mick laBriola

Lowell Thomas George (April 13, 1945 – June 29, 1979) was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, who was the primary guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and founder/leader for the rock band Little Feat.

Lowell George was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Willard H. George, a furrier who raised chinchillas and supplied furs to the movie studios.

George led an overindulgent lifestyle of binge eating, alcoholism and speedballs (heroin and cocaine mixed together), and he became morbidly obese in the last years of his life, weighing 308 pounds (140 kg/22 stone). On June 15, 1979, George began a tour in support of his solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat it Here. On June 29, the morning after an appearance at Washington, D.C.’s Lisner Auditorium, where the bulk of Waiting for Columbus had been recorded in 1977, George collapsed and died of a heart attack in his Arlington, Virginia, hotel room at the Twin Bridges Marriott.

John William Casady (born April 13, 1944) is an American bass guitarist, best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. Jefferson Airplane became the first successful exponent of the San Francisco Sound. Singles including “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” charted in 1967 and 1968. Casady, along with the other members of Jefferson Airplane, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Casady was born in Washington D.C., the son of Mary Virginia (née Quimby) and William Robert Casady. His father was of half Irish Protestant and half Polish Jewish ancestry. His mother was a relative of aviator Harriet Quimby; some of her family had been in North America since the 1600s.

Lawrence “Bud” Freeman (April 13, 1906 – March 15, 1991) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing tenor saxophone, but also the clarinet.

In 1922, Freeman and some friends from high school formed the Austin High School Gang.Freeman played the C melody saxophone with band members such as Jimmy McPartland and Frank Teschemacher. before switching to tenor saxophone two years later. The band was influenced by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Louis Armstrong. While Armstrong was in King Oliver‘s Creole Jazz Band, Freeman attended performances at Lincoln Gardens with McPartland. They were nicknamed “Alligators”.

Friday April 12th 2024. 6:00 p.m. Erev Shabbat Service Celebrating the Rappaport Family, Recipients of the Gainsley Award, and Temple Israel’s Gold LEED Certification. Music with Inbal Sharett-Singer, Jayson Rodovsky, Jeff Bailey, Pete Whitman and mick laBriola.

James D. “Shakey Jake” Harris (April 12, 1921 – March 2, 1990) was an American Chicago blues singer, harmonicist and songwriter. He released five albums over a period of almost 25 years. He was often musically associated with his nephew Magic Sam.

James D. Harris was born in Earle, Arkansas, and relocated with his family to Chicago, Illinois, at the age of seven. He played in several Chicago blues ensembles in the late 1940s. He also worked as a mechanic and as a professional gambler (his nickname came from a dice players’ expression, “shake ’em”). His debut recording was the single “Call Me if You Need Me”, backed with “Roll Your Moneymaker”, released by Artistic Records in 1958, featuring Magic Sam and Syl Johnson on guitar and produced by Willie Dixon. Harris was not paid for the session, but he won $700 shooting craps with label owner Eli Toscano.

Theodore Roosevelt “Hound Dog” Taylor (April 12, 1915 – December 17, 1975) was an American Chicago blues guitarist and singer.

Taylor was born in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1915, though some sources say 1917. He first played the piano and began playing the guitar when he was 20. He moved to Chicago in 1942.

Taylor had a condition known as polydactylism, which resulted in him having six fingers on both hands. As is usual with the condition, the extra digits were rudimentary nubbins and could not be moved. One night, while drunk, he cut off the extra digit on his right hand using a straight razor.

He became a full-time musician around 1957, but remained unknown outside the Chicago area, where he played small clubs in black neighborhoods and at the open-air Maxwell Street Market. He was known for his electrified slide guitar playing (roughly styled after that of Elmore James), his cheap Japanese Teiscoguitars, and his raucous boogie beats. In 1967, Taylor toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival, performing with Little Walter and Koko Taylor. Taylor died of lung cancer in 1975. He was buried at Restvale Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois.

Neville Eugenton Staple (born 11 April 1955), sometimes credited as Neville Staples, is a Jamaican-born English singer, known for his work with the 2 Tone ska band the Specials, the pop group Fun Boy Three, 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.

Staple’s early vocal style was mostly “toasting“—or chanting over a rhythm—a forerunner of rappingbrought 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”.

Frank Vicari (April 11, 1931 – October 20, 2006) was a New York-based jazz saxophonist.After serving in the Air Force from 1951–55, where he played in various service bands, Vicari returned to New York City and played in various bands until he joined Maynard Ferguson’s big band in 1960. When the Ferguson band was dismantled in 1965, Vicari briefly joined Buddy Rich but that same year joined Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd and remained until 1970.He died in New York City at the age of 75.

John Lee Granderson (11 April 1913, Ellendale, Tennessee, – 22 August 1979, Chicago, Illinois, was a blues guitarist and singer.

Granderson’s style was established in west Tennessee blues before World War II. He learned to play the guitar when he was nine years old. Although not a professional musician, he played mostly in the Memphis area with Sleepy John Estes, Hammie Nixon, and others. He left his parents around 1927, making his way north to Chicago in 1928.

For many years he worked as a junkman, auto mechanic and custodian. He performed around Chicago frequently, sometimes with John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson in the 30’s and 40’s.  1940s-1960s: John Lee Granderson, Avery Brady and Arvella Gray all performed on Maxwell Street. He recorded for Testament in 1962 – 1966 by himself and as part of the Chicago String band (with Johnny Young, Big John Wrencher and Carl Martin). Additional recordings were made for Adelphi. Others that  Granderson played with were Robert Nighthawk, Big Joe Williams, and Daddy Stovepipe.  He was most active in the 1960s. Granderson sang and played guitar close to the style of the Memphis musicians of his youth . For the most part he ceased performing publicly in 1975, but he continued composing lyrics until his death. He suffered a stroke in February 1979 and he died that August of pancreatic cancer in Chicago, IL 1979, at the age of 66.