The electric bass, an instrument that first received considerable recognition with the introduction of the “Precision Bass” by American company Fender in 1951, has left its mark on the history of popular music. That instrument, approaching the scene only very tardily and sporadically with country and jazz bands of the post WWII years in basically […]
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Category: B. R. Music
The Monkees: Made in Hollywood by Tom Kemper (2023)
When it comes to music appreciation, originality, authenticity and the masterful use of instruments, traits and abilities associated with musicians, are usually important selection criteria for consumers, who choose by those aforementioned elements whether or not to buy the artist’s products. Usually, that is. In the case of the Los Angeles-based mid-1960s band The Monkees, […]
Through a Noir Lens: Adapting Film Noir Visual Style by Sheri Chinen Biesen (2024)
Film noir productions generally are associated with dark settings, either because action takes place at night or in unlit rooms, where street light creeps through Venetian blinds and struggles all the way to hit the protagonists on the set. Originally, such an outcome on the set in part was caused by filming conditions during wartime, […]
Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic … by Neil Fox (2024)
Today, we can identify a whole repertoire of music films, ranging from straightforward documentaries, concert films (mostly heavily edited), works directly connected to the music industry to promote sales and also the mockumentary, a parody of some of the aforementioned types of movies. But there are distinct features of the music film, depending on the […]
Extraordinary Records by Giorgio Moroder and Alessandro Benedetti (2024)
The fascination with music on vinyl has never really died, although in the 1980s and 1990s, seemingly the CD and variations of it would take over markets, and finally lead to the replacement of heavy LP shelves in apartments with much smaller and lighter CD shelves. Even though the mastering and audio quality of the […]
Out of the Blue: Life on the Road with Muddy Waters by Brian Bisesi (2024)
Brian Bisesi, an Italian-American guitar player from New Jersey who was part of the Muddy Waters Band from 1978 to 1980 in Out of the Blue shares a very vivid and often rough but real portrait of how life was when on tour with this blues master. Bisesi, today still a musician and a music […]
The Soundies: A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940s by Mark Cantor (2023)
The small-screen world of the short musical film, a form of media presentation usually associated with coin-operated cinematic machines of the 1940s and later decades, keeps fascinating historians, media researchers, music experts and sociologists. Even if nowadays media, video clips, music in all variations and formats, and modes of presentation are easily available on a […]
Anymore for Anymore: The Ronnie Lane Story by Caroline and David Stafford (2023)
Authors Catherine and David Stafford’s new title on one of Britain’s most important bass players, Ronnie Lane (1946-1997), successfully fills some information gaps rock music lovers may have encountered, concerning show biz and London’s music scene of the 1960s and 70s. Their Anymore for Anymore: The Ronnie Lane Story tells of his humble beginnings as […]
Funkiest Man Alive: Rufus Thomas and Memphis Soul by Matthew Ruddick (2023)
Memphis, Tennessee, will always stand out as a city important for popular American music. Here W.C. Handy was a work here, later music history was written by quite a few local musicians who excelled in blues, rock’n’roll, soul and funk. One of them was singer/songwriter and master entertainer Rufus Thomas (1917-2001) who now with this […]