Displaying items by tag: 60s

The Four Tops came from Detroit and started as a high school band called The Four Aims (1954). The lineup was lead singer and Jackie Wilson‘s cousin, Levi Stubbs (1936 -2008) , Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson (1936 – 2005), and Lawrence Payton (1938 – 1997) and signed to Chess Records in 1956.

They started as the Kansas City Five with Alan Price (pianist), John Steel (drummer), and Eric Burden (vocalist). In 1962, Eric left to try his luck in London and Alan Price formed The Kontours which became the Alan Price R&B Combo with big Bryan “Chas” Chandler (bassist) and John Steel on drums.

The Meters were put together in 1965, when keyboard player Arthur 'Art' Neville (1937-2019) recruited George Porter, Jr. (bass guitar), Joseph (Zigaboo) Modeliste (drums) and Leo Nocentelli (guitar, vocals) . Art was born in New Orleans in 1937 and grew up in a musical family.

Paul ‘Koss’ Kossoff was born in London in 1950 and the son of famous British character, actor, David Kossoff (Kid for Two Farthings). He learned to play classical music but was always interested in blues and soon mastered the guitar.

You dream of playing in a Wembley final as a young kid and when you get there you don't perform and it can stay with you for a very long time. Unlike at Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in recent years, you don't get the opportunity too many times to go back and show a 100,000 the real you.

Scott Engel (1943 - 2019) came from Ohio and was a teen idol in the making in the late 50s, making several appearances on Eddie Fisher's TV series (Carrie Fisher’s father).

In the liner notes to P.P. Arnold’s long-overdue release The Turning Tide, Barry Gibb refers to the singer as “a girl inside a woman. Childlike in many ways, and yet her voice was somehow ancient.” His words only begin to describe a too-oft-overlooked voice of the sixties, and the artist behind that voice, whom he brought into the studio to record ten tracks in 1969.

In 1963, Mods, the then newest British youth culture, and their predecessors the Rockers, were making the news. The first British youth culture Teddy Boys, from the fifties, had faded away, until their revival in the seventies. The media not only notified the British public of the Mods and Rockers’ different taste in terms of fashion, music and transport, the press started to generate panic,

A rare, open and honest interview with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, one of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Mavericks

With Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, Roger Waters. Shot by movie maestro Peter Whitehead, this film features rare full length performances from the classic late 60's Pink Floyd line-up at Sound Techniques London & material from the legendary '14 hour Technicolor Dream' extravaganza in April '67 at Alexandra Palace. The footage includes performance art by Yoko Ono and a Sgt. Pepper era John Lennon taking in the festivities (John and Yoko had not met then).