Supertramp

   

Supertramp is an English rock band formed in London in 1969.

The band's individual songwriting founders, Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies, originally called their band "Daddy" but to avoid confusion with the similarly named Daddy Longlegs, the band changed its name to "Supertramp." That name was inspired by The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by William Henry Davies.

Davies (1871–1940) was a Welsh poet and writer who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo, in the United Kingdom and United States. He also became one of the most popular poets of his time. His writing focused on nature, observations about life's hardships, his tramping adventures, and the various characters he met. In 1948 the BBC Home Service recorded a version of the book in 15 episodes narrated by Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas.

Though the band's music was initially viewed as progressive rock, they went on to combine rock, pop, and art rock into their music and made prominent use of Wurlitzer electric piano and saxophone.

Their commercial success came with more radio-friendly pop elements into their work in the mid-1970s. They went on to sell more than 60 million albums.

Their commercial peak was with 1979's Breakfast in America, which sold over 20 million copies.

Official Site www.supertramp.com

   

Skiffle Music

Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly associated with musician Lonnie Donegan.

The origins of skiffle are obscure, but are generally thought to lie in African-American musical culture in the early twentieth century with improvised "jug bands." They played a mix of blues and jazz and used instruments such as the washboard, jugs, tea chest bass, cigar-box fiddle, musical saw, and comb-and-paper kazoos, as well as more conventional instruments such as acoustic guitar and banjo.

In the U.S., this was often called "jug band music" but in the U.K., "skiffle" was the label used.

The term "skiffle" was one of many slang phrases for a rent party, a social event with a small charge designed to pay rent on a house or building (sometimes the club where the musicians performed).

The first skiffle recordings were made in Chicago in the 1920s. The first use of the term on record was in 1925 in the name of Jimmy O'Bryant and his Chicago Skifflers.

A number of country blues records had titles like "Hometown Skiffle" (1929), and "Skiffle Blues" (1946) by Dan Burley and His Skiffle Boys.

The term and style of music faded from usage in the 1940s with the advent of Big Band music.

1957 John Lennon (center) and the Quarrymen

A revival occurred after WWII in the UK and  in the late 1950s there were many skiffle groups in Britain. It became a starting place and training ground for a number of musicians who would find fame in rock and roll in the 1960s.

An early incarnation of The Beatles was The Quarrymen which started as a skiffle band.



Other rockers who strated in skiffle groups include Van Morrison, Alexis Korner, Ronnie Wood, Alex Harvey, Mick Jagger; Roger Daltrey, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Robin Trower, Dave Gilmour, Graham Nash and Alan Clarke.


For comparison, here is Lonnie Donegan performing "Rock Island Line"
live on "Putting on the Donegan" June 1961



and then listen to "Rock Island Line" performed solo first by Paul McCartney
and then in a different style by John Lennon.



MORE

• Rock 'N' Skiffle - Brit Beat Beginnings
• Great British Skiffle
• 1957 When Skiffle Was King
• Beatles Beginnings: Quarrymen 1
• Beatles Beginnings: Quarrymen 2- Rock'N'Roll
• The Dawn Of Modern Rock
• King of Skiffle

Styx

Styx is an American rock band popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s and known for its prog-rock with hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and a theatrical stage show. The band is best known for the hit songs "Lady", "Come Sail Away", "Babe", "The Best of Times", "Too Much Time on My Hands", and "Mr. Roboto". The band had four consecutive albums certified multi-platinum.

Twin brothers Chuck and John Panozzo got together with their neighbor Dennis DeYoung in 1961 in Chicago to form "The Tradewinds". The band never made it to the recording stage and in 1966, the Panozzo brothers had joined DeYoung at Chicago State College and kept the group together doing gigs at high schools and frat parties while studying to be teachers. In 1969 they added a college buddy, John Curulewski, on guitar and in 1972 the band members decided to choose a new name when they signed to Wooden Nickel Records. According to DeYoung, the name Styx was chosen mostly because it was "the only one that none of us hated".

Styx is a mythical river in classical Greek mythology. It is the river in the underworld over which the souls of the dead are ferried.

Crossing the Styx, illustration by Gustave Doré, 1861.

