Mixing bone-crushing volume with Ozzy Osbourne's keening, ominous pronouncements of gloom and doom, Black Sabbath were the heavy-metal kings of the 1970s. Often reviled by mainstream rock critics and ignored by radio programmers, the group still managed to sell over 8 million albums before Osbourne departed for a solo career in 1979.
The four original members, schoolmates from a working-class district of industrial Birmingham, England, first joined forces as the Polka Tulk Blues Company. They quickly changed their name to Earth, then, in 1969, to Black Sabbath; the name came from the title of a song written by bassist Geezer Butler, a fan of occult novelist Dennis Wheatley. It may also have been an homage to a Boris Karloff film. The quartet's eponymous 1970 debut, recorded in two days, went to Number Eight in England and Number 23 in the U.S. A single, "Paranoid," released in advance of the album of the same name, reached Number Four in the U.K. later that year; it was the group's only Top Twenty hit.
The single didn't make the U.S. Top Forty, but Paranoid, issued in early 1971, sold four million copies with virtually no radio airplay. Beginning in December 1970 Sabbath toured the States relentlessly. Despite the band members' intense drug and alcohol abuse, the constant road work paid off, and by 1974 Black Sabbath was considered peerless among heavy-metal acts, its first five LPs all having sold at least a million copies apiece in America alone.
In spite of their name, the crosses erected onstage, and songs dealing with apocalypse, death, and destruction, the band members insisted their interest in the black arts was nothing more than innocuous curiosity, and in time, Black Sabbath's princes-of-darkness image faded. Eventually, so did its record sales. Aside from a platinum best-of, We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll (1976), not one of three LPs from 1975 to 1978 went gold. Osbourne, reeling from drug use and excessive drinking, quit the band briefly in late 1977 (ex–Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Dave Walker filled his shoes for some live dates). In January 1979 he was fired. Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, replaced Osbourne.
Although Dio could belt with the best of them, Sabbath would never be the same. Its first album with Dio, Heaven and Hell (1980), went platinum; its second, Mob Rules (1981), gold. But thereafter, the group's LPs sold fewer and fewer copies, as Black Sabbath went through one personnel change after another. Ill health forced Bill Ward out of the band in 1980; Carmine Appice's brother Vinnie took his place. Friction between Iommi and Dio led the singer to quit angrily in 1982; he took Appice with him to start his own band, Dio. Vocalists over the years have included Dave Donato, Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan, another ex-member of Deep Purple Glenn Hughes, Tony Martin, and Dio again.
By 1986's Seventh Star, only Iommi remained from the original lineup. He had to wince when Geezer Butler teamed up with Osbourne, who had since launched a he phenomenally successful solo career, in 1988, though the bassist did return to the fold three years later. Despite bitterness expressed in the press between Osbourne and Iommi, the original foursome reunited in 1985 at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, and again in 1992, at the end of what was supposedly Osbourne's last tour. Throughout 1993 word had it that Osbourne, Iommi, Butler, and Ward would tour, but by year's end Osbourne had backed out, allegedly over money.
The indefatigable Tony Iommi went right back to work with Butler, rehiring vocalist Tony Martin and adding former Rainbow drummer Rob Rondinelli. That lineup proved as unstable as the previous one, with drummers coming, going, and returning over the following years. Despite hiring Body Count's Ernie C to produce 1995's Forbidden (and inviting guest vocalist Ice-T to sing on a track), Black Sabbath seemed increasingly out of touch with the times, and at the end of the Forbidden Tour, the band unofficially went on hiatus.
But not for long, as Iommi, Butler, and Osbourne reunited to headline 1997's Ozzfest. Ward was not invited (he was replaced by Faith No More's Mike Bordin), but he did participate in two shows in the band's hometown of Birmingham, England, in December 1997. The resulting live album, Reunion (Number 11, 1998), also featured two new studio tracks, including the single "Psycho Man." The album went platinum in the U.S., and the live version of "Iron Man" earned the band its first Grammy for Best Metal Performance — nearly 30 years after the song was originally released. The ensuing tour lasted two years and ended in December 1999.
Tony Iommi released his first solo album in 2000; a prestigious roster of guest singers (Osbourne, Billy Corgan, Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl) handled the vocals. Among metalheads, Iommi is something of a guitar god, due in part to the fact that he plays spectacularly despite having lost the tips of two right fingers in a welding accident at age 17. His hero was the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who also lost two fingers and yet continued to play.
In mid-2001 it was announced that all four original members were writing material for a new Black Sabbath album to be produced by Rick Rubin. The band scrapped all the material and the album never materialized, although Sabbath performed one new song, "Scary Dreams," on that year's Ozzfest. The band was put on hold throughout 2002 as Osbourne refocused on his solo music and new MTV reality show, The Osbournes, in which his family was portrayed as a sort of real-life Munsters. The band came back together for the 2004 and 2005 Ozzfest tours.
In 2005, Black Sabbath was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, and the following year, after many years of eligibility, the band made it into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2007, Iommi and Butler reunited with Appice and Dio to record new material for the compilation Black Sabbath: The Dio Years (Number 54); that configuration of the group toured as Heaven and Hell (to avoid being confused with the Osbourne-fronted Black Sabbath) into the year 2008. On April 28, 2009, Heaven and Hell released its debut album, The Devil You Know.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Van Halen - Special Biography
Starting with their Top Twenty debut album in 1978, Van Halen almost single-handedly redefined heavy metal as sunny, pop-friendly California party music that managed to retain its physical power and virtuoso credentials — a concept that would reverberate throughout the hair-metal Eighties. With Eddie Van Halen's highly original guitar pyrotechnics a constant through the years, Van Halen would shuffle their lineup again and again. Initially fronted by the flamboyant and ever-quotable David Lee Roth, the band garnered a loyal mass following that held fast long after Roth's 1985 departure, and through numerous well-publicized intra-band squabbles.
The Van Halen brothers' father, Jan, was a freelance saxophone and clarinet player who performed styles ranging from big band to classical in the Netherlands. The family moved to Pasadena, California in 1967, "with 15 dollars and a piano," as Eddie once said. Jan washed dishes, then played in wedding bands to support the family. Beginning around age six both Eddie and Alex received piano lessons and extensive classical music training, but with move to America they discovered rock & roll.
Eddie learned to play drums, and Alex learned to play guitar; eventually they traded instruments and started a band called Mammoth. Roth, the even-then outgoing and outrageous scion of a wealthy family and lead singer of another rival band, Redball Jet, joined them. The bassist and lead singer of another group, Snake, Michael Anthony came aboard shortly thereafter. After learning that there was already another group claiming the name Mammoth, the group considered calling themselves Rat Salade before deciding on Van Halen.
Van Halen played the Pasadena/Santa Barbara bar circuit for more than three years. Its sets initially consisted primarily of cover material ranging into disco to pop, but the band eventually introduced original songs and was soon one of the most popular groups in California, regulars at the Sunset Strip hard-rock club Gazzari's, and an opening act for Santana, Nils Lofgren, UFO, and other established acts.
In 1977 Kiss' Gene Simmons spotted Van Halen in L.A.'s Starwood club and financed its demo tape. After seeing the group and upon hearing Simmons' recommendation, Warner Bros. Records' Mo Ostin and staff producer Ted Templeman signed Van Halen. Its self-titled debut album hit Number 19 and eventually sold more than 6 million copies. The debut single, a pile-driving cover of the Kinks' 1964 hit "You Really Got Me," hit Number 36. The followup, "Runnin' With the Devil," hit Number 84.
Roth's swaggering good looks and extroverted persona, not to mention pithy, frequently tongue-in-cheek statements on the rock & roll lifestyle he claimed to espouse, assured press coverage. But while the mainstream media focused on Roth, musicians and fans were riveted by Eddie Van Halen's guitar mastery and an array of unorthodox techniques that he developed as he taught himself to play: rapid-fire hammer-ons and pull-offs, two-hand tapping, and any combination thereof to produce his unique sound. In addition, the guitarist was also known to build and/or meticulously customize his instruments, using everything from sandpaper to chainsaws to alter the timbre of his instrument and achieve a distinct sound. Long before the group ever recorded, Eddie became a legend among local guitarists eager to learn the secret of his sound. Like countless guitarists before him, from Robert Johnson to Eric Clapton, Eddie began performing with his back to the audience to guard his technique.
Van Halen II (Number 6, 1979), released as new wave began coming to the fore, continued in the group's straight-rock style and featured their first Top 20 single, "Dance the Night Away," as well as the popular "Beautiful Girls." Women and Children First (Number 6, 1980) spun off the single "And the Cradle Will Rock" (Number 55, 1980) a metal showcase that typified the band's dense, loud, crunching style.
In 1979 Van Halen launched its second world tour, its first as headliner. Early on, the band embraced its larger-than-life image; for example, tour incidents ranged from Roth's breaking his nose on a lighting rig when jumping onstage to the band trashing its dressing room after a promoter failed to comply with the band's contractual stipulation that the backstage candy dish contain no brown M&Ms.
Fair Warning (Number 5, 1981), another multiplatinum effort and possibly the band's most meaty metal album, followed. The more light-hearted, almost campy Diver Down (Number Three, 1982), which included hit covers of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Number 12, 1982) and Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" (Number 38, 1982) became the group's highest-charting album to that point. (In 1981 Eddie married actress Valerie Bertinelli; in 1991 their son, Wolfgang, was born. Three years later, Eddie stopped drinking.)
Van Halen's biggest album with Roth was 1984 (Number Two, 1984), which contained the Number One hit "Jump" (on which Eddie played synthesizer) as well as "I'll Wait" (Number 13, 1984), "Panama" (Number 13, 1984), and "Hot for Teacher" (Number 56, 1984), all songs supported by popular videos that showcased both Roth's alternately boastful and clownish persona and Eddie (and the rest of the group's) flashy musicianship. Shortly before 1984's release, Eddie Van Halen had composed and played the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It," a few bars of heavy metal that many observers believed helped the video land a spot on MTV's then predominantly white playlist.
The loquacious Roth and the soft-spoken Eddie had long been considered one of rock's oddest couples. When in 1985 Roth released his four-song EP, Crazy From the Heat, and it spun off two hit singles — covers of the Beach Boys' "California Girls" (Number Three, 1985) and of the 1956 Louis Prima medley "Just a Gigolo"/"I Ain't Got Nobody" (Number 12, 1985) — a breakup was widely rumored. The videos for the two songs were hugely popular, and for a time Roth had a film in development (the deal fell through). When Roth delayed recording for Van Halen's seventh album, tensions rose, and Roth left the band. That June, established hard-rock singer and former Montrose frontman Sammy Hagar was named Roth's replacement.
The Hagar era began auspiciously, with the group's next three multiplatinum albums — 5150, OU812, and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (or "F.U.C.K.," as it's slyly abbreviated) — all hitting Number One. Among the hit singles from these records were "Why Can't This Be Love" (Number Three, 1986), "Dreams" (Number 22, 1986), and "Feels So Good" (Number 35, 1989). Van Halen headlined the Monsters of Rock Tour in 1988 and in 1991 bought the Cabo Wabo Cantina, a Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, restaurant and bar. (Hagar later bought out the other members.) The innovative, text-oriented 1992 video for "Right Now" didn't boost the single beyond Number 55, but it did win MTV's Best Video of the Year award and provided the theme for a round of Pepsi commercials shortly thereafter. The year 1993 saw the release of the band's first live album, Van Halen Live: Right Here, Right Now (Number Five). Balance debuted at Number One in 1995 and sold double-platinum nearly immediately upon its release. It contained one Top Thirty hit, "Can't Stop Lovin' You."
Throughout his tenure with Van Halen, Hagar continued to release solo albums. While this wasn't considered a problem by the other members, tempers flared in spring 1996, when the band finished the Balance tour. Hagar's wife was pregnant and he wanted to take time off; the rest of the group wanted to work on a few new tracks for a greatest-hits compilation, an idea that Hagar was against. Some speculated that Hagar objected because a best-of package would undoubtedly feature songs from the Roth era, songs Hagar had declined to sing in concert.
In June of that year, Van Halen claimed that Hagar left the band, while Hagar insisted that he was fired — a difference in opinion that has lasted to this day. The remaining members of Van Halen invited Roth back into the studio with them to record two new tracks for the hits album. That fall, the apparently reunited foursome presented a trophy at the MTV Video Music Awards, and speculation was that Roth was back in the band full-time. Apparently Roth thought so, too, because he was miffed when Eddie, the band's spokesperson, clarified in a press statement that Van Halen's intentions were to include Roth in a couple of new recordings and nothing more. Again, the difference of opinion regarding the group's original intention prevails.
With Hagar gone and Roth out of the picture again, Van Halen hired ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone as its new lead vocalist in November 1996. The choice was initially surprising, since Extreme's biggest hits, "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted," were ballads. But the bulk of that band's catalogue was hard rock, and the collaboration seemed to reinvigorate Eddie Van Halen. He and Cherone immediately began writing songs together, with Cherone's lyrics inspiring Eddie's music — the first time the group's music wasn't written first.
This new incarnation recorded Van Halen III (Number Four, 1998), an album that signaled another Van Halen first: Eddie singing lead on one song. The band toured and the single "Without You" rose to Number One on the Mainstream Rock chart, but CD sales fell quickly. The release sold just 500,000 copies, making it the first Van Halen album not to go at least double platinum. In November 1999 Cherone left the band. He recorded a solo album and returned to a Massachusetts stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which he starred in after Extreme broke up.
Meanwhile, Eddie Van Halen, a heavy smoker, participated in what was said to be a clinical trial of preventative treatment for tongue cancer in 2000. In 2001 he revealed that he had been treated for cancer.
Roth's solo career yielded three platinum albums, with his third and fourth albums, Eat 'Em and Smile and Skyscraper, both Top 10, featuring the hits "Yankee Rose" (Number 16, 1986, from Eat) and "Just Like Paradise" (Number Six, 1988, from Skyscraper). The band for Eat 'Em included bassist Billy Sheehan, guitarist Steve Vai, and drummer Greg Bissonette. This lineup remained fairly steady for Skyscraper, but Sheehan left, and in 1989 Vai began his solo career. A Little Ain't Enough, a critical and commercial disappointment despite its Top 20 showing, had no hit singles.
In 1991 Roth fired his band and moved to New York City, where in April 1993 he was arrested while purchasing a small amount of marijuana in Washington Square Park (he received a year's probation). His 1994 release, Your Filthy Little Mouth, continued the decline, and a 1998 album credited to the DLR Band fared no better. Even commenting on his low commercial standing, Roth remained quotable as ever and published a breezy, explicit autobiography entitled, Crazy From the Heat (with Paul Scanlon), in 1997.
In 2002, the first of three Van Halen-related unthinkables happened when Roth hooked up with his nemesis, fellow former VH singer Hagar, for a joint tour some dubbed "The Sam and Dave Tour" (Hagar suggested "Sans Halen"). The second unthinkable happened the following year when Van Halen announced it was working with Hagar again on a track for a greatest-hits collection.
In 2004, the band released The Best of Both Worlds (Number Three), featuring alternating tracks from the Roth and Hagar years, and then hit the road with Hagar. The band's comeback tour was one of the top ten tours of 2004, grossing $55 million. The group went into hibernation again after the tour, as Eddie Van Halen headed into rehab for alcohol abuse. Then, in late 2006, he announced that Roth had been invited to participate in a reunion of the original band. Music journalists were skeptical, given the fiasco of the lineup's aborted reunion. Indeed, the first string of shows was canceled to allow Eddie to enter rehab in early 2007. In the meantime, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with both Hagar and Roth on the inductee list; Hagar and Anthony were the sole attendees).
But sure enough, in September 2007, Diamond Dave and his ex-bandmates (minus Anthony, with replacement Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, on bass) kicked off their long-awaited reunion tour in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tour received generally positive reviews, and Rolling Stone's 2007 year-end issue listed the reunion as "Miracle of the Year." With Eddie fighting rehab and health issues, the 74-date show was seen by nearly a million people and grossed over $93 million. The group also hinted that a new Roth-fronted Van Halen album might follow. Meanwhile, in 2009, Anthony and Hagar — who had toured in recent years as "The Other Half" — joined up with master guitarist Joe Satriani and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith in the band Chickenfoot, whose self-titled debut album charted at Number Four.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The Van Halen brothers' father, Jan, was a freelance saxophone and clarinet player who performed styles ranging from big band to classical in the Netherlands. The family moved to Pasadena, California in 1967, "with 15 dollars and a piano," as Eddie once said. Jan washed dishes, then played in wedding bands to support the family. Beginning around age six both Eddie and Alex received piano lessons and extensive classical music training, but with move to America they discovered rock & roll.
Eddie learned to play drums, and Alex learned to play guitar; eventually they traded instruments and started a band called Mammoth. Roth, the even-then outgoing and outrageous scion of a wealthy family and lead singer of another rival band, Redball Jet, joined them. The bassist and lead singer of another group, Snake, Michael Anthony came aboard shortly thereafter. After learning that there was already another group claiming the name Mammoth, the group considered calling themselves Rat Salade before deciding on Van Halen.
Van Halen played the Pasadena/Santa Barbara bar circuit for more than three years. Its sets initially consisted primarily of cover material ranging into disco to pop, but the band eventually introduced original songs and was soon one of the most popular groups in California, regulars at the Sunset Strip hard-rock club Gazzari's, and an opening act for Santana, Nils Lofgren, UFO, and other established acts.
In 1977 Kiss' Gene Simmons spotted Van Halen in L.A.'s Starwood club and financed its demo tape. After seeing the group and upon hearing Simmons' recommendation, Warner Bros. Records' Mo Ostin and staff producer Ted Templeman signed Van Halen. Its self-titled debut album hit Number 19 and eventually sold more than 6 million copies. The debut single, a pile-driving cover of the Kinks' 1964 hit "You Really Got Me," hit Number 36. The followup, "Runnin' With the Devil," hit Number 84.
Roth's swaggering good looks and extroverted persona, not to mention pithy, frequently tongue-in-cheek statements on the rock & roll lifestyle he claimed to espouse, assured press coverage. But while the mainstream media focused on Roth, musicians and fans were riveted by Eddie Van Halen's guitar mastery and an array of unorthodox techniques that he developed as he taught himself to play: rapid-fire hammer-ons and pull-offs, two-hand tapping, and any combination thereof to produce his unique sound. In addition, the guitarist was also known to build and/or meticulously customize his instruments, using everything from sandpaper to chainsaws to alter the timbre of his instrument and achieve a distinct sound. Long before the group ever recorded, Eddie became a legend among local guitarists eager to learn the secret of his sound. Like countless guitarists before him, from Robert Johnson to Eric Clapton, Eddie began performing with his back to the audience to guard his technique.
Van Halen II (Number 6, 1979), released as new wave began coming to the fore, continued in the group's straight-rock style and featured their first Top 20 single, "Dance the Night Away," as well as the popular "Beautiful Girls." Women and Children First (Number 6, 1980) spun off the single "And the Cradle Will Rock" (Number 55, 1980) a metal showcase that typified the band's dense, loud, crunching style.
