Harmonica_header

Working Man GP4 Guitar Pro Tab

Working Man gp4 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Working Man opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Working Man 2 GP3 Guitar Pro Tab

Working Man 2 gp3 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Working Man 2 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Working Man Solo 1 GP3 Guitar Pro Tab

Working Man Solo 1 gp3 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Working Man Solo 1 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


The Working Man (Guitar Solo)

This is the first guitar solo (starts at 0:59), and is really fast!!
Good luck!

-6 6 -6 6 -6
7-7-6-7-66-6 6
6-56 -5 5-55-6 6 -55
-3-4 45 -4-5 56 -5-6 6-7

7-7-6-7-66-6 6
6-56 -5 5-55
5 -4 5 -4 4 -3 4 5
-55-5 7 -5 7 -5 7 -6 6 5 -5 7 -5 7 -6 6 5

5 -5 -6-6 6 -6 6 7 -7
6 5 -5 5 -4 5 7 6 5 -4
-3-4 45 -4-5 56 -5-6 6-5 5 4 -5


Working Man

7 -8 8
8 8 7
6

It’s a work-ing man I am,

6 6
-6 7
7 -6 6

And I’ve been down un-der-ground,

7 -8 8
8 8

And I swear to God,

8 8 -9 8 7 -6
6

If I ev-er see the sun,

7 -8 8
8 8
7 6

Oh for an-y length of time,

6 6 -6 7
7 -6 6

I can hold it in my mind,

7 8 8 8
8 7 -7
-7 -6
-7 7

I nev-er a-gain will go down un-der-ground.

At the age of six-teen years,

Oh he quar-rels with his peers,

He vowed they’d nev-er see an-oth-er one,

In the dark re-cess of the mine,

Where you age be-fore your time,

And the coal dust lies heav-y,

On your lungs.

At the age of six-ty four,

He will greet you at the door,

And he will gent-ly, lead you, by the arm,

Through the dark re-cess of the mine,

He will take you back in time,

And he’ll tell you of the hard-ships,

That were had.

It’s a work-ing man I am,

And I’ve been down un-der-ground,

And I swear to God,

If I ev-er see the sun,

Oh for an-y length of time,

I can hold it in my mind,

I nev-er a-gain will go down un-der-ground,

I nev-er a-gain will go down un-der-ground.


Working Class Man

VERSE 1:

5 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
Working hard to make a living

5 6 6 6 -5 5 -5 5 4
Bringing shelter from the ra-i-n

4 -5 -5 -5 -4 4 5 5 5
A father’s son left to carry on

-4 -4 4 4 4 3
Blue denim in his vein

4 -5 5 -4 -4 -4 -4 4 4 4
Oh Oh Oh Oh he’s a working class man

VERSE 2:

5 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
Well he’s a steel town deciple

5 6 6 -5 -5 5 -5 5 4
He’s a legend of his ki-n-d

4 5 5 5 -4 -4 -4
He’s running like a cyclone

-4 -4 -4 -4 4 4 4 3
Across the wild mid western sky

4 -5 5 -4 -4 -4 -4 4 4 4
Oh Oh Oh Oh he’s a working class man

VERSE 3:

5 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
He believes in God and Elvis

5 6 6 6 5 -5 5-4
He gets out when he c-a-n

4 5 5 5 4 -4-4-4
He did his time in Vietnam

-4 -4 -4 4 4 3
Still mad at Uncle Sam

5 6 6 6 6
He’s a simple man

-5 5 -5 5 5
With a heart of gold

5 5 5 -4 -4 4 4
In a complicated land

5 -4 -4 -4 -4 4 4
Oh he’s a working class man

VERSE 3:

5 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
Well he loves a little woman

5 6 -5 -5 5 -5 5 4
Some day he’ll make his wi-f-e

-5 -5 -5 -5 -5 5 5
Saving all the overtime

5 5 5 -4 -4 4 4
For the one love of his life

5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
He ain’t worried about tomorrow

