mick laBriola

Tony Oladipo Allen (20 July 1940 – 30 April 2020) was a Nigerian drummer, composer, and songwriter who lived and worked in Paris, France. Allen was the drummer and musical director of Fela Kuti‘s band Africa ’70 from 1968 to 1979, and was one of the founders of the Afrobeat genre. Fela once stated that “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat”. He was described by Brian Eno as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived”.

Later in life, Allen collaborated with Damon Albarn on several projects, including Gorillaz, the Good, the Bad & the Queen and Rocket Juice & the Moon. Allen’s career and life were documented in his 2013 autobiography Tony Allen: Master Drummer of Afrobeat, co-written with Michael E. Veal, who previously wrote a comprehensive biography of Fela Kuti.

Allen was born in Lagos, Nigeria to James Alabi Allen, a motor mechanic from British Nigeria (now present day Nigeria) and Prudentia Mettle, from the Gold Coast (now present day Ghana), He began playing drums at the age of 18, while working as an engineer for a radio station. Allen was influenced by music his father listened to: Jùjú, a popular Yoruba music from the 1940s, but also American jazz, and the growing highlife scene in Nigeria and Ghana. Allen worked hard to develop a unique voice on the drums, feverishly studying LPs and magazine articles by Max Roach and Art Blakey, but also revolutionary Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren (later known as Kofi Ghanaba – who developed a highly sought-after sound that mixed tribal Ghanaian drumming with bop – working with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach).

Charles Lacy Tyler (July 20, 1941 – June 27, 1992) was an American jazz saxophonist. He focused on baritone & alto saxophone and also played clarinet.

Tyler was born in Cadiz, Kentucky, United States, and spent his childhood years in Indianapolis. He played piano as a child and clarinet at the age of seven, before switching to alto saxophone in his early teens, and finally baritone saxophone. During the summers, he visited Chicago, Illinois, New York City and Cleveland, Ohio, where he met the young tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler at age 14. After serving in the army from 1957–1959, Tyler relocated to Cleveland in 1960 and began playing with Ayler, commuting between New York and Cleveland. During that period played with Ornette Coleman and Sunny Murray.

Ernest Brooks Wilkins Jr. (July 20, 1922 – June 5, 1999) was an American jazz saxophonist, conductor and arranger who spent several years with Count Basie. He also wrote for Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Dizzy Gillespie. He was musical director for albums by Cannonball Adderley, Dinah Washington, Oscar Peterson, and Buddy Rich. Wilkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In his early career he played in a military band, before joining Earl Hines‘s last big band. He worked with Count Basie from 1951 to 1955, eventually leaving to work free-lance as a jazz arranger and songwriter. His success declined in the 1960s, but revived after work with Clark Terry, leading to a tour of Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOReFTgwMjs

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were an American rock band founded in 1967. The group’s leader and co-founder was pianist and vocalist George Frayne IV, alias Commander Cody (born July 19, 1944 in Boise, Idaho, died September 26, 2021 in Saratoga Springs, New York).

The band became known for marathon live shows. Alongside Frayne, the classic lineup was Billy C. Farlow (b. Decatur, Alabama) on vocals and harmonica; John Tichy (b. St. Louis, Missouri) on guitar and vocals; Bill Kirchen (Kirchen was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, June 29, 1948 but grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan) on lead guitar; Andy Stein (b. August 31, 1948 in New York City) on saxophone and fiddle; “Buffalo” Bruce Barlow (b. December 3, 1948 in Oxnard, California) on bass guitar; Lance Dickerson (b. October 15, 1948 in Livonia, Michigan, died November 10, 2003, in Fairfax, California) on drums; and Steve “The West Virginia Creeper” Davis (b. July 18, 1946 in Charleston, West Virginia), followed by Bobby Black, on pedal steel guitar.

Carmell Jones (July 19, 1936 – November 7, 1996) was an American jazz trumpet player.

