News & Updates — red power

One of the most-called session men of his day, the Comanche/Kiowa tribal guitarist/pianist Jesse Ed Davis was born on this day in 1944. His father Jesse was a well-known "True Indian" painter. The younger Davis got his musical career started in his native Oklahoma in a band in the late '50s with future Blood Sweat & Tears vocalist Jerry Fisher. In the mid-'60s he went on the road as a member of Conway Twitty's band before settling in California. Through friends Leon Russell and Levon Helm he got acquainted with the studio scene and started working as a session man/secret...

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...

Back when I played a drumkit, it wasn't Tony Allen who was my biggest influence. Nor was it Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell, Art Blakey or anyone else. It was Rashied Ali! Someone once asked if a recording that was being played had Rashied on drums, and I was thrilled to tell him that it was actually me! But never in a million years could I match Ali in chops but I certainly dug his polytonal expression and unique waves of sound on the kit. Most famous for being John Coltrane's last drummer (and for the duo album they did together,...

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...

Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was one of the men who brought the electric guitar to the forefront. He played guitar with his teeth during his act and inspired so many (Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, the 3 Kings --BB, Freddy, Albert, Gatemouth Brown, the Allman Bros). He was one of the original "modern blues" artists, electrifying the rural blues and making it more sophisticated with jazz, jump and swing. He also is considered one of the founders of rock & roll. The Afro-Cherokee blues guitarist got his career going in the '20s around Dallas working for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Christian...