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Category: 1950s
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BB King
About Riley B. King, known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as “the single most important electric guitarist of…
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Chris Barber
About Donald Christopher Barber was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with “Petite Fleur” in 1959. These musicians included the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and Lonnie Donegan,…
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B.B. King
About Riley B. King, known professionally as B. B. King, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato, and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as “the single most important electric guitarist of…
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Nina Simone
About Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop. Her piano playing was strongly influenced by baroque and classical music, especially Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice. Albums/Songs: To Love…
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Sammy Davis, Jr.
About Samuel George Davis Jr. was an American singer, actor, comedian and dancer. Albums/Songs: Mood To Be Wooed Sings the Big Ones for Young Lovers The Shelter of Your Arms The Sammy Davis Jr. Show With Surprise Guest Stars The Song and Dance Man Our Shining Hour When the Feeling Hits You! It’s All Over…
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Quincy Jones
About Quincy Delight Jones Jr. is an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans over 70 years, with 28 Grammy Awards won out of 80 nominations, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. Albums/Songs: The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones If You Go I Heard That!! Back…
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Cannonball Adderley
About Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Albums/Songs: Nancy Wilson / Cannonball Adderley Alabama Concerto Cannonball Adderley and the Poll-Winners Things Are Getting Better Presenting Cannonball Adderley Sophisticated Swing Cannonball Enroute In the Land of Hi-Fi Cannonball’s Bossa Nova Somethin’ Else…
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Chico Hamilton
About Foreststorn “Chico” Hamilton was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He came to prominence as sideman for Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Count Basie, and Lena Horne. Hamilton became a bandleader, first with a quintet featuring the cello as a lead instrument, an unusual choice for a jazz band in the 1950s, and subsequently leading…
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Erroll Garner
About Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad “Misty”, his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first recorded in 1956 with Mitch Miller and his orchestra, and played a prominent part in the 1971 motion picture Play Misty for…
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Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
About Jalacy J. “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, shouting vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as “I Put a Spell on You”, he sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock. He received a…