In 1979 Van Halen launched its second world tour, its first as headliner. Early on, the band embraced its larger-than-life image; for example, tour incidents ranged from Roth's breaking his nose on a lighting rig when jumping onstage to the band trashing its dressing room after a promoter failed to comply with the band's contractual stipulation that the backstage candy dish contain no brown M&Ms.
Fair Warning (Number 5, 1981), another multiplatinum effort and possibly the band's most meaty metal album, followed. The more light-hearted, almost campy Diver Down (Number Three, 1982), which included hit covers of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Number 12, 1982) and Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" (Number 38, 1982) became the group's highest-charting album to that point. (In 1981 Eddie married actress Valerie Bertinelli; in 1991 their son, Wolfgang, was born. Three years later, Eddie stopped drinking.)
Van Halen's biggest album with Roth was 1984 (Number Two, 1984), which contained the Number One hit "Jump" (on which Eddie played synthesizer) as well as "I'll Wait" (Number 13, 1984), "Panama" (Number 13, 1984), and "Hot for Teacher" (Number 56, 1984), all songs supported by popular videos that showcased both Roth's alternately boastful and clownish persona and Eddie (and the rest of the group's) flashy musicianship. Shortly before 1984's release, Eddie Van Halen had composed and played the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It," a few bars of heavy metal that many observers believed helped the video land a spot on MTV's then predominantly white playlist.
The loquacious Roth and the soft-spoken Eddie had long been considered one of rock's oddest couples. When in 1985 Roth released his four-song EP, Crazy From the Heat, and it spun off two hit singles — covers of the Beach Boys' "California Girls" (Number Three, 1985) and of the 1956 Louis Prima medley "Just a Gigolo"/"I Ain't Got Nobody" (Number 12, 1985) — a breakup was widely rumored. The videos for the two songs were hugely popular, and for a time Roth had a film in development (the deal fell through). When Roth delayed recording for Van Halen's seventh album, tensions rose, and Roth left the band. That June, established hard-rock singer and former Montrose frontman Sammy Hagar was named Roth's replacement.
The Hagar era began auspiciously, with the group's next three multiplatinum albums — 5150, OU812, and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (or "F.U.C.K.," as it's slyly abbreviated) — all hitting Number One. Among the hit singles from these records were "Why Can't This Be Love" (Number Three, 1986), "Dreams" (Number 22, 1986), and "Feels So Good" (Number 35, 1989). Van Halen headlined the Monsters of Rock Tour in 1988 and in 1991 bought the Cabo Wabo Cantina, a Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, restaurant and bar. (Hagar later bought out the other members.) The innovative, text-oriented 1992 video for "Right Now" didn't boost the single beyond Number 55, but it did win MTV's Best Video of the Year award and provided the theme for a round of Pepsi commercials shortly thereafter. The year 1993 saw the release of the band's first live album, Van Halen Live: Right Here, Right Now (Number Five). Balance debuted at Number One in 1995 and sold double-platinum nearly immediately upon its release. It contained one Top Thirty hit, "Can't Stop Lovin' You."
Throughout his tenure with Van Halen, Hagar continued to release solo albums. While this wasn't considered a problem by the other members, tempers flared in spring 1996, when the band finished the Balance tour. Hagar's wife was pregnant and he wanted to take time off; the rest of the group wanted to work on a few new tracks for a greatest-hits compilation, an idea that Hagar was against. Some speculated that Hagar objected because a best-of package would undoubtedly feature songs from the Roth era, songs Hagar had declined to sing in concert.
In June of that year, Van Halen claimed that Hagar left the band, while Hagar insisted that he was fired — a difference in opinion that has lasted to this day. The remaining members of Van Halen invited Roth back into the studio with them to record two new tracks for the hits album. That fall, the apparently reunited foursome presented a trophy at the MTV Video Music Awards, and speculation was that Roth was back in the band full-time. Apparently Roth thought so, too, because he was miffed when Eddie, the band's spokesperson, clarified in a press statement that Van Halen's intentions were to include Roth in a couple of new recordings and nothing more. Again, the difference of opinion regarding the group's original intention prevails.
With Hagar gone and Roth out of the picture again, Van Halen hired ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone as its new lead vocalist in November 1996. The choice was initially surprising, since Extreme's biggest hits, "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted," were ballads. But the bulk of that band's catalogue was hard rock, and the collaboration seemed to reinvigorate Eddie Van Halen. He and Cherone immediately began writing songs together, with Cherone's lyrics inspiring Eddie's music — the first time the group's music wasn't written first.
This new incarnation recorded Van Halen III (Number Four, 1998), an album that signaled another Van Halen first: Eddie singing lead on one song. The band toured and the single "Without You" rose to Number One on the Mainstream Rock chart, but CD sales fell quickly. The release sold just 500,000 copies, making it the first Van Halen album not to go at least double platinum. In November 1999 Cherone left the band. He recorded a solo album and returned to a Massachusetts stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which he starred in after Extreme broke up.
Meanwhile, Eddie Van Halen, a heavy smoker, participated in what was said to be a clinical trial of preventative treatment for tongue cancer in 2000. In 2001 he revealed that he had been treated for cancer.
Roth's solo career yielded three platinum albums, with his third and fourth albums, Eat 'Em and Smile and Skyscraper, both Top 10, featuring the hits "Yankee Rose" (Number 16, 1986, from Eat) and "Just Like Paradise" (Number Six, 1988, from Skyscraper). The band for Eat 'Em included bassist Billy Sheehan, guitarist Steve Vai, and drummer Greg Bissonette. This lineup remained fairly steady for Skyscraper, but Sheehan left, and in 1989 Vai began his solo career. A Little Ain't Enough, a critical and commercial disappointment despite its Top 20 showing, had no hit singles.
In 1991 Roth fired his band and moved to New York City, where in April 1993 he was arrested while purchasing a small amount of marijuana in Washington Square Park (he received a year's probation). His 1994 release, Your Filthy Little Mouth, continued the decline, and a 1998 album credited to the DLR Band fared no better. Even commenting on his low commercial standing, Roth remained quotable as ever and published a breezy, explicit autobiography entitled, Crazy From the Heat (with Paul Scanlon), in 1997.
In 2002, the first of three Van Halen-related unthinkables happened when Roth hooked up with his nemesis, fellow former VH singer Hagar, for a joint tour some dubbed "The Sam and Dave Tour" (Hagar suggested "Sans Halen"). The second unthinkable happened the following year when Van Halen announced it was working with Hagar again on a track for a greatest-hits collection.
In 2004, the band released The Best of Both Worlds (Number Three), featuring alternating tracks from the Roth and Hagar years, and then hit the road with Hagar. The band's comeback tour was one of the top ten tours of 2004, grossing $55 million. The group went into hibernation again after the tour, as Eddie Van Halen headed into rehab for alcohol abuse. Then, in late 2006, he announced that Roth had been invited to participate in a reunion of the original band. Music journalists were skeptical, given the fiasco of the lineup's aborted reunion. Indeed, the first string of shows was canceled to allow Eddie to enter rehab in early 2007. In the meantime, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with both Hagar and Roth on the inductee list; Hagar and Anthony were the sole attendees).
But sure enough, in September 2007, Diamond Dave and his ex-bandmates (minus Anthony, with replacement Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, on bass) kicked off their long-awaited reunion tour in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tour received generally positive reviews, and Rolling Stone's 2007 year-end issue listed the reunion as "Miracle of the Year." With Eddie fighting rehab and health issues, the 74-date show was seen by nearly a million people and grossed over $93 million. The group also hinted that a new Roth-fronted Van Halen album might follow. Meanwhile, in 2009, Anthony and Hagar — who had toured in recent years as "The Other Half" — joined up with master guitarist Joe Satriani and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith in the band Chickenfoot, whose self-titled debut album charted at Number Four.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Velvet Revolver - Special Biography
What began as a hard rock supergroup jam session became a full-time band as Velvet Revolver released two Top Ten discs, sold-out venues across the globe and even won a Grammy.
The band formed former Guns N' Roses Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) began jamming together in 2002 without their notoriously difficult ex-front man Axl Rose. Producers at VH1 rolled their cameras as the trio searched for a singer to fill Rose's shoes. "The Project," as they called it, found the three auditioning a number of potential replacements — including Buckcherry's Josh Todd and Skid Row's Sebastian Bach — before settling on another difficult front man, ex-Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, who came up with the band name.
In 2003, fleshed out with second guitarist Dave Kushner (formerly of the punk band Wasted Youth), Velvet Revolver recorded two songs for soundtracks: "Set Me Free" for The Hulk and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Money" for The Italian Job. They made their full-length debut on RCA Records with Contraband (Number One, 2004). The album sold 256,000 copies in its first week and eventually sold more than two million. Its first single, "Slither," topped the Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts and reached Number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other singles did nearly as well including, "Dirty Little Thing" (Number Eight Mainstream Rock, 2004) and "Fall to Pieces" (Number One Mainstream Rock, Number Two Modern Rock, 2004). In 2005, "Slither" took home a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
After extensive touring and three years of writing and recording, VR followed up with Libertad (Number Five, 2007). It yielded the single "She Builds Quick Machines" (Number Two Hot Mainstream Rock, 2007). In late 2007, the band enlisted fans to choose, via its Web site, a new single from the album. They opted for "Get Out the Door," which was released in January 2008, the same month the band had been scheduled to embark on a tour of Australia, Europe and the United States. However, Velvet Revolver hasn't been immune to the problems that plagued both GN'R and STP. The Australian leg of the 2008 tour was cancelled when Weiland entered rehab again. In April of that year the band announced it was parting ways with Weiland a few weeks before he announced he was reuniting with his former band Stone Temple Pilots. In June 2008 rumors swirled about possible replacements for Weiland but no official announcement had been made.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The band formed former Guns N' Roses Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) began jamming together in 2002 without their notoriously difficult ex-front man Axl Rose. Producers at VH1 rolled their cameras as the trio searched for a singer to fill Rose's shoes. "The Project," as they called it, found the three auditioning a number of potential replacements — including Buckcherry's Josh Todd and Skid Row's Sebastian Bach — before settling on another difficult front man, ex-Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, who came up with the band name.
In 2003, fleshed out with second guitarist Dave Kushner (formerly of the punk band Wasted Youth), Velvet Revolver recorded two songs for soundtracks: "Set Me Free" for The Hulk and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Money" for The Italian Job. They made their full-length debut on RCA Records with Contraband (Number One, 2004). The album sold 256,000 copies in its first week and eventually sold more than two million. Its first single, "Slither," topped the Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts and reached Number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other singles did nearly as well including, "Dirty Little Thing" (Number Eight Mainstream Rock, 2004) and "Fall to Pieces" (Number One Mainstream Rock, Number Two Modern Rock, 2004). In 2005, "Slither" took home a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.
After extensive touring and three years of writing and recording, VR followed up with Libertad (Number Five, 2007). It yielded the single "She Builds Quick Machines" (Number Two Hot Mainstream Rock, 2007). In late 2007, the band enlisted fans to choose, via its Web site, a new single from the album. They opted for "Get Out the Door," which was released in January 2008, the same month the band had been scheduled to embark on a tour of Australia, Europe and the United States. However, Velvet Revolver hasn't been immune to the problems that plagued both GN'R and STP. The Australian leg of the 2008 tour was cancelled when Weiland entered rehab again. In April of that year the band announced it was parting ways with Weiland a few weeks before he announced he was reuniting with his former band Stone Temple Pilots. In June 2008 rumors swirled about possible replacements for Weiland but no official announcement had been made.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Yngwie Malmsteen - Special Biography
Yngwie Malmsteen is arguably the most technically accomplished hard rock guitarist to emerge during the '80s. Combining a dazzling technique honed over years of obsessive practice with a love for such classical composers as Bach, Beethoven, and Paganini, Malmsteen's distinctively Baroque, gothic compositional style and lightning-fast arpeggiated solos rewrote the book on heavy metal guitar.
His largely instrumental debut album, Rising Force, immediately upped the ante for aspiring hard rock guitarists and provided the major catalyst for the '80s guitar phenomenon known as "shredding," in which the music's main focus was on impossibly fast, demanding licks rather than songwriting. Malmsteen released a series of albums over the course of the '80s that, aside from slight differences in approach and execution, were strongly similar to Rising Force, and critics charged him with showing little artistic progression.
He was also reviled as an egotist whose emphasis on blazing technique ultimately made for boring, mechanical, masturbatory music with no room for subtlety or emotion. Malmsteen responded by insisting that since he was already playing music he loved, he had no desire to develop any further, and that his love did come through in his playing. He also vehemently insisted that it was his imitators, not him, who reduced songwriting and composition to merely generic vehicles to show off the guitar player's amazing technique. Toward the end of the decade, Malmsteen fell out of favor with metal audiences, and even some of his musician fan base seemed to tire of him and the incredible amount of practice it would take for them to emulate him.
Following a series of personal setbacks, tragedies, and even injuries, Malmsteen eventually resurfaced on small, independent labels and then recorded at a prolific, rapid pace, continuing to play the music he loved in his patented neo-classical style. Yngwie (pronounced "ING-vay") Malmsteen was born Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963, later adopting his mother's maiden name following his parents' divorce. He was an unruly child, and his mother tried without initial success to interest him in music as an outlet. However, when seven-year-old Yngwie saw a television special on the death of Jimi Hendrix featuring live performance footage of Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, he became obsessed with the guitar, learning to play the music of both Hendrix and favorites Deep Purple.
Through Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's use of diatonic minor scales over simple blues riffs, Malmsteen was led toward classical music, and his sister exposed him to composers like Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Mozart. He spent hours practicing obsessively until his fingers bled, and by age ten, his mother allowed him to stay home from school to develop his musical talents, particularly since he was considered a behavioral nightmare. Also at age ten, Malmsteen became enamored of the music of 19th century violinist/composer Niccolo Paganini, as well as Paganini's flamboyant style and wild-man image; this would provide the blueprint for Malmsteen's synthesis of classical music and rock.
By the time he was 18, Malmsteen was playing around Sweden with various bands attempting to find an audience for his technically staggering instrumental explorations, but most listeners preferred more accessible pop music; frustrated, Malmsteen sent demo tapes to record companies overseas. When Mike Varney, president of Shrapnel Records -- a label synonymous with the term "shredder" -- heard Malmsteen's tape, he invited the guitarist to come to the United States and join the band Steeler in 1981.
Steeler recorded one album with Malmsteen on guitar, but dissatisfied with the band's rather generic style, Malmsteen moved on to the group Alcatrazz, whose Deep Purple and Rainbow influences better suited the guitarist's style. Still not quite satisfied, Malmsteen formed his own band, Rising Force, with longtime friend and keyboardist Jens Johansson. The new band's first album, also called Rising Force, was released in 1984; it was a largely instrumental affair spotlighting Malmsteen's incendiary guitar work and Johansson's nearly equally developed technique. The album was an immediate sensation in guitar circles, winning countless reader's polls in guitar magazines, reaching number 60 on Billboard's album chart (no mean feat for an instrumental album), and receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
Malmsteen's subsequent albums, Marching Out and Trilogy, also sold quite well and consolidated his reputation and influence as a composer as well as a soloist. However, on June 22, 1987, a speeding Malmsteen crashed his Jaguar into a tree; in breaking the steering wheel with his head, he received a blood clot in his brain that nearly killed him and extensively damaged the nerves leading to his picking hand. In the course of recovery, he learned that his mother had died and that his manager had swindled him out of his earnings. Undaunted, Malmsteen regained the use of his hand and recorded Odyssey, his most accessible, radio-friendly collection to date; the single "Heaven Tonight" widened his audience beyond a devoted core of guitar fans and helped push the album into Billboard's Top 40.
Following a world tour including the then-Soviet Union, the Rising Force unit disbanded and Malmsteen formed a new band in his native Sweden for 1990's Eclipse. The album was a success in Europe and Japan, but stiffed in the U.S. without much promotion. An angry Malmsteen left PolyGram and, prior to the release of 1992's Fire and Ice, he was married to and divorced from a Swedish pop singer. Fire and Ice debuted at number one on the Japanese charts, and Malmsteen toured the world again. However, disaster struck frequently over the next two years.
Hurricane Andrew destroyed Malmsteen's Miami property; his manager of four years died of a heart attack; Elektra dropped him from their roster; a freak accident left the guitarist with a broken hand, in addition to frequent bouts of tendinitis caused by his lightning technique; and in August 1993, Malmsteen's future mother-in-law, opposed to his engagement to her daughter, had him falsely arrested for holding the woman hostage with a gun.
The charges were quickly dropped, and Malmsteen secured a deal with the Japanese label Pony Canyon after his hand had healed completely. He returned to recording with a vengeance, releasing The Seventh Sign in 1994, as well as two mini-albums (Power and Glory and I Can't Wait), and then Magnum Opus in 1995 and the all-covers album Inspiration in 1996. After several years in near obscurity, Malmsteen returned to the headlines in 2002, after a fellow airline passenger threw water on him after he allegedly made a slanderous comment about homosexuals. This incensed Malmsteen, who had to be escorted away by security, all the while screaming to the passenger that she had "unleashed the f*cking fury."
This stint proved to be so popular in revitalizing his career that his comeback album in 2005 appropriated the phrases as its title. While his popularity has largely faded in the U.S. due to a backlash against the excesses of '80s shredders, Malmsteen still finds audiences in Europe and is more popular in Japan and Asia than ever. Instru-Mental was released in February 2007.
by Steve Huey, All Music Guide
His largely instrumental debut album, Rising Force, immediately upped the ante for aspiring hard rock guitarists and provided the major catalyst for the '80s guitar phenomenon known as "shredding," in which the music's main focus was on impossibly fast, demanding licks rather than songwriting. Malmsteen released a series of albums over the course of the '80s that, aside from slight differences in approach and execution, were strongly similar to Rising Force, and critics charged him with showing little artistic progression.
He was also reviled as an egotist whose emphasis on blazing technique ultimately made for boring, mechanical, masturbatory music with no room for subtlety or emotion. Malmsteen responded by insisting that since he was already playing music he loved, he had no desire to develop any further, and that his love did come through in his playing. He also vehemently insisted that it was his imitators, not him, who reduced songwriting and composition to merely generic vehicles to show off the guitar player's amazing technique. Toward the end of the decade, Malmsteen fell out of favor with metal audiences, and even some of his musician fan base seemed to tire of him and the incredible amount of practice it would take for them to emulate him.
Following a series of personal setbacks, tragedies, and even injuries, Malmsteen eventually resurfaced on small, independent labels and then recorded at a prolific, rapid pace, continuing to play the music he loved in his patented neo-classical style. Yngwie (pronounced "ING-vay") Malmsteen was born Lars Johann Yngwie Lannerback in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963, later adopting his mother's maiden name following his parents' divorce. He was an unruly child, and his mother tried without initial success to interest him in music as an outlet. However, when seven-year-old Yngwie saw a television special on the death of Jimi Hendrix featuring live performance footage of Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, he became obsessed with the guitar, learning to play the music of both Hendrix and favorites Deep Purple.
