News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

It's hard to believe that this guy never lived to see 23. One of my favorite of the early rockers, had he lived he was eyeing collaborations with Ray Charles and Mahalia Jackson. Happy birthday to Buddy Holly!

Sending out a birthday to salute to Clifford Thornton, a cult free-jazz composer (and former Black Panther Party Minister of Art) who released a spate of classics from '67-'75 on various independent labels. In some ways he could be likened to the Eric Dolphy of his generation, a multi-instrumentalist artist who greatly impacted contemporary musicians around him while remaining out of the general public's eye. From Philly, he was a cousin to jazz drummer J.C. Moses. At seven he started learning piano and as a teenager studied with Donald Byrd and played with jazz tuba player Ray Draper. After moving...

Happy birthday to Buddy Bolden, one of the creators of the amazing artform known as "jazz". A New Orleans-born cornetist, King Bolden's band was very popular in the city at the turn of the twentieth century. They say he used to improvise against the established rhythm in the marching bands, effectively inventing the jazz solo.  He synthesized ragtime, blues, gospel and marching bands, relegating the strings to the rhythm and bringing the horns to the front. A major influence on King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, it is fair to call him one of the most important figures...

The original Mr Babalú Miguelito Valdés, the Havana-born icon was a boxing champion in his twenties before turning to music professionally. Playing around Cuba in son & charanga bands in the '20s & '30s, he played trés, guitar, bass and percussion (also a composer) but it was as a singer & interpreter of Afro-Cuban songs that helped him find fame. In '37 he joined Orquesta Casino, who were hooked up with RCA-Victor Records, and cut some sides with them, achieving fame enough to do a big tour of Latin America in '39. He joined Orquesta Riverside in '40 before moving...

The wildly popular and immediately recognizable blues stylist Jimmy Reed was a major influence on rock music. His style was so simple and basic that it didn't matter what the critics said of his music, it was heard far & wide as he cranked out pop hit after pop hit in his formula. His laid-back, almost slurry style was a huge inspiration to members of the '60s rock generation (Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Yardbirds, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix) as well as blues artists like Slim Harpo. Some consider him a precursor to punk rock. Born on a plantation...