Bands // p 3 of 55

Amy Winehouse

Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul (sometimes labelled as blue-eyed soul and neo soul), rhythm and blues, and jazz. Winehouse's debut album, Frank (2003), was a critical success in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her follow-up album, Back to Black (2006), led to five 2008 Grammy Awards, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made her the first British woman to win five Grammys, including three of the General Field "Big Four" Grammy Awards: Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Winehouse won three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors: in 2004, Best Contemporary Song for "Stronger Than Me"; in 2007, Best Contemporary Song again, this time for "Rehab"; and in 2008, Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Love Is a Losing Game." She also won the 2007 Brit Award for Best British Female Artist, having been nominated for Best British Album, with Back to Black.

Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011, at the age of 27. Her album Back to Black posthumously became, for a time, the UK's best-selling album of the 21st century.

2006–2008: Back to Black and international success

In contrast to her jazz-influenced former album, Winehouse's focus shifted to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Winehouse hired New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio and on tour. Mitch Winehouse relates in Amy, My Daughter how fascinating watching her process was: her perfectionism in the studio and how she would put what she had sung on a CD and play it in his taxi outside to know how most people would hear her music. In May 2006, Winehouse's demo tracks such as "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" appeared on Mark Ronson's New York radio show on East Village Radio. These were some of the first new songs played on the radio after the release of "Pumps" and both were slated to appear on her second album. The 11-track album, completed in five months, was produced entirely by Salaam Remi and Ronson, with the production credits being split between them. Ronson said in a 2010 interview that he liked working with Winehouse because she was blunt when she did not like his work. She in turn thought that when they first met, he was a sound engineer and that she was expecting an older man with a beard. Promotion of Back to Black soon began and, in early October 2006 Winehouse's official website was relaunched with a new layout and clips of previously unreleased songs. Back to Black was released in the UK on 30 October 2006. It went to number one on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks in January 2007, dropping then climbing back for several weeks in February. In the US, it entered at number seven on the Billboard 200. It was the best-selling album in the UK of 2007, selling 1.85 million copies over the course of the year.

The album spawned a number of hit singles. The first single released from the album was the Ronson-produced "Rehab." The song reached the top ten in the UK and the US. Time magazine named "Rehab" the Best Song of 2007. Writer Josh Tyrangiel praised Winehouse for her confidence, saying, "What she is mouthy, funny, sultry, and quite possibly crazy" and "It's impossible not to be seduced by her originality. Combine it with production by Mark Ronson that references four decades worth of soul music without once ripping it off, and you've got the best song of 2007." The album's second single and lead single in the US, "You Know I'm No Good," was released in January 2007 with a remix featuring rap vocals by Ghostface Killah. It ultimately reached number 18 on the UK singles chart. The title track, "Back to Black," was released in the UK in April 2007 and peaked at number 25, but was more successful across mainland Europe. "Tears Dry on Their Own," "Love Is a Losing Game" were also released as singles, but failed to achieve the same level of success.

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Ancient River

Ancient River is a psychedelic rock band formed in 2008. The band was created by singer/songwriter James Barreto, and features Barreto (vocals/guitar/songwriter) and Alexis Cordova, Jr. (drums/vocals).

Formed in 2008, with friends and now past members Zachary Veltheim on bass (from Barreto's previous band The Ohm) and Chad Voight on drums.

The band name was taken from the Neil Young song "Thrasher": “Where the eagle glides ascending/There’s an ancient river bending/Down the timeless gorge of changes/Where sleeplessness awaits.”

In reviewing 2011's Songs from North America, the Knoxville Mercury described Ancient River’s music as reminiscent of "the sun-baked desert twang of the Meat Puppets and Crazy Horse."

Cordova and Barreto met when Cordova moved to Gainesville to join another band. In the Mercury interview, Cordova is quoted as saying, "when I found out about [Ancient River], if I hadn’t joined, they probably would have been my favorite band in Gainesville. I kind of feel like it was the right time, right place." Cordova now plays drums in the band, which was his first instrument growing up.

