Come and go blues was originally released on the album ‘Brothers and Sisters’, the bands first release after the death of co-founding member Duane Allman. It features a ‘Mark II’ lineup with a pianist replacing one guitarist. While this isn’t…
Read More »Introduction to American Southern Gothic Music
Defining “Southern Gothic” “Southern Gothic” is a widely-used term often applied to literature, music, art, and film. In literature, Southern Gothic refers to stories set in the South that are often about the “darker” elements of Southern life, such as…
Read More »Top 5 Essential Punk Rock Albums
All punk fans have that list of albums they couldn’t live without. Obviously, there are a lot more than 5 essential punk albums, but these are truly definitive works in the punk genre. The following albums showcase some of the…
Read More »John Lennon captures heartbreak on record of “If I Fell”
Early 1964 was a period of consolidation for The Beatles, as well as for the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Over the previous 12 months, the group had released two albums and four 45 RPM singles in…
Read More »Music and its effect on the brain
The findings that started the hype around the “Mozart Effect” were the results of experiments that Frances Rauscher and her colleagues Shaw and Ky conducted with college students. After they listened to Mozart’s sonatas the students had a temporary gain…
Read More »Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin
Le Tombeau de Couperin is both Ravel’s tribute to his friends who passed in World War I and a evocation of music from the time of Couperin (the French Baroque). It was written during World War I, and each of…
Read More »“The Beatles: Rock Band” can help happiness
Ever since Daisuke Inoue invented the Karaoke machine in 1971, the popularity of playing superstar and singing famous songs for friends has been steadily increasing. Recently, Karaoke has made its way into video games. Studies of singing in social situations…
Read More »Johnny Mercer Songbook Legend
Johnny Mercer was born in 1909 in Georgia to a comfortable white middle-class family but grew up listening to ragtime, spirituals, early jazz and black church music. As a young teen he was interested in poetry, music and making music.…
Read More »Trivia facts about Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s Birth Elvis Aaron was born in Tupelo on 8 January 1935. (Yes, he would be 74, if still alive.) His mother, Gladys, was 21; his father, Vernon, was only 18. Elvis had a twin brother, christened Jesse Garon,…
Read More »American classical composer George Rochberg
“It was empty of expressive emotion and was inadequate to express my grief….it is finished, hollow, meaningless.” Thus the words of George Rochberg about serialism in 1963 when his son Paul succumbed to the ravages of a brain tumor. His…
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