Arthur 'Art' Blakey

drummer 

11.10.1919 - 16.10.1990

Arthur "Art" Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he became a Muslim.

Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In the mid-1950s Horace Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers, a group that the drummer was associated with for the next 35 years. The group was formed as a collective of contemporaries, but over the years the band became known as an incubator for young talent, including Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, and Wynton Marsalis. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz calls the Jazz Messengers "the archetypal hard bop group of the late 50s".

He was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1981), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 1998 and 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1991.

Stephen 'Stevie' Ray Vaughan

guitarist, singer 

 

03.10.1954 - 27.08.1990

Stephen Ray Vaughan was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, and one of the most influential guitarists in the revival of blues in the 1980s.

Vaughan was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. He began playing guitar at the age of seven, inspired by his older brother Jimmie. He dropped out of high school in 1971 and moved to Austin the following year. He played gigs with numerous bands, earning a spot in Marc Benno's band the Nightcrawlers and later with Denny Freeman in the Cobras, with whom he continued to work through late 1977. He then formed his own group Triple Threat Revue, but he renamed them Double Trouble after hiring drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon. He gained fame after his performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982, and his debut studio album Texas Flood charted at number 38 in 1983, a commercially successful release that sold over half a million copies. He headlined concert tours with Jeff Beck in 1989 and Joe Cocker in 1990, but he died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990 at the age of 35. It was 36 days before his 36th birthday.

Vaughan received several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1983, readers of Guitar Player voted him Best New Talent and Best Electric Blues Guitar Player. In 1984, the Blues Foundation named him Entertainer of the Year and Blues Instrumentalist of the Year, and in 1987, Performance Magazine honored him with Rhythm and Blues Act of the Year. He won six Grammy Awards and ten Austin Music Awards and was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2014. Rolling Stone ranked him as the 12th greatest guitarist of all time. In 2015, Vaughan and Double Trouble were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Larkin Allen Collins Jr.

guitarist (Lynyrd Skynyrd) 

 

19.07.1952 - 23.01.1990

Larkin Allen Collins Jr. was one of the founding members and guitarists of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida. Collins started playing guitar at 12 years of age, with a few lessons from his stepmother, Leila Collins, a country-and-western guitarist, teaching him a few notes, and receiving his first guitar and amplifier from his father after a falling-out between the two.

Allen Collins joined Skynyrd in Jacksonville, Florida, just two weeks after its formation by Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington, along with Bob Burns and Larry Junstrom. Collins and lead singer Ronnie Van Zant co-wrote many of the biggest Skynyrd hits, including "Free Bird", "Gimme Three Steps", and "That Smell". The band received national success beginning in 1973 while opening for The Who on their Quadrophenia tour.

During the early 1980s, Collins continued to perform on stage in The Rossington-Collins Band. The Rossington-Collins Band disbanded in 1982. Collins continued to pursue music, starting the Allen Collins Band, which released one album, Here, There & Back in 1983. The six members were Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell and bassist Leon Wilkeson, along with lead singer Jimmy Dougherty, drummer Derek Hess, and guitarists Barry Lee Harwood and Randall Hall.