The band's origins can be traced back the music scene in Gainesville, Florida and its thriving home grown DIY scene. Barreto, who had trained as an audio engineer, had a home studio and was busy recording local musicians.

Ancient River made their debut at Austin Psych Festival on April 24, 2010. Cordova joined the line up in 2011 and the band began regularly playing the live circuit, playing Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia and Austin Psych Festival for a second time in 2012. Appearances at Los Angeles’ Psycho De Mayo and Desert Stars Festival Pre-Party followed in 2014 along with Milwaukee Psych Fest in 2015.

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Andrew Bird

Andrew Wegman Bird (born July 11, 1973) is an American indie rock multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He was a member of the bands Squirrel Nut Zippers and Bowl of Fire before pursuing a solo career. His main instrument is violin, but he also plays guitar and glockenspiel and is an expert whistler. He wrote and performed "The Whistling Caruso" for The Muppets movie and composed the score for the television series Baskets.

Trained in the Suzuki method from the age of four, Bird graduated from Lake Forest High School in 1991 and Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in violin performance in 1996. That same year he self-released his first solo album, Music of Hair. Vastly different from his later work, this album showcased his violin skills and paid tribute to his fascination with both American and European folk traditions, as well as jazz and blues. Following this, his initial commercial exposure came through collaborative work with the band Squirrel Nut Zippers, appearing on three of their albums (Hot, Sold Out, and Perennial Favorites) between 1996 and 1998.

Taking on the role of bandleader, Bird released Thrills on Rykodisc in 1998 with his group Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, shortly followed by second album Oh! The Grandeur in 1999. Both albums were heavily influenced by traditional folk, pre-war jazz, and swing, with Bird relying on the violin as his primary musical instrument, as well as providing vocals along with his trademark verbose lyrics. The Bowl of Fire featured musicians from Bird's home town of Chicago, including Kevin O'Donnell, Joshua Hirsch, Jon Williams, Nora O'Connor, Andy Hopkins, Jimmy Sutton, Colin Bunn, and Ryan Hembrey. During this period, Andrew Bird was a member of the jazz group Kevin O'Donnells Quality Six, for which he was the lead singer and violinist and contributed to arrangements and songwriting for the albums Heretic Blues (Delmark 1999) and Control Freak (Delmark 2000) (both Delmark albums were produced by Raymond Salvatore Harmon).

In 2001, the Bowl of Fire released their third album, The Swimming Hour, a dramatic departure from their previous recordings. It featured a mixture of styles, from the zydeco-influenced "Core and Rind" to more straightforward rock songs such as "11:11". Due to this eclectic nature, Bird has often referred to it as his "jukebox album". Although gaining critical praise (The Swimming Hour received a 9.0 from indie music website Pitchfork), the band failed to attain commercial success or recognition, playing to audiences as small as 40 people. In 2002, Bird was asked to open for a band in his hometown of Chicago, but fellow Bowl of Fire members were unavailable for the date. The reluctant Bird performed the gig alone, and the surprising success of this solo show suggested potential new directions for his music.

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Andrew Duhon

Andrew Duhon is a songwriter from New Orleans, a teller of stories with an undeniable voice, weighted and soulful. Duhon has released 3 recordings, the latest of which, ‘The Moorings’, was nominated for a Grammy in 2014 for ‘Best Engineered Album’. He has toured solo for much of his career, and that troubadour element is certainly present, an usher of modern day folklore.

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Andy Shauf

Shauf was a drummer in the Christian pop punk band Captain until 2006.

He released his debut album, Darker Days, in 2009, and followed up with the EPs Waiting for the Sun to Leave (2010) and Sam Jones Feeds His Demons (2012).

He released the album The Bearer of Bad News independently in 2012. The album was rereleased in 2015 on Tender Loving Empire and Party Damage Records.

