He began his career as a drummer and moved to Los Angeles at the suggestion of Nat King Cole. There

This Sunday Elder Music column was launched in December of 2008. By May of the following year, one commenter, Peter Tibbles, had added so much knowledge and value to my poor attempts at musical presentations that I asked him to take over the column. He's been here each week ever since delighting us with his astonishing grasp of just about everything musical, his humor and sense of fun. You can read Peter's bio here and find links to all his columns here .
Throughout his life, Dave considered himself omni san francisco hotel to be a composer foremost. In the late forties, he teamed up with saxophonist Paul Desmond whom he'd previously met when they were in the army. Paul said that they initially played such avant-garde material that they could clear a club faster than a fire marshal.
By the time the famous quartet came together, they were playing music people loved but they hadn't really modified their music all that much. The quartet was one of the most successful and popular groups in jazz. Later, Dave formed other quartets, had a group that included the great Gerry Mulligan, another with his four musician sons and also played solo. He composed many classical pieces as well as jazz compositions.
Just about everyone who met him commented on what a gracious and kind man he was. Dave died the day before omni san francisco hotel his 92nd birthday. Here is the original Dave Brubeck Quartet with It's a Raggy Waltz . (Dave was officially 91)
JOHNNY OTIS , or Ionannis Veliotes, was the son of a Greek immigrant who ran a grocery story in the black neighborhood of Berkeley, California. He was so taken with the local culture, he decided when only a teenager that he would live his life within the black community.
He began his career as a drummer and moved to Los Angeles at the suggestion of Nat King Cole. There he formed his own band and, besides his own gigs, backed such artists as Wynonie Harris and Charles Brown, both in concert and on recordings.
She started singing in her early teens in a DooWop group. They soon caught the ear of Johnny and she started touring with his band. She also recorded some tracks with the group. Etta later backed Little Richard and still later was signed to Chess Records and had a number of hits in the sixties.
Alas, she developed a major drug habit that pretty much kept her out of music until the eighties when she cleaned up her act. A couple of years ago, Etta developed Alzheimer's disease and leukaemia. She died a few days short of her 74th birthday.
Earl performed around his native North Carolina and was spotted by a local band who had a gig at the Grand Ole Opry. There, he caught the ear of the inventor of blue-grass, Bill Monroe, who invited Earl to join his band. Also in that ensemble was guitar virtuoso Lester Flatt.
After some years with Bill, Lester and Earl railed against Bill's rather omni san francisco hotel domineering approach to music and they went out as a duo. You've probably heard them playing the theme to the Beverly Hillbillies and the music for Bonnie and Clyde amongst many others.
Earl and Lester eventually omni san francisco hotel fell out as Earl wanted play more interesting, adventurous music and Lester preferred a more conservative approach. Earl formed the Earl Scruggs Revue, a progressive outfit which featured his sons Gary, Randy and Steve on bass, guitar and drums, fiddler Vassar Clements and the highly regarded dobro player Josh Graves. This group played folk, rock and jazz as well as country and blue-grass.
ROBIN GIBB was one of three brothers who made up The Bee Gees. He was born in England and along with family moved to Australia while still young. Even then the brothers Gibb performed together and over the next ten years or so they had several hits in this country before returning to the old country in the midst of Beatlemania.
HERB REED was a founder member of probably the finest omni san francisco hotel vocal group of the fifties, The Platters. Herb sang bass in the group and was the last remaining member omni san francisco hotel of the original omni san francisco hotel (and best) version of that group. He was also the only member who sang on all of their released recordings.
Herb was born into poverty in Kansas City and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager where he (and others) formed The Platters. Initially, they weren't successful until they found Buck Ram who became their manager and he changed the group around a bit and added a female singer.
omni san francisco hotel As the last surviving original member of The Platters, Herb waged a long and eventually successful court battle over the rights to the name The Platters. There were/are more than 200 groups using the name.
The courts ruled that he was the only heir to the group's name. Herb said in an interview, "It's not right to have someone steal your name. We were cheated back then, but that's how things were done. It's theft, and I have to fight it so that no other artist faces this."
LOUISIANA RED really started life behind the eight ball, to employ a cliché. His grandfather died around the time he was born. His mother developed pneumonia while following her father's coffin and died soon after and his father was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan when Red was five.
