Music Bank
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Justin Currie
Singer/songwriter Justin Currie was born in Scotland on December 11, 1964. As the bassist/vocalist/chief songwriter for Scottish folk-pop outfit Del Amitri, the Glasgow native released six full-length records between 1982 and 2002 before embarking on a solo career. Currie’s proven gift for infectious melodies paired with wry, earnest, and occasionally barbed lyrics carried over to his solo work as well…
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Robert Forster
Although commonly considered the darker, artier half of the creative force of the Go-Betweens — the Lennon to Grant McLennan’s McCartney, as it were — singer, songwriter, and guitarist Robert Forster has a knack for crafty pop songs along with the brooding ballads he contributed to the Go-Betweens’ albums, while his solo career — that began with 1990’s Danger in the Past — blended a healthy mix of both styles…
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Etta James
Few female R&B stars enjoyed the kind of consistent acclaim Etta James received throughout a career that spanned six decades; the celebrated producer Jerry Wexler once called her “the greatest of all modern blues singers,” and she recorded a number of enduring hits, including “At Last,” “Tell Mama,” “I’d Rather Go Blind,” and “All I Could Do Was Cry.” At the same time, despite possessing one of the most powerful voices in music, James only belatedly gained the attention of the mainstream audience, appearing rarely on the pop charts despite scoring 30 R&B hits…
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Ben Folds Five
Led by the pop-minded prowess of their namesake frontman, Ben Folds Five dispelled any misgivings about a band’s ability to rock without guitars. Calling themselves “punk rock for sissies,” the Chapel Hill natives were often grouped with the nerd rock movement of the mid-’90s, although their debt to jazz music — not to mention Ben Folds’ acerbic spin on the classic pianist/songwriter tradition — ensured the trio a long-lasting legacy after their split in October 2000…
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The Triffids
Australian folk-pop band the Triffids was formed in Perth in 1980 by singer/songwriter David McComb, his guitarist/violinist brother Robert, and drummer Alsy MacDonald. Although chiefly influenced by the Velvet Underground, McComb’s songs also drew heavily on the stark desolation of his rural upbringing, incorporating elements of country and blues to paint haunting portraits of isolation and longing…
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Jesse Belvin
While not nearly as well remembered by the general public as either Sam Cooke or Otis Redding, singer Jesse Belvin was in many regards a performer of equal stature whose career was also cut far too short by tragedy. At the time of his death, Belvin was moving in the much the same direction as Cooke (he was even on the same record label, although signed earlier), and was scoring and writing hits long before Redding ever cut a record…
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Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers emerged at the dawn of the 1990s as a fiery rebuke of the placid state of British indie rock, a scene that grew to favor the swirling solipsism of shoegaze and the neo-psychedelia of acid house. Inspired by the provocative punk of the Clash and the heavy glam of Guns N’ Roses, the Manics wedded leftist politics with arena-filling guitar riffs, a combination that made them irresistible to the British rock press of the ’90s…
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Young Jessie
The Los Angeles R&B vocal group scene of the 1950s was a fairly incestuous one — members flitted from one aggregation to the next, often sporting several connections at the time. Young Jessie was a member of the Flairs, Hunters, and Coasters, as well as scoring a solo West Coast hit with his 1955 rocker Mary Lou. Obediah Jessie was a Los Angeles high-school classmate of Richard “Louie Louie” Berry. The two put together the Flairs and debuted on the Bihari Brothers’ Flair label in 1953 with She Wants to Rock…
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Chris Difford
After the break-up of Squeeze in 1983, Chris Difford continued writing songs for artists such as Jools Holland, Helen Shapiro, Elvis Costello. He has also written lyrics for music by Jools Holland, Elton John, Wet Wet Wet and others. He launched a solo career in 2003 with his album ‘I Didn’t Get Where I Am’…
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Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream, becoming an enduring pop culture icon and conquering the world in the process. Swift shed her country roots like they were a second skin, revealing that she was perhaps the savviest populist singer/songwriter of her generation…
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