5 6 6 -5 -5 5 -5 5 4
Cause he just made up his mi-n-d

-5 -5 -5 5 -5 5 -4 4
Life’s too short for burning bridges

-4 -4 -4 4 4 4 3
Take it one day at a time

4 -5 5 -4 -4 -4 -4 4 4 4
Oh Oh Oh Oh he’s a working class man

4 -5 5 -4 6 6 6 5 6 -6 6 -6
Oh Oh Oh Oh he’s a working class m-a-n

-6
Oh

7 7 7 -7 -7 -7 -6 6 -6 7
Na na na na na na na na na na

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 -8 -8 7 8
I tell you he’s a working class m-a-n

(background)

5 6 6
Working class

5 6 6 -6 6 -6
Working class m-a-n

7 7 7
Yes he is

5 6 6
Working class

5 6 6 -6 6 -6
Working class m-a-n

6 6 6 8 8 8 8 8 -8 -8 -8 7 8
I wanna tell you he’s a working class m-a-n

5 6 6
Working Class

5 6 6 -6 6 -6
Working class m-a-n

5 5 5 7 7 7 7 7 -6 -6 -6 6 -6
I got to tell you he’s a working class m-a-n


Working Man GP3 Guitar Pro Tab

Working Man gp3 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Working Man opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Diary Of The Working Man GP4 Guitar Pro Tab

Diary Of The Working Man gp4 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Pedal Pointing 2 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Diary Of The Working Man GP4 Guitar Pro Tab

Diary Of The Working Man gp4 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Pedal Pointing 2 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Diary Of A Working Man GP3 Guitar Pro Tab

Diary Of A Working Man gp3 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Pedal Pointing 2 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


Diary Of A Working Man GP3 Guitar Pro Tab

Diary Of A Working Man gp3 Guitar Pro Tab is free to download. Tablature file Pedal Pointing 2 opens by means of the Guitar PRO program.


How To Play Piano Man On Harmonica?

Get Learn How To Play Piano Man On Harmonica – The Pianoforall Method is very simple.. Join us. Having a single reed for each note: The diatonic is a single reed harmonica, with only one reed to play each note. Welcome to this free lesson on how to play Piano Man on the harmonica.

Today, you’ll practice using my methodology along with the interactive video, on which you’ll see the song tabs in real time and play along with me. This is the method I adopted in all my online harmonica school courses. You’ll practice all the licks of this wonderful Billy Joel song, and after this, you will play the them on the provided backing track.

I suggest that you learn each lick separately with the metronome and put everything together when you can play all the licks consistently at a moderate tempo.

You can use a C harmonica to practice Piano man with my videos, or you can play any other harmonica key if you plan to play alone. For this lesson, you’ll find the play-along video, the backing track, and the slow version of both, as well as the tabs. As usual, the video tabs will show you both the note name and the harmonica hole to use.

Below on this page, you’ll find an in-depth analysis of the song, but first, let’s have fun with my play-along methodology.

Here are the videos: On the tabs, you’ll find the hole number on the lower row, and the note name on the upper row. A + symbol after the hole number means “blow”, where there’s no + you should draw the note. Follow the video and Good practice!

How To Play Piano Man On Harmonica?

[toc]

PIANO MAN SONG ANALYSIS

Basically, Billy Joel’s Piano Man is a great strategy start learning the blues harmonica, because it is really a really well-known song with very simple but memorable melodies.

However, as a teacher, I created this lesson with the intent of transferring knowledge that goes further than merely learning a couple of harmonica licks in order to be honest, just one melody and a slight variation of it. For this reason, I’m going to inform you something about how these licks are built and why they’re so effective and appealing for that listener.

The song time signature is seventy-five per cent and the backing is performed in triplets like an ordinary waltz.

Before analyzing the melodies, I want to introduce some general points to within mind that mind about the harmonica parts from this song. The trademark licks recall the singer’s melody, as well as a very simple but powerful way to use the instrument on sung furniture units.

The intro actually acts with regard to implication of what Billy is going to sing. Then an individual a small three-note sequence that resolves on the new singing part, along the 1:23 mark. Couple of other significant harmonica parts are part belonging to the track.

The song is very easy, as it doesn’t require bending skills and the licks are built on the central holes of the harmonica in particular, only on holes 4, 5, and 6.

How can a song be so great if we need just three hole notes perform it?