Through Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's use of diatonic minor scales over simple blues riffs, Malmsteen was led toward classical music, and his sister exposed him to composers like Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Mozart. He spent hours practicing obsessively until his fingers bled, and by age ten, his mother allowed him to stay home from school to develop his musical talents, particularly since he was considered a behavioral nightmare. Also at age ten, Malmsteen became enamored of the music of 19th century violinist/composer Niccolo Paganini, as well as Paganini's flamboyant style and wild-man image; this would provide the blueprint for Malmsteen's synthesis of classical music and rock.
By the time he was 18, Malmsteen was playing around Sweden with various bands attempting to find an audience for his technically staggering instrumental explorations, but most listeners preferred more accessible pop music; frustrated, Malmsteen sent demo tapes to record companies overseas. When Mike Varney, president of Shrapnel Records -- a label synonymous with the term "shredder" -- heard Malmsteen's tape, he invited the guitarist to come to the United States and join the band Steeler in 1981.
Steeler recorded one album with Malmsteen on guitar, but dissatisfied with the band's rather generic style, Malmsteen moved on to the group Alcatrazz, whose Deep Purple and Rainbow influences better suited the guitarist's style. Still not quite satisfied, Malmsteen formed his own band, Rising Force, with longtime friend and keyboardist Jens Johansson. The new band's first album, also called Rising Force, was released in 1984; it was a largely instrumental affair spotlighting Malmsteen's incendiary guitar work and Johansson's nearly equally developed technique. The album was an immediate sensation in guitar circles, winning countless reader's polls in guitar magazines, reaching number 60 on Billboard's album chart (no mean feat for an instrumental album), and receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
Malmsteen's subsequent albums, Marching Out and Trilogy, also sold quite well and consolidated his reputation and influence as a composer as well as a soloist. However, on June 22, 1987, a speeding Malmsteen crashed his Jaguar into a tree; in breaking the steering wheel with his head, he received a blood clot in his brain that nearly killed him and extensively damaged the nerves leading to his picking hand. In the course of recovery, he learned that his mother had died and that his manager had swindled him out of his earnings. Undaunted, Malmsteen regained the use of his hand and recorded Odyssey, his most accessible, radio-friendly collection to date; the single "Heaven Tonight" widened his audience beyond a devoted core of guitar fans and helped push the album into Billboard's Top 40.
Following a world tour including the then-Soviet Union, the Rising Force unit disbanded and Malmsteen formed a new band in his native Sweden for 1990's Eclipse. The album was a success in Europe and Japan, but stiffed in the U.S. without much promotion. An angry Malmsteen left PolyGram and, prior to the release of 1992's Fire and Ice, he was married to and divorced from a Swedish pop singer. Fire and Ice debuted at number one on the Japanese charts, and Malmsteen toured the world again. However, disaster struck frequently over the next two years.
Hurricane Andrew destroyed Malmsteen's Miami property; his manager of four years died of a heart attack; Elektra dropped him from their roster; a freak accident left the guitarist with a broken hand, in addition to frequent bouts of tendinitis caused by his lightning technique; and in August 1993, Malmsteen's future mother-in-law, opposed to his engagement to her daughter, had him falsely arrested for holding the woman hostage with a gun.
The charges were quickly dropped, and Malmsteen secured a deal with the Japanese label Pony Canyon after his hand had healed completely. He returned to recording with a vengeance, releasing The Seventh Sign in 1994, as well as two mini-albums (Power and Glory and I Can't Wait), and then Magnum Opus in 1995 and the all-covers album Inspiration in 1996. After several years in near obscurity, Malmsteen returned to the headlines in 2002, after a fellow airline passenger threw water on him after he allegedly made a slanderous comment about homosexuals. This incensed Malmsteen, who had to be escorted away by security, all the while screaming to the passenger that she had "unleashed the f*cking fury."
This stint proved to be so popular in revitalizing his career that his comeback album in 2005 appropriated the phrases as its title. While his popularity has largely faded in the U.S. due to a backlash against the excesses of '80s shredders, Malmsteen still finds audiences in Europe and is more popular in Japan and Asia than ever. Instru-Mental was released in February 2007.
by Steve Huey, All Music Guide
U2 - Special Biography
Being the biggest band in the world is a tough job, which is why U2 have sloughed it off now and then: Periods of arena-scale romance have been followed by bursts of odder experimentation, including a less-than-stellar Nineties stretch when the band were mired in irony, postmodernism and orange goggles. But for much of their career, U2 have committed to grabbing and holding that Biggest Band title the way they commit to everything — completely and passionately.
With Bono's soulful, grandiose cry, The Edge's intricately textured guitar parts, and the steady propulsion of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., U2's sound is instantly recognizable and much-imitated. Inspired equally by the Ramones' punk thrust and Bob Dylan's insightful punditry, the four Irishmen went from Dublin dives to the Top Forty by applying Brian Eno's ambient concepts to three-chord transcendence. They went on to influence the global political agenda while continually tweaking — and sometimes completely making over — their sound. They have their critics: Some claim U2 confuses bluster for earnestness, egomania for importance. But hordes of longtime fans believe differently, and live for each U2 gig.
Brought together after Larry Mullen Jr. posted an ad on the school bulletin board, the band members began rehearsing together at Dublin's Mount Temple Comprehensive. None of them was technically proficient, but their lack of expertise generated inventive ideas. David "The Edge" Evans's distinctive chording style, for instance, stemmed largely from his inability to play complicated leads. They called themselves the Hype before settling on a moniker inspired by the American spy plane. The novice musicians quickly developed a following in Ireland and found a manager, Paul McGuinness, who remains with them to this day. They recorded independently before signing to Island Records in 1980.
U2's 1980 debut LP, Boy, was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who had worked with Peter Gabriel and the Psychedelic Furs. The album earnestly explored adolescent hopes and terrors, rejecting hard rock's earthy egotism and punk's nihilism. Bono was (and still is) a practicing Christian, as were the Edge and Mullen, and on their second LP, October (1981), the singer-lyricist incorporated imagery evoking their faith. Boy and October generated the respective singles "I Will Follow" and "Gloria," which got some airplay in the U.S. An American club tour generated further interest, thanks to U2's incendiary live performances.
Also produced by Lillywhite, War (1983) cemented U2's reputation as a politically conscious band; among its topics were "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, addressed on the single "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Another single, "New Year's Day," went to Number 11 in England and Number 53 in the U.S., while War topped the British chart and hit Number 12 Stateside. The group commemorated its 1983 tour with the live EP Under a Blood Red Sky, recorded at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado.
U2's next studio album, 1984's The Unforgettable Fire, was the first of several fruitful collaborations with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Island was reluctant to let the band work with the onetime Talking Heads producer, but couldn't argue with the results, which found U2 expanding their sound into a widescreen dimension while losing none of the band's pointed attack. The album generated the group's first American Top 40 single, an ode to American Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., called "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (Number 33, 1984). The album hit Number 12 here, and the Irishmen supported it by headlining arenas around the world. In 1985 U2 was proclaimed "Band of the '80s" by Rolling Stone and made a historic appearance at Live Aid. The following year, they joined Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and others for the Conspiracy of Hope Tour benefiting Amnesty International.
U2 entered the pop stratosphere with 1987's The Joshua Tree, a critical and commercial smash that topped the albums chart that year and spawned the Number One hits "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," as well as "Where the Streets Have No Name" (Number 13, 1987). The LP, again produced by Eno and Lanois, won the group Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance. In 1988 U2 wrapped up a triumphant world tour by releasing Rattle and Hum, a double-LP that combined live tracks with new material, and featured guest appearances by Bob Dylan and B.B. King. Rattle and Hum seemed bombastic to some critics; an accompanying film documentary also garnered mixed reviews. The LP nonetheless shot to Number One, and produced a Number Three single, the Bo Diddley-inspired "Desire" (1988).
U2 keenly felt the critical backlash and retreated into a Berlin studio to reinvent themselves again, with tremendous effect. The band's next LP marked a stylistic departure, featuring more metallic textures, funkier beats, and intimate, world-weary love songs. Achtung Baby reached Number One and received rave reviews. (at the time Bono was fond of saying that the album was the sound of "four men chopping down The Joshua Tree.") Hit singles included "Mysterious Ways" (Number Nine, 1992), "One" (Number 10, 1992), "Even Better Than the Real Thing" (Number 32, 1992), and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (Number 35, 1992). Another track, "Until the End of the World," was featured (in differently mixed form) in Wim Wenders' 1991 film of the same name. Lanois, who produced Achtung Baby with support from Eno and Lillywhite, won a Grammy for his work.
In 1992 the band embarked on its Zoo TV tour, a flashy multimedia extravaganza that belied the rugged simplicity of its previous shows. Bono adopted a series of wry guises — the leather-and-shades-sporting Fly, the demonic MacPhisto—that he'd use for encores and, in the Fly's case, freewheeling press appearances.
In 1993, as the tour wound down, the band reentered the studio and made Zooropa, a quirky, electronics-laden affair co-produced by Eno, the Edge and engineer Flood. The album reached Number One and yielded the hits "Numb" (Number Two, modern rock, 1993) and "Lemon" (Number Three, modern rock, 1993), which also appeared on the soundtrack to Wenders' 1993 movie Faraway, So Close. Johnny Cash sang lead on the track "The Wanderer."
In 1993 the band renewed its contract with Island for an estimated $170 million. U2's contribution to 1995's Batman Forever soundtrack, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," was a Top 20 hit. Also in 1995 the group collaborated with Eno as Passengers on a largely instrumental album called Original Soundtracks I; the only track to get attention was "Miss Sarajevo," on which Bono shared vocals with opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. Proceeds from the single's sales went toward war relief in Bosnia. The same year Bono and the Edge co-wrote with Irish folk singer Christy Moore a song about the peace process in Ireland, "North and South of the River."
In 1996 Clayton and Mullen recorded a rock version of the "Theme From Mission: Impossible" for the film starring Tom Cruise. It went to Number Seven on the pop chart. The following year saw the release of the electronica-heavy Pop; the album debuted at Number One in 27 countries, including the U.S., and garnered hit singles in "Discotheque" (Number 10, 1997) and "Staring at the Sun" (Number 26, 1998). U2 embarked on its next stage extravaganza, the PopMart tour, from 1997 to 1998. With a supermarket theme that played upon the concept of commercialism, the tour was even more grandiose than Zoo TV had been, with immense props that included a giant olive with a 100-foot-long toothpick, a 35-foot-high lemon, and a 100-foot-tall golden arch. At the tour's conclusion, U2 released a greatest-hits compilation with a remixed version of "The Sweetest Thing," previously the B side of "Where the Streets Have No Name." This time the song was released as a single (Number 63, 1998).
Bono returned to political activism in 1999, with much of his focus on fighting world poverty. He met with President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as the Pope, as a representative of Jubilee 2000, a nonprofit group devoted to convincing nations to forgive third-world debt in the new millennium. He also co-wrote a song, "New Day," with Wyclef Jean of the Fugees; the single's proceeds benefited relief efforts in Kosovo and the Wyclef Jean Foundation. The pair performed the song at the United Nations, as well as at NetAid, a concert held simultaneously in London, Geneva, and New Jersey's Giants Stadium, while being simulcast live on the Internet, to benefit several causes, among them third-world debt relief and global poverty.
In early 2000, the Wim Wenders movie The Million Dollar Hotel, based on a story co-conceived by Bono, was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and released in many countries. Bono co-produced the film, made a cameo appearance in it, and U2 recorded three new songs for the soundtrack, one of which, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," was written around lyrics by controversial author Salman Rushdie. In addition, Bono recorded tracks with Lanois and Eno as the Million Dollar Hotel Band.
U2 released an album of new material in late 2000: All That You Can't Leave Behind (Number Three), featuring the single "Beautiful Day" (Number 21), which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" (Number 52, 2001) became something of an anthem for Americans recovering from the shock of the September 11th terror attacks. The disc was a polished version of U2's sound that rejected Pop's sonic quirks and signaled a renewed intent, with Bono proclaiming they were "reapplying for the job of the best band in the world." The band's Elevation Tour featured a heart-shaped catwalk in front of the stage which provided fans with close-up contact with the musicians.
In 2002, U2 performed at the halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI and issued a second greatest-hits collection, covering the 1990s and All That You Can't Leave Behind; it yielded a minor hit in "Electrical Storm" (Number 77, 2002). U2 released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in late 2004, which entered the charts at Number One, proving U2 one of the few sure things in the uneasy rock marketplace of the new millennium. The disc continued to mine the classicism of their last album with positive results. Demonstrating a newfound flair for commercial deals, the rousing single "Vertigo" was featured in an iPod ad, and the group released a special-edition iPod loaded with all of its albums. It won nine Grammy awards.
Bono's activist profile continued to swell. His ongoing efforts at relief for Africa part landed him on the cover of Time's Person of the Year issue, with fellow millionaire-philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates. In 2005 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen and opened the London leg of the Live 8 charity concert with a version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The following year came the self-explanatory U218: Singles package, which included a new song "Window in the Skies" and a cover of the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming" (Number 51, 2006) recorded in collaboration with Green Day. Proceeds from "Saints" benefited a charity established by The Edge to restore music programs in New Orleans schools hit by the Katrina hurricane. While the band worked on another studio album, they released the concert movie U2 3D, which was filmed during their 2005 Vertigo Tour.
After scrapping sessions recorded with Rick Rubin, the Eno/Lanois-produced No Line on the Horizon arrived early in 2009. In the interim, U2 had signed a 12-year deal with concert promoters Live Nation, who would now handle the band's merchandizing and sponsorship agreements. Horizon topped the chart, accompanied by two singles: the snarling "Get on Your Boots" (Number 37, 2009) and the more traditional "Magnificent" (Number 79, 2009). While the album didn't matched the sales of many other U2 albums, the U2 360° tour that kicked off that June in Barcelona was a blockbuster. The giant stage set, which featured the group performing in the round, was the largest ever constructed for a touring event. The band also announced that they will headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2010 on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
With Bono's soulful, grandiose cry, The Edge's intricately textured guitar parts, and the steady propulsion of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., U2's sound is instantly recognizable and much-imitated. Inspired equally by the Ramones' punk thrust and Bob Dylan's insightful punditry, the four Irishmen went from Dublin dives to the Top Forty by applying Brian Eno's ambient concepts to three-chord transcendence. They went on to influence the global political agenda while continually tweaking — and sometimes completely making over — their sound. They have their critics: Some claim U2 confuses bluster for earnestness, egomania for importance. But hordes of longtime fans believe differently, and live for each U2 gig.
Brought together after Larry Mullen Jr. posted an ad on the school bulletin board, the band members began rehearsing together at Dublin's Mount Temple Comprehensive. None of them was technically proficient, but their lack of expertise generated inventive ideas. David "The Edge" Evans's distinctive chording style, for instance, stemmed largely from his inability to play complicated leads. They called themselves the Hype before settling on a moniker inspired by the American spy plane. The novice musicians quickly developed a following in Ireland and found a manager, Paul McGuinness, who remains with them to this day. They recorded independently before signing to Island Records in 1980.
U2's 1980 debut LP, Boy, was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who had worked with Peter Gabriel and the Psychedelic Furs. The album earnestly explored adolescent hopes and terrors, rejecting hard rock's earthy egotism and punk's nihilism. Bono was (and still is) a practicing Christian, as were the Edge and Mullen, and on their second LP, October (1981), the singer-lyricist incorporated imagery evoking their faith. Boy and October generated the respective singles "I Will Follow" and "Gloria," which got some airplay in the U.S. An American club tour generated further interest, thanks to U2's incendiary live performances.
Also produced by Lillywhite, War (1983) cemented U2's reputation as a politically conscious band; among its topics were "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, addressed on the single "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Another single, "New Year's Day," went to Number 11 in England and Number 53 in the U.S., while War topped the British chart and hit Number 12 Stateside. The group commemorated its 1983 tour with the live EP Under a Blood Red Sky, recorded at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado.
U2's next studio album, 1984's The Unforgettable Fire, was the first of several fruitful collaborations with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Island was reluctant to let the band work with the onetime Talking Heads producer, but couldn't argue with the results, which found U2 expanding their sound into a widescreen dimension while losing none of the band's pointed attack. The album generated the group's first American Top 40 single, an ode to American Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., called "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (Number 33, 1984). The album hit Number 12 here, and the Irishmen supported it by headlining arenas around the world. In 1985 U2 was proclaimed "Band of the '80s" by Rolling Stone and made a historic appearance at Live Aid. The following year, they joined Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and others for the Conspiracy of Hope Tour benefiting Amnesty International.
U2 entered the pop stratosphere with 1987's The Joshua Tree, a critical and commercial smash that topped the albums chart that year and spawned the Number One hits "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," as well as "Where the Streets Have No Name" (Number 13, 1987). The LP, again produced by Eno and Lanois, won the group Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance. In 1988 U2 wrapped up a triumphant world tour by releasing Rattle and Hum, a double-LP that combined live tracks with new material, and featured guest appearances by Bob Dylan and B.B. King. Rattle and Hum seemed bombastic to some critics; an accompanying film documentary also garnered mixed reviews. The LP nonetheless shot to Number One, and produced a Number Three single, the Bo Diddley-inspired "Desire" (1988).
U2 keenly felt the critical backlash and retreated into a Berlin studio to reinvent themselves again, with tremendous effect. The band's next LP marked a stylistic departure, featuring more metallic textures, funkier beats, and intimate, world-weary love songs. Achtung Baby reached Number One and received rave reviews. (at the time Bono was fond of saying that the album was the sound of "four men chopping down The Joshua Tree.") Hit singles included "Mysterious Ways" (Number Nine, 1992), "One" (Number 10, 1992), "Even Better Than the Real Thing" (Number 32, 1992), and "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (Number 35, 1992). Another track, "Until the End of the World," was featured (in differently mixed form) in Wim Wenders' 1991 film of the same name. Lanois, who produced Achtung Baby with support from Eno and Lillywhite, won a Grammy for his work.
In 1992 the band embarked on its Zoo TV tour, a flashy multimedia extravaganza that belied the rugged simplicity of its previous shows. Bono adopted a series of wry guises — the leather-and-shades-sporting Fly, the demonic MacPhisto—that he'd use for encores and, in the Fly's case, freewheeling press appearances.
In 1993, as the tour wound down, the band reentered the studio and made Zooropa, a quirky, electronics-laden affair co-produced by Eno, the Edge and engineer Flood. The album reached Number One and yielded the hits "Numb" (Number Two, modern rock, 1993) and "Lemon" (Number Three, modern rock, 1993), which also appeared on the soundtrack to Wenders' 1993 movie Faraway, So Close. Johnny Cash sang lead on the track "The Wanderer."
