Blog Archives - The Coachmen's Clubhouse

The Coachmen's Clubhouse

The flipSide 01/30/2023

1/30/2023

The Seekers

The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop quartet, originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were especially popular during the 1960s with their best-known configuration of Judith Durham on vocals, piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals; Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.

In 1995, the Seekers were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. "I'll Never Find Another You" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry in 2011. Woodley's and Dobe Newton's song "I Am Australian", which was recorded by the Seekers as well as Durham with Russell Hitchcock and Mandawuy Yunupingu, has become an unofficial Australian anthem. With "I'll Never Find Another You" and "Georgy Girl", the group also achieved success in the United States, but not nearly at the same level as in the rest of the world. The Seekers have sold over 50 million records worldwide.

The Seekers were individually honoured as Officers of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 2014.[3]

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Harv

The flipSide 01/23/2023

1/23/2023

Mama Cass Elliot

Naomi Cohen (September 19, 1941 – July 29, 1974), known professionally as Mama Cass and later on as Cass Elliot, was an American singer and voice actress. She was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, Elliot released five solo albums. In 1998, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her work with the Mamas & the Papas.[2]

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Harv

The flipSide 01/16/2023

1/16/2023

Billy Joel

William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his signature song of the same name,[5][6] he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since the 1970s, having released 12 pop and rock studio albums from 1971 to 1993 as well as one studio album of classical compositions in 2001. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time,[7] as well as the seventh-best-selling recording artist and the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States,[8] with over 160 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2, is one of the best-selling albums in the United States.[9]

Across the 20 years of his solo career, Joel produced 33 self-penned Top 40 hits in the U.S.,[11] three of which ("It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", "Tell Her About It", and "We Didn't Start the Fire") reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Joel has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards, winning 6 of them, including Album of the Year for 52nd Street. Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999),[12] and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006). In 2001, Joel received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[13] In 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors for influencing American culture through the arts. Since the advent of his solo career, Joel has had a successful touring career, holding live performances across the globe. In 1987, he became one of the first artists to hold a rock tour in the Soviet Union following the country's alleviation of the ban on rock music. Despite largely retiring from writing and releasing pop music following the release of River of Dreams, he continues to tour; he frequently performs at Madison Square Garden.

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Harv

The flipSide 01/09/2023

1/9/2023

Louis Armstrong (Satchmo)

Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops",[2] was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz.[3] He received numerous accolades including the Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance for Hello, Dolly! in 1965, as well as a posthumous win for the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972, and the induction into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2017.[4]

His best known songs include "What a Wonderful World", "La Vie en Rose", "Hello, Dolly!", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "When You're Smiling" and "When the Saints Go Marching In". He collaborated with Ella Fitzgerald producing three records together Ella and Louis (1956), Ella and Louis Again (1957), and Porgy and Bess (1959). He also appeared in films such as A Rhapsody in Black and Blue (1932), Cabin in the Sky (1943), High Society (1956), Paris Blues (1961), A Man Called Adam (1966), and Hello, Dolly! (1969).

With his instantly recognizable rich, gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer and skillful improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song. He was also skilled at scat singing. By the end of Armstrong's life, his influence had spread to popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first popular African-American entertainers to "cross over" to wide popularity with white (and international) audiences. He rarely publicly politicized his race, to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. He was able to access the upper echelons of American society at a time when this was difficult for black men.

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Harv

The flipSide 01/02/2023

1/2/2023

Pete Fountain

Pierre Dewey LaFontaine Jr. (July 3, 1930 – August 6, 2016), known professionally as Pete Fountain, was an American jazz clarinetist.[2][3]

Fountain's clarinet work was noted for his sweet fluid tone. He recorded over 100 LPs and CDs under his own name, some in the Dixieland style, many others essentially instrumental pop records with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz. Nonetheless, in 1997 critic Doug Ramsey of Jazz Times magazine included Fountain on a list of underrated musicians, writing: "His ear for harmony and mastery of time are among the best-kept secrets in jazz because all these years he has chosen to stick with the repertoire and sidemen that make him comfortable."[10]

The distinctive Fountain sound — more woody than most — came from the crystal mouthpieces he played with since 1949 rather than the more common rubber mouthpieces. His first crystal mouthpiece was actually Irving Fazola's, given to Pete by Fazola's mother after Faz's death, because she had heard him play and noted how he played like her son. That mouthpiece was shattered on the bandstand one night when Pete had played his solo and was standing by as trumpeter George Girard played his [own solo], and Girard brought his trumpet down suddenly on top of the mouthpiece. Pete kept the shattered mouthpiece, and played other crystal mouthpieces from then on.[11]

Fountain led the Pete Fountain Quintett, a New Orleans French Quarter jazz band of Fountain and his Creole-style music. The "Quintett" had many musicians over the years, but primarily recorded with Jack Sperling on drums, bassists Don Bagley or Morty Corb, vibraphonist Godfrey Hirch, and pianists Merle Kock or Stan Wrightsman.

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Harv