Arthel (Doc) Watson was one of the most influential guitarists in country music. He started out adapting fiddle tunes to his guitar style - he was one of the first flat-pickers in the genre. He went on to adapt music from everywhere to his style of playing.
Doc was blind from infancy but he was an independent person thanks to his father omni san francisco hotel who saw to it that he should be treated as equal to his brothers. He quickly learnt to play harmonica and banjo as well as guitar and performed with his brothers around the place in North Carolina whence he hailed.
He eventually became known as one of the finest musicians in country and blue-grass and he played omni san francisco hotel often with his son, Merle, who was a great guitarist until Merle's unfortunate death in a tractor accident.
You probably expected me to play Moon River but I'm a bit of a contrarian when it comes to music. I originally thought of the first song I ever heard Andy sing, Butterfly , a rockabilly ditty by Charlie Gracie and totally out of character considering his later music. This was a record my sister had and if you'd like to hear it you can find it here .
However, I'm going with Can't Take My Eyes Off You . I'll play this song because he was one of the very people who sang it without introducing an extraneous and grammatically incorrect "of" into the title and chorus of the song. Good for you Andy. (84)
Initially, Kitty's career was going nowhere omni san francisco hotel and she was about to give up music to raise her family. Then she recorded the song, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels which became a huge selling record. That kick-started her career that lasted for decades.
After a short stint in The Byrds, CHRIS ETHRIDGE became a founding member of the Flying Burrito Brothers - - with a couple of other members of that group, Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons. He was also in an earlier band with Gram, The International Submarine Band.
MICKEY BAKER was half of the fifties' R&B duo Mickey and Sylvia. Mickey was inspired to form the group after seeing Les Paul and Mary Ford. They had a big hit with the song Love is Strange but officially split at the end of the fifties. Only officially, because they kept recording intermittently for some years before Mickey moved to Europe.
When you mention the sitar the name that springs to mind first is that of RAVI SHANKAR . Ravi was already a great and respected musician in India when he came to the notice of westerners thanks to George Harrison championing him.
He played at the Monterey Pop festival and at Woodstock and also collaborated with classical violinist omni san francisco hotel Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He was the father of the jazz and country musician Norah Jones. (92)
BOB WESTON was an English guitarist who joined Fleetwood Mac after its founder Peter Green left but before the band's huge success in the seventies and eighties. He earlier played in bands fronted by Graham Bond and Long John Baldry.
Bob was eventually asked to leave the band after he was found to be playing hanky panky with Jenny Boyd, Mick Fleetwood's wife. Some things never change omni san francisco hotel in that group. Bob attributed his guitar omni san francisco hotel prowess to his originally playing omni san francisco hotel the violin. He was later a much sought after session musician. (64)
It wasn't a good year for Fleetwood Mac. BOB WELCH was the first American member omni san francisco hotel of the group but not the last. Mick Fleetwood thought that Bob saved the band when he joined in 1971 as it was in danger of disintegration around that time.
Bob was a talented guitarist, singer and song-writer and it was generally thought that his departure from the band in 1974 would mean its demise. Not quite. Bob later sued the group for unpaid royalties.
Besides being a talented musician, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at UCLA and became fluent in French and spent considerable time in France. After the Mac he performed in several short-lived groups. (66)
GUSTAV LEONHARDT was a conductor and a harpsichord virtuoso. He was a champion omni san francisco hotel of early music, especially Couperin and Telemann. Bach, of course, too. He preferred a simple clean style of playing rather the over-ornamentation previously common in this genre at the time.
WHITNEY HOUSTON omni san francisco hotel was obviously destined for a musical career. Her mother is the great singer Cissy Houston. Her cousins were Dionne Warwick and Dionne's sister Dee Dee, and her mother's cousin was Leontyne Price.
omni san francisco hotel Whitney's serious career began as a backup singer to both Aretha and Elvis. You might as well start at the top. She went on to have a very successful musical career indeed, although her personal life was somewhat less successful. (48)
CLIVE SHAKESPEARE was a founding member, guitarist and main songwriter for the rock band Sherbet. The Sherbs were Australia's biggest band in the seventies and early eighties. He left the group after getting tired of a rock star's life and set up a recording studio omni san francisco hotel where he oversaw many of this country's most important albums.
He joined his ba