In 1993 the band renewed its contract with Island for an estimated $170 million. U2's contribution to 1995's Batman Forever soundtrack, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," was a Top 20 hit. Also in 1995 the group collaborated with Eno as Passengers on a largely instrumental album called Original Soundtracks I; the only track to get attention was "Miss Sarajevo," on which Bono shared vocals with opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. Proceeds from the single's sales went toward war relief in Bosnia. The same year Bono and the Edge co-wrote with Irish folk singer Christy Moore a song about the peace process in Ireland, "North and South of the River."
In 1996 Clayton and Mullen recorded a rock version of the "Theme From Mission: Impossible" for the film starring Tom Cruise. It went to Number Seven on the pop chart. The following year saw the release of the electronica-heavy Pop; the album debuted at Number One in 27 countries, including the U.S., and garnered hit singles in "Discotheque" (Number 10, 1997) and "Staring at the Sun" (Number 26, 1998). U2 embarked on its next stage extravaganza, the PopMart tour, from 1997 to 1998. With a supermarket theme that played upon the concept of commercialism, the tour was even more grandiose than Zoo TV had been, with immense props that included a giant olive with a 100-foot-long toothpick, a 35-foot-high lemon, and a 100-foot-tall golden arch. At the tour's conclusion, U2 released a greatest-hits compilation with a remixed version of "The Sweetest Thing," previously the B side of "Where the Streets Have No Name." This time the song was released as a single (Number 63, 1998).
Bono returned to political activism in 1999, with much of his focus on fighting world poverty. He met with President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as the Pope, as a representative of Jubilee 2000, a nonprofit group devoted to convincing nations to forgive third-world debt in the new millennium. He also co-wrote a song, "New Day," with Wyclef Jean of the Fugees; the single's proceeds benefited relief efforts in Kosovo and the Wyclef Jean Foundation. The pair performed the song at the United Nations, as well as at NetAid, a concert held simultaneously in London, Geneva, and New Jersey's Giants Stadium, while being simulcast live on the Internet, to benefit several causes, among them third-world debt relief and global poverty.
In early 2000, the Wim Wenders movie The Million Dollar Hotel, based on a story co-conceived by Bono, was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and released in many countries. Bono co-produced the film, made a cameo appearance in it, and U2 recorded three new songs for the soundtrack, one of which, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," was written around lyrics by controversial author Salman Rushdie. In addition, Bono recorded tracks with Lanois and Eno as the Million Dollar Hotel Band.
U2 released an album of new material in late 2000: All That You Can't Leave Behind (Number Three), featuring the single "Beautiful Day" (Number 21), which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" (Number 52, 2001) became something of an anthem for Americans recovering from the shock of the September 11th terror attacks. The disc was a polished version of U2's sound that rejected Pop's sonic quirks and signaled a renewed intent, with Bono proclaiming they were "reapplying for the job of the best band in the world." The band's Elevation Tour featured a heart-shaped catwalk in front of the stage which provided fans with close-up contact with the musicians.
In 2002, U2 performed at the halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI and issued a second greatest-hits collection, covering the 1990s and All That You Can't Leave Behind; it yielded a minor hit in "Electrical Storm" (Number 77, 2002). U2 released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in late 2004, which entered the charts at Number One, proving U2 one of the few sure things in the uneasy rock marketplace of the new millennium. The disc continued to mine the classicism of their last album with positive results. Demonstrating a newfound flair for commercial deals, the rousing single "Vertigo" was featured in an iPod ad, and the group released a special-edition iPod loaded with all of its albums. It won nine Grammy awards.
Bono's activist profile continued to swell. His ongoing efforts at relief for Africa part landed him on the cover of Time's Person of the Year issue, with fellow millionaire-philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates. In 2005 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen and opened the London leg of the Live 8 charity concert with a version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The following year came the self-explanatory U218: Singles package, which included a new song "Window in the Skies" and a cover of the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming" (Number 51, 2006) recorded in collaboration with Green Day. Proceeds from "Saints" benefited a charity established by The Edge to restore music programs in New Orleans schools hit by the Katrina hurricane. While the band worked on another studio album, they released the concert movie U2 3D, which was filmed during their 2005 Vertigo Tour.
After scrapping sessions recorded with Rick Rubin, the Eno/Lanois-produced No Line on the Horizon arrived early in 2009. In the interim, U2 had signed a 12-year deal with concert promoters Live Nation, who would now handle the band's merchandizing and sponsorship agreements. Horizon topped the chart, accompanied by two singles: the snarling "Get on Your Boots" (Number 37, 2009) and the more traditional "Magnificent" (Number 79, 2009). While the album didn't matched the sales of many other U2 albums, the U2 360° tour that kicked off that June in Barcelona was a blockbuster. The giant stage set, which featured the group performing in the round, was the largest ever constructed for a touring event. The band also announced that they will headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2010 on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The Runaways - Special Biography
Dismissed during their existence as a crass marketing gimmick, the Runaways have grown in stature over the years as the first all-female band to make a substantial impression on the public by playing loud, straight-up, guitar-driven rock & roll. Since all of the members were teenagers (some of whom were still learning to play their instruments when they passed their auditions), their music was frequently raw and amateurish, but it neatly combined American heavy metal (think Aerosmith and Kiss) with the newly emerging sound of punk rock.
In the media, the Runaways were victims of their own hype, supplied by maverick promoter/manager Kim Fowley. Fowley's insistence on a sleazy jailbait image for the group made it easy for the press to dismiss them as nothing but a tasteless adolescent fantasy -- an impression bolstered at the time by the admittedly erratic quality of their music. But in the end, the Runaways' sound and attitude proved crucially important in paving the way for female artists to crank up the volume on their guitars and rock as hard as the boys; plus, they produced one undeniably classic single in the rebel-girl manifesto "Cherry Bomb." The genesis of the Runaways can be traced to a 1975 Alice Cooper party at which Fowley met teenage lyricist Kari Krome.
Fowley was impressed with Krome's streetwise perspective and set about putting together a band. Krome's friend, guitarist Joan Jett (born Joan Larkin), had been putting together a band with drummer Sandy West (born Sandy Pesavento), and Fowley quickly had a trio on his hands. However, it soon became apparent that Krome was not much of a singer, and she was replaced by vocalist Michael "Micki" Steele (born Sue Thomas), who also began learning the bass. As a trio, this lineup recorded a demo titled Born to Be Bad in late 1975; shortly thereafter, guitarist Lita Ford successfully auditioned through a trade-paper ad, and Steele left the group (she would later join the Bangles).
Cherie Currie became the new lead vocalist, and after an extremely brief stint with a bass player known only as Peggy (which lasted just a few weeks), the band settled on Jackie Fox (born Jacqueline Fuchs), who switched to bass from guitar in order to join the band. Thus constituted as an entirely teenaged quintet, it didn't take long for the Runaways to score a record deal; Currie's stage wardrobe (lingerie) and Fowley's well-established contacts made sure of that. After signing with Mercury in February 1976, the band began recording their self-titled debut album, which was released just a few months later.
However, it was not greeted well. Fowley was preceded by his reputation for overhyping gimmicky acts, and the sheer number of roles he played in guiding the Runaways' career made him appear a manipulative, Svengali-like figure. Moreover, regardless of whether or not the Runaways were simply a cheap exploitation act (an endlessly debatable question), the entire concept of the band -- teenage girls playing their own instruments and singing frankly and enthusiastically about sex, booze, and life on the streets -- was simply too discomforting for much of America.
Fowley's extensive involvement (some called it near-total control) made it easy for journalists and radio programmers to dismiss the group out of hand as a male-concocted sham; it was also a convenient way to ignore the myriad cultural buttons the Runaways were pushing. Despite a wave of publicity on Fowley's part, The Runaways just barely scraped the bottom of the charts in the early fall of 1976, around the same time the band played their first gig at the legendary New York punk club CBGB's. The second Runaways album, Queens of Noise, was released in early 1977 and fared little better on the charts than its predecessor, thanks to radio's continued reluctance to program the group's music.
However, when the Runaways mounted a tour of Japan in June of that year, they were greeted with sold-out arena gigs and rabidly enthusiastic audiences who didn't consider them a joke ("Cherry Bomb" had, in fact, topped the Japanese charts). A concert record, Live in Japan, was culled from the tour, but wasn't released in the U.S. Despite this taste of success, relationships between some of the group members had begun to fray, thanks partly to substance abuse problems and partly to unconcerned negligence on the management's part.
Upon their return to Los Angeles in July 1977, Jackie Fox departed the group; a story circulated that she had attempted suicide on the Japanese tour, though it was later discredited. Before the year was out, Currie too had left, spurred in part by consistent disagreements with Fowley. Jett took over as lead vocalist, and new bassist Vicki Blue was hired for the group's third album. Waiting for the Night was released at the end of the year, and failed to even hit the U.S. charts.
By this point, Fowley had lost interest in the band, and quit as manager early the next year. Jett's unofficial leadership role within the group became more serious, but unfortunately, musical differences were beginning to arise (Jett's punk and glam rock influences clashed with West and Ford's love of straight-up hard rock and heavy metal). One more album, And Now...The Runaways, appeared toward the end of 1978, but it was released only in the group's core markets of Europe and Japan (it later appeared in America with a different running order under the title Little Lost Girls).
Blue quit the band after their New Year's gig and was replaced by Laurie McAllister, but to no avail; Jett left the group in April 1979, and the Runaways officially disbanded not long after. Currie released a solo album in 1978 titled Beauty's Only Skin Deep, and then teamed up with her twin sister Marie for 1980's Messin' With the Boys. Jackie Fox went to law school and became an attorney. West and Ford formed a short-lived outfit of their own, after which Ford went solo and scored several hits as a pop-metal artist during the '80s.
But an even better indicator that there was more to the Runaways' music than met the eye was the success of Joan Jett's solo career. Jett formed her own band and record label, landed an enormous number one smash with 1982's "I Love Rock n' Roll," and continued to produce albums of tough hard rock into the '90s. The heavily feminist riot grrrl punk movement claimed Jett as a major inspiration, prompting a re-examination of the Runaways' output divorced from Kim Fowley's marketing tactics. Rumors of a full-band reunion surfaced periodically through the rest of the '90s, though none has yet materialized.
by Steve Huey, All Music Guide
In the media, the Runaways were victims of their own hype, supplied by maverick promoter/manager Kim Fowley. Fowley's insistence on a sleazy jailbait image for the group made it easy for the press to dismiss them as nothing but a tasteless adolescent fantasy -- an impression bolstered at the time by the admittedly erratic quality of their music. But in the end, the Runaways' sound and attitude proved crucially important in paving the way for female artists to crank up the volume on their guitars and rock as hard as the boys; plus, they produced one undeniably classic single in the rebel-girl manifesto "Cherry Bomb." The genesis of the Runaways can be traced to a 1975 Alice Cooper party at which Fowley met teenage lyricist Kari Krome.
Fowley was impressed with Krome's streetwise perspective and set about putting together a band. Krome's friend, guitarist Joan Jett (born Joan Larkin), had been putting together a band with drummer Sandy West (born Sandy Pesavento), and Fowley quickly had a trio on his hands. However, it soon became apparent that Krome was not much of a singer, and she was replaced by vocalist Michael "Micki" Steele (born Sue Thomas), who also began learning the bass. As a trio, this lineup recorded a demo titled Born to Be Bad in late 1975; shortly thereafter, guitarist Lita Ford successfully auditioned through a trade-paper ad, and Steele left the group (she would later join the Bangles).
Cherie Currie became the new lead vocalist, and after an extremely brief stint with a bass player known only as Peggy (which lasted just a few weeks), the band settled on Jackie Fox (born Jacqueline Fuchs), who switched to bass from guitar in order to join the band. Thus constituted as an entirely teenaged quintet, it didn't take long for the Runaways to score a record deal; Currie's stage wardrobe (lingerie) and Fowley's well-established contacts made sure of that. After signing with Mercury in February 1976, the band began recording their self-titled debut album, which was released just a few months later.
However, it was not greeted well. Fowley was preceded by his reputation for overhyping gimmicky acts, and the sheer number of roles he played in guiding the Runaways' career made him appear a manipulative, Svengali-like figure. Moreover, regardless of whether or not the Runaways were simply a cheap exploitation act (an endlessly debatable question), the entire concept of the band -- teenage girls playing their own instruments and singing frankly and enthusiastically about sex, booze, and life on the streets -- was simply too discomforting for much of America.
Fowley's extensive involvement (some called it near-total control) made it easy for journalists and radio programmers to dismiss the group out of hand as a male-concocted sham; it was also a convenient way to ignore the myriad cultural buttons the Runaways were pushing. Despite a wave of publicity on Fowley's part, The Runaways just barely scraped the bottom of the charts in the early fall of 1976, around the same time the band played their first gig at the legendary New York punk club CBGB's. The second Runaways album, Queens of Noise, was released in early 1977 and fared little better on the charts than its predecessor, thanks to radio's continued reluctance to program the group's music.
However, when the Runaways mounted a tour of Japan in June of that year, they were greeted with sold-out arena gigs and rabidly enthusiastic audiences who didn't consider them a joke ("Cherry Bomb" had, in fact, topped the Japanese charts). A concert record, Live in Japan, was culled from the tour, but wasn't released in the U.S. Despite this taste of success, relationships between some of the group members had begun to fray, thanks partly to substance abuse problems and partly to unconcerned negligence on the management's part.
Upon their return to Los Angeles in July 1977, Jackie Fox departed the group; a story circulated that she had attempted suicide on the Japanese tour, though it was later discredited. Before the year was out, Currie too had left, spurred in part by consistent disagreements with Fowley. Jett took over as lead vocalist, and new bassist Vicki Blue was hired for the group's third album. Waiting for the Night was released at the end of the year, and failed to even hit the U.S. charts.
By this point, Fowley had lost interest in the band, and quit as manager early the next year. Jett's unofficial leadership role within the group became more serious, but unfortunately, musical differences were beginning to arise (Jett's punk and glam rock influences clashed with West and Ford's love of straight-up hard rock and heavy metal). One more album, And Now...The Runaways, appeared toward the end of 1978, but it was released only in the group's core markets of Europe and Japan (it later appeared in America with a different running order under the title Little Lost Girls).
Blue quit the band after their New Year's gig and was replaced by Laurie McAllister, but to no avail; Jett left the group in April 1979, and the Runaways officially disbanded not long after. Currie released a solo album in 1978 titled Beauty's Only Skin Deep, and then teamed up with her twin sister Marie for 1980's Messin' With the Boys. Jackie Fox went to law school and became an attorney. West and Ford formed a short-lived outfit of their own, after which Ford went solo and scored several hits as a pop-metal artist during the '80s.
But an even better indicator that there was more to the Runaways' music than met the eye was the success of Joan Jett's solo career. Jett formed her own band and record label, landed an enormous number one smash with 1982's "I Love Rock n' Roll," and continued to produce albums of tough hard rock into the '90s. The heavily feminist riot grrrl punk movement claimed Jett as a major inspiration, prompting a re-examination of the Runaways' output divorced from Kim Fowley's marketing tactics. Rumors of a full-band reunion surfaced periodically through the rest of the '90s, though none has yet materialized.
by Steve Huey, All Music Guide
The Yardbirds - Special Biography
The Yardbirds may not have been as famous as their British Invasion contemporaries the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who, but the pioneering blues-based combo introduced three of the most famous and influential guitarists of the rock era: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. Their innovations — a revved-up instrumental attack, controlled use of feedback, distortion and fuzz; and live, improvisational jams they called "rave ups" — paved the way for psychedelic rock, progressive rock, heavy metal, Southern boogie and even punk.
The earliest version of the band formed in the London suburbs in the early 1960s as The Metropolis Blues Quartet, but by 1963, the Yardbirds line-up had gelled with core members Keith Relf (vocals, harmonica), Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar), Paul Samwell-Smith (bass) and Jim McCarty (drums), in addition to lead guitarist Anthony "Top" Topham. When sixteen-year-old Topham was pressured by his parents to quit, Eric Clapton, who went by the nickname "Slowhand," stepped in.
The band took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the London club Crawdaddy and became a hot item on the city's R&B scene. In late 1963, the Yardbirds — named for the Southern American slang term for "chicken" — served as the backing band for a Crawdaddy performance by American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson II. The following year, the group signed with Columbia Records and released its U.K. debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, a live set of hard-rocking electric blues and R&B covers including Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning," the Isley Brothers' "Respectable" and Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man."
By 1965, the band had developed its own sound, apart from just blues covers, with singles such as "For Your Love," which reached Number Three in the U.K. and Number Six in the United States. Clapton, at the time a blues purist, left the Yardbirds in protest of their move away from the form, and was replaced by experimental rock guitarist Jeff Beck, who took the band to new creative heights. The Yardbirds then released two introductory compilations in the U.S. — For Your Love, including the single of the same name, and Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, which includes the singles "Heart Full of Soul" (Number Nine, 1965) and the proto-psychedelic song "Shapes of Things" (Number 11, 1966), as well as a few live tracks from their debut. Rave Up also includes "Stroll On," the group's altered version of the blues standard "Train Kept A-Rollin'," which features both Beck and Page on guitars. The song (and band) appeared in the Michelangelo Antonioni film of 1966, Blow-up.
Around the time of the sessions for the Yardbird's next album — a self-titled set of all-original material — Samwell-Smith left his role as bassist and moved behind the scenes as producer. Page officially joined the band as bassist until Dreja mastered the instrument, after which he and Beck paired up as one of the most influential guitar duos of the period. Future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones also appeared on some songs, including the experimental "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," which features a twin-lead guitar attack from Beck and Page that provided a blueprint for subsequent heavy metal bands. The album, popularly known as Roger the Engineer and widely considered the Yardbirds' masterpiece, includes influences of Indian and Middle Eastern music as well as avant-garde techniques; it spawned the singles "Happenings" (Number 30, 1966) and "Over Under Sideways Down" (Number 13, 1966). The latter song was also the title of the U.S. version of the album. In 1966, the band also released its earliest live recordings, with Sonny Boy Williamson, as Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds.
With both Page and Beck, whom the British music magazine Beat Instrumental voted the Number One lead guitarist of 1966, the Yardbirds' live performances became a huge draw and the band earned a slot opening for the Rolling Stones. The Beck-Page version of the Yardbirds, however, was short-lived, as Beck was fired from the band during a U.S. tour. With Page now the sole lead guitarist, the Yardbirds' sound became heavier than the band's earlier incarnations. Page continued some of the avant-garde tendencies of the Beck-era Yardbirds, such as running a violin bow over the strings of his guitar to produce eerie scraping sounds; he would later employ the technique with Led Zeppelin. The experimentation didn't help the band's chart success; none of the three singles from Little Games, the Yardbirds' final studio album in 1967, charted well. During their 1967 and 1968 concerts, the Yardbirds eschewed their singles in favor of darker, beefier music such as the menacing blues-rock song "Dazed and Confused," which Page would take to Zeppelin.