In 2015, Shauf signed to Arts & Crafts Productions in Canada and ANTI- internationally, releasing the non-album single "Jenny Come Home" as his first release on both labels. "Jenny Come Home" was Shauf's breakthrough on Canadian radio, charting on both CBC Radio 2's Radio 2 Top 20 and CBC Radio 3.

Through early 2016, he toured Europe as an opening act for The Lumineers. He moved from Saskatchewan to Toronto in April, and his album, The Party, was released in May. After some experimental recordings with a group of musicians, Shauf ended up playing almost all of the instruments on the album himself, recording the tracks sequentially.

His song "Wendell Walker" from The Bearer of Bad News was shortlisted for the 2016 SOCAN Songwriting Prize, and The Party was a shortlisted finalist for the 2016 Polaris Music Prize. Following the release he toured throughout 2017 accompanied with a five-piece band that included multi-intrumentalist Karen Ng.

In 2018 Shauf recorded an album with D.A. Kissick, Avery Kissick and Dallas Bryson, under the band name Foxwarren. The album was released on November 30, 2018.

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Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen (born January 22, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter and musician from St. Louis, Missouri who lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Early life and education

Angel Olsen was born on January 22, 1987 in St. Louis, Missouri. At age three, Olsen was adopted by a foster family that had cared for her since shortly after her birth. The difference in years between her and her parents left an impression. "Because there are so many decades of difference between us, I became more interested in what their childhood was like," she says of her parents, both of whom still live in St. Louis. "I fantasized about what it was like to be young in the ’30s and ’50s, more so than other kids my age." Olsen explained that "my mother just has this capacity for children."

Despite early adolescent aspirations to be a "pop star", her interests later shifted in high school. Olsen became more introverted, regularly attending punk rock and noise music shows at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center and the Creepy Crawl as well as Christian rock shows throughout the city. She began learning the piano and guitar and writing her own music. At the age of 16, she joined a local band called Good Fight, self-described as "a meeting of early No Doubt and punk rock." Two years after graduating from Tower Grove Christian High School, Olsen moved to Chicago.

Career

After releasing her first EP, Strange Cacti, and a debut studio album, Half Way Home, on Bathetic Records, Olsen signed with Jagjaguwar, ahead of her first full-band record, Burn Your Fire for No Witness, which was released on February 17, 2014. The closing track of the album, "Windows", was featured in the final episode of the Netflix original series 13 Reasons Why in 2017.

Olsen's third studio album, My Woman, was released on September 2, 2016. In a review for Consequence of Sound, critic Ciara Dolan described the album as a "startling record of unimpeachable strength and honesty", while Pitchfork's Jenn Pelly described it as "her best record yet".

In addition to her work with Bonnie "Prince" Billy and the Cairo Gang, Olsen has collaborated with a number of other notable figures of American indie rock, including Tim Kinsella of Cap'n Jazz, LeRoy Bach of Wilco and Cass McCombs. Her collaboration with Kinsella and Bach, as well as with Chicago poet Marvin Tate, resulted in the album Tim Kinsella Sings the Songs of Marvin Tate by Leroy Bach Featuring Angel Olsen which the group released on Indianapolis label Joyful Noise Recordings on December 3, 2013.

Olsen's fourth studio album, All Mirrors, was released on October 4, 2019 to critical acclaim. Laura Snapes of Pitchfork described the album as "breathtaking", and a "strong wind" that blows in and "leaves you undone", while Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described it as "challenging and intriguing", and Luke Saunders of Happy Mag described it as a change of "theatric transcendency", when compared to her previous releases.

Olsen plays a vintage Gibson S-1 guitar from 1979.

On August 28, 2020, Olsen released her fifth studio album Whole New Mess through Seasick Records.

