Decade of Difference

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901 in a neighborhood so dangerous that it earned the nickname “the battlefield.” He dropped out of school in the fifth grade to work and earned enough to purchase his first cornet. At twelve, he was arrested and sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, where he stayed for eighteen months. He mastered the cornet there, becoming the leader of the Waif’s Home Brass Band. On his release, he set his sights on being a professional musician.

Joe “King” Oliver, the city’s top cornetist, mentored Armstrong and he was soon an in-demand musician playing in the city and on riverboats. In 1922, Oliver sent for Armstrong to join his band, and the two-cornet sound set King Oliver’s Creole Band apart.

After moving on to New York, Armstrong and His Hot Five and Hot Seven bands began to establish him as a name performer. Armstrong did his first European tour in 1932 and really from that point on never stopped public performances until his death in 1971.

In 1949, Louis Armstrong returned to New Orleans to reign as King Zulu in the Mardi Gras parade. He had during the previous week become the first African American to make the cover of TIME magazine and he told TIME’s reporter that, “There’s a thing I’ve dreamed of all my life and I’ll be damned if it don’t look like it’s about to come true—to be King of the Zulus’ parade. After that, I’ll be ready to die.”

Armstrong’s float reportedly broke down before the end of the parade, and when he abandoned it for a limo, it took the crowd about 10 minutes to strip for souvenirs.

Satchmo’s long career spanned more than 50 years and includes induction into the Grammy and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. With his winning personality, Armstrong reigned as an ambassador of jazz throughout his performing days. The many years on the road impacted his health, suffering a heart attack in 1959, then heart and kidney problems in the late ’60s. Despite doctor’s orders to stop playing, he continued to practice everyday and returned to public performances in 1970, before passing in ’71.

Combining B-movie zaniness with some powerful punk and surf rock licks, the B-52s broke out with 1979’s “Rock Lobster,” a quirky hit playing on the emerging mainstream interest in new wave music.

The band formed in 1976, allegedly after the new bandmates shared a flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant in Athens, Georgia. Named for the beehive hairstyles that keyboardist Kate Pierson and vocalist Cindy Wilson wore on stage, the band first played publicly in 1977.

“Rock Lobster” was their first release, winning fans and landing the band gigs at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. “Rock Lobster” traveled the world, gaining the band shows in Europe and reaching #1 in Canada.

The band saved most of their concert staples for release on their second album with the intention of carrying the success of “Rock Lobster” through at least two albums. It worked, with their second release Wild Planet generally regarded as their best album.

The B-52s had their most productive years in the early ’80s, playing at the inaugural US Festival alongside Talking Heads, Oingo Boingo, and The Police. In 1984, the band took a year off before returning to play in Brazil and work on a new album. In 1985, guitarist Ricky Wilson died from AIDS, an illness that had not previously been disclosed to most of his bandmates.

It was a devastating loss for the band and they chose not to tour with their new album, but the band recovered to release their first top 10 hit, the party anthem “Love Shack,” on 1989’s Cosmic Thing.

In 2008, the B-52s released their first new album in 16 years. Funplex became the bands second highest charting album. Still touring today, the band may have received its greatest honor two years ago when it was announced that they would be featured in a comic book: Archie Meets the B-52s.

The “quiet Beatle,” George Harrison embraced Indian music and exposed it to a large pop music audience through his compositions on Beatles albums and on his own solo work.

Harrison was born and raised in Liverpool, and while his father was apprehensive about his interest in music, his mother was fully supportive. She wanted her children to be happy and saw that it was music that made her youngest child happy.

Initially rejected by the Beatles as too young to be in the band, McCartney petitioned on his behalf and eventually he was accepted. It was a problem for the band, as they were deported from Germany when Harrison’s age was revealed as being too young to work in a nightclub.

Harrison had already released two solo albums of mainly instrumental material before the breakup of the Beatles. Harrison had a catalog of material built up by the time the Beatles ended. This turned into his 3-disc set All Things Must Pass. Widely considered his best record, it employed the Phil Spector-produced Wall of Sound, utilizing a large cast of all star artists.

Harrison followed All Things Must Pass by organizing and recording The Concert for Bangladesh, a charity event requested by Ravi Shankar. The two shows drew 40,000 and a hit 3-disc set topped the charts followed by a concert film. While mismanagement and squabbles tied up much of the revenue, the event was successful at raising awareness of the situation in Bangladesh.

Harrison delivered a series of albums through the ’70s, but largely withdrew after the murder of John Lennon. 1987 marked his return with the Jeff Lynne-produced Cloud Nine, which featured a number 1 single. Lynne and Harrison were joined by Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty in the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that formed in Dylan’s garage and recorded two albums.

In 1999 Harrison and his wife Olivia were attacked and injured in a home invasion. Two years later, he was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer that spread to his brain. Harrison died in 2001.