The version of the Yardbirds with the core membership of Relf, McCarty and Dreja performed its last show on July 7, 1968. Page, with outstanding touring obligations for the Yardbirds, assembled a new line-up: his old bassist friend John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. The New Yardbirds, of course, would become Led Zeppelin, one of the most successful bands in the history of rock, pioneering the dark and heavy blues sound and fanciful lyrics that constitute the basis of heavy metal. After Zeppelin proved itself a powerhouse with its first three albums, Clive Davis of Epic Records twice released a 1968 Yardbirds performance as Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page. The set, which Page's lawyers forced out of circulation both times, includes an embryonic version "Dazed and Confused" and remains a much-sought-after rarity.
The other Yardbirds took different paths. Dreja became a professional photographer. Relf, McCarty and producer Samwell-Smith formed the progressive rock band Renaissance, although they left after the band's second album, and Renaissance continued producing music throughout into the Eighties. Samwell-Smith wound up producing Cat Stevens' successful career, and the other two moved from one folk-prog band to the next during the early Seventies. Relf died in an electrical accident in 1976. In the 1980s, the core Yardbirds — McCarty, Dreja and Samwell-Smith — reunited as Box of Frogs, with Page or Beck sitting in from time to time.
In 1992, the Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All surviving musicians, including Clapton, Beck and Page, appeared the ceremony. Around that time, McCarty and Dreja reformed the Yardbirds with singer and bassist John Idan. The band has continued to tour as the Yardbirds with a revolving-door cast of lead guitarists. In 2003, the group released a new Yardbirds album, Birdland, with guest appearances from a string of guitar players including Slash, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Brian May and even Beck on the song "My Blind Life." The group released a performance album four years later, Live At B.B. King Blues Club.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The earliest version of the band formed in the London suburbs in the early 1960s as The Metropolis Blues Quartet, but by 1963, the Yardbirds line-up had gelled with core members Keith Relf (vocals, harmonica), Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar), Paul Samwell-Smith (bass) and Jim McCarty (drums), in addition to lead guitarist Anthony "Top" Topham. When sixteen-year-old Topham was pressured by his parents to quit, Eric Clapton, who went by the nickname "Slowhand," stepped in.
The band took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the London club Crawdaddy and became a hot item on the city's R&B scene. In late 1963, the Yardbirds — named for the Southern American slang term for "chicken" — served as the backing band for a Crawdaddy performance by American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson II. The following year, the group signed with Columbia Records and released its U.K. debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, a live set of hard-rocking electric blues and R&B covers including Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning," the Isley Brothers' "Respectable" and Bo Diddley's "I'm a Man."
By 1965, the band had developed its own sound, apart from just blues covers, with singles such as "For Your Love," which reached Number Three in the U.K. and Number Six in the United States. Clapton, at the time a blues purist, left the Yardbirds in protest of their move away from the form, and was replaced by experimental rock guitarist Jeff Beck, who took the band to new creative heights. The Yardbirds then released two introductory compilations in the U.S. — For Your Love, including the single of the same name, and Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, which includes the singles "Heart Full of Soul" (Number Nine, 1965) and the proto-psychedelic song "Shapes of Things" (Number 11, 1966), as well as a few live tracks from their debut. Rave Up also includes "Stroll On," the group's altered version of the blues standard "Train Kept A-Rollin'," which features both Beck and Page on guitars. The song (and band) appeared in the Michelangelo Antonioni film of 1966, Blow-up.
Around the time of the sessions for the Yardbird's next album — a self-titled set of all-original material — Samwell-Smith left his role as bassist and moved behind the scenes as producer. Page officially joined the band as bassist until Dreja mastered the instrument, after which he and Beck paired up as one of the most influential guitar duos of the period. Future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones also appeared on some songs, including the experimental "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," which features a twin-lead guitar attack from Beck and Page that provided a blueprint for subsequent heavy metal bands. The album, popularly known as Roger the Engineer and widely considered the Yardbirds' masterpiece, includes influences of Indian and Middle Eastern music as well as avant-garde techniques; it spawned the singles "Happenings" (Number 30, 1966) and "Over Under Sideways Down" (Number 13, 1966). The latter song was also the title of the U.S. version of the album. In 1966, the band also released its earliest live recordings, with Sonny Boy Williamson, as Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds.
With both Page and Beck, whom the British music magazine Beat Instrumental voted the Number One lead guitarist of 1966, the Yardbirds' live performances became a huge draw and the band earned a slot opening for the Rolling Stones. The Beck-Page version of the Yardbirds, however, was short-lived, as Beck was fired from the band during a U.S. tour. With Page now the sole lead guitarist, the Yardbirds' sound became heavier than the band's earlier incarnations. Page continued some of the avant-garde tendencies of the Beck-era Yardbirds, such as running a violin bow over the strings of his guitar to produce eerie scraping sounds; he would later employ the technique with Led Zeppelin. The experimentation didn't help the band's chart success; none of the three singles from Little Games, the Yardbirds' final studio album in 1967, charted well. During their 1967 and 1968 concerts, the Yardbirds eschewed their singles in favor of darker, beefier music such as the menacing blues-rock song "Dazed and Confused," which Page would take to Zeppelin.
The version of the Yardbirds with the core membership of Relf, McCarty and Dreja performed its last show on July 7, 1968. Page, with outstanding touring obligations for the Yardbirds, assembled a new line-up: his old bassist friend John Paul Jones, singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. The New Yardbirds, of course, would become Led Zeppelin, one of the most successful bands in the history of rock, pioneering the dark and heavy blues sound and fanciful lyrics that constitute the basis of heavy metal. After Zeppelin proved itself a powerhouse with its first three albums, Clive Davis of Epic Records twice released a 1968 Yardbirds performance as Live Yardbirds: Featuring Jimmy Page. The set, which Page's lawyers forced out of circulation both times, includes an embryonic version "Dazed and Confused" and remains a much-sought-after rarity.
The other Yardbirds took different paths. Dreja became a professional photographer. Relf, McCarty and producer Samwell-Smith formed the progressive rock band Renaissance, although they left after the band's second album, and Renaissance continued producing music throughout into the Eighties. Samwell-Smith wound up producing Cat Stevens' successful career, and the other two moved from one folk-prog band to the next during the early Seventies. Relf died in an electrical accident in 1976. In the 1980s, the core Yardbirds — McCarty, Dreja and Samwell-Smith — reunited as Box of Frogs, with Page or Beck sitting in from time to time.
In 1992, the Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. All surviving musicians, including Clapton, Beck and Page, appeared the ceremony. Around that time, McCarty and Dreja reformed the Yardbirds with singer and bassist John Idan. The band has continued to tour as the Yardbirds with a revolving-door cast of lead guitarists. In 2003, the group released a new Yardbirds album, Birdland, with guest appearances from a string of guitar players including Slash, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Brian May and even Beck on the song "My Blind Life." The group released a performance album four years later, Live At B.B. King Blues Club.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The Rolling Stones - Special Biography
The Rolling Stones began calling themselves the "World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band" in the Sixties, and few argued with them — even then. More than 40 years later, the band's music continues to sound vital. With literally scores of genre-setting hits under the group's belt — and fronted by two of rock's biggest archetypes — the Rolling Stones have done more to define the look, attitude and sound of rock & roll than any other band in the genre's history.
In the 1964 British Invasion the Stones were promoted as bad boys, a gimmick that stuck as an indelible image (partly because it was true). Their music started as a gruffer, faster version of Chicago blues, but eventually the Stones pioneered British rock's tone of ironic detachment and wrote about offhand brutality, sex as power, and other taboos. Jagger was the most self-consciously assured appropriator of black performers' up-front sexuality; Keith Richards' Chuck Berry–derived riffing defined rock rhythm guitar (not to mention rock guitar rhythm); and the stalwart rhythm section of Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts held everything together, making sure teenagers could dance to whatever Mick and Keith dreamt up. After the Seventies, the Stones lost their dangerous aura, but it didn't hurt their popularity: They've become icons of an elegantly debauched, world-weary decadence, elder statesmen who filled arenas well into the 2000s.
Jagger and Richards first met at Dartford Maypole County Primary School. When they ran into each other 10 years later in 1960, they were both avid fans of blues and American R&B, and they found they had a mutual friend in guitarist Dick Taylor, a fellow student of Richards' at Sidcup Art School. Jagger was attending the London School of Economics and playing in Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys with Taylor. Richards joined the band as second guitarist; soon afterward, he was expelled from Dartford Technical College for truancy.
Meanwhile, Brian Jones had begun skipping school in Cheltenham to practice bebop alto sax and clarinet. By the time he was 16, he had fathered two illegitimate children and run off briefly to Scandinavia, where he began playing guitar. Back in Cheltenham he joined the Ramrods, then drifted to London with his girlfriend and one of his children. He began playing with Alexis Korner's Blues, Inc., then decided to start his own band; a want ad attracted pianist Ian Stewart (b. 1938; d. December 12, 1985).
As Elmo Lewis, Jones began working at the Ealing Blues Club, where he ran into a later, loosely knit version of Blues, Inc., which at the time included drummer Charlie Watts. Jagger and Richards began jamming with Blues, Inc., and while Jagger, Richards, and Jones began to practice on their own, Jagger became the featured singer with Blues, Inc.
Jones, Jagger, and Richards shared a tiny, cheap London apartment, and with drummer Tony Chapman they cut a demo tape, which was rejected by EMI. Taylor left to attend the Royal College of Art; he eventually formed the Pretty Things. Ian Stewart's job with a chemical company kept the rest of the group from starving. By the time Taylor left, they began to call themselves the Rolling Stones, after a Muddy Waters song.
On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones — Jagger, Richards, Jones, a returned Dick Taylor on bass, and Mick Avory, later of the Kinks, on drums — played their first show at the Marquee. Avory and Taylor were replaced by Tony Chapman and Bill Wyman, from the Cliftons. Chapman didn't work out, and the band spent months recruiting a cautious Charlie Watts, who worked for an advertising agency and had left Blues, Inc. when its schedule got too busy. In January 1963 Watts completed the band.
Local entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky booked the Stones at his Crawdaddy Club for an eight-month, highly successful residency. He was also their unofficial manager until Andrew Loog Oldham, with financing from Eric Easton, signed them as clients. By then the Beatles were a British sensation, and Oldham decided to promote the Stones as their nasty opposites. He eased out the mild-mannered Stewart, who subsequently became a Stones roadie and frequent session and tour pianist.
In June 1963 the Stones released their first single, Chuck Berry's "Come On." After the band played on the British TV rock show Thank Your Lucky Stars, its producer reportedly told Oldham to get rid of "that vile-looking singer with the tire-tread lips." The single reached Number 21 on the British chart. The Stones also appeared at the first annual National Jazz and Blues Festival in London's borough of Richmond and in September were part of a package tour with the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard. In December 1963 the Stones' second single, "I Wanna Be Your Man" (written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney), made the British Top 15. In January 1964 the Stones did their first headlining British tour, with the Ronettes, and released a version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," which made Number Three.
"Not Fade Away" also made the U.S. singles chart (Number 48). By this time the band had become a sensation in Britain, with the press gleefully reporting that band members had been seen urinating in public. In April 1964 their first album was released in the U.K., and two months later they made their first American tour. Their cover of the Bobby Womack/Valentinos song "It's All Over Now" was a British Number One, their first. Their June American tour was a smashing success; in Chicago, where they'd stopped off to record the Five by Five EP at the Chess Records studio, riots broke out when the band tried to give a press conference. The Stones' version of the blues standard "Little Red Rooster," which had become another U.K. Number One, was banned in the U.S. because of its "objectionable" lyrics.
Jagger and Richards had now begun composing their own tunes (at first using the "Nanker Phelge" pseudonym for group compositions). Their "Tell Me (You're Coming Back to Me)" was the group's first U.S. Top 40 hit, in August. The followup, a nonoriginal, "Time Is on My Side," made Number Six in November. From that point on, all but a handful of Stones hits were Jagger-Richards compositions.
In January 1965 their "The Last Time" became another U.K. Number One and cracked the U.S. Top 10 in the spring. The band's next single, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," reigned at Number One for four weeks that summer and remains perhaps the most famous song in its remarkable canon. Jagger and Richards continued to write hits with increasingly sophisticated lyrics: "Get Off My Cloud" (Number One, 1965), "As Tears Go By" (Number Six, 1965), "19th Nervous Breakdown" (Number Two, 1966), "Mother's Little Helper" (Number Eight, 1966), "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" (Number Nine, 1966).
Aftermath, the first Stones LP of all original material, came out in 1966, though its impact was minimized by the simultaneous release of the Beatles' Revolver and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. The Middle Eastern–tinged "Paint It, Black" (1966) and the ballad "Ruby Tuesday" (1967), were both U.S. Number One hits.
In January 1967 the Stones caused another sensation when they performed "Let's Spend the Night Together" ("Ruby Tuesday"'s B side) on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jagger mumbled the title lines after threats of censorship (some claimed that the line was censored; others that Jagger actually sang "Let's spend some time together"; Jagger later said, "When it came to that line, I sang mumble"). In February Jagger and Richards were arrested on drug-possession charges in Britain; in May, Brian Jones, too, was arrested. The heavy jail sentences they received were eventually suspended on appeal. The Stones temporarily withdrew from public appearances; Jagger and his girlfriend, singer Marianne Faithfull, went to India with the Beatles to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Stones' next single release didn't appear until the fall: the Number 14 "Dandelion." Its B side, "We Love You" (Number 50), on which John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang backup vocals, was intended as a thank-you to fans.
In December came Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones' psychedelic answer record to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper — and an ambitious mess. By the time the album's lone single, "She's a Rainbow" had become a Number 25 hit, Allen Klein had become the group's manager.
May 1968 saw the release of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," a Number Three hit, and a return to basic rock & roll. After five months of delay provoked by controversial album-sleeve photos, the eclectic Beggars Banquet was released and was hailed by critics as the band's finest achievement. On June 9, 1969, Brian Jones, the Stones' most musically adventurous member, who had lent sitar, dulcimer, and, on "Under My Thumb," marimba to the band's sound, and who had been in Morocco recording nomadic Joujouka musicians, left the band with this explanation: "I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting." Within a week he was replaced by ex–John Mayall guitarist Mick Taylor. Jones announced that he would form his own band, but on July 3, 1969, he was found dead in his swimming pool; the coroner's report cited "death by misadventure." Jones, beset by drug problems — and the realization that the band now belonged squarely to Jagger and Richards — had barely participated in the Beggars Banquet sessions.
At an outdoor concert in London's Hyde Park a few days after Jones' death, Jagger read an excerpt from the poet Shelley and released thousands of butterflies over the park. On July 11, the day after Jones was buried, the Stones released "Honky Tonk Women," another Number One, and another Stones classic. By this time, every Stones album went gold in short order, and Let It Bleed (a sardonic reply to the Beatles' soon-to-be-released Let It Be) was no exception. "Gimme Shelter" received constant airplay. Jones appeared on most of the album's tracks, though Taylor also made his first on-disc appearances.
After going to Australia to star in the film Ned Kelly, Jagger rejoined the band for the start of its hugely successful 1969 American tour, the band's first U.S. trip in three years. But the Stones' Satanic image came to haunt them at a free thank-you-America concert at California's Altamont Speedway. In the darkness just in front of the stage, a young black man, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed to death by members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, whom the Stones — on advice of the Grateful Dead — had hired to provide security for the event. The incident was captured on film by the Maysles brothers in their feature-length documentary Gimme Shelter. Public outcry that "Sympathy for the Devil" (which they had performed earlier in the show; they were playing "Under My Thumb" when the murder occurred) had in some way incited the violence led the Stones to drop the tune from their stage shows for the next six years.
After another spell of inactivity, the Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! live album was released in the fall of 1970 and went platinum. That same year the Stones formed their own Rolling Stones Records, an Atlantic subsidiary. The band's first album for its own label, Sticky Fingers (Number One, 1971) — which introduced their Andy Warhol — designed lips-and-lolling-tongue logo — yielded hits in "Brown Sugar" (Number One, 1971) and "Wild Horses" (Number 28, 1971). Jagger, who had starred in Nicolas Roeg's 1970 Performance (the soundtrack of which contained "Memo From Turner"), married Nicaraguan fashion model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias, and the pair became international jet-set favorites. Though many interpreted Jagger's acceptance into high society as yet another sign that rock was dead, or that at least the Stones had lost their spark, Exile on Main Street (Number One, 1972), a double album, was another critically acclaimed hit, yielding "Tumbling Dice" (Number Seven) and "Happy" (Number 22). By this time the Stones were touring the U.S. once every three years; their 1972 extravaganza, like those in 1975, 1978, and 1981, was a sold-out affair.
Goats Head Soup (Number One, 1973) was termed the band's worst effort since Satanic Majesties by critics, yet it contained hits in "Angie" (Number One, 1973) and "(Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker" (Number 15, 1974). It's Only Rock n' Roll (Number One, 1974) yielded Top 20 hits in the title tune and a cover of the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." Mick Taylor left the band after that album; and after trying out scores of sessionmen (many of whom showed up on the next LP, 1976's Black and Blue), the Stones settled on Ron Wood, then still nominally committed to Rod Stewart and the Faces (who disbanded soon after Wood joined the Stones officially in 1976). In 1979 Richards and Wood, with Meters drummer Ziggy Modeliste and fusion bassist Stanley Clarke, toured as the New Barbarians.
Black and Blue was the Stones' fifth consecutive LP of new material to top the album chart, though it contained only one hit single, the Number 10 "Fool to Cry." Wyman, who had released a 1974 solo album, Monkey Grip (the first Stone to do so), recorded another, Stone Alone. Jagger guested on "I Can Feel the Fire" on Wood's solo first LP, I've Got My Own Album to Do. Wood has since recorded several more albums, and while none were commercial hits (Gimme Some Neck peaked at Number 45 in 1979), his work was generally well received.
The ethnic-stereotype lyrics of the title song from Some Girls (Number One, 1978) provoked public protest (the last outcry had been in 1976 over Black and Blue's battered-woman advertising campaign). Aside from the disco crossover "Miss You" (Number One), the music was bare-bones rock & roll — in response, some speculated, to the punk movement's claims that the band was too old and too affluent to rock anymore.
Richards and his longtime common-law wife, Anita Pallenburg, were arrested in March 1977 in Canada for heroin possession — jeopardizing the band's future — but he subsequently kicked his habit and in 1978 was given a suspended sentence.
In 1981 Tattoo You was Number One for nine weeks (1980's Emotional Rescue also went to Number One) and produced the hits "Start Me Up" (Number Two, 1981) and "Waiting on a Friend" (Number 13, 1981), the latter featuring jazz great Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone. The 1981 tour spawned an album, Still Life, and a movie, Let's Spend the Night Together (directed by Hal Ashby), which grossed $50 million.
Through the 1980s the group became more an institution than an influential force. Nevertheless, both Undercover (Number Four, 1983) and Dirty Work (Number Four, 1986) were certifiable hits despite not topping the chart, as every new studio album had done in the decade before. Each album produced only one Top 20 hit, "Undercover of the Night" (Number Nine, 1983) and "Harlem Shuffle" (Number Five, 1986), the latter a remake of a minor 1964 hit by Bob and Earl.
