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Jack Bruce: Master Class Act
8th March | 1 comments | 1 person likes this
In the early 1960s, Jack Bruce could only stand at the bottom of the stairs at Ronnie Scott’s and listen. He was an outsider; scuffling on the lunatic fringe of the London jazz scene, he could neither afford the admission – nor did he fit in artistically. He was in good company; the likes of saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Ginger Baker occupied the same twilight zone. Unlike their mainstream...
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Ginger Baker: born under a bad sign
13th October 2009 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
As Ginger explains in the introduction, the story of his autobiography ‘Hellraiser’, is just as fraught as the life it describes. For years now, he has been approached by procession of would-be biographers who then proceed to write utter drivel and are quickly fired – including one who cost Ginger a shed load of cash when Ginger blocked the book and was sued by the publisher. What he fails to...
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George Russell: 1923-2009. Miles Ahead
3rd August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
Jazz pioneer George Russell, began his musical career singing in a black Methodist Church and playing drums in the Boy Scouts before earning a scholarship to Wilberforce University and playing in a band that had boasted Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Benny Carter. Hospitalised with TB just as war broke out, Russell was taught the fundamentals of music theory by another patient – a chance encounter that would change the...
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Jimi Hendrix: death of a rock star
29th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
No rock star death is ever easily explained – there always has to be dark and mysterious forces at work – the Mafia, the CIA, aliens from the planet Zog. The current speculation over the death of Michael Jackson is a case in point. Suspects are being interviewed, accusations litter the tabloid press. We await the inquest – but it seems reasonable to speculate that while the pills probably did...
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The sands of time
20th July 2009 | 2 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
The hippest band on the world music stage at the moment is Tinariwen. From the vastness of Mali, comes a music dubbed ‘desert blues’ all at once haunting, lyrical and remote. The band are Tuareg nomads, mountain people, who for decades were fighting for their rights as a persecuted minority in the face of oppression from the Mali government. Tinariwen was founded among the rootless and dispossessed Tuareg youth who...
CONTRIBUTOR
Harry Shapiro
Harry Shapiro is a music journalist and writer whose biography of Jimi Hendrix was shortlisted for the Ralph J Gleason music writers award. He has also worked for thirty years in the drugs field as a writer, editor, broadcaster and lecturer and his books include 'Waiting for the Man; the story of drugs and popular music' and 'Shooting Stars; drugs, Hollywood and the movies'. He is currently Director of Communications for the leading UK drugs charity DrugScope and his authorised biography of Jack Bruce is published in November
