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Born in rural Louisiana, at age 16 he was heading across the Deep South picking up blues, spirituals, reels, cowboy songs, folk ballads and prison hollers. He was eking out a bare existence playing guitar when he could and working as a cotton picker when he had to. While picking cotton Leadbelly would have heard…
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Slaves attempted to preserve the culture that they had brought with them from Africa. A Southern woman recalled: “During my childhood my observations were centered upon a few very old Negroes who came directly from Africa, and upon many others whose parents were African born, and I early came to the conclusion, based upon Negro…
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For years Ron Smolen has been successfully touring and doing what he does best – making beautiful music and entertaining thousands. Throughout the Midwest, his name brings back memories of the big-band era. Since age six, Ron has been perfecting his musical ability. Starting on the accordion, and in High School moving on to the…
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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov 6, 1999 Jerry Blake, whose big-band sounds set Milwaukeeans’ feet to dancing for decades, has died in Las Vegas at age 80. Blake was leader of the house band at George Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom at the Eagles Club from 1950 to ’68. He arranged a quantity of music for Wayne King…
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A short history of one of Milwaukee’s most popular ‘garage rock’ bands. First Set: Party Time Bands have to start somewhere and so it was in 1964 with Milwaukee art school students Paul and John who would show up at get togethers, Paul with his conga drum and John with his folk-acoustic guitar and pound…
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When a film is working, none of the individual elements stand out; that is, we are so caught by the complete work that we aren’t conscious of where the camera is positioned or what filters cover the lens or whether an actor is reciting a script or improvising. Such matters are for subsequent viewings; in…
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Where did she come form – Dallas, Texas. Started singing on picnic tables at six. Now we can’t get her off. Her mom sang melodies to put her to sleep. Later that inspired original songs. Katie was inspired by the folk music that her mother would play in front of the fire. Miss Katie has…
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I’ve been a musician my entire life. My specialty has always been live performance; but earlier in my career I was always to be found in the recording studio. I was writing, arranging, and performing tracks on numerous songs and jingles. In fact, back when I was going to school I was working at a…
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Noise, the subversive anti-music genre, has been growing for the past few years. Finding its roots in the Neo-Futurist movement of the early 1900s and growing into its modern form during the mid 70’s, the genre focuses on an aleotoric sensibility and a general disregard for the most basic artistic precedents to create audio works…
