Bands // p 28 of 34

Sonido Gallo Negro

Sonido Gallo Negro (Black Rooster Sound) is a stunning 9-piece, instrumental combo from east Mexico City that channels both the mystique and mysticism of 1960’s Peruvian cumbia. The band integrates styles like Amazonian cumbia, huayno, cumbia sonidera, boogaloo and chicha (Peruvian cumbia) with electric guitars, Farfisa organ, theremin, flute and of course fluid Latin percussion. Spaghetti western soundtracks, psychedelia and surf music also echo in their compositions.

Sonido Gallo Negro’s music proposal enrichens and cultivates this musical genre with its exotic sui generis version that integrates outstanding visuals performed live by designer Dr. Alderete, who illustrates in real time.

^{Source boaviagemmusic.com}

Sonny Sharrock

Warren Harding "Sonny" Sharrock (August 27, 1940 – May 25, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. He was married to singer Linda Sharrock, with whom he recorded and performed.

One of few guitarists in the first wave of free jazz in the 1960s, Sharrock was known for his heavily chorded attack, his highly amplified bursts of feedback, and his use of saxophone-like lines played loudly on guitar.

Early life and career
Sharrock began his musical career singing doo wop in his teen years. He collaborated with Pharoah Sanders and Alexander Solla in the late 1960s, appearing first on Sanders's 1966 album, Tauhid. He made several appearances with flautist Herbie Mann and an uncredited appearance on Miles Davis's A Tribute to Jack Johnson.

He wanted to play tenor saxophone from his youth after hearing John Coltrane on Davis's Kind of Blue on the radio at age 19, but his asthma prevented this. Sharrock said repeatedly, however, that he still considered himself "a horn player with a really fucked up axe."

Three albums under Sharrock's name were released in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s: Black Woman (which has been described by one reviewer as bringing out the beauty in emotions rather than technical prowess), Monkey-Pockie-Boo, and an album co-credited to both Sharrock and his wife, Paradise (an album by which Sharrock was embarrassed and stated several times that it was not good and should not be reissued).

Career revival
After the release of Paradise, Sharrock was semi-retired for much of the 1970s, undergoing a divorce from his wife and occasional collaborator Linda in 1978. In the intermittent years until bassist Bill Laswell coaxed him out of retirement, he worked as both a chauffeur and a caretaker for mentally challenged children. At Laswell's urging, Sharrock appeared on Material's (one of Laswell's many projects) 1981 album, Memory Serves. In addition, Sharrock was a member of the punk/jazz band Last Exit, with Peter Brötzmann, Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson. During the late 1980s, he recorded and performed extensively with the New York-based improvising band Machine Gun, as well as leading his own bands. Sharrock flourished with Laswell's help, noting in a 1991 interview that "the last five years have been pretty strange for me, because I went twelve years without making a record at all, and then in the last five years, I've made seven records under my own name. That's pretty strange."

Laswell would often perform with the guitarist on his albums, and produced many of Sharrock's recordings, including the entirely solo Guitar, the metal-influenced Seize the Rainbow, and the well-received Ask the Ages, which featured John Coltrane's bandmates Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones. "Who Does She Hope To Be?" is a lyrical piece harkening back to the Coltrane/Davis Kind of Blue sessions that had inspired him to play. One writer described Ask the Ages as "hands down, Sharrock's finest hour, and the ideal album to play for those who claim to hate jazz guitar." Sharrock is perhaps best known for the soundtrack to the Cartoon Network program Space Ghost Coast to Coast with his drummer Lance Carter, one of the last projects he completed in the studio before his death. The season 3 episode "Sharrock" carried a dedication to him at the end, and previously unheard music that he had recorded for the show featured throughout most of the episode. "Sharrock" premiered as the 23rd episode on March 1, 1996 on Cartoon Network.

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Sparklehorse

Sparklehorse was an American indie rock band, led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous. Sparklehorse was active from 1995 until Linkous' 2010 death by suicide.

