News & Updates — Twisted Cover Versions

The great Cuban conguero and bandleader Mongo Santamaría brought some spice to the American popular music scene. He had been bandleader for the prestigious Tropicana house band in Havana in the '40s before coming to NYC in 1950. He was the composer of "Afro Blue" and had a huge hit with Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". In addition to his own groovy ensembles, he played with Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Perez Prado, Fania All Stars, Willie Bobo, Dizzy Gillespie and others. It's always a pleasure to hear his Afro-Cuban arrangements of popular soul tunes, as well as his Orisha-guided rumbas. He...

The soulful blues guitarist with Cherokee/Choctaw roots, Lowell Fulson, was as great a representative of West Coast blues as there ever has been. Born in Oklahoma, he hit California in the mid-'40s and formed a band that employed youngsters Ray Charles & Stanley Turrentine. He cut records for Aladdin, Swing Time, Checker, Jewel, Kent, Bullseye and more in his long career. He was the composer of the standard "Three O'clock Blues" (1948), "Reconsider Baby" (1954) (recorded by Elvis in '60) and the awesomely funky "Tramp" ('67) which was covered by Otis Redding & Carla Thomas, Salt N' Pepa, The Mohawks...

The Bishop of Soul, Solomon Burke mixed gospel, blues, R&B and country to become one of the earliest self-identifying "soul" artists. Legend has it that he was the one to coin the phrase. This is due to his relationship to the church and not wanting to be labeled a "blues" singer. He was a preacher in church since the age of 7 and became pastor at 12 and a father at 14. As a teen he worked at a meat market with Chubby Checker. At 15 he was signed to Apollo Records (although the label was told by his manager...

Happy birthday to the harmolodic genius Ornette Coleman! His saxophone crying and unique compositional style were as groundbreaking on the avant-garde jazz front as John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor & Sunny Murray, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler were in that new freedom era that started in the late '50s and caused an avalanche of free-jazz in the '60s. In fact, it was Coleman's "double-quartet" album, Free Jazz -from '60, which gave name to a whole genre to follow. The musical revolutionary grew up poor in Fort Worth TX and learned to sight-read and started teaching himself alto sax at 14, right...

Happy birthday to "Mama Africa" Miriam Makeba, civil rights and anti-apartheid activist, singer, actress, UN delegate, Black Panther and warrior. From her birth in jail (where she spent the first six months of her life with her incarcerated mother) to her death immediately following a concert to raise awareness of mafia control, Miriam was a freedom fighter and compassionate voice throughout. One of the first stars of the African continent to be recognized internationally (after her big 1957 hit "Pata Pata"), she survived breast cancer in the '50s and founded an all-woman group The Skylarks (a rarity for the time)....