Jagger and Richards grew estranged from each other, and the band would not record for three years. Jagger released his first solo album, the platinum She's the Boss, in 1984. His second, 1987's Primitive Cool, didn't even break the Top 40. Richards, who'd long declared he would never undertake a solo album (and who resented Jagger's making music outside the band), countered in 1988 with the gold Talk Is Cheap, backed up by the X-Pensive Winos: guitarist Waddy Wachtel and the rhythm section of Steve Jordan and Charley Drayton.
The two Stones sniped at each other in the press and in song: Richards' album track "You Don't Move Me" was directed at his longtime partner. Nevertheless, shortly before the Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in January 1989 the two traveled to Barbados to begin writing songs for a new Stones album. Steel Wheels (Number Three, 1989) showed the group spinning its wheels musically, and were it not for the band's first American tour in eight years, it is doubtful the LP would have sold anywhere near its 2 million copies. But the 50-date tour, which reportedly grossed $140 million, was an artistic triumph. As the group's fifth live album, Flashpoint (Number 16, 1991), demonstrated, never had the Stones sounded so cohesive onstage.
Bill Wyman announced his long-rumored decision to leave the group after 30 years, in late 1992. "I was quite happy to stop after that," the 56-year-old bassist told a British TV show. The announcement helped deflect attention from Wyman's love life: In 1989 he married model Mandy Smith, who was just 13 when the two began dating. The couple divorced in 1990, the same year that Mick Jagger finally married his longtime lover, Jerry Hall. (Jagger and Hall would later split up.)
The early 1990s were a time for solo albums from Richards — Live at the Hollywood Palladium and Main Offender (Number 99, 1992)and Jagger's Wandering Spirit (Number 11, 1993). Neither sold spectacularly; apparently fans are most interested in Jagger and Richards when they work together. Wood released Slide on This, his first solo album in over a decade, and Watts pursued his real love, jazz, with the Charlie Watts Orchestra.
In 1994 Jagger, Richards, Watts, and Wood, along with bassist Darryl Jones (whose credits include working with Miles Davis and Sting) released the critically well-received Voodoo Lounge (Number Two, 1994) and embarked on a major tour that proved one of the highest-grossing of the year, earning a reported $295 million. Voodoo Lounge brought the Stones their first competitive Grammy, 1994's Best Rock Album award. Voodoo Lounge was also the group's first release under its new multimillion-dollar, three-album deal with Virgin Records, which included granting Virgin the rights to some choice albums from the Stones' back catalogue, including Exile on Main Street, Sticky Fingers, and Some Girls.
After having languished in storage for nearly three decades, the Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus concert film and soundtrack was released in 1996, which featured the Stones in the era of Beggars Banquet, and other rock luminaries — the Who, Jethro Tull, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, and more — as well as various acrobats, fire-eaters, and other circus artists who performed routines between songs.
Meanwhile, back to their standard time lapse of three years between tours, the Stones released Bridges to Babylon (Number Three, 1997, their 19th platinum LP) and launched yet another lavish, sold-out worldwide tour, where they played two-hour concerts consisting of only a few songs off the new album and lots of hits. Corporate sponsorship was particularly intense: long-distance carrier Sprint, for example, paying $4 million to print its company logo on tickets and stage banners. In 1998 the Stones released the obligatory tour album, No Security.
In 1997 Richards coproduced and played on Wingless Angels, an album of Rastafarian spirituals; guested, with Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore, on All the King's Men, a tribute to Presley; and with the rest of the Stones, played on B.B. King's Deuces Wild. Assembling the roots-rock band the Rhythm Kings, with Peter Frampton and Georgie Fame sitting in, Bill Wyman put out three albums in the late '90s. Watts continued his jazz excursions with 1996's orchestral offering, Long Ago and Far Away, and then forayed into world beat with a 2000 collaboration with veteran session drummer Jim Keltner. Mick Taylor's recording career revived, as the ex-Stone put out Stonesy releases with Carla Olson.
In 2000 "Satisfaction" topped a VH1 Poll of 100 Greatest Rock Songs. Jagger gained more attention in the social columns. In 1999 29-year-old Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez Morad claimed that she was pregnant with his child; Jagger disagreed. Jerry Hall filed for divorce. Jagger, despite the couple's four children, maintained that their Hindu nuptials did not constitute a legal marriage. When Morad's child was born, DNA tests concluded that Jagger was indeed the boy's father. In 2001 he released his fourth solo album, Goddess in the Doorway (Number 39). At the post-9-11 "Concert for New York City," held at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 21, 2001, Jagger, Richards and a backing band performed "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You."
In 2002, the Stones released Forty Licks, a greatest hits package including four new songs, and embarked on yet another tour, including two—one in Toronto and another in Hong Kong—to benefit victims of the SARS epidemic. In November 2003, the band inked a deal allowing the Best Buy chain to be the exclusive seller of their 4-DVD tour document Four Flicks. Some music retailers in the U.S. and Canada, including Best Buy competitor Circuit City and the 100-store HMV Canada, responded by pulling Stones merchandise from their shelves. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Stones number four in its "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," just below the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.
On Jagger's 62nd birthday, July 26, 2005, the Stones announced they were releasing a new album, A Bigger Bang (Number 3), followed by a tour. The album included a rare political song from Jagger, "Sweet Neo Con," which was stingingly critical of the Bush Administration's post Iraq War tactics and included the line, "You say you are a patriot/I think that you're a crock of shit."
The Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour began in August 2005 and by year's end had already set the year's record at $162 million in gross receipts. The tour took the band from North and South America to Europe, Asia and even the 2006 Super Bowl. The tour ended two years later in London. Overall, the Bigger Bang tour earned a staggering $558 million, the highest-grossing tour of all time. The tour was not without its setbacks. During the New Zealand stretch, in May 2006, Richards was hospitalized for brain surgery after reportedly falling from a coconut tree in Fiji. In June, Wood went into rehab for alcohol problems.
The Stones released another 4-CD box set, The Biggest Bang, in June 2007; it also was sold exclusively through Best Buy. The Very Best Of Mick Jagger, a collection of the singer's solo works, came out in October 2007. While Jagger had his share of starring film roles over the course of his career, it was Richard who made his big-screen debut in one of the biggest films of 2008, and one of the highest-grossing films of all-time, after portraying the pirate father of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
The next year, filmmaker Martin Scorsese's April 2008 documentary Shine a Light intimately captured the Stones' 2006 Bigger Bang live performance at New York City's Beacon Theater from sixteen different camera angles and included guest performances by Christina Aguilera, Jack White, and Buddy Guy. An acclaimed soundtrack accompanied the release of the documentary. Rolling Stone celebrated Shine a Light with a cover that featured Jagger, Richards and Jack White. Also in 2008, the Rolling Stones revealed plans to leave their longtime label EMI for Universal Records, taking with them their entire Sticky Fingers-and-beyond catalog.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the performance captured on Get Your Ya-Ya's Out!, the Stones reissued their live album with five additional songs from the shows, plus a bonus disc with the performances of opening acts B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner and a DVD of concert and backstage footage. Since the 2007 leg of the A Bigger Bang Tour, however, the Stones have remained largely quiet.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
In the 1964 British Invasion the Stones were promoted as bad boys, a gimmick that stuck as an indelible image (partly because it was true). Their music started as a gruffer, faster version of Chicago blues, but eventually the Stones pioneered British rock's tone of ironic detachment and wrote about offhand brutality, sex as power, and other taboos. Jagger was the most self-consciously assured appropriator of black performers' up-front sexuality; Keith Richards' Chuck Berry–derived riffing defined rock rhythm guitar (not to mention rock guitar rhythm); and the stalwart rhythm section of Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts held everything together, making sure teenagers could dance to whatever Mick and Keith dreamt up. After the Seventies, the Stones lost their dangerous aura, but it didn't hurt their popularity: They've become icons of an elegantly debauched, world-weary decadence, elder statesmen who filled arenas well into the 2000s.
Jagger and Richards first met at Dartford Maypole County Primary School. When they ran into each other 10 years later in 1960, they were both avid fans of blues and American R&B, and they found they had a mutual friend in guitarist Dick Taylor, a fellow student of Richards' at Sidcup Art School. Jagger was attending the London School of Economics and playing in Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys with Taylor. Richards joined the band as second guitarist; soon afterward, he was expelled from Dartford Technical College for truancy.
Meanwhile, Brian Jones had begun skipping school in Cheltenham to practice bebop alto sax and clarinet. By the time he was 16, he had fathered two illegitimate children and run off briefly to Scandinavia, where he began playing guitar. Back in Cheltenham he joined the Ramrods, then drifted to London with his girlfriend and one of his children. He began playing with Alexis Korner's Blues, Inc., then decided to start his own band; a want ad attracted pianist Ian Stewart (b. 1938; d. December 12, 1985).
As Elmo Lewis, Jones began working at the Ealing Blues Club, where he ran into a later, loosely knit version of Blues, Inc., which at the time included drummer Charlie Watts. Jagger and Richards began jamming with Blues, Inc., and while Jagger, Richards, and Jones began to practice on their own, Jagger became the featured singer with Blues, Inc.
Jones, Jagger, and Richards shared a tiny, cheap London apartment, and with drummer Tony Chapman they cut a demo tape, which was rejected by EMI. Taylor left to attend the Royal College of Art; he eventually formed the Pretty Things. Ian Stewart's job with a chemical company kept the rest of the group from starving. By the time Taylor left, they began to call themselves the Rolling Stones, after a Muddy Waters song.
On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones — Jagger, Richards, Jones, a returned Dick Taylor on bass, and Mick Avory, later of the Kinks, on drums — played their first show at the Marquee. Avory and Taylor were replaced by Tony Chapman and Bill Wyman, from the Cliftons. Chapman didn't work out, and the band spent months recruiting a cautious Charlie Watts, who worked for an advertising agency and had left Blues, Inc. when its schedule got too busy. In January 1963 Watts completed the band.
Local entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky booked the Stones at his Crawdaddy Club for an eight-month, highly successful residency. He was also their unofficial manager until Andrew Loog Oldham, with financing from Eric Easton, signed them as clients. By then the Beatles were a British sensation, and Oldham decided to promote the Stones as their nasty opposites. He eased out the mild-mannered Stewart, who subsequently became a Stones roadie and frequent session and tour pianist.
In June 1963 the Stones released their first single, Chuck Berry's "Come On." After the band played on the British TV rock show Thank Your Lucky Stars, its producer reportedly told Oldham to get rid of "that vile-looking singer with the tire-tread lips." The single reached Number 21 on the British chart. The Stones also appeared at the first annual National Jazz and Blues Festival in London's borough of Richmond and in September were part of a package tour with the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard. In December 1963 the Stones' second single, "I Wanna Be Your Man" (written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney), made the British Top 15. In January 1964 the Stones did their first headlining British tour, with the Ronettes, and released a version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," which made Number Three.
"Not Fade Away" also made the U.S. singles chart (Number 48). By this time the band had become a sensation in Britain, with the press gleefully reporting that band members had been seen urinating in public. In April 1964 their first album was released in the U.K., and two months later they made their first American tour. Their cover of the Bobby Womack/Valentinos song "It's All Over Now" was a British Number One, their first. Their June American tour was a smashing success; in Chicago, where they'd stopped off to record the Five by Five EP at the Chess Records studio, riots broke out when the band tried to give a press conference. The Stones' version of the blues standard "Little Red Rooster," which had become another U.K. Number One, was banned in the U.S. because of its "objectionable" lyrics.
Jagger and Richards had now begun composing their own tunes (at first using the "Nanker Phelge" pseudonym for group compositions). Their "Tell Me (You're Coming Back to Me)" was the group's first U.S. Top 40 hit, in August. The followup, a nonoriginal, "Time Is on My Side," made Number Six in November. From that point on, all but a handful of Stones hits were Jagger-Richards compositions.
In January 1965 their "The Last Time" became another U.K. Number One and cracked the U.S. Top 10 in the spring. The band's next single, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," reigned at Number One for four weeks that summer and remains perhaps the most famous song in its remarkable canon. Jagger and Richards continued to write hits with increasingly sophisticated lyrics: "Get Off My Cloud" (Number One, 1965), "As Tears Go By" (Number Six, 1965), "19th Nervous Breakdown" (Number Two, 1966), "Mother's Little Helper" (Number Eight, 1966), "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" (Number Nine, 1966).
Aftermath, the first Stones LP of all original material, came out in 1966, though its impact was minimized by the simultaneous release of the Beatles' Revolver and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. The Middle Eastern–tinged "Paint It, Black" (1966) and the ballad "Ruby Tuesday" (1967), were both U.S. Number One hits.
In January 1967 the Stones caused another sensation when they performed "Let's Spend the Night Together" ("Ruby Tuesday"'s B side) on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jagger mumbled the title lines after threats of censorship (some claimed that the line was censored; others that Jagger actually sang "Let's spend some time together"; Jagger later said, "When it came to that line, I sang mumble"). In February Jagger and Richards were arrested on drug-possession charges in Britain; in May, Brian Jones, too, was arrested. The heavy jail sentences they received were eventually suspended on appeal. The Stones temporarily withdrew from public appearances; Jagger and his girlfriend, singer Marianne Faithfull, went to India with the Beatles to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Stones' next single release didn't appear until the fall: the Number 14 "Dandelion." Its B side, "We Love You" (Number 50), on which John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang backup vocals, was intended as a thank-you to fans.
In December came Their Satanic Majesties Request, the Stones' psychedelic answer record to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper — and an ambitious mess. By the time the album's lone single, "She's a Rainbow" had become a Number 25 hit, Allen Klein had become the group's manager.
May 1968 saw the release of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," a Number Three hit, and a return to basic rock & roll. After five months of delay provoked by controversial album-sleeve photos, the eclectic Beggars Banquet was released and was hailed by critics as the band's finest achievement. On June 9, 1969, Brian Jones, the Stones' most musically adventurous member, who had lent sitar, dulcimer, and, on "Under My Thumb," marimba to the band's sound, and who had been in Morocco recording nomadic Joujouka musicians, left the band with this explanation: "I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting." Within a week he was replaced by ex–John Mayall guitarist Mick Taylor. Jones announced that he would form his own band, but on July 3, 1969, he was found dead in his swimming pool; the coroner's report cited "death by misadventure." Jones, beset by drug problems — and the realization that the band now belonged squarely to Jagger and Richards — had barely participated in the Beggars Banquet sessions.
At an outdoor concert in London's Hyde Park a few days after Jones' death, Jagger read an excerpt from the poet Shelley and released thousands of butterflies over the park. On July 11, the day after Jones was buried, the Stones released "Honky Tonk Women," another Number One, and another Stones classic. By this time, every Stones album went gold in short order, and Let It Bleed (a sardonic reply to the Beatles' soon-to-be-released Let It Be) was no exception. "Gimme Shelter" received constant airplay. Jones appeared on most of the album's tracks, though Taylor also made his first on-disc appearances.
After going to Australia to star in the film Ned Kelly, Jagger rejoined the band for the start of its hugely successful 1969 American tour, the band's first U.S. trip in three years. But the Stones' Satanic image came to haunt them at a free thank-you-America concert at California's Altamont Speedway. In the darkness just in front of the stage, a young black man, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed to death by members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, whom the Stones — on advice of the Grateful Dead — had hired to provide security for the event. The incident was captured on film by the Maysles brothers in their feature-length documentary Gimme Shelter. Public outcry that "Sympathy for the Devil" (which they had performed earlier in the show; they were playing "Under My Thumb" when the murder occurred) had in some way incited the violence led the Stones to drop the tune from their stage shows for the next six years.
After another spell of inactivity, the Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! live album was released in the fall of 1970 and went platinum. That same year the Stones formed their own Rolling Stones Records, an Atlantic subsidiary. The band's first album for its own label, Sticky Fingers (Number One, 1971) — which introduced their Andy Warhol — designed lips-and-lolling-tongue logo — yielded hits in "Brown Sugar" (Number One, 1971) and "Wild Horses" (Number 28, 1971). Jagger, who had starred in Nicolas Roeg's 1970 Performance (the soundtrack of which contained "Memo From Turner"), married Nicaraguan fashion model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias, and the pair became international jet-set favorites. Though many interpreted Jagger's acceptance into high society as yet another sign that rock was dead, or that at least the Stones had lost their spark, Exile on Main Street (Number One, 1972), a double album, was another critically acclaimed hit, yielding "Tumbling Dice" (Number Seven) and "Happy" (Number 22). By this time the Stones were touring the U.S. once every three years; their 1972 extravaganza, like those in 1975, 1978, and 1981, was a sold-out affair.
Goats Head Soup (Number One, 1973) was termed the band's worst effort since Satanic Majesties by critics, yet it contained hits in "Angie" (Number One, 1973) and "(Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker" (Number 15, 1974). It's Only Rock n' Roll (Number One, 1974) yielded Top 20 hits in the title tune and a cover of the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." Mick Taylor left the band after that album; and after trying out scores of sessionmen (many of whom showed up on the next LP, 1976's Black and Blue), the Stones settled on Ron Wood, then still nominally committed to Rod Stewart and the Faces (who disbanded soon after Wood joined the Stones officially in 1976). In 1979 Richards and Wood, with Meters drummer Ziggy Modeliste and fusion bassist Stanley Clarke, toured as the New Barbarians.
Black and Blue was the Stones' fifth consecutive LP of new material to top the album chart, though it contained only one hit single, the Number 10 "Fool to Cry." Wyman, who had released a 1974 solo album, Monkey Grip (the first Stone to do so), recorded another, Stone Alone. Jagger guested on "I Can Feel the Fire" on Wood's solo first LP, I've Got My Own Album to Do. Wood has since recorded several more albums, and while none were commercial hits (Gimme Some Neck peaked at Number 45 in 1979), his work was generally well received.
The ethnic-stereotype lyrics of the title song from Some Girls (Number One, 1978) provoked public protest (the last outcry had been in 1976 over Black and Blue's battered-woman advertising campaign). Aside from the disco crossover "Miss You" (Number One), the music was bare-bones rock & roll — in response, some speculated, to the punk movement's claims that the band was too old and too affluent to rock anymore.
Richards and his longtime common-law wife, Anita Pallenburg, were arrested in March 1977 in Canada for heroin possession — jeopardizing the band's future — but he subsequently kicked his habit and in 1978 was given a suspended sentence.
In 1981 Tattoo You was Number One for nine weeks (1980's Emotional Rescue also went to Number One) and produced the hits "Start Me Up" (Number Two, 1981) and "Waiting on a Friend" (Number 13, 1981), the latter featuring jazz great Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone. The 1981 tour spawned an album, Still Life, and a movie, Let's Spend the Night Together (directed by Hal Ashby), which grossed $50 million.
