Results for "guitar"

Johnny Shines

Born: April 26, 1915

Johnny Shines, one of the original Delta blues performers, was born April, 25, 1915 in Frayser, Tennessee, a Memphis suburb. Both his brother and an uncle played guitar, He first started playing in 1932 and early influences included Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell and Charlie Patton, before he attracted the attention of Howlin’ Wolf, and he was known as the Little Wolf. He started playing professionally by 1933-1934, playing around Memphis with such other artists as Willie Bee Borum, Honey Boy Albert Shaw, his cousin Calvin Frazier and others. While playing he made the acquaintance of Robert Johnson in Helena, Arkansas with whom he traveled with throughout Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and other places, even going north to Buffalo and Windsor, Ontario

John Sheridan

Louie Shelton

Born: April 6, 1941

Louie was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on April 6, 1941, and got his first guitar for his ninth birthday, a $13.00 Stella. While other young boys were out having a good time playing ball or fishing, Louie had his ear pinned to the radio for hours a day with his guitar in hand teaching himself to play. He lived and breathed music and by the age of twelve was so good he was in the country band 'Shelby Cooper & the Dixie Mountaineers', was featured every Saturday night on a Grand Ole Opry style show called the Barn Yard Frolics in Little Rock, which was broadcast live throughout the South on KRLA Radio and which featured performers like Johnnie Cash. Not only did young Jr. Shelton (as he was known) back up most of the artists on the show, he was given the opportunity to perform all of the "hot" guitar instrumentals he learned from listening to the recordings of Chet Atkins, Jimmy Bryant, Hank Garland and others. Best of all, Louie was able to graduate musically by purchasing himself a brand new 51 Telecaster.

Elliott Sharp

Born: March 1, 1951

Elliott Sharp is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer. A key figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over thirty years, Sharp has released over sixty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction, as well as the use of computers in live improvisation with his Virtual Stance project of the 1980s. He is an inveterate performer, playing mainly guitar, saxophone and bass clarinet

Mem Shannon

Mem is a former 15-year Bourbon Street cab driver who's since released 4 albums worldwide (2 on Rykodisc, 2 on Shanachie). Mem Shannon & The Membership are from New Orleans and while their music is rooted in the blues, it's soaked through with that Big Easy syncopated sound, oozing with funk. They've played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 12 years. They've won or been nominated for a ton of "Best Of" awards for Louisiana music and national blues - including 2 W.C. Handy Award nominations ('96 and '02). Mem emerged onto the scene in 1996 with his first release, "A Cab Driver's Blues" on Hannibal/Rykodisc

Bola Sete

Born: July 16, 1923

Bola Sete (born Djalma de Andrade) was a Brazilian guitarist born on July 16, 1923 in Rio de Janeiro and who died on February 14, 1987 in Greenbrae, California. Sete played jazz with Vince Guaraldi as well as with Dizzy Gillespie. His song "Bettina" was featured on the "Tribe Vibes" breakbeat compilation, as it had been sampled by the musical group A Tribe Called Quest. Bola Sete's name means "Seven Ball". In Brazilian billiards, the seven ball is the only black ball on the table, and Bola got this nickname when he was the only black member of a small jazz group. He studied guitar at the Conservatory of Rio and he started performing with his own sextet and local samba groups while he was still a student

John Scofield

Born: December 26, 1951

John Scofield’s guitar work has influenced jazz since the late '70s and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk edged jazz, and R & B.

Born in Ohio and raised in suburban Connecticut, Scofield took up the guitar at age 11, inspired by both rock and blues players. He attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. After a debut recording with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Scofield was a member of the Billy Cobham-George Duke band for two years. In 1977 he recorded with Charles Mingus, and joined the Gary Burton quartet. He began his international career as a bandleader and recording artist in 1978. From 1982–1985, Scofield toured and recorded with Miles Davis. His Davis stint placed him firmly in the foreground of jazz consciousness as a player and composer.

Reg Schwager

Born: May 7, 1962

Reg Schwager is one of Canada’s leading jazz guitarists. His reputation has led to him performing with internationally acclaimed jazz artists such as Mel Tormé, Pepper Adams, Hank Jones, Junior Mance, Jimmy McGriff and Zoot Sims, and such celebrated Canadian jazz musicians as Diana Krall, Rob McConnell, Peter Appleyard, Oliver Jones, Dave Young and Don Thompson. Recent highlights include television, concert and club performances in the US, Japan and the Bahamas with master jazz pianist George Shearing. As described in the Halifax Chronicle “Schwager has managed to become the hottest of rising Canadian musicians…Schwager’s solos sprout like vines in the jungle, tangled and tough, and winding through everything

Gray Sargent

Carlos Santana

Born: July 20, 1947

Delivered with a level of passion and soul equal to the legendary sonic charge of his guitar, the sound of Carlos Santana is one of the world’s best-known musical signatures. For more than four decades—from Santana’s earliest days as a groundbreaking Afro-Latin-blues-rock fusion outfit in San Francisco—Carlos has been the visionary force behind artistry that transcends musical genres and generational, cultural and geographical boundaries.

Long before the category now known as “world music” was named, Santana’s ever-evolving sound was always ahead of its time in its universal appeal, and today registers as ideally in sync with the 21st century’s pan-cultural landscape. And, with a dedication to humanitarian outreach and social activism that parallels his lifelong relationship with music, Carlos Santana is as much an exemplary world citizen as a global music icon.