The word is a cognate of the Greek stygos meaning "hatred" and stygnos meaning "gloomy." The river formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (Hades). The rivers Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, and Cocytus all converge at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, which is also sometimes called the Styx.

Stone Temple Pilots

The American rock band, Stone Temple Pilots (sometimes just abbreviated as STP) was formed in San Diego, California in the mid-1980s.

The band members include Scott Weiland (lead vocals), Robert DeLeo (bass guitar, vocals) and his brother Dean DeLeo (guitar) and Eric Kretz (drums, percussion).

At first, they were named "Mighty Joe Young,"  but after signing a recording contract with Atlantic Records, they needed  a name change. Mighty Joe Young had played several gigs but they discovered while recording their first album that there was already a blues singer who went under that name.

The story is that the band members had liked the STP Motor Oil stickers and decided to use that and make up something to fit the abbreviation. After throwing out ideas, they settled without a lot of thought on "Stone Temple Pilots" without it having any deeper symbolic meaning. Weiland recalled in an interview in Spin magazine that another possibility was "Shirley Temple’s Pussy."

Their debut album, Core (1992) was a hit and they were one of the most commercially successful bands of the 1990s.

They released four more studio albums: Purple (1994), Core (1996), No 4 (1999) and Shangri-LA DEE DA (2001).

The band split up in 2003 and band members moved on to other bands including Velvet Revolver and Army of Anyone.

STP reformed in 2008 for a reunion tour and ended up releasing a new self-titled album, Stone Temple Pilots in 2010 and have been touring since.

StoneTemplePilots.com

Spinal Tap

    

Spinal Tap is a parody fictional heavy metal band that first appeared on a failed 1979 ABC TV sketch comedy pilot called "The T.V. Show", starring Rob Reiner. The sketch, actually a mock promotional video for the song "Rock and Roll Nightmare", was written by Reiner and the band, and included songwriter/performer Loudon Wainwright III on keyboards.



Reiner later made the band the fictional subject of his 1984 rockumentary/mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap with the band members being portrayed by Michael McKean (as David St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (as Nigel Tufnel) and Harry Shearer (as Derek Smalls).

Though in the film they are supposed to all be from the United Kingdom, the actors (who are all also the actual musicians) are all Americans. (Technically, Christopher Guest is English/American - English father and American mother, dual citizenship, and a title of nobility, Baron Haden-Guest.)

The band of three went through many names and incarnations prior to Spinal Tap including (in approximate order) The Originals, the New Originals, the Thamesmen, the Rave Breakers, Hellcats, Flamin’ Daemons, Shiners, Mondos, the Doppel Gang, the Peoples, Loose Lips, Waffles, Hot Waffles, Love Bisquits, Bisquits, Silver Service, the Mud Below and the Tufnel-St. Hubbins Group, Anthem and the Cadburys.

The film's soundtrack album was also well received in its own right and the fictional band has taken to the road for real for several concert tours.

Guest, McKean, and Shearer toured in the U.S. in 2009[2] and performed as Spinal Tap in a "One Night Only World Tour" on 30 June 2009 at Wembley Arena in London.

The three performers have also played concerts and been on film as another fictitious band - the folk trio The Folksmen. This second fictitious group is an American folk music trio created in 1984 for a TV comedy sketch. The Folksmen had occasional appearances over the years that followed and then emerged again in the mockumentary film A Mighty Wind in 2003.

Spinal Tap and The Folksmen have even appeared on the same bills performing or in close time proximity.

Spinal Tap's official spelling is "Spın̈al Tap", with a "heavy metal umlaut" over the letter n and a dotless letter i.

Wikipedia Information on the Current Band Members

• David St. Hubbins (portrayed by Michael McKean) – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar (1964–present)
• Nigel Tufnel (portrayed by Christopher Guest) – lead guitar, backing & lead vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin, violin, violin bow, harmonica, keyboards, piano (1964–1982, 1982–present)
• Derek Smalls (portrayed by Harry Shearer) – bass guitar, backing & lead vocals, acoustic bass guitar (1967–present)
• "Caucasian" Jeffery Vanston (portrayed by C. J. Vanston) – keyboards, backing vocals
• Gregg Bissonette (as himself) – drums, percussion

Return of Spinal Tap

 
Spinal Tap Intravenus De Milo Girls T-Shirt