News & Updates — vintage footage

McKinley Morganfield's name was awesome enough but he had to go and start being called Muddy Waters, which is like the old bluesman equivilent of a punk rock name. But that is an appropriate analogy since his loud & electrified folk-blues was the punk of its generation. Without Muddy, the path to Chicago blues, rock, metal and punk might've taken other roads. Of questionable birth year, Muddy came from the musically fertile area of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He started playing harmonica but switched to guitar after hearing Son House. Alan Lomax was the first to record him (in '41, right in...

Although he only lived to be 25, Scott LaFaro is one of the most advanced and influential jazz bassists the music had ever seen. His playing brought melodicism, exploration, voice and intuitive interplay to a whole new level and subsequently inspired generations of bassists since. Although best known for his work with Bill Evans and Ornette Coleman, he also played with Hampton Hawes, Booker Little, Stan Getz & Cal Tjader, Elvin Jones, Stan Kenton, John Lewis, Chet Baker and Benny Goodman, among others. He was one of the two bassists (with Charlie Haden) on the classic 1960 Ornette session that...

Born today, one of the kings of soul music, Marvin Gaye. Is there anyone in the world who doesn't like his music?

Minutemen guitarist & vocalist D. Boon died in a van accident at the far too young age of 27, but is still considered a punk rock icon. The band gained respect as one of the best and most inventive, as well as politically aware (evident in D. Boon's lyrical contributions) bands of the '80s underground. They toured heavily and recorded for SST Records, as well as New Alliance (a label started by the band). Musically they brought jazz, punk, funk & country together into short song blasts ("jam econo") and included some covers (parodies?) of classic rock tunes. It all...

Today is the birthday of one of my very favorites!! The poet/vocalist/songwriter/novelist Gil Scott-Heron was one of the great lyricists of all time, combining the personal and political, and as a vocalist he would weave his stories into the fantastic soul-jazz tunes he cooked up with Brian Jackson. The music contained elements of blues, jazz, Latin and funk, and he has been justly considered a precursor to hip-hop, with GSH's "rapping" delivery and socio-political consciousness. He was inspired by a performance he saw by the Last Poets and released Small Talk At 125th & Lennox in 1970. He started working...