News & Updates — metal

An OG proto-punk, Chester Burnett aka "Howlin' Wolf" was born on this day in 1910. In my opinion, one of the meanest sounds to ever grace records was his distinctively nasty growling voice and his raging tunes. "Smokestack Lightnin", "Moanin' At Midnight", "Evil", "Spoonful", "Killin Floor"...dosn't get any sicker! He came from Mississippi and learned guitar from Charley Patton, learned harmonica from Sonny Boy Williamson II and his vocal style was influenced by Jimmie Rodgers. In '51 he recorded for Sam Phillips in Memphis and moved to Chicago the next year to record for Chess. In the '50s he learned...

Happy birthday to that bitter bastard genius, the incomparable Miles Davis!! From bebop to cool jazz to modal to out-funk/fusion to pop, Miles played it all and never cared what the critics thought of him! My personal favorite era was his '70s hard-avant-funk, some of which sounds so brutal that it borders on proto-death metal!

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...

The great Shawnee rocker Link Wray invented the power chord and helped set off the hard rock revolution, influencing punk, thrash & heavy metal with his 1958 hit "Rumble" spawning the future headbanger generation. He made his first record in '55, before heading to Korea with the Army. He got tuberculosis and spent a year in the hospital. A lung was removed and he was told he'd never sing again (they were wrong). So he started working out instrumentals and made several records, some of which were recorded in a makeshift studio in a chicken shack (often in partnership with...

Classically-trained keyboardist Bernie Worrell has his place established as a major innovator in the Funk with Parliament-Funkadelic, with whom he played from about 1970 into the early '80s, and contributing to projects of other members of the mob. He brought the Bach to the Funk. He spent the '80s as a member of the Talking Heads and beyond that found an incredible amount of creative work with superproducer Bill Laswell. In his later years he was a staple on the jamband scene with Les Claypool, Govt Mule and others. A musical prodigy from New Jersey, he was playing piano by...