
Music Bank
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Dory Previn
Dory Previn was a successful lyricist for motion picture theme songs during the 1960s and early ’70s, earning three Academy Award nominations for best song; in the mid-’70s and early ’80s, she published books of memoirs and wrote and performed in musical theater works. But she remains best known for the six albums of original songs and one live album she released in a confessional singer/songwriter style between 1970 and 1976…
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Triptides
Influenced by the sunny jangle of the Byrds, the warm psychedelia of Pink Floyd, and the bouncy melodies of the Beatles, Triptides never sound in thrall to their heroes. Instead, their music sounds like a modern, kaleidoscopic continuation of the magical sounds of the late ’60s, spiced with a little bit of the Paisley Underground and dipped in modern, reverb-heavy production techniques…
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Badly Drawn Boy
As Badly Drawn Boy, Damon Gough puts a fresh spin on the traditions of Nick Drake, Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, and other classic singer/songwriters. When he emerged in the late ’90s, his intricate, lilting melodies, quirky but heartfelt lyrics, and offbeat production touches fit in with the experimental pop fringe of artists like Scott 4 and the Beta Band, but Gough soon defined himself as a remarkable talent with 2000’s The Hour of Bewilderbeast, his Mercury Prize-winning debut album.
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Kirsty MacColl
Born October 10, 1959, to British folk singer Ewan MacColl and dancer Jean Newlove, Kirsty Anna MacColl grew up in Croydon with her mother. Whereas her father was a noted folk purist, Kirsty was voracious in her musical tastes, embracing pop, rock, punk, country, and everything in between. Her entry into the local music scene came as the vocalist (under the pseudonym Mandy Doubt) for punk outfit the Drug Addix. The band went nowhere, but Stiff Records heard potential in their 18-year-old singer and signed MacColl to a solo deal…
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Kathe Green
Kathe Jennifer Green (born September 22, 1944) is an American actress, model and singer. She is the daughter of composer and conductor Johnny Green and Bunny Waters. She has a younger sister, Kim Meglio. Born in Los Angeles she traveled for several years in the mid-to-late 1960s with the nonprofit encouragement singing group Up With People, a small singing group that included Glenn Close…
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Doll by Doll
The London-based Doll by Doll was the showcase of singer/songwriter Jackie Leven, a Scottish-born performer who had previously gigged under the name John St. Field. With the dawn of the new wave, however, in 1977 Leven formed Doll by Doll, recruiting guitarist Jo Shaw, bassist Robin Spreafico and drummer David McIntosh and debuting two years later with the LP Remember, a collection informed as much by R&B and Celtic influence as by post-punk attitude…
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Richard Dawson
A Northumbrian singer/songwriter with a flair for shambolic psych-folk and exploratory rock, Richard Dawson became a fixture in the underground folk scene with his distinctive blend of traditional English folk music, Sacred Harp-kissed North Country blues, jazzy psych-folk, and progressive rock. He flirted with mainstream success on the acclaimed outings Nothing Important (2014) and Peasant (2017)…
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Lilys
An ever-morphing vehicle for songwriter and sole consistent member Kurt Heasley, Lilys have swung wildly between genre and sound in different phases of their career. Moving rapidly through bandmembers, home bases, and musical fixations, Heasley took the Lilys through adventurously overdriven shoegaze on their 1992 debut In the Presence of Nothing before taking a sharp turn toward Kinks-indebted mod pop on 1996’s Better Can’t Make Your Life Better…
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Good Morning
Keeping the spirit of lo-fi experimental bedroom pop of the 1990s alive, Australian duo Good Morning show the influence of pioneers like Smog and Sebadoh and add in the closer-to-home indie pop sounds of Flying Nun to sweeten the deal. Their early singles shifted from scruffy noise pop to more sophisticated ballads, but by the time of 2018’s Prize // Reward, they had settled into a homecooked, barely together approach. The two records the band issued in 2019 showed off Good Morning’s sparkling indie rock bona fides…
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Mary Wells
Time and legions of other soul superstars have obscured the fact that for a brief moment, Mary Wells was Motown’s biggest star. She came to the attention of Berry Gordy as a 17-year-old, hawking a song she’d written for Jackie Wilson; that song, “Bye Bye Baby,” became her first Motown hit in 1961. The full-throated approach of that single was quickly toned down in favor of a pop-soul sound. Few other soul singers managed to be as shy and sexy at the same time as Wells…
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