mick laBriola

Neville Eugenton Staple (born 11 April 1955) is a Jamaican-born English singer, known for his work with the 2 Tone ska band the Specials, as well as with his own group the Neville Staple Band. He also performed with Ranking Roger in the supergroup Special Beat.

Staple was born in Manchester, Jamaica. He left Jamaica to live in the English town of Rugby, Warwickshire at the age of five but later moved to Coventry. Neville was a regular fixture at the Locarno Ballroom in Coventry, where he met the resident DJ there, Pete Waterman. Waterman briefly managed the Specials and would later write the foreword to Staple’s 2009 biography, Original Rude Boy.^[3]

Staple’s early vocal style was mostly “toasting“—or chanting over a rhythm—a forerunner of rapping brought to Britain in the 1960s by musicians from Jamaica. Staple honed his toasting skills in the sound system scene in Coventry during the 1970s, first on his cousin’s “Messenger Sound” and later his own system called “Jah Baddis”.

Luther Johnson (born April 11, 1939, Itta Bena, Mississippi) is a Chicago blues singer and guitarist, who performs under the name Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson. He is not to be confused with Luther “Georgia Boy” Johnson, Luther “Houserocker” Johnson, or Lonnie “Guitar Junior” Brooks.

Johnson moved to Chicago with his family in 1955. During the 1960s, he performed with Magic Sam. He performed in Muddy Waters‘ band from 1972 to 1980. In 1980, four of his songs were included in an anthology released by Alligator Records. That same year he appeared as a member of the Legendary Blues Band, backing John Lee Hooker in the movie The Blues Brothers.

Johnson moved to the East Coast and began fronting his own band, the Magic Rockers. His “Walkin’ the Dog” was recorded live at the Montreux Festival‘s Blues Night. He won a Grammy Award in 1985 for Best Traditional Blues Album for his part in Blues Explosion. He recorded three albums released by Telarc Records: Slammin’ on the West Side (1996), Got to Find a Way (1998), and Talkin’ About Soul (2001). He also performed on three albums by the Nighthawks.

He lived in Antrim, New Hampshire for many years but moved to Florida in 2017.

John Levy (April 11, 1912 – January 20, 2012) was an American jazz double-bassist and businessman.

Levy was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1944, he left his family home in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to New York City where he played bass for such jazz musicians as Ben Webster, Erroll Garner, Milt Jackson, and Billie Holiday. In 1949, he became the bassist in the original George ShearingQuintet, where he also acted as Shearing’s road manager. In 1951, Levy opened John Levy Enterprises, Inc., becoming the first African-American personal manager in the pop or jazz music field. By the 1960s, Levy’s client roster included Shearing, Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderley, Joe Williams, Shirley Horn, Soul singer Jimmie Raye, and Ramsey Lewis.

In 1997, Levy was inducted into the International Jazz Hall of Fame, and in 2006 he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

He died on January 20, 2012, aged 99, in Altadena, California

Omar Sosa (born April 10, 1965) is a jazz pianist from Cuba.

A native of Camagüey, Cuba, Sosa studied percussion at the Escuela Nacional de Musica and Instituto Superior de Arte. In the 1980s he started the band Tributo, recording albums and touring with the band. He worked with Cuban vocalist Xiomara Laugart and several Latin jazz bands. In the 1990s he moved from Cuba to Quito, Ecuador; to Palma de Mallorca, Spain; to the San Francisco Bay area, in California, United States; and finally settled in Barcelona, Spain.

While in California, Sosa released his first few albums under his own name. He had received Grammy Award nominations for four of his albums, three in the Latin Jazz category, as of 2020. In January 2011, Sosa and the NDR Bigband[de] (North German Radio Bigband) won the 10th Independent Music Awards (IMAs) in the Jazz Album category for Ceremony. He has also collaborated with Paolo Fresu, Seckou Keita, Adam Rudolph, and many other musicians.

Sosa has released most of his recordings on his own Otá label.

