven ball"), a great Brazilian guitarist. In Brazilian billiards, the seven ball is the only black ball, his name was given due to being the only black guy in his early jazz group. Born in Rio, he studied guitar and had a love of jazz, catching many visiting American big bands in Brazil. In 1945 he won a prestigious guitar competition and formed a jazz combo, also playing samba. He played in Italy for a few years in the mid-'50s and toured with an orchestra through South America before moving to...

There are so many interesting artists born on July 15 that it is impossible in my schedule to write pieces about them. So here are some shorties, along with a video or two for each. --Francis Bebey / July 15, 1929 - May 28, 2001 This unique Cameroonian composer and his interesting DIY synth-pop crossed with traditional music has been justly making new fans in recent years. --James Jacson / July 15, 1932 - Aug 10, 1997 Happy cosmic birthday to James Jacson, one of my favorite characters from Sun Ra's Arkestra. Jacson is the one who was instructed to...

David "Honeyboy" Edwards lived to be nearly a hundred years old! The Delta bluesman was playing concerts right up until the day he died and I was fortunate enough to catch him with Corey Harris in Massachusetts many moons ago. Not only had he been a living, breathing representative of live old school Delta blues well into the new millennium, but he was doubly important to blues scholars as a man who could fill in some details on long-gone figures, such as his close friend Robert Johnson, whom he toured with and was present the night Johnson was poisoned. He...