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Angelo Badalamenti

Angelo Badalamenti (born March 22, 1937) is an American composer, best known for his work scoring films for director David Lynch, notably Blue Velvet, the Twin Peaks saga (1990–1992, 2017), The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive. Badalamenti received the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his "Twin Peaks Theme", and has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Soundtrack Awards and the Henry Mancini Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Badalamenti was born in Brooklyn, New York to an Italian-American family; his father, who was of Sicilian descent, was a fish market owner. He began taking piano lessons at age eight. By the time Badalamenti was a teenager, his aptitude at the piano earned him a summer job accompanying singers at resorts in the Catskill Mountains. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music and then earned Master of Arts degrees in composition, French horn, and piano from the Manhattan School of Music in 1960.

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Angus & Julia Stone

Angus & Julia Stone are an Australian folk and indie pop group, formed in 2006 by brother and sister Angus and Julia Stone. Angus & Julia Stone have released four studio albums: A Book Like This (2007), Down the Way (2010), Angus & Julia Stone (2014), and Snow (2017). At the ARIA Music Awards of 2010, they won five awards from nine nominations: Album of the Year, Best Adult Alternative Album, Best Cover Art and Producer of the Year for Down the Way, and Single of the Year for "Big Jet Plane". The siblings have issued two solo albums each.

Angus and Julia Stone were born in Sydney to Kim and John Stone in 1986 and 1984, respectively. Kim was a marine biologist, singer and high school teacher. She then spent 20 years in institutional funds management. She now goes by the name Kim Jones and serves as a non-executive board director. John Stone was a builder and high school teacher, as well as a musician in his own right. Kim and John were a folk duo before Angus and Julia's older sister, Catherine, was born in October, 1982. Catherine, Julia and Angus grew up in the suburb of Newport on Sydney's Northern Beaches. They attended Newport Primary School and then Barrenjoey High School. They were all taught by their father with their mother singing to them, which helped them develop their musicality. At family gatherings, when the Stones performed, Catherine was on saxophone, Julia on trumpet and Angus on trombone; with Kim singing and John on keyboards or guitar.

During their teen years, their parents separated amicably. The children spent equal time with their mother and father, as both parents lived in the same suburb. During this time, Angus started writing pop songs. After finishing school, Angus worked as a labourer while Julia taught trumpet. Angus learned guitar and while recuperating from a snowboarding accident, Kim and Angus travelled to South America to join Julia and then go on to meet Catherine who was travelling in Italy.

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Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar (born 9 June 1981 is a British Indian sitar player and composer. She is the daughter of Pandit Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Rajan, and the half-sister of Norah Jones.

Early life

Shankar was born in London and her childhood was divided between London and Delhi. She is the daughter of Sukanya Shankar and Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who was 61 when she was born. Through her father, she is also the half-sister of American singer Norah Jones (born Geetali Norah Shankar), and Shubhendra "Shubho" Shankar, who died in 1992.

As a teenager, Shankar lived in Encinitas, California, and attended San Dieguito High School Academy. A 1999 honors graduate and Homecoming Queen, Anoushka decided to pursue a career in music rather than attend college.

Career

Shankar began training on the sitar with her father Ravi Shankar at the age of seven. As part of her training, she began accompanying him on the tanpura at his performances from the age of ten, soaking up the music and becoming acclimated to the stage. She gave her first public sitar performance on 27 February 1995 at the age of 13, at Siri Fort in New Delhi as part of her father's 75th birthday celebration concert. For this solo debut, she was accompanied by tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. Her first experience in the recording studio came that same year when Angel Records released a special four-CD box set called In Celebration, to mark her father's birthday. By the age of fourteen, she was accompanying her father at concerts around the world. At fifteen, she assisted her father on the landmark album Chants of India, produced by George Harrison. Under both their guidance, she was in charge of notation and eventually of conducting the performers who took part in the record. After this experience, the heads of Angel Records came to her parents' home to ask to sign her, and Shankar signed her first exclusive recording contract with Angel/EMI when she was sixteen.