After spending a few years in northern California fronting his indie rock band Camper Van Beethoven, David Lowery moved to Richmond. With the move came a different band – one that left indie rock behind in favor of a roots rock sound. In 1991, Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman recorded demos in Richmond, then toured Virginia with a band they named Cracker.

Their first album also came in ’91 and featured a radio hit. “Teen Angst” went to number 1 on the Modern Rock charts. While the song appears to mock folk music, Lowery says it employs an old country music songwriting trick: the old “third verse switchero.”

“Where you realize the song is about something else,” says Lowery . “And that’s actually what I’m borrowing from with that song, cause I’m not giving it away until the third verse.”

Cracker’s second album Kerosene Hat was its biggest seller. By 1999, Lowery’s earlier band Camper Van Beethoven had reformed, and both bands would play the same show, and over time, the same band members would actually play as the two different bands.

They still tour that way today, and Cracker has now released nine albums. David Lowery has also been instrumental in the successful execution of a $43 million class action lawsuit against Spotify, claiming that the streaming service did not secure copyrights for much of the material they stream – winning a victory for musicians who were losing revenue from the service.

Born into an artistic family to an abstract painter father and a visual artist mother, Leslie Feist moved to western Canada as a baby when her parents divorced. She was a good student who harbored aspirations of becoming a writer. She shifted her interest to music as a teen in Calgary, joining a punk band.

The band won a battle of the bands with a prize of opening for the Ramones. Feist could not handle the vocal strain of a powerful punk band, and left the group after straining her vocal cords. She relocated to Toronto, where she was not to sing for six months. She used the time to improve her instrument skills.

Reinventing herself as an indie rock musician, Feist eventually reworked herself into a solo performer, in time for her second record working to complete Let It Die. The fusion of pop, folk, and Latin influences earned enthusiastic critical reviews and won Canada’s Juno Award for Best Alternative Rock Album.

In 2012, Feist won Canada’s Polaris Music Prize for her album Metals. The unusual competition features a three hour show featuring the music of all contestants. At the same time, the 11-member grand jury sits behind closed doors at a round table debating the merits of each album and casting secret votes. No one – not even the grand jurors – knows the winner until it is announced onstage.

Feist released her latest album in 2017. She also performed with the surviving members of The Tragically Hip at the 2021 Juno Awards. Also in 2021, she took her performance residency Multitudes to Europe.  The show is a traditional, intimate and communal experience for smaller audiences that Feist and designer Rob Sinclair co-developed. It features no songs, but no accompanying recording of those songs.

Photo Credit: Simon Fowler

A defining member of the ’80s synth-rock movement, Howard Jones blended the sound of new technology with the optimism of hippies and ’60s pop. Born in the UK, Jones moved to Canada with his family where he performed with his first band. In the ’70s, Jones returned to the UK to study music, but soon dropped out to play in bands around Southampton.

Jones, who had been playing piano since age seven, eventually moved from the funk and jazz bands to become a solo performer, although he used a mime as an accompanist. The BBC’s John Peel invited Jones for a session, which led to his opening for synthpop bands across the country.

By 1985, the mime was gone in favor of a touring band, and Jones released his second record, Dream Into Action. The backing band Afrodiziac included his brother Martin on bass, who had to add an extra string to the instrument to play Jones’ music.

1985s Dream Into Action would prove to be Howard Jones best selling album – he never cracked the top 50 in the US or the UK again despite releasing 10 more albums. His focus shifted to songwriting and production while also running a restaurant in the 1990s. In 1996, he undertook his first acoustic tour, and would repeat that several times over the next decades.

Howard Jones also toured with Ringo Starr and His All Star Band in the 2000s. Starr was one of Jones’s heroes growing up along with the classic rock piano legends. However, it is Keith Emerson that Jones says was the biggest influence on his own work. On the Ringo Starr tour, he was able to play the ELP classic “Karn Evil #9” with Starr and Greg Lake.

Jones says that “It was absolutely such an amazing thing. I can tell you that it took me two months to learn it. It’s got to be one of the hardest things to play for a keyboard player.”

Photo Courtesy of the artist

A string band for the 21st century, the Punch Brothers were formed after the dissolution of Chris Thile’s previous band Nickel Creek. Combining the energy of bluegrass, the complexity of classical music and the improvisation often associated with jazz, Punch Brothers have consistently topped the bluegrass charts with almost all of their albums and earned a Grammy in the best folk album category along the way.

Thile formed the band after assembling a larger group of musicians to record his first solo album in 2006. The new bands first public performance was in 2011 at Carnegie Hall, performing Thile’s four-part suite The Blind Leading the Blind.