Sparklehorse's first album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot (1995), was a modest college radio success. In 1996, while touring Europe with Radiohead shortly after the album's release, Mark Linkous consumed a combination of anti-depressants, valium, alcohol, and heroin in a London hotel room. Unconscious and with his legs pinned beneath him for almost fourteen hours, the resulting potassium build-up caused his heart to stop for several minutes after his body was lifted up. The ensuing surgery almost caused him to lose the use of both legs and as a result he needed to use a wheelchair for six months and he required dialysis for acute kidney failure.

Good Morning Spider (1998) was recorded following this incident. Critics have conjectured that Linkous's brush with death inspired the sombre tone of the album, though Linkous stated that much of the material on GMS had already been written. One song that did result from it is "St. Mary", which is dedicated to the nurses at the eponymous hospital in Paddington where Linkous recuperated.

In 1999 Sparklehorse performed at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. 2001 saw the release of It's a Wonderful Life, featuring appearances by Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Bob Rupe, Nina Persson and Dave Fridmann. Whereas much of Vivadixie... and Spider were recorded solely by Linkous on his Virginia farm, the new album was a more collaborative work. Linkous expressed his satisfaction with the overall sound of It's a Wonderful Life, which was engineered by Joel Hamilton, while also claiming that he would have preferred to include more experimental and instrumental material.

On September 25, 2006, Sparklehorse released their fourth album, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, collaborating with Danger Mouse, Christian Fennesz, and Steven Drozd. This album featured the radio release "Don't Take My Sunshine Away" and a remastered version of "Shade And Honey", which Linkous originally wrote for Alessandro Nivola to sing in the 2003 movie Laurel Canyon, as well as a virtually unchanged re-release of "Morning Hollow," the bonus track from It's a Wonderful Life.

In 2008, Sparklehorse recorded a cover of the song "Jack's Obsession," from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas for the official compilation album Nightmare Revisited. In 2009, Sparklehorse teamed up with Danger Mouse and David Lynch in the project Dark Night of the Soul.

In 2009, Linkous teamed up with electronic ambient-music artist Christian Fennesz to create In the Fishtank 15, a wafting album EP of experimentation and dreamy atmospherics. The last four live shows, Linkous did together with Fennesz during a European tour that was held during October 2009.

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Steely Dan

Steely Dan is an American rock band founded in 1971 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York by core members Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Blending elements of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, blues and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics, the band enjoyed critical and commercial success starting from the early 1970s until breaking up in 1981. Initially the band had a core lineup, but in 1974, Becker and Fagen retired the band from live performances altogether to become a studio-only band, opting to record with a revolving cast of session musicians. Rolling Stone has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies".

After the group disbanded in 1981, Becker and Fagen were less active throughout most of the next decade, though a cult following remained devoted to the group. Since reuniting in 1993, Steely Dan has toured steadily and released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature, earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. They have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001. VH1 ranked Steely Dan at No. 82 on their list of the 100 Greatest Musical Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked them No. 15 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time. Founding member Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017, leaving Fagen as the sole official member.

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Steve Gunn

Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His albums represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven material, and forward thinking songwriting. Steve has steadily processed his inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence of blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz, and psych in his continually unfolding output. In 2016 Steve released, Eyes On The Lines, his first album for Matador Records which the Washington Post called, "so intimate and so mysteriously distant all at once". In January 2019 he followed it up with his breakthrough fourth album, The Unseen In Between where he explores his own emotional landscapes with his most complex, fully realized songs to date.

“The songs are sweeping, with intricate finger picking and rich instrumentation, the lyrics meditative and intimate” -New York Times

"It’s the most immediate set Gunn has ever made, a leap forward that’s thrilling to hear” -Rolling Stone

^{Source steve-gunn.com}

Steve Taylor

With a sound steeped in the sunlit tones of Laurel Canyon, the mid 60’s pop and R&B of the Brill Building, and the lo-fi synths of early prog rock, Los Angeles resident Steve Taylor makes cinematic, impressionistic psych-folk that pushes the envelope of the singer/songwriter genre. A multi-instrumentalist with a remarkably diverse background, he’s been tapped to play with everyone from LA electro soul group Rhye to bass prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld. He’s steadily recorded his new opus, “The Land of Milk and Honey”, in between international tours and recording gigs. A sparse, moody, and soulful record, it is full of ruminations on the search for an idyllic paradise amidst the chaos and loneliness of modern day life. Sonically, you will find layers of vintage organs, pianos, analog synthesizers, and dead drums, creating a sound that’s both modern and thoroughly informed by 70’s AM rock.

Influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Nick Drake, and Joni Mitchell, his last album “Has the Size of the Road Got the Better of You?” was recorded at home and at the venerable Tiny Telephone Studio in San Francisco. The record showed the expanded influence of gospel music, something he explored while he was a guitarist and organist at a number of prominent African American congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Performing solo and with his band, Steve has played hundreds of shows, including headlining slots at The Independent and The Chapel in San Francisco, The Echo and The Hotel Café in LA, and The Hope & Anchor in London. An avid busker, he has made many fans the old fashioned way, through singing his heart out and pounding out his songs on his portable Helpinstill piano, an electrified acoustic remnant from the 70’s.

In addition to being an active solo artist, Steve has played as a singer, keyboardist and guitarist with an incredibly diverse range of collaborators, including Rhye, Skylar Grey, Lauren Ruth Ward, Duane Betts, Rogue Wave, Nicki Bluhm, and members of the Grateful Dead, CAN, Guns n Roses, The Edwin Hawkins Singers, Deathcab for Cutie, and The Dirty Projectors.

^{Source stevetaylormusic.com}

Stevie Wonder

Dubbed “Little Stevie Wonder” by Motown’s Berry Gordy, he was signed to the label when he was only 12 years old and was just 13 when the live recording “Fingertips (Part 2)” hit no. 1 pop and R&B. Playing harmonica, drums and keyboards, as well as singing, the boy who had been blind from infancy proved aptly named. While still a teenager--dropping the “Little” from his stage name--he earned seven top 10 pop singles, including “For Once In My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday,” “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and “I Was Made To Love Her.”

By age 20, he was self-sufficient in the studio, writing, playing every instrument and serving as his own producer, including for such hits as “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “If You Really Love Me.” He broadened his vision from pure pop to the socially conscious. He began exploring exotic musical ideas incorporating gospel, rock, jazz, reggae, and African and Latin American rhythms, and pioneered the use of synthesizers. Turning 21 in 1971, Stevie holed up in a New York studio and refused to sign with Motown until he was given autonomy to record as he please. Motown agreed and the groundbreaking Music Of My Mind was released followed the next year. Later that year came Talking Book, which boasted the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “Superstition” and “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.” Innervisions, featuring the Top 10 hit “Higher Ground,” “Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing” and the epic “Living For The City,” was a landmark LP that became the his first of three consecutive Grammy® Albums of the Year.

While the record was riding high, Wonder was in a near-fatal accident. He recovered to record another deeply felt album, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, in 1974, that featured the no. 1 pop “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” (with the Jackson 5 on background vocals) and no. 1 R&B “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”

Songs In The Key Of Life was an instant no. 1 album, the first by an American artist to debut at the top spot, where it remained for an incredible 14 weeks. It was highlighted by the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “I Wish” and “Sir Duke.” By the late seventies, Wonder was also leading the way in New Age instrumental music with the soundtrack album Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants, which featured the ballad hit “Send One Your Love.” He won 15 Grammys in just four years.

^{Source facebook.com/StevieWonder}

Submotion Orchestra

Submotion Orchestra are a seven piece band formed in 2009 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. They are influenced by dubstep, soul, ambient electronica, jazz and dub.

Their debut LP Finest Hour was released on Ranking Records. They have performed all over the UK and Europe including Festival shows at The Big Chill, Latitude, Outlook and Bestival, and in Thailand at Wonderfruit. They have since released five full-length albums - Finest Hour (2011), Fragments (2012), Alium (2014), Colour Theory (2016), Kites (2018) - and two EPs - 1968 (2013) and III (2015).