Neville O’Riley Livingston OM OJ (10 April 1947 – 2 March 2021), known professionally as Bunny Wailer, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and percussionist. He was an original member of reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. A three-time Grammy Award winner, he is considered one of the longtime standard-bearers of reggae music. He was also known as Jah B, Bunny O’Riley, and Bunny Livingston.

Wailer was born Neville O’Riley Livingston on 10 April 1947 in Kingston. He spent his earliest years in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish. It was there that he first met Bob Marley, and the two young boys befriended each other quickly. The boys both came from single-parent families; Livingston was brought up by his father, Marley by his mother. Later, Wailer’s father Thaddeus “Thaddy Shut” Livingston lived with Marley’s mother Cedella Booker in Trenchtown and had a daughter with her named Pearl Livingston. Peter Tosh had a son, Andrew Tosh, with Wailer’s sister Shirley, making Andrew his nephew.

Ma’soumeh Dadehbala (Persian: معصومه دده‌بالا; April 10, 1942 – January 20, 1990), known by her stage name Hayedeh (Persian: هایده), was a Persian classical and pop music vocalist with a contralto vocal range. She was well known for her wide range of voice. She was active for more than two decades, and remains one of the most popular singers of Iran.

Ma’soumeh Dadehbala was born on 10 April 1942 in Tehran. She was the elder sister of another popular singer Mahasti.

Her professional career began in 1968 as a singer on a Persian traditional music program in Radio Tehran called “Golhâye Rangârang” (Persian: گلهای رنگارنگ “Colorful Flowers”) directed by Davoud Pirnia.

Claude Bolling (10 April 1930 – 29 December 2020) was a French jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and occasional actor.

He was born in Cannes, France, and studied at the Nice Conservatory, and then in Paris. A child prodigy, by the age of 14 he was playing jazz piano professionally, with Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, and Kenny Clarke. Bolling’s books on jazz technique show that he did not delve far beyond bebop into much avant-garde jazz. He was a major part of the traditional jazz revival in the late 1960s, and he became friends with Oscar Peterson.

Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998 Tiponville, TN) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who recorded at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Amongst his best-known songs are “Blue Suede Shoes“, “Matchbox” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby“.

According to Charlie Daniels, “Carl Perkins’ songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins’ sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed.” Perkins’s songs were recorded by artists (and friends) as influential as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton which further established his place in the history of popular music. Paul McCartney said “if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.”

Called “the King of Rockabilly”, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Reuben Wilson (born April 9, 1935) is a jazz organist. He performs soul jazz and acid jazz, and is best known for his title track “Got to Get Your Own”.

He was born in Mounds, Oklahoma and his family moved to Pasadena when he was 5. He played in Los Angeles with drummer Al Bartee, then moved to New York to begin a recording career. In addition to playing with jazz musicians Melvin Sparks and Willis Jackson, Wilson led the local band Wildare Express. He remains an active musician, and still resides in New York City.

Mance Lipscomb (April 9, 1895 – January 30, 1976) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. He was born Beau De Glen Lipscomb near Navasota, Texas. As a youth he took the name Mance (short for emancipation) from a friend of his oldest brother, Charlie.

Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895. His father had been born into slavery in Alabama; his mother was half African American and half Native American. His father left home when he was a child, so he had to leave school after the third grade to work in the fields alongside his mother. For most of his life, Lipscomb supported himself as a tenant farmer in Texas. His mother bought him a guitar and he taught himself to play by watching and listening. He became an accomplished performer the and played regularly for years at local gatherings, mostly what he called “Saturday night suppers” hosted by someone in the area. He and his wife regularly hosted such gatherings for a while. Until around 1960, most of his musical activity took place within what he called his “precinct”, the area around Navasota, Texas.

He was discovered and recorded by Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz in 1960, during a revival of interest in the country blues. He recorded many albums of blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, and folk music (most of them released by Strachwitz’s Arhoolie Records), singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Lipscomb had a “dead-thumb” finger-picking guitar technique and an expressive voice. He honed his skills by playing in nearby Brenham, Texas, with a blind musician, Sam Rogers.