Showing their leanings towards progressive string music, the band relied on rock-focused producers for their second and third albums. During this same 2010 to 2013 period, the group was the subject of a documentary film and contributed to the Hunger Games soundtrack. More important to the band’s future, they worked with T-Bone Burnett on the soundtrack for Inside Llewyn Davis.

Finding common ground with T-Bone Burnett, the Punch Brothers went to him to produce their next album, The Phosphorescent Blues, which produced a Grammy-nominated song. Returning in 2018 with the self-produced All Ashore, the band won its first Grammy for Best Folk Album.

Chris Thile had a long association with the radio program A Prairie Home Companion, appearing for the first time as a 15-year-old. As a result, Thile was asked to be the host after Garrison Keillor retired. Thile hosted the program until it was canceled in June of 2020 after being renamed Live From Here. The remaining Punch Brothers served as the house band.

The new album Hell on Church Street is a re-imagining of the Tony Rice album Church Street.

Multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and peace activist Yoko Ono turns 89 today. Born in Tokyo to Japanese aristocrats, Ono recalls fleeing the city during World War II bombings, foraging in the countryside before returning to the city and school. The first female accepted into the Philosophy program  at Gakushuin University, she soon left to accompany her family in a move to New York.

Drawn to the New York avant-garde movement, Ono’s Japanese upbringing was a distinct advantage as the movement drew from the elite cultural traditions of Japan. In the 60s, Ono hosted ‘happenings’ at her loft, attracting prominent avant-garde artists and performers and a crowd of up to 200 people.

After publishing a book of poetry and making films, she was invited to hold an exhibition in London. John Lennon attended and was attracted to her art and especially the artist. The relationship developed through the 60s with Ono divorcing in 1969 to marry Lennon.

When John and Yoko met, she was not familiar with the Beatles. The strain on their relationship was difficult, with Yoko Ono’s friend feeling that she was becoming too mainstream while Beatles fans felt that Lennon was being drawn away from the band. By 1969, the relationship progressed to marriage, with Ono divorcing her second husband in favor of John Lennon.

The couple combined performance with protest, celebrating their marriage with a weeklong Bed-In for Peace in Amsterdam. They followed with a second one in London where they recorded Give Peace a Chance. It was the first recording credited to the band the couple formed: the Plastic Ono Band.

After the Beatles broke up, Lennon and Ono moved to New York, where they separated in 1973. The couple reunited in 1980 to record in New York and it was there that Lennon was shot and killed in December.

A rush of attention on Ono followed the death of John Lennon, but she quickly transitioned into seclusion. She never remarried and worked to keep Lennon’s legacy alive, creating the LennonOno Grant for Peace in 2002 and inaugurating a structure in 2007 called the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland. Ono continues to work for peace, and sees things with ardent optimism, claiming we will see peace on earth in the year 2050.

Gov’t Mule began as a side project off the reformed Allman Brothers Band in 1995, when guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody wanted a way to explore their love for the bluesy power rock of bands like Cream.

Gov’t Mule released their first album in 1995, and when the Allmans Brothers slowed their schedule in mid ’90s, Haynes focused on Gov’t Mule, producing their second studio album in 1998, Dose.

Tragedy stuck Gov’t Mule in  2000 when bassist Allen Woody was found dead in his hotel room. The band decided to proceed with their recording project in progress, drawing on a variety of guest bassists before choosing a replacement and adding a pianist to the group.

Despite their love of the blues, Gov’t Mule had never released a blues until last year. According to Haynes, “For me, personally, it’s kind of been on my list of things to do for years, I didn’t know if it was gonna be a solo album or a Gov’t Mule record. We play some traditional blues on stage from time to time and although it’s usually never more than a few songs per show, our approach to the blues is unique and based on our collective chemistry as a band.”

The new album features a mix of originals and covers of material from Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James and others. Recorded live on vintage equipment to analog tape, the album feels more like a live record than a studio recording.

Nada Surf owns one of the iconic alt rock anthems of the ’90s with Popular, a song released on the band’s first full length record High/Low. The song takes most of its lyrics directly from Penn’s Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity, a 1964 teen advice book. The song and the Ric Ocasek-produced album remains the band’s biggest hit.

Schoolmates Matthew Caws and Daniel Lorca formed the band after each returned to New York after school. Their first demos got a contract with a Spanish record label, but it was having the demo fall into Ocaseks’ hands that gave them their US break. He agreed to produce the band and Popular became an unexpected hit.

Nada Surf’s record label balked at releasing the band’s followup album, claiming it did not have a hit like the first one had. Ultimately Elektra dropped the band, and Nada Surf released the album in the U.S. in 2000, traveling the country to promote its release. The group also self-funded their next record, pooling their merchandise sales profits to get the record completed.

Nearing their fourth decade, Nada Surf has recorded nine studio albums with the latest, Never Not Together, coming in 2020. The album continues the band’s modernization of power pop that they have advanced over the past decades.