She released her first album, Anoushka, in 1998, followed by Anourag in 2000. In 1999 Shankar graduated from high school with honors, but decided against university in favour of beginning to tour as a solo artist. Both Shankar and her half-sister Norah Jones were nominated for Grammy awards in 2003 when Anoushka became the youngest nominee in the World Music category for her third album, Live at Carnegie Hall.

Having released three albums of Indian classical music, Shankar took several years away from recording and focused her energy on establishing herself as a solo concert performer outside of her father's ensemble. In that time, she toured worldwide, playing an average of 50–60 concerts per year. 2005 brought the release of her fourth album RISE, her first self-produced, self-composed, non-classical album, earning her another Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary World Music category. In February 2006 she became the first Indian to play at the Grammy Awards, playing material from RISE.

Shankar, in collaboration with Karsh Kale, released Breathing Under Water on 28 August 2007. It is a mix of classical sitar and electronica beats and melodies. Notable guest vocals included her paternal half-sister Norah Jones, Sting, and her father, who performed a sitar duet with her.

In 2011 Shankar signed with record label Deutsche Grammophon as an exclusive artist. This marked the beginning of a prolific recording and creative period for Shankar, during which time she continued to refine the sitar sound and musical ideas she had become known for. She earned a third Grammy Award nomination in 2013 for Traveller, an exploration of the shared history between flamenco and Indian classical music, which was produced by Javier Limón and featured artists such as Buika, Pepe Habichuela and Duquende. As Shankar had begun to do with Rise, she created a specially handpicked ensemble of musicians with whom to perform this cross-genre music, and played over a hundred concerts worldwide in support of Traveller. In 2013 she released a personal album called Traces of You, which was released several months after the passing of her father Ravi Shankar. Produced by Nitin Sawhney, and featuring her half-sister Norah Jones as the sole vocal performer, Traces of You earned Shankar a fourth Grammy nomination in the World Music category. In July 2015 Shankar released Home, her first purely classical album of Indian Ragas. Self-composed and produced, Home was recorded over a week in October 2014 in Shankar's new, purpose-built home-studio.

Shankar has made many guest appearances on recordings by other artists, among them Sting, Lenny Kravitz, Thievery Corporation and Nitin Sawhney. Recently, Shankar has collaborated with Herbie Hancock on his latest record The Imagine Project, and with Rodrigo y Gabriela on their album Area 52.

Duets with artists such as violinist Joshua Bell, in a sitar-cello duet with Mstislav Rostropovich, and with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, playing both sitar and piano, Shankar has championed her father's compositions. Shankar also performs Ravi Shankar's 1st and 2nd Concertos for Sitar and Orchestra, performing multiple times under legendary conductors such as Zubin Mehta. In January 2009 she was the sitar soloist alongside the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra premiering her father's 3rd Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra, and in July 2010 she premiered Ravi Shankar's first symphony for sitar and orchestra with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London's Royal Festival Hall.

In April 2016, Shankar performed with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja during a concert in Konzerthaus Berlin, Germany. The Raga Piloo was originally composed, performed and recorded by Ravi Shankar as a duet with Yehudi Menuhin on the album West Meets East, Volume 2 in 1968.

‘Love Letters’ marks a different direction for the internationally celebrated artist; it offers a shift in intimacy and content and comes at a pivotal time in her career as she signs to her new record label, Mercury KX. A host of trail-blazing women feature on ‘Love Letters’ including singer and co-producer Alev Lenz, twin sister vocal duo Ibeyi, singer and cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, renowned Indian singer Shilpa Rao, Brooklyn-based mastering engineer Heba Kadry (Björk, Slowdive) and British audio mastering engineer Mandy Parnell (Aphex Twin, The XX).

On 13 November 2020, Shankar was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars' Children in Need charity single. The single debuted at number 7 on the Official UK Singles Chart and number 1 on both the Official UK Singles Sales Chart and the Official UK Singles Download Chart

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