Through the 1980s the group became more an institution than an influential force. Nevertheless, both Undercover (Number Four, 1983) and Dirty Work (Number Four, 1986) were certifiable hits despite not topping the chart, as every new studio album had done in the decade before. Each album produced only one Top 20 hit, "Undercover of the Night" (Number Nine, 1983) and "Harlem Shuffle" (Number Five, 1986), the latter a remake of a minor 1964 hit by Bob and Earl.
Jagger and Richards grew estranged from each other, and the band would not record for three years. Jagger released his first solo album, the platinum She's the Boss, in 1984. His second, 1987's Primitive Cool, didn't even break the Top 40. Richards, who'd long declared he would never undertake a solo album (and who resented Jagger's making music outside the band), countered in 1988 with the gold Talk Is Cheap, backed up by the X-Pensive Winos: guitarist Waddy Wachtel and the rhythm section of Steve Jordan and Charley Drayton.
The two Stones sniped at each other in the press and in song: Richards' album track "You Don't Move Me" was directed at his longtime partner. Nevertheless, shortly before the Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in January 1989 the two traveled to Barbados to begin writing songs for a new Stones album. Steel Wheels (Number Three, 1989) showed the group spinning its wheels musically, and were it not for the band's first American tour in eight years, it is doubtful the LP would have sold anywhere near its 2 million copies. But the 50-date tour, which reportedly grossed $140 million, was an artistic triumph. As the group's fifth live album, Flashpoint (Number 16, 1991), demonstrated, never had the Stones sounded so cohesive onstage.
Bill Wyman announced his long-rumored decision to leave the group after 30 years, in late 1992. "I was quite happy to stop after that," the 56-year-old bassist told a British TV show. The announcement helped deflect attention from Wyman's love life: In 1989 he married model Mandy Smith, who was just 13 when the two began dating. The couple divorced in 1990, the same year that Mick Jagger finally married his longtime lover, Jerry Hall. (Jagger and Hall would later split up.)
The early 1990s were a time for solo albums from Richards — Live at the Hollywood Palladium and Main Offender (Number 99, 1992)and Jagger's Wandering Spirit (Number 11, 1993). Neither sold spectacularly; apparently fans are most interested in Jagger and Richards when they work together. Wood released Slide on This, his first solo album in over a decade, and Watts pursued his real love, jazz, with the Charlie Watts Orchestra.
In 1994 Jagger, Richards, Watts, and Wood, along with bassist Darryl Jones (whose credits include working with Miles Davis and Sting) released the critically well-received Voodoo Lounge (Number Two, 1994) and embarked on a major tour that proved one of the highest-grossing of the year, earning a reported $295 million. Voodoo Lounge brought the Stones their first competitive Grammy, 1994's Best Rock Album award. Voodoo Lounge was also the group's first release under its new multimillion-dollar, three-album deal with Virgin Records, which included granting Virgin the rights to some choice albums from the Stones' back catalogue, including Exile on Main Street, Sticky Fingers, and Some Girls.
After having languished in storage for nearly three decades, the Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus concert film and soundtrack was released in 1996, which featured the Stones in the era of Beggars Banquet, and other rock luminaries — the Who, Jethro Tull, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, and more — as well as various acrobats, fire-eaters, and other circus artists who performed routines between songs.
Meanwhile, back to their standard time lapse of three years between tours, the Stones released Bridges to Babylon (Number Three, 1997, their 19th platinum LP) and launched yet another lavish, sold-out worldwide tour, where they played two-hour concerts consisting of only a few songs off the new album and lots of hits. Corporate sponsorship was particularly intense: long-distance carrier Sprint, for example, paying $4 million to print its company logo on tickets and stage banners. In 1998 the Stones released the obligatory tour album, No Security.
In 1997 Richards coproduced and played on Wingless Angels, an album of Rastafarian spirituals; guested, with Elvis Presley guitarist Scotty Moore, on All the King's Men, a tribute to Presley; and with the rest of the Stones, played on B.B. King's Deuces Wild. Assembling the roots-rock band the Rhythm Kings, with Peter Frampton and Georgie Fame sitting in, Bill Wyman put out three albums in the late '90s. Watts continued his jazz excursions with 1996's orchestral offering, Long Ago and Far Away, and then forayed into world beat with a 2000 collaboration with veteran session drummer Jim Keltner. Mick Taylor's recording career revived, as the ex-Stone put out Stonesy releases with Carla Olson.
In 2000 "Satisfaction" topped a VH1 Poll of 100 Greatest Rock Songs. Jagger gained more attention in the social columns. In 1999 29-year-old Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez Morad claimed that she was pregnant with his child; Jagger disagreed. Jerry Hall filed for divorce. Jagger, despite the couple's four children, maintained that their Hindu nuptials did not constitute a legal marriage. When Morad's child was born, DNA tests concluded that Jagger was indeed the boy's father. In 2001 he released his fourth solo album, Goddess in the Doorway (Number 39). At the post-9-11 "Concert for New York City," held at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 21, 2001, Jagger, Richards and a backing band performed "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You."
In 2002, the Stones released Forty Licks, a greatest hits package including four new songs, and embarked on yet another tour, including two—one in Toronto and another in Hong Kong—to benefit victims of the SARS epidemic. In November 2003, the band inked a deal allowing the Best Buy chain to be the exclusive seller of their 4-DVD tour document Four Flicks. Some music retailers in the U.S. and Canada, including Best Buy competitor Circuit City and the 100-store HMV Canada, responded by pulling Stones merchandise from their shelves. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Stones number four in its "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," just below the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.
On Jagger's 62nd birthday, July 26, 2005, the Stones announced they were releasing a new album, A Bigger Bang (Number 3), followed by a tour. The album included a rare political song from Jagger, "Sweet Neo Con," which was stingingly critical of the Bush Administration's post Iraq War tactics and included the line, "You say you are a patriot/I think that you're a crock of shit."
The Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour began in August 2005 and by year's end had already set the year's record at $162 million in gross receipts. The tour took the band from North and South America to Europe, Asia and even the 2006 Super Bowl. The tour ended two years later in London. Overall, the Bigger Bang tour earned a staggering $558 million, the highest-grossing tour of all time. The tour was not without its setbacks. During the New Zealand stretch, in May 2006, Richards was hospitalized for brain surgery after reportedly falling from a coconut tree in Fiji. In June, Wood went into rehab for alcohol problems.
The Stones released another 4-CD box set, The Biggest Bang, in June 2007; it also was sold exclusively through Best Buy. The Very Best Of Mick Jagger, a collection of the singer's solo works, came out in October 2007. While Jagger had his share of starring film roles over the course of his career, it was Richard who made his big-screen debut in one of the biggest films of 2008, and one of the highest-grossing films of all-time, after portraying the pirate father of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
The next year, filmmaker Martin Scorsese's April 2008 documentary Shine a Light intimately captured the Stones' 2006 Bigger Bang live performance at New York City's Beacon Theater from sixteen different camera angles and included guest performances by Christina Aguilera, Jack White, and Buddy Guy. An acclaimed soundtrack accompanied the release of the documentary. Rolling Stone celebrated Shine a Light with a cover that featured Jagger, Richards and Jack White. Also in 2008, the Rolling Stones revealed plans to leave their longtime label EMI for Universal Records, taking with them their entire Sticky Fingers-and-beyond catalog.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the performance captured on Get Your Ya-Ya's Out!, the Stones reissued their live album with five additional songs from the shows, plus a bonus disc with the performances of opening acts B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner and a DVD of concert and backstage footage. Since the 2007 leg of the A Bigger Bang Tour, however, the Stones have remained largely quiet.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Special Biography
Before his untimely death in 1990, guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan had become the leading figure in the blues-rock-revival he spearheaded in the mid-'80s.
Vaughan's first musical inspiration was his older brother Jimmie, a guitarist who later helped form the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Together, the brothers immersed themselves in the work of blues guitar greats like B.B. King, Alberty King, and Freddie Kings, and early rock guitarists like Lonnie Mack (whose 1985 comeback, Strike Like Lightning, Vaughan would coproduce). By the time he was 14, Vaughan was already playing Dallas blues clubs with a variety of bands including Blackbird, the Shantones, and the Epileptic Marshmallow. Dropping out of high school, in 1972, Vaughan relocated to Austin, Texas, the up-and-coming musical haven where his brother had already established himself.
In Austin Vaughan formed the Nightcrawlers and then joined the Cobras for a year. Vaughan's next group was Triple Threat, which included Lou Ann Barton among its five vocalists. After three years with Triple Threat, Vaughan and Barton formed Double Trouble. Barton left to go solo, and Double Trouble reverted to a power trio with Chris Layton on drums and Tommy Shannon, a bassist who had played with Johnny Winter in the late '60s. Vaughan's fluid Hendrix-meets-the blues-masters guitar playing, his rough-edged vocals, and the trio's live intensity made them local legends. (In the Beginning captures a 1980 radio broadcast.)
By 1982 the band's considerable reputation had reached the Rolling Stones, who hired Double Trouble to perform at a private party in New York. That same year, veteran producer Jerry Wexler arranged for Vaughan's band to play the Montreux Jazz Festival —the first time an unsigned, unrecorded group had done so. David Bowie caught the performance and tapped Vaughan to play on his next album. Vaughan's gritty guitar work became one of the unexpected highlights of Let's Dance. Legendary talent scout John Hammond became Vaughan's most important mentor, signing Double Trouble to Epic and acting as executive producer for the band's debut, Texas Flood (#38, 1983). Vaughan's raw, blues-drenched virtuosity struck a chord with a grass-roots audience. Couldn't Stand the Weather (#31, 1984) saw Vaughan pay explicit tribute to Jimi Hendrix with an exact cover of "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." In 1985 Vaughan became the first white performer to win the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation's Blues Entertainer of the Year award; that year Vaughan also added keyboardist Reese Wynans to the band.
After collapsing onstage during an English tour, Vaughan sought help to deal with his cocaine and alcohol addictions, entering a treatment center in September 1986. "Wall of Denial" on his 1989 album, In Step (#33), addressed his addiction and rehabilitation. In 1987 he made a rare film appearance trading guitar leads on "Pipeline" with surf-guitar king Dick Dale in the Annette Funicello film Back to the Beach. A 1989 tour with Jeff Beck attested to Vaughan's renewed strength and continued popularity.
On leaving an East Troy, Wisconsin, theater —following an onstage guitar jam that included Eric Clapton, Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jeff Healey —Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash. By then, Vaughan was firmly established as the era's premier blues-rock performer. Two posthumous releases —Family Style (#7, 1990), a collaboration with Jimmie Vaughan, and The Sky is Crying (#10, 1991) —became Vaughan's best-selling recordings. Greatest Hits and Live at Carnegie Hall went to #39 and #40, respectively.
In 1995 Jimmie Vaughan organized an all-star tribute concert in Austin featuring Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, B.B. King and more. A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, released the following year, won a Best Rock Instrumental Grammy for the cut "SRV Shuffle." As a new generation of guitarists (notably Kenny Wayne Shepherd) copped Vaughan's signature style, his catalogue continued to sell more than 800,000 copies a year. Epic/Legacy reissued his first four albums with bonus tracks in 1999, along with The Real Deal: Greatest Hits, vol. 2, which entered the charts at #53. Blues at Sunrise, a collection of slow blues recordings, was released in 2000 as was the box set Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.
This biography originally appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Vaughan's first musical inspiration was his older brother Jimmie, a guitarist who later helped form the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Together, the brothers immersed themselves in the work of blues guitar greats like B.B. King, Alberty King, and Freddie Kings, and early rock guitarists like Lonnie Mack (whose 1985 comeback, Strike Like Lightning, Vaughan would coproduce). By the time he was 14, Vaughan was already playing Dallas blues clubs with a variety of bands including Blackbird, the Shantones, and the Epileptic Marshmallow. Dropping out of high school, in 1972, Vaughan relocated to Austin, Texas, the up-and-coming musical haven where his brother had already established himself.
In Austin Vaughan formed the Nightcrawlers and then joined the Cobras for a year. Vaughan's next group was Triple Threat, which included Lou Ann Barton among its five vocalists. After three years with Triple Threat, Vaughan and Barton formed Double Trouble. Barton left to go solo, and Double Trouble reverted to a power trio with Chris Layton on drums and Tommy Shannon, a bassist who had played with Johnny Winter in the late '60s. Vaughan's fluid Hendrix-meets-the blues-masters guitar playing, his rough-edged vocals, and the trio's live intensity made them local legends. (In the Beginning captures a 1980 radio broadcast.)
By 1982 the band's considerable reputation had reached the Rolling Stones, who hired Double Trouble to perform at a private party in New York. That same year, veteran producer Jerry Wexler arranged for Vaughan's band to play the Montreux Jazz Festival —the first time an unsigned, unrecorded group had done so. David Bowie caught the performance and tapped Vaughan to play on his next album. Vaughan's gritty guitar work became one of the unexpected highlights of Let's Dance. Legendary talent scout John Hammond became Vaughan's most important mentor, signing Double Trouble to Epic and acting as executive producer for the band's debut, Texas Flood (#38, 1983). Vaughan's raw, blues-drenched virtuosity struck a chord with a grass-roots audience. Couldn't Stand the Weather (#31, 1984) saw Vaughan pay explicit tribute to Jimi Hendrix with an exact cover of "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." In 1985 Vaughan became the first white performer to win the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation's Blues Entertainer of the Year award; that year Vaughan also added keyboardist Reese Wynans to the band.
After collapsing onstage during an English tour, Vaughan sought help to deal with his cocaine and alcohol addictions, entering a treatment center in September 1986. "Wall of Denial" on his 1989 album, In Step (#33), addressed his addiction and rehabilitation. In 1987 he made a rare film appearance trading guitar leads on "Pipeline" with surf-guitar king Dick Dale in the Annette Funicello film Back to the Beach. A 1989 tour with Jeff Beck attested to Vaughan's renewed strength and continued popularity.
On leaving an East Troy, Wisconsin, theater —following an onstage guitar jam that included Eric Clapton, Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jeff Healey —Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash. By then, Vaughan was firmly established as the era's premier blues-rock performer. Two posthumous releases —Family Style (#7, 1990), a collaboration with Jimmie Vaughan, and The Sky is Crying (#10, 1991) —became Vaughan's best-selling recordings. Greatest Hits and Live at Carnegie Hall went to #39 and #40, respectively.
In 1995 Jimmie Vaughan organized an all-star tribute concert in Austin featuring Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, B.B. King and more. A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, released the following year, won a Best Rock Instrumental Grammy for the cut "SRV Shuffle." As a new generation of guitarists (notably Kenny Wayne Shepherd) copped Vaughan's signature style, his catalogue continued to sell more than 800,000 copies a year. Epic/Legacy reissued his first four albums with bonus tracks in 1999, along with The Real Deal: Greatest Hits, vol. 2, which entered the charts at #53. Blues at Sunrise, a collection of slow blues recordings, was released in 2000 as was the box set Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.
This biography originally appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
The Allman Brothers Band - Special Biography
The Allman Brothers Band combined deeply Southern strains of music — blues, country, and gospel — with boisterous rock & roll and their jazzy, jam-oriented style. Thus they created the "New South" sound, drafting a template to be used for decades by everyone from Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band to My Morning Jacket and the Drive-By Truckers.
Brothers Gregg and Duane Allman grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida, and played in various bands until 1963, when they formed the Escorts, which became the Allman Joys in 1965. After their version of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" failed as a single, the two brothers and three other band members went to L.A., where they signed with Liberty Records as the Hourglass. They recorded two albums (Hourglass, 1967, and Power of Love, 1968) before heading to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record at Fame Studios. Liberty rejected the resulting tapes, and Duane and Gregg returned to Florida, staying in Jacksonville.
Soon after, the brothers joined the 31st of February, whose drummer was Butch Trucks. After recording an album, Gregg went back to L.A. to make good on the Liberty contract. Duane stayed in Jacksonville, where he began playing with the Second Coming, which included Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley, veterans of Tommy Roe and the Romans. But before Duane became an established member of the Second Coming, Fame Studios owner Rick Hall asked him to return to Muscle Shoals to play lead guitar for a Wilson Pickett session. At Duane's suggestion, Pickett recorded Lennon and McCartney's "Hey Jude." Duane became Fame's primary session guitarist, recording over the next year with Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, and Arthur Conley, and signing with Fame Productions as a solo artist
At the urging of Atlantic Records vice president Jerry Wexler, Phil Walden bought the Fame contract, with the notion to build a band around Duane for his upstart Capricorn Records. Allman hired Jai Johanny Johanson, a Muscle Shoals drummer. He went back to Florida and reconvened Trucks, Oakley, Betts, and Gregg. Once assembled, the Allman Brothers Band moved to Macon, Georgia, where Walden was launching Capricorn.
The Allman Brothers Band, the group's debut, was well received only in the South. After its release, Duane continued to play on sessions with Boz Scaggs, Laura Nyro, Otis Rush, Delaney and Bonnie, Ronnie Hawkins, and John Hammond. He appears with Eric Clapton on Derek and the Dominos' Layla. (His session work is collected on the two Anthology volumes.)
On the strength of the Allman Brothers' growing reputation as a live band, its second album sold well. In March 1971, four shows at New York's Fillmore East were recorded for release as a live double LP set in July. The album reached the Top 10 and Rolling Stone hailed the Allman Brothers Band as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years."
But on October 29, 1971, less than three months after At Fillmore East's release, Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia. The group played at his funeral and decided to continue without a new guitarist. Three songs on their next LP, Eat a Peach, had been recorded before Duane's death, and with live material from the Fillmore East concerts, the double LP was released in February, entered the chart in the Top 10, and rose to Number Four. In 1972, Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash three blocks from the site of Duane's accident a year earlier.
Dickey Betts, by then the band's unofficial leader, wrote and sang "Ramblin' Man," the band's first and biggest hit single (Number Two, 1973). Brothers and Sisters went to Number One, with Lamar Williams, a childhood friend of Jaimoe's, taking Oakley's place, and Chuck Leavell on keyboards. The first two albums, when reissued as Beginnings, more than doubled their original sales. The group returned to the road after two years. In Watkins Glen, New York, 600,000 people gathered in July 1973 for an all-day concert by the Allman Brothers Band, the Grateful Dead, and the Band.
There was growing dissension in the group, however, as Gregg and Betts began to disagree over schedules and musical direction. In 1974 they each released a Top 20 solo album (Allman's Laid Back and Betts' Highway Call), and Allman formed the Gregg Allman Band with Johanson, Leavell, Williams, and others to tour and record The Gregg Allman Tour.
The subsequent Allman Brothers Band album, Win, Lose or Draw (Number Five, 1975), sold well, but it was four years before the next album of new material. The Road Goes On Forever, a compilation, and Wipe the Windows, a live collection, were released in 1976. By 1975, Allman was involved in a tumultuous marriage to Cher (they divorced in 1979). They had a son, Elijah Blue, in 1977. Their 1977 LP, Allman and Woman: Two the Hard Way, was universally panned.
