News & Updates — rock

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...

Happy birthday to our biggest Parsi rock star, Farrokh Bulsara aka Freddie Mercury. One of the great front-men of rock, Queen was always a favorite of mine for their heavy layers of sound, unique theatricality they humored the masses with and awesome songs and albums.

One of the three great Kings of blues guitar, along with BB and Albert, Freddie King was a commanding singer and an awesome electric guitarist with fast fingers. He was a huge influence on Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and other pale-faced blues-rockers. Originally from Dallas, he started playing guitar at six. He moved to Chicago as a teenager and started absorbing all the killer blues happening in the city. He started playing in bands in the early '50s and worked with Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Lockwood Jr and others. When King got the call to cut...

Happy birthday to a true rock & roll countercultural hero, Mick Farren! His band The Deviants were one of the heaviest psychedelic, proto-punk bands of the late '60s and were part of London's underground scene along with Soft Machine, Syd Barrett & the Pink Floyd, Lemmy & Hawkwind, Mark Bolan and Pink Fairies. He cut away from the music for a bit in the first half of the '70s to focus on his writing projects. He is well-known as a writer & social critic for NME and other publications as well as several novels, biographies and non-fiction books and he...

Here's a birthday shout-out to the Japan's Yamanaka Joe, actor, singer, activist & humanitarian. Born Akira Yamanaka to a Japanese prostitute mother and a Caribbean-American soldier father he never met, whom he believed to be either Cuban or Jamaican. He grew up in an orphanage and got TB as a kid. He started boxing at 16 and became a well-known "tough guy" actor in several Japanese flicks. After singing in blues band Mystic Morning he joined Flower Travellin' Band in 1970. FTB were one of the earliest (and best!) of the bands who were greatly influenced by Black Sabbath. They...