Listening to blues music is like listening to the artist’s soul. Early blues music had an influence on a large number of artists in Texas to make music that is still heard to this day. There are many noteworthy blues musicians in Texas. Some of the greatest include Stevie Ray Vaughan, Janis Joplin, Freddie King, Billy Gibbons, and T-Bone Walker. Stevie Ray Vaughan is a legend and was a leading figure in the blues-rock genre. Vaughan was born in Dallas, Texas in October of 1954. (Dutton) He was exposed to music early on in his childhood watching big bother Jimmie Vaughan play guitar. By the age of 14 Vaughan was playing in Dallas blues clubs. (Simon, 2001) When he played he demanded the audience’s attention and had a sound of blues meets Jimi Hendrix. (Wenner, 2011) His fame was based mainly in central Texas. It was not until he played at a party thrown by Mick Jagger that his band Double Trouble got their big break when David Bowie as Vaughan to perform on his upcoming album Let’s Dance. (Stevie Ray Vaughan, 2013.) He became a pretty big success and his fan base grew to places outside of Texas. In 1985 Stevie became the first white performer to win the W.C. Handy Foundation’s Blues Entertainer of the Year award. (Simon, 2001) After a performance in August of 1990 Vaughan got on a helicopter bound for Chicago that crashed into mountains due to fog just minutes after taking off killing everyone onboard. (“Stevie Ray Vaughan”, 2013.) His legacy still lives on to this day with an ever-growing fan base. Janis Joplin has been called “the greatest white urban blues and soul singer of her generation.” (Janis Joplin Biography.) Joplin was born January 19, 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas. (Janis Lyn Joplin.) Early in her career she did not have luck as a solo artist; it was not until she joined Big Brother and the Holding Company in San Francisco that she had any hits. Big
Some of her better-known sides from the Twenties include “Backwater Blues,” “Taint Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” “St. Louis Blues” (recorded with Louis Armstrong), and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” The Depression dealt her career a blow, but Smith changed with the times by adapting a more up-to-date look and revised repertoire that incorporated Tin Pan Alley tunes like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” On the verge of the Swing Era, Smith died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, in September 1937. She left behind a rich, influential legacy of 160 recordings cut between 1923 and 1933. Some of the great vocal divas who owe a debt to Smith include Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. In Joplin’s own words of tribute, “She showed me the air and taught me how to fill it.
Steve Miller was born October 5, 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Steve’s family was very involved with music. His mother was a jazz-influenced singer, and his father was a pathologist that very interested in the world of music. Dr. Miller was friends with many musicians which greatly aided in young Steve’s development in music. One of his father’s friends included Les Paul, who showed Steve some chords on a guitar at the age of five. Les Paul proved to be a very valuable mentor to Steve, and he became a good friend of the family. When Steve was seven his family moved to Dallas, where he was exposed to a different type of artists that usually did not visit Milwaukee. His father took him to see greats such as Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins. Steve was particularly drawn to T-Bone Walker, the father of Texas-style electric blues. This proved to be very influential in Steve’s life, and it is evident by the blues-sound that he exhibited in his guitar playing.
Widely considered country music’s first superstar, Hiram/Hank Williams was born September 17, 1923, in mount olive, Alabama. Williams, the third child of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money. His father worked as a logger before entering the Veterans’ Administration hospital when young hank was just six. Father and son rarely saw each other over the next decade, with William’s mother, who ran rooming houses, moving the family to Greenville, and later, Montgomery, Alabama. (Hank Williams) Everyone knew Hank was a good guy, but like any man had his ups and his downs throughout the short life he lived. Hank grew up rough and he knew it; however nothing was going to stop this young man from doing what he set out to pursue. What he did was astonishing changing art or “so called” music. Hank redefined country music with his personal opinion on what music really was.
He was born six weeks early with retinopathy of prematurity. It’s an eye disorder which was exacerbated when he receives too much oxygen in an incubator, leading to his blindness. Before the age of 10, he taught himself how to play the harmonica, piano, and drums. Stevie Wonder was discovered by Ronnie White of the Motown band the Miracles as age 11. He then auditioned for Berry Gordy which was the founder of Motown and he signed him to a record deal. In 1962, they renamed Stevie to Little Stevie Wonder. His commitment to his gifted, he was faced with the difficulty of staying on the topic relevant to what he was known for singing. He grew from a bot to a man, and his voice matured into a tenor. In 1971, Stevie Wonder negotiated a new contract with Motown which gave him a lot of control over his records. Over the course throughout the years, he had four outstanding albums. Stevie Wonder created some of the most indelible songs in popular music history. His album Talking Book offered two number one hits. Next was the album Innervision The record featured two socially conscious number one R&B charts. His first finale release of Fulfillingness was inspired after he survived a bad car accident that left him in a coma. He had two number one hits both the pop and R&B on this album as well. After this Stevie Wonder has created many more albums with a lot more number one hits. With Stevie’s
In the 1930s many black musicians where coming out of the south. One especially who would soon top the charts and hit fame and fortune starting in his young years, Ray Charles. After conquering poverty, blindness and many other things, success was possible. In his young age he had a few losses in his family and near after came down with a disease which was causing him to go blind. He later came over the blindness and was able to learn and compose music with the help of his skills in mathematics. After enduring a harsh childhood and blindness, Ray Charles was able to over come his handicap and follow his dream in music.