But the greatest blow to the group occurred in 1976, when Allman testified against Scooter Herring, his personal road manager, charged with dealing narcotics. Herring was subsequently sentenced to 75 years in prison (later reduced to two years on appeal). Allman's action, the others said, betrayed the fraternal loyalty that had sustained them: They vowed never to work with him again.
The members pursued separate but at times intertwining paths. Betts formed Great Southern, duplicating the original Allman Brothers lineup with two guitars, two drums, bass, keyboards, and vocals. Only the group's first album charted in the Top 100. After Allman's disastrous duet LP with Cher, he regrouped the Gregg Allman Band, with no help from any former Brothers, and put out Playin' Up a Storm in 1977. The other members also remained active: Trucks studied music at Florida State University for two years and formed an experimental group, Trucks. Leavell, Williams, and Johanson, with guitarist Jimmy Nails, formed the fusion-oriented Sea Level. Later, Leavell returned to session work, notably with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has toured since 1989
In 1978, the Allman Brothers Band regrouped for the first time. After Allman, Trucks, and Jaimoe joined Betts and Great Southern onstage in New York in 1978, Great Southern guitarist Dan Toler and bassist Rook Goldflies also joined the new Allman Brothers Band. Enlightened Rogues (Number Nine, 1979) was certified gold within two weeks of its release. Two years later Brothers of the Road gave the group a minor hit single, "Straight From the Heart." The group broke up again in 1980. In 1983 Lamar Williams, who served in Vietnam, died of Agent Orange–related cancer. Betts recorded an album with the Dickey Betts Band, and Allman released I'm No Angel (Number 30, 1987) with its Number 49 title track.
After its longest hiatus, ABB regrouped again in 1989 with core members Allman, Betts, Jaimoe, and Trucks, and took to the road. Dreams, a box set, compiles songs from 1966 to 1988. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group's albums and shows attracted a new generation of fans who came to appreciate the Allman Brothers as the root of much latter-day collegiate jam rock. There was renewed critical respect, as well, especially for Allman's singing and writing. Allman, who finally won his struggles with heroin and alcohol, has also acted, appearing in the film Rush and the syndicated TV series Superboy.
In 1995 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and released 2nd Set. It received its first Grammy Award (for Best Rock Instrumental Performance) the next year, for "Jessica." Gregg Allman released his first solo recording in a decade with 1997's Searching for Simplicity, which opens with a remake of the Allman Brothers' classic blues "Whipping Post." Allman's solo anthology, One More Try, includes only eight previously released songs
A series of personnel changes, and the occasional intramural ruckus, have kept the band in flux. In 1996, Warren Haynes and Allen Woody left to work full-time with their own project, the blues-rock trio Gov't Mule. Guitarist Jack Pearson, who cowrote Gregg Allman's epic "Sailin' 'Cross the Devil's Sea," and bassist Oteil Burbridge (Aquarium Rescue Unit) replaced them. Pearson's departure in 1999 made way for 20-year-old guitarist Derek Trucks, Butch's nephew, to join a band he had been sitting in with for years. In June 2000, Betts was ousted via fax from the band on the eve of a summer tour. Soon thereafter, he put together a new eight-piece band, touring as the Dickey Betts Band.
Warren Haynes rejoined the band in late 2000, ushering in a welcome era of stability and productivity for the band. Haynes —who was still recording and touring with Gov't Mule— produced ABB's 2003 album Hittin' the Note, which won rave reviews and a 2003 Grammy nomination for "Instrumental Illness" in the Best Rock Instrumental category. In 2004, a live version of the same track from concert CD One Way Out, was nominated in the same category.
In 2003, the band released Live at the Beacon Theater, a DVD documented the band's annual run of shows at the venue on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The band had done a "Beacon run" of shows every year from 1989 until 2008, when the band had to cancel so Gregg Allman could be treated for Hepatitis C. But they returned in 2009 with a run many fans consider among the band's best, featuring appearances by Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Kid Rock, and members of the Grateful Dead and Phish.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Brothers Gregg and Duane Allman grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida, and played in various bands until 1963, when they formed the Escorts, which became the Allman Joys in 1965. After their version of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" failed as a single, the two brothers and three other band members went to L.A., where they signed with Liberty Records as the Hourglass. They recorded two albums (Hourglass, 1967, and Power of Love, 1968) before heading to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record at Fame Studios. Liberty rejected the resulting tapes, and Duane and Gregg returned to Florida, staying in Jacksonville.
Soon after, the brothers joined the 31st of February, whose drummer was Butch Trucks. After recording an album, Gregg went back to L.A. to make good on the Liberty contract. Duane stayed in Jacksonville, where he began playing with the Second Coming, which included Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley, veterans of Tommy Roe and the Romans. But before Duane became an established member of the Second Coming, Fame Studios owner Rick Hall asked him to return to Muscle Shoals to play lead guitar for a Wilson Pickett session. At Duane's suggestion, Pickett recorded Lennon and McCartney's "Hey Jude." Duane became Fame's primary session guitarist, recording over the next year with Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, and Arthur Conley, and signing with Fame Productions as a solo artist
At the urging of Atlantic Records vice president Jerry Wexler, Phil Walden bought the Fame contract, with the notion to build a band around Duane for his upstart Capricorn Records. Allman hired Jai Johanny Johanson, a Muscle Shoals drummer. He went back to Florida and reconvened Trucks, Oakley, Betts, and Gregg. Once assembled, the Allman Brothers Band moved to Macon, Georgia, where Walden was launching Capricorn.
The Allman Brothers Band, the group's debut, was well received only in the South. After its release, Duane continued to play on sessions with Boz Scaggs, Laura Nyro, Otis Rush, Delaney and Bonnie, Ronnie Hawkins, and John Hammond. He appears with Eric Clapton on Derek and the Dominos' Layla. (His session work is collected on the two Anthology volumes.)
On the strength of the Allman Brothers' growing reputation as a live band, its second album sold well. In March 1971, four shows at New York's Fillmore East were recorded for release as a live double LP set in July. The album reached the Top 10 and Rolling Stone hailed the Allman Brothers Band as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years."
But on October 29, 1971, less than three months after At Fillmore East's release, Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia. The group played at his funeral and decided to continue without a new guitarist. Three songs on their next LP, Eat a Peach, had been recorded before Duane's death, and with live material from the Fillmore East concerts, the double LP was released in February, entered the chart in the Top 10, and rose to Number Four. In 1972, Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash three blocks from the site of Duane's accident a year earlier.
Dickey Betts, by then the band's unofficial leader, wrote and sang "Ramblin' Man," the band's first and biggest hit single (Number Two, 1973). Brothers and Sisters went to Number One, with Lamar Williams, a childhood friend of Jaimoe's, taking Oakley's place, and Chuck Leavell on keyboards. The first two albums, when reissued as Beginnings, more than doubled their original sales. The group returned to the road after two years. In Watkins Glen, New York, 600,000 people gathered in July 1973 for an all-day concert by the Allman Brothers Band, the Grateful Dead, and the Band.
There was growing dissension in the group, however, as Gregg and Betts began to disagree over schedules and musical direction. In 1974 they each released a Top 20 solo album (Allman's Laid Back and Betts' Highway Call), and Allman formed the Gregg Allman Band with Johanson, Leavell, Williams, and others to tour and record The Gregg Allman Tour.
The subsequent Allman Brothers Band album, Win, Lose or Draw (Number Five, 1975), sold well, but it was four years before the next album of new material. The Road Goes On Forever, a compilation, and Wipe the Windows, a live collection, were released in 1976. By 1975, Allman was involved in a tumultuous marriage to Cher (they divorced in 1979). They had a son, Elijah Blue, in 1977. Their 1977 LP, Allman and Woman: Two the Hard Way, was universally panned.
But the greatest blow to the group occurred in 1976, when Allman testified against Scooter Herring, his personal road manager, charged with dealing narcotics. Herring was subsequently sentenced to 75 years in prison (later reduced to two years on appeal). Allman's action, the others said, betrayed the fraternal loyalty that had sustained them: They vowed never to work with him again.
The members pursued separate but at times intertwining paths. Betts formed Great Southern, duplicating the original Allman Brothers lineup with two guitars, two drums, bass, keyboards, and vocals. Only the group's first album charted in the Top 100. After Allman's disastrous duet LP with Cher, he regrouped the Gregg Allman Band, with no help from any former Brothers, and put out Playin' Up a Storm in 1977. The other members also remained active: Trucks studied music at Florida State University for two years and formed an experimental group, Trucks. Leavell, Williams, and Johanson, with guitarist Jimmy Nails, formed the fusion-oriented Sea Level. Later, Leavell returned to session work, notably with the Rolling Stones, with whom he has toured since 1989
In 1978, the Allman Brothers Band regrouped for the first time. After Allman, Trucks, and Jaimoe joined Betts and Great Southern onstage in New York in 1978, Great Southern guitarist Dan Toler and bassist Rook Goldflies also joined the new Allman Brothers Band. Enlightened Rogues (Number Nine, 1979) was certified gold within two weeks of its release. Two years later Brothers of the Road gave the group a minor hit single, "Straight From the Heart." The group broke up again in 1980. In 1983 Lamar Williams, who served in Vietnam, died of Agent Orange–related cancer. Betts recorded an album with the Dickey Betts Band, and Allman released I'm No Angel (Number 30, 1987) with its Number 49 title track.
After its longest hiatus, ABB regrouped again in 1989 with core members Allman, Betts, Jaimoe, and Trucks, and took to the road. Dreams, a box set, compiles songs from 1966 to 1988. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group's albums and shows attracted a new generation of fans who came to appreciate the Allman Brothers as the root of much latter-day collegiate jam rock. There was renewed critical respect, as well, especially for Allman's singing and writing. Allman, who finally won his struggles with heroin and alcohol, has also acted, appearing in the film Rush and the syndicated TV series Superboy.
In 1995 the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and released 2nd Set. It received its first Grammy Award (for Best Rock Instrumental Performance) the next year, for "Jessica." Gregg Allman released his first solo recording in a decade with 1997's Searching for Simplicity, which opens with a remake of the Allman Brothers' classic blues "Whipping Post." Allman's solo anthology, One More Try, includes only eight previously released songs
A series of personnel changes, and the occasional intramural ruckus, have kept the band in flux. In 1996, Warren Haynes and Allen Woody left to work full-time with their own project, the blues-rock trio Gov't Mule. Guitarist Jack Pearson, who cowrote Gregg Allman's epic "Sailin' 'Cross the Devil's Sea," and bassist Oteil Burbridge (Aquarium Rescue Unit) replaced them. Pearson's departure in 1999 made way for 20-year-old guitarist Derek Trucks, Butch's nephew, to join a band he had been sitting in with for years. In June 2000, Betts was ousted via fax from the band on the eve of a summer tour. Soon thereafter, he put together a new eight-piece band, touring as the Dickey Betts Band.
Warren Haynes rejoined the band in late 2000, ushering in a welcome era of stability and productivity for the band. Haynes —who was still recording and touring with Gov't Mule— produced ABB's 2003 album Hittin' the Note, which won rave reviews and a 2003 Grammy nomination for "Instrumental Illness" in the Best Rock Instrumental category. In 2004, a live version of the same track from concert CD One Way Out, was nominated in the same category.
In 2003, the band released Live at the Beacon Theater, a DVD documented the band's annual run of shows at the venue on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The band had done a "Beacon run" of shows every year from 1989 until 2008, when the band had to cancel so Gregg Allman could be treated for Hepatitis C. But they returned in 2009 with a run many fans consider among the band's best, featuring appearances by Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Kid Rock, and members of the Grateful Dead and Phish.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Scorpions - Special Biography
Known best for their 1984 anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and the 1990 ballad "Wind of Change," the German rockers the Scorpions have sold over 22 million records, making them one of the most successful rock bands to ever come out of Continental Europe. Originally formed in 1969 by Rudolf Schenker, the original lineup consisted of rhythm guitarist/vocalist Schenker, lead guitarist Karl-Heinz Follmer, bassist Lothar Heimberg, and drummer Wolfgang Dziony.
In 1971, Schenker's younger brother Michael joined the band to play lead guitar and good friend Klaus Meine became the new vocalist. The group recorded Lonesome Crow in 1972, which was used as the soundtrack to the German movie Das Kalte Paradies. Although they failed to get into the public's eye, the early formation of '70s rock band UFO noticed Michael Schenker's guitar playing and hired him as their lead guitarist; Michael, therefore, would leave the band in 1973. Guitarist Uli Jon Roth replaced him, and under his guidance the group released four consecutive albums under the RCA record label: Fly to the Rainbow (1974), In Trance (1975), Virgin Killer (1976), and Taken by Force (1977).
Although these albums failed to attain any serious attention in the United States, they were all quite popular in Japan. By the time Taken by Force was released, Roth made the decision to leave the band and form Electric Sun after feeling that his musical ideas would take the group in an entirely different direction. Tokyo Tapes, a double live album that the group recorded in Tokyo with Roth, was released in 1978. Shortly after Roth's departure, Michael Schenker was kicked out of UFO for his constant alcohol abuse and came back to play with the Scorpions in 1979, who had recently signed with Mercury Records.
The group released Lovedrive that same year and played their first American tour, but Lovedrive failed to attract attention, being banned in the United States because of its sexually explicit cover. Still coping with his drugs and alcohol addiction, Michael missed tour dates repeatedly and guitarist Matthias Jabs was hired to fill in for him on nights when he was absent. Michael eventually would leave the band a second time after realizing that he was failing to meet their expectations.
Now with a lineup of Klaus Meine on vocals, Rudolf Schenker on rhythm guitar, Matthias Jabs on lead, Francis Buchholz on bass, and Herman Rarebell on drums, the band released Animal Magnetism in 1980 and embarked on another world tour. Surprisingly, Animal Magnetism went gold in the United States, and the Scorpions immediately went back into the studio to record their next release. Problems arose, however, and the project was postponed because Meine had lost his voice and would have to have surgery on his vocal chords.
Many thought Meine had been fired from the band, and rumors spread that metal singer Don Dokken had already replaced him. The Scorpions proved these rumors untrue when Meine returned for the 1982 release Blackout, which contained the cult hit "No One Like You." A major success worldwide, Blackout sold over one-million copies in the U.S. alone. But as popular as Blackout was, it was the band's powerful follow-up, Love at First Sting, that succeeded in making them superstars. Released in 1984, the album boasted the MTV single "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and would eventually achieve double-platinum status.
The group undertook one of their most successful world tours yet, boasting an outstanding stage show with high-energy performances. After releasing World Wide Live in 1985, the band took a long hiatus and remained uninvolved from the music industry for two years. Their tenth studio album, Savage Amusement, was finally released in 1988, and the hit ballad "Rhythm of Love" brought on another major success.
In 1990, the album Crazy World was released and would eventually become the Scorpions' biggest-selling record to date, drawing on the strength of the hit ballad "Wind of Change." Not too surprisingly, Crazy World was the last successful Scorpions release in the U.S.
By the time their Face the Heat album hit the shelves in 1993, many longtime fans had already lost interest in the band, due to the alternative explosion of the early '90s. Face the Heat did eventually reach gold, and in 1995 the band released another live album, Live Bites. Now with bassist Ralph Rieckermann and drummer James Kottak, they released Pure Instinct in 1996. Mercury Records assembled a double album of the band's greatest hits, Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years, and released it in 1997. Eye II Eye, an album in which the band experimented with pop-techno melodies, was released in the summer of 1999. Moment of Glory, featuring the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and several revamped versions of Scorpions cult classics, was released in fall 2000.
by Barry Weber, All Music Guide
In 1971, Schenker's younger brother Michael joined the band to play lead guitar and good friend Klaus Meine became the new vocalist. The group recorded Lonesome Crow in 1972, which was used as the soundtrack to the German movie Das Kalte Paradies. Although they failed to get into the public's eye, the early formation of '70s rock band UFO noticed Michael Schenker's guitar playing and hired him as their lead guitarist; Michael, therefore, would leave the band in 1973. Guitarist Uli Jon Roth replaced him, and under his guidance the group released four consecutive albums under the RCA record label: Fly to the Rainbow (1974), In Trance (1975), Virgin Killer (1976), and Taken by Force (1977).
Although these albums failed to attain any serious attention in the United States, they were all quite popular in Japan. By the time Taken by Force was released, Roth made the decision to leave the band and form Electric Sun after feeling that his musical ideas would take the group in an entirely different direction. Tokyo Tapes, a double live album that the group recorded in Tokyo with Roth, was released in 1978. Shortly after Roth's departure, Michael Schenker was kicked out of UFO for his constant alcohol abuse and came back to play with the Scorpions in 1979, who had recently signed with Mercury Records.
The group released Lovedrive that same year and played their first American tour, but Lovedrive failed to attract attention, being banned in the United States because of its sexually explicit cover. Still coping with his drugs and alcohol addiction, Michael missed tour dates repeatedly and guitarist Matthias Jabs was hired to fill in for him on nights when he was absent. Michael eventually would leave the band a second time after realizing that he was failing to meet their expectations.
Now with a lineup of Klaus Meine on vocals, Rudolf Schenker on rhythm guitar, Matthias Jabs on lead, Francis Buchholz on bass, and Herman Rarebell on drums, the band released Animal Magnetism in 1980 and embarked on another world tour. Surprisingly, Animal Magnetism went gold in the United States, and the Scorpions immediately went back into the studio to record their next release. Problems arose, however, and the project was postponed because Meine had lost his voice and would have to have surgery on his vocal chords.
Many thought Meine had been fired from the band, and rumors spread that metal singer Don Dokken had already replaced him. The Scorpions proved these rumors untrue when Meine returned for the 1982 release Blackout, which contained the cult hit "No One Like You." A major success worldwide, Blackout sold over one-million copies in the U.S. alone. But as popular as Blackout was, it was the band's powerful follow-up, Love at First Sting, that succeeded in making them superstars. Released in 1984, the album boasted the MTV single "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and would eventually achieve double-platinum status.
The group undertook one of their most successful world tours yet, boasting an outstanding stage show with high-energy performances. After releasing World Wide Live in 1985, the band took a long hiatus and remained uninvolved from the music industry for two years. Their tenth studio album, Savage Amusement, was finally released in 1988, and the hit ballad "Rhythm of Love" brought on another major success.
In 1990, the album Crazy World was released and would eventually become the Scorpions' biggest-selling record to date, drawing on the strength of the hit ballad "Wind of Change." Not too surprisingly, Crazy World was the last successful Scorpions release in the U.S.
By the time their Face the Heat album hit the shelves in 1993, many longtime fans had already lost interest in the band, due to the alternative explosion of the early '90s. Face the Heat did eventually reach gold, and in 1995 the band released another live album, Live Bites. Now with bassist Ralph Rieckermann and drummer James Kottak, they released Pure Instinct in 1996. Mercury Records assembled a double album of the band's greatest hits, Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years, and released it in 1997. Eye II Eye, an album in which the band experimented with pop-techno melodies, was released in the summer of 1999. Moment of Glory, featuring the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and several revamped versions of Scorpions cult classics, was released in fall 2000.
by Barry Weber, All Music Guide
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