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Sugar Candy Mountain

A space-age blast of psychedelic pop and Tropicalia that sounds like it could have reverberated right out of Phil Spector’s echo chamber.

If Brian Wilson had dropped acid on the beach in Brazil and decided to record an album with Os Mutantes and The Flaming Lips, it would sound like this- all psychedelic pop Wall-of Sound and beach balladry.

^{Source SugarCandyMountainBand.com}

Sun Kil Moon

Sun Kil Moon is an American folk rock act from San Francisco, California, founded in 2002. Initially a continuation of the defunct indie rock band Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon is now the primary recording moniker of vocalist and guitarist Mark Kozelek. The project is named after the Korean super flyweight boxer Sung-Kil Moon.

Following the delayed release of Red House Painters' final studio album, Old Ramon (2001), vocalist and guitarist Kozelek began recording new material under the name Sun Kil Moon with bandmates Anthony Koutsos (drums) and Jerry Vessel (bass), alongside Geoff Stanfield and Tim Mooney. The resulting album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, was released in 2003 to widespread critical acclaim. The project's second studio album, Tiny Cities (2005), was composed entirely of Modest Mouse cover songs.

In 2008, the band released its third studio album, April. Recorded as a three-piece by Kozelek, Koutsos and Stanfield, the album was well received and featured guest vocal appearances from noted indie rock musicians Will Oldham and Ben Gibbard.

Inspired by classical guitar music, Kozelek recorded Sun Kil Moon's fourth studio album, Admiral Fell Promises (2010), as a solo act, and continued to record mostly alone on its follow-up, Among the Leaves (2012). In 2013, Kozelek released three studio albums under his own name before releasing Sun Kil Moon's sixth studio album, Benji, in February 2014, to widespread critical acclaim and increased exposure, with the band releasing their seventh studio effort, Universal Themes, in 2015. Sun Kil Moon's eighth studio album, Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood, was released in February 2017, which was followed by their ninth studio album, This Is My Dinner, in November 2018.

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Sun Speak

SUN SPEAK is Matt Gold (guitar) and Nate Friedman (drums). SUN SPEAK performs original works of electric chamber music and is based in Chicago, IL.

Supertramp

Supertramp were an English rock band formed in London in 1970. Marked by the individual songwriting of founders Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Rick Davies (vocals, keyboards), they are distinguished for blending progressive rock and pop styles, and for a sound that relied heavily on Wurlitzer electric piano. The group's line-up changed numerous times throughout their career, with Davies the only consistent member. Other longtime members included bassist Dougie Thomson, drummer Bob Siebenberg and saxophonist John Helliwell.

The band were initially a full-fledged prog-rock group, but starting with their third album Crime of the Century (1974), they began moving towards a more pop-oriented sound. They reached their commercial peak with 1979's Breakfast in America, which yielded the international top 10 singles "The Logical Song", "Breakfast in America", "Goodbye Stranger" and "Take the Long Way Home". Their other top 40 hits included "Dreamer" (1974), "Give a Little Bit" (1977) and "It's Raining Again" (1982). In 1983, Hodgson left the group to pursue a solo career. Davies took over as the band's sole leader until 1988, after which they disbanded and periodically reformed in various configurations.

As of 2007, Supertramp album sales exceeded 60 million. They attained significant popularity in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia. Their highest sales levels were in Canada, where they had two diamond-certified (ten-times platinum) albums (Crime of the Century and Breakfast in America), and their only number 1 singles anywhere ("The Logical Song" and "Dreamer").

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Swantourage

Swantourage is a four piece instrumental band based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. The band, apply named after their founder, Dustin Swan, has been shaking booties across the rockies for several years now.

Dustin has been a big part of the music scene in Utah performing with local bands like Samuel Smith Band and PIG EON.

Three singles by Swantourage have been released in 2019 and there is more expected to come this year. Keep an eye and an ear out for this group.

^{Source Darren Farnsworth}

Taj Mahal

Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. (born May 17, 1942), better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and film composer. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.

