mick laBriola

Earl Silas Johnson IV (February 7, 1934 – April 17, 2003), known as Earl King, was an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter, most active in blues music. A composer of blues standards such as “Come On” (covered by Jimi Hendrix, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and “Big Chief” (recorded by Professor Longhair), he was an important figure in New Orleans R&B.

King was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. His father was a piano player. He died when Earl was still a baby, and Earl was brought up by his mother. With his mother, he started going to church at an early age. In his youth he sang gospel music, but he took the advice of a friend to switch to blues to make a better living.

King started to play the guitar at the age of 15. Soon he started entering talent contests at local clubs, including the Dew Drop Inn. At one such club he met his idol, Guitar Slim. King started imitating Slim, and his presence had a big impact on his musical direction. In 1954, Slim was injured in an automobile accident (right around the time he had the number 1 R&B hit “The Things That I Used To Do”), and King was deputized to continue a tour with Slim’s band, representing himself as Slim. After succeeding in this role, King became a regular at the Dew Drop Inn.

Curtis Ousley (born Curtis Montgomery; February 7, 1934 – August 13, 1971), known professionally as King Curtis, was an American saxophonist who played rhythm and blues, jazz, and rock and roll. A bandleader, band member, and session musician, he was also a musical director and record producer. A master of the instrument, he played tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone.^[2] He played riffs and solos on hit singles such as “Respect” by Aretha Franklin (1965), and “Yakety Yak” by The Coasters (1958) and his own “Soul Serenade” (1964) and “Memphis Soul Stew” (1967).

Curtis Montgomery was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Ethel Montgomery, and was adopted, with his sister Josephine Allen (died 2019), by Josie and William Ousley. Curtis attended I.M. Terrell High School, and studied and performed music with schoolmate Ornette Coleman (1930–2015).

Milton Holland (born Milton Olshansky; February 7, 1917 – November 4, 2005) was an American drummer, percussionist, ethnomusicologist, and writer in the Los Angeles music scene. He pioneered the use of African, South American, and Indian percussion styles in jazz, pop and film music, traveling extensively in those regions to collect instruments and learn styles of playing them.

Holland was born Milton Olshansky in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. His first instrument was the violin. He pursued a passion for percussion, playing in clubs and shows and on CBS Radio in Chicago. By the age of twelve, he was playing at speakeasies for the likes of Al Capone.

James Hubert “Eubie” Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was an American pianist, lyricist, and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popularmusic. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake’s compositions included such hits as “Bandana Days”, “Charleston Rag”, “Love Will Find a Way”, “Memories of You” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry“. The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works.

Eubie Blake was born February 7, 1887, at 319 Forrest Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the many children born to former slaves, Emily “Emma” Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive childhood. John Sumner Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks.

Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003—U.S. Census, military, and Social Security records and Blake’s passport application and passport—uniformly give his birth year as 1887.

Natalie Maria Cole (February 6, 1950 – December 31, 2015 LA, CA) was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was a daughter of American singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole. She rose to success in the mid-1970s as an R&B singer with the hits “This Will Be“, “Inseparable” (1975), and “Our Love” (1977). She returned as a pop singer on the 1987 album Everlasting and her cover of Bruce Springsteen‘s “Pink Cadillac“. In the 1990s, she sang traditional pop by her father, resulting in her biggest success, Unforgettable… with Love, which sold over seven million copies and won her seven Grammy Awards. She sold over 30 million. Cole canceled several events in December 2015 due to illness; her last musical performance was a short set of three songs in Manila. She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 2015, at the age of 65. Cole’s publicist said the singer’s death was the result of congestive heart failure, which her family said was a complication of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, which she had been diagnosed with after her kidney transplant in 2009records worldwide.

Calvin Keys (born February 6, 1943) is an American jazz guitarist, known for the several albums he released for Black Jazz Records.

Keys has performed and recorded with Ray Charles, Ahmad Jamal, John Handy, Bobby Hutcherson, Eddie Marshall, Sonny Stitt, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Henderson and Leon Williams.

John Pisano (born February 6, 1931) is a jazz guitarist born in Staten Island, New York.

Pisano has worked with Herb Alpert, Billy Bean, Chico Hamilton, Peggy Lee, and Joe Pass.

Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt, February 5, 1944 Brooklyn, NY) is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears, although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, playing organ on the Bob Dylan song “Like a Rolling Stone“, French horn and piano on the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“, and lead guitar on Rita Coolidge‘s “The Lady’s Not for Sale“, among many other appearances. Kooper also produced a number of one-off collaboration albums, such as the Super Session album that saw him work separately with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. In the 1970s Kooper was a successful manager and producer, notably recording Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s first three albums. He has also had a successful solo career, written music for film soundtracks, and has lectured in musical composition. He is currently retired.

illiam Allen Mays (born February 5, 1944), known professionally as Bill Mays, is an American jazz pianist from Sacramento, California.

He came from a musical family and at the age of 15 became interested in jazz at an Earl Hines concert.

From 1969 to the early 1980s Mays worked as a studio session musician in Los Angeles. He has been an accompanist to singers Al Jarreau, Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Dionne Warwick, and also worked with artists such as Don Ellis, Mel Lewis, Barry Manilow, Shelly Manne, Bob Mintzer, Red Mitchell, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Bobby Shew, Sonny Stitt, Paul Winter, Phil Woods and Frank Zappa. In 1984, he moved to New York City and began to do more work as a bandleader, composer, and arranger. He has recorded over two dozen albums under his own name, and has been heard on hundreds more by others.

Richard Quentin Laird (5 February 1941 – 4 July 2021) was an Irish musician, photographer, teacher, and author best known as the bassist and founding member of the jazz fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra, with which he performed from 1971 to 1973.

Laird was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 5 February 1941, to a musical family. His mother played the piano in a variety of styles and his father played the ukulele; Laird started playing both instruments when he was three. At around five years of age, Laird started formal tuition in the guitar and piano, and he had already started to read sheet music. He soon quit the piano as he did not perform well, which led him to take up painting and drawing. At twelve, Laird began lessons in Spanish guitar, but his teacher used books that he felt were too difficult, so he quit. He then discovered jazz from his mother, who bought her son a pair of drum brushes and made him play along to records.