Diana Ross was born in 1944. Emerging from the housing projects in Detroit to become an international superstar, she gained prominence first as a member of the supremes, then as a solo artist. The mention of her name evokes the indelible image of the broadly smiling diva, the long hair, sequined gowns, etc.
Stevie Ray Vaughan was born in Dallas, Texas on October 3, 1954 to Jim and Martha Vaughan. Stevie Ray first got interested in the guitar around the age of eleven in 1963. By then his older brother (Jimmie Vaughan born in 1951.) had already been playing for a couple years. He taught Stevie Ray a few tricks, a couple blues chords, and minor pentatonic licks, but not much though. Stevie Ray was mostly self taught, he grew accustomed to never using his pinkie. Growing up he listened to great blues legends like the famous B.B. King, the not as famous, but close, who really didn't get the recognition he deserved, Albert King. He found their music gratifying, and admired them greatly, learning all their licks by ear, on stage he could mirror any solos they threw at him. Both Albert King and B.B. King played a very influential role in the development of Stevie Rays style. By the time he was fourteen he was already playing in Dallas blues clubs with bands like Blackbird, the Shanstones, and the Epileptic Marshmallow. Stevie Ray being so involved with his music barely had time for highschool. He dropped out in 1972.
Little Stevie Wonder was modeled after the famed career of, the not-so surprising, Ray Charles. Charles was also a blind musician, whose charisma and “R&B screamer” style allowed Gordy to mold Wonder’s image after (Rolling Stone). Wonder worked in 1962 with Motown writer Clarence Paul to produce his first album called The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie Wonder under the Motown subsidiary known as Tamla. On this album, Stevie Wonder elucidated his extreme musical talent on the harmonica, drums, and keyboard. Although he doesn’t sing on this album, the album gave his audience a taste for the Soul and Jazz sound that embodied his young persona. Similarly, later in 1962, Gordy tried to cement Little Stevie Wonder’s image in his tribute to Ray Charles. Wonder made the album A Tribute to Uncle Ray, which was a series of songs dedicated to the famed Ray Charles in both covers and like-sounding originals. However, it was clear that Wonder’s sound was not like that of Charles, which left Gordy in a scramble to create an image that matched Wonder’s talent. As William Ruhlman states in his album
Whitney Houston was born in August 9th, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. Whitney came from a long line of illustrious singers, for her mother, Cissy Houston, was an American gospel singer. Her mother was the Choir minister at “New Hope Baptist Church”. As well, her cousin Dionne Warwick was also an American singer and TV-host, her best songs include “Walk on By” and “Heartbreaker”. Finally, her godmother, Aretha Franklin, was an accomplished American singer and musician. Her father, John Russell Houston, was also an artist in a sense through his work as a professional theatrical manager, although he didn’t have a career in singing.
Janet Jackson was born in Gary Indiana on May 16, 1966. She is a member of the
Scott Joplin was an African-American man living in the late 1890s and early 1900s. He was born on November 24th, 1868 in a community near the town of Linden, which is located in the northeastern region of Texas. He was raised with his five additional siblings by parents Giles and
Scott Joplin was born in Texas around 1867. His birth place and date are not anywhere to be found. He was only a young child when his family moved off their farm. They moved to Texarkana which is on the border of Texas and Arkansas. Not much else is to be found about his childhood other than his age during census reports. Here his mother found a job working in a white home. It is said that Scott Joplin learned how to play a piano during this time. It was because the white homeowners allowed him to come in and self-teach himself the basics of music. In one of his published works Treemonisha, Joplin talks about his mother’s efforts in helping him start his musical talents in which he cherished.
George Harvey Strait, born on May 18, 1952, in Poteet, Texas is known as The King of Country not just in his genre but in much more. Many may ask themselves is Strait an actual countryman or it is just said to be country considering he sings in that genre. He has a passion for team roping, it plays an enormous role in his life. He sticks to traditional country and not that new pop country which almost everyone is singing. Strait enjoys ranching being in the outdoors with his son Bubba.
Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, on May 13 1950, he was the third of six children to his father Calvin Judkins and his mother Lula Mae Hardaway. He was born six weeks premature, His premature birth resulted in retinopathy of prematurity, a medical condition in which the growth of the eyes is stopped and causes the retinas to detach; so he became blind. When Stevie Wonder was four, his mother left his father due to family conflicts and moved to Detroit, Michigan with her six children. She then changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and soon after changed her son's last name to Morris, mostly because of relatives. Wonder began playing instruments at an early age, he played the piano, harmonica, drums and bass. He formed a partnership with a friend, they called themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners, and sometimes at parties and dances.
Eric Clapton is a blues and rock guitarist, songwriter and a singer. His interest in musical instruments started when he was given a guitar as a present for his fifteenth birthday. Even though he faced challenges at the beginning, Eric has risen to be one of the most influential and important guitarists of all time (Johns, pp.20). At the age of 16, his work had been noticed as he played on various occasions alongside his colleague David Brock. When he turned 17, he joined the R&B group, a local band that performed live. Clapton’s success was evident when he came second in the list of Rolling Stone magazine on the top 100 Greatest Guitarists. During the 1960s, Clapton abandoned the Yardbirds and joined the Bluesbreakers and John Mayall. His