Career

Mahal moved to Santa Monica, California, in 1964 and formed Rising Sons with fellow blues rock musicians Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid, landing a record deal with Columbia Records soon after. Jesse Ed Davis, a Kiowa native from Oklahoma, joined Taj Mahal and played guitar and piano on Mahal's first four albums. The group was one of the first interracial bands of the period, which may have hampered their commercial viability. However, Rising Sons bassist Gary Marker later recalled the band's members had come to a creative impasse and were unable to reconcile their musical and personal differences even with the guidance of veteran producer Terry Melcher. They recorded enough songs for a full-length album, but only released a single and the band soon broke up. Legacy Records did release The Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder in 1992 with material from that period. During this time Mahal was also working with other musicians like Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters.

Mahal stayed with Columbia for his solo career, releasing the self-titled Taj Mahal and The Natch'l Blues in 1968. His track "Statesboro Blues" was featured on side 2 of the very successful Columbia/CBS sampler album, The Rock Machine Turns You On, giving a huge early impetus to his career. Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home with session musician Jesse Ed Davis followed in 1969. During this time he and Cooder worked with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has performed at various times throughout his career. In 1968, he performed in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. He recorded a total of twelve albums for Columbia from the late 1960s into the 1970s. His work of the 1970s was especially important, in that his releases began incorporating West Indian and Caribbean music, jazz and reggae into the mix. In 1972, he acted in and wrote the film score for the movie Sounder, which starred Cicely Tyson. He reprised his role and returned as composer in the sequel, Part 2, Sounder.

In 1976 Mahal left Columbia and signed with Warner Bros. Records, recording three albums for them. One of these was another film score for 1977's Brothers; the album shares the same name. After his time with Warner Bros., he struggled to find another record contract, this being the era of heavy metal and disco music.

Stalled in his career, he decided to move to Kauai, Hawaii in 1981 and soon formed the Hula Blues Band. Originally just a group of guys getting together for fishing and a good time, the band soon began performing regularly and touring. He maintained a low public profile in Hawaii throughout most of the 1980s before recording Taj in 1988 for Gramavision. This started a comeback of sorts for him, recording both for Gramavision and Hannibal Records during this time.

In the 1990s Mahal became deeply involved in supporting the nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation. As of 2019, he was still on the Foundation's advisory board.

In the 1990s he was on the Private Music label, releasing albums full of blues, pop, R&B and rock. He did collaborative works both with Eric Clapton and Etta James.

In 1995 he recorded a record fusing traditional American blues with Indian stringed instruments, Mumtaz Mahal, accompanied by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on Mohan veena and N. Ravikiran on chitravina, a fretless lute.

In 1998, in collaboration with renowned songwriter David Forman, producer Rick Chertoff and musicians Cyndi Lauper, Willie Nile, Joan Osborne, Rob Hyman, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of the Band, and the Chieftains, he performed on the Americana album Largo based on the music of Antonín Dvořák.

In 1997 he won Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues at the Grammy Awards, followed by another Grammy for Shoutin' in Key in 2000. He performed the theme song to the children's television show Peep and the Big Wide World, which began broadcast in 2004.

In 2002, Mahal appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot and Riot in tribute to Nigerian afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. The Paul Heck produced album was widely acclaimed, and all proceeds from the record were donated to AIDS charities.

Taj Mahal contributed to Olmecha Supreme's 2006 album 'hedfoneresonance'. The Wellington-based group led by Mahal's son Imon Starr (Ahmen Mahal) also featured Deva Mahal on vocals.

Mahal partnered up with Keb' Mo' to release a joint album TajMo on May 5, 2017. The album has some guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Joe Walsh, Sheila E., and Lizz Wright, and has six original compositions and five covers, from artists and bands like John Mayer and The Who.

In 2013, Mahal appeared in the documentary film on Byrds founding member Gene Clark, 'The Byrd Who Flew Alone', produced by Four Suns Productions. Clark and Mahal had been friends for many years.

In June 2017, Mahal appeared in the award-winning documentary film The American Epic Sessions, directed by Bernard MacMahon, recording Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" on the first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Mahal appeared throughout the accompanying documentary series American Epic, commenting on the 1920s rural recording artists who had a profound influence on American music and on him personally.

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