Jones was born in Kansas City, Kansas, United States. He started piano lessons at age five, and trumpet lessons at age seven. His first professional work was with Kansas City musicians Nathan Davis, Cleanhead Vinson and Frank Smith. He moved to California in 1961, and worked as a studio musician for several years, including in the orchestras for two movie soundtracks, Seven Days In May and The Manchurian Candidate, the latter starring Frank Sinatra. He released two albums as a leader for Pacific Jazz at this time, while recording as a sideman with Bud Shank, Onzy Matthews, Curtis Amy, Harold Land, and Gerald Wilson. He toured with Horace Silver in 1964-65, and was on Silver’s seminal 1965 Blue Note album Song for My Father. In 1965, he moved to Germany where he lived for 15 years, working with Paul Kuhnand the SFB Big Band (Sender Freies Berlin) from 1968 to 1980. There he worked with musicians such as Milo Pavlovic, Herb Geller, Leo Wright, Rudi Wilfer and Eugen Cicero. Jones returned to the US in 1980, working as a teacher and appearing at local clubs in Kansas City. He released one additional album as a leader in 1982 entitled Carmell Jones Returns, on the Revelation label. Jones died of heart failure on November 7, 1996, in Kansas City at the age of 60.

Brian Albert Gordon Auger (born 18 July 1939) is an English jazz rock and rock music keyboardist who specialises in the Hammond organ.

Auger has worked with Rod Stewart, Tony Williams, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Eric Burdon. He incorporated jazz, early British pop, R&B, soul music, and rock into his sound. He has been nominated for a Grammy Award.

In 1965, Auger played on “For Your Love” by The Yardbirds as a session musician. That same year, Auger formed the group The Steampacket with Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll, Vic Briggs, and Rod Stewart. Due to contractual problems there were no official recordings made by the band; nevertheless, nine tracks were laid down for promotional use in late 1965 and released as an LP in 1970 in France on the BYG label. They were released on a CD by Repertoire Records in 1990 (licensed from Charly Records) as well as 12 live tracks from Live at the Birmingham Town Hall, February 2, 1964. Stewart left in early 1966 and soon thereafter the band broke up.

With Driscoll and the band Trinity, he went on to record a cover version of David Ackles‘ “Road to Cairo” and Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire“, which appeared on Dylan Covered. The latter track was a number 5 pop hit in the UK. In 1969 Auger, Driscoll, and Trinity performed in the United States on the NBC special 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee.

Lonnie McIntosh (July 18, 1941 – April 21, 2016 West Harrison, Indiana), known as Lonnie Mack, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was influential in the development of blues rock music and rock guitar soloing.

Mack emerged in 1963 with his breakthrough LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man. It earned him lasting renown as both a blue-eyed soul singer and a lead guitar innovator. The album’s instrumental tracks included two hit singles, “Memphis” and “Wham”. In them, Mack, using “top-quality technique” and “pristine” phrasing, added “edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast” melodies and runs to the predominant chords-and-riffs pattern of early rock guitar. These tracks raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency and helped launch the electric guitar to the top of soloing instruments in rock. They served as prototypes for the lead guitar styles of blues rock and Southern rock.

Shortly after the album’s release, however, the “British Invasion” hit American shores, and Mack’s recording career “withered on the vine”. He regularly toured small venues until 1968, when Rolling Stone magazine rediscovered him, and Elektra Records signed him to a three-album contract. He was soon performing in major venues, but his multi-genre Elektra albums downplayed his lead guitar and blues rock appeal and record sales were modest. Mack left Elektra in 1971. For the next fourteen years he was a low-profile multi-genre recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor.

In 1985, Mack resurfaced with a successful blues rock LP, Strike Like Lightning, a promotional tour featuring celebrity guitarist sit-ins, and a Carnegie Hall concert with Roy Buchanan and Albert Collins. In 1986, he went on “The Great American Guitar Assault Tour” with Buchanan and Dickey Betts. In 1990, he released another well-received blues rock album, Lonnie Mack Live! Attack of the Killer V, then retired from recording. He continued to perform, mostly in small venues, until 2004.

Jalacy J. “Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as “I Put a Spell on You“, he sometimes used macabreprops onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock. He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the 1989 indie film Mystery Train. Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. At the age of 18 months, Hawkins was put up for adoption and shortly thereafter was adopted and raised by Blackfoot Confederacy. Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his 20s.

Spencer Davis (born Spencer David Nelson Davies; 17 July 1939 – 19 October 2020) was a Welsh singer and musician. He founded the Spencer Davis Group, a band that had several hits in the 1960s including “Keep On Running“, “Gimme Some Lovin’“, and “I’m a Man“, all sung by Steve Winwood. Davis subsequently enjoyed success as an A&R executive with Island Records.