The answer lies in the fact that with easy tips harmonica holes, purchase play almost every note of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, having a. With these notes, doable ! make tons of lovely licks, and in this group of notes, you have the 3 most important in the key: C, E, and G.

The C note will be the key root note, the E is very important because it’s the third interval that determines the major mode of the song, and the G note may be the fifth degree that resolves on the C note. Is it possible to see how much you can study on a simple tune?

Which is way to learn things: grab some concepts, digest them, and be fortunate to reuse them. I’ll provide you an example: learning 2 simple licks is totally okay, but what after we want to expand our practice doing something interesting like transposing them to your harmonica higher octave?

Actually, if you listen to Billy Joel singing, you’ll hear him jumping one octave up with the voice right after incredibly sentences. Try it! Playing the high harmonica holes is something that many players can’t do, so be brave and explore your instrument!

Let’s discuss more in regards harmony now. This song is built around a few fundamental chords: C major, F major and G major. If you know a bit of musical theory, you’ll know these types of are the most important chords when working on major tunes, in particular the C and G, because the fifth degree chord resolves on website.

Another aspect to notice about the melodies often that they work almost exercising as a pair, in the role of a typical call and answer-type song; the second melody always ends utilizing key root note C, as if to underline a sentence conclusion’.

In the following section you’ll find Piano man main chord progression:

C C/B Am C/G, F C/E D7 G

C C/B Am C/G, F G7 C

To wrap up these concepts, we are learning how to play harmonica in first position, using a well known chord harmonic progression, and we’re playing a variety licks that always end on the most important key note. Now fretting or constant why Piano Man is truly the most desirable songs to learn for beginner harmonica players!

A last note into the melodies execution: in originally song double notes are played in place of your clean single notes. These double notes sound wonderful, due to the simple fact that when you play harmonica in first position, the note layout of the instrument is to your benefit. I suggest that play the single notes first, trying to these people clean, then adding instantly hole slightly enlarging your embouchure.

could also alternate single and double note licks to get the playing more interesting. Inside of original song, sometime your next hole is added for the main one, other times the one on the left is used, listen to the song and you could try and notice the differences!

To give you some thing useful to practice using this lesson, I’ve created some alternative licks for a person play and learn to know how to variate your playing with only a few shrewd issues. In addition to the lesson videos, I’ve played a small improvisation of this song for you, hoping that seek out give you some inspiration to create new licks and really take a*sociated with this exercise.

Here are the tabs for Billy Joe’s Piano Man, you can also download them using the links:

The main licks:

6+, 6, 6+, 5, 5+, 5, 5+

4+, 4, 5+, 4

5+, 5, 6+, 6, 6+, 5, 5+, 5, 5+

4+, 5, 5+, 4, 4+

how to play piano man on harmonica

Then the resolving lick before the singing at 1:23:

4, 5+, 5

Here, you’ll find the transposed licks to practice on the higher octave:

9+, 10, 9+, 9, 8+, 9, 8+

7+, 8, 8+, 8

8+, 9, 9+, 10, 9+, 9, 8+, 9, 8+

7+, 9, 8+, 8, 7+

how to play piano man on harmonica

Here, you’ll find some new ideas for improvising on the song:

6+, 6, 6+, 5, 5+, 4, 5, 5+, 4+

5+, 5, 6+, 5, 5+, 4, 5+, 4

7+, 6, 6+, 5+, 5, 5+, 4, 5+

4+, 4, 5+, 5, 5+, 4, 4+, 4+

how to play piano man on harmonica

A little general information about Billy Joel’s Piano Man:

In 1973, after signing an innovative new contract with Columbia Records with the legendary Clive Davis, Billy began in order to become known to the community thanks to songs while Captain Jack, The Ballad of Billy the Kid, and Piano Man.

These songs are still extremely well-known today, and if you can Piano Man hit five good 20 on the charts, giving this artist his first golden disc award. Would you know who played harmonica on this tune?

His name is Kevin Spacey, a singer and actor, he said he wasn’t a really good harmonica player when Billy asked him to play the intro, but he promised to learn it better for the occasion. Additionally said he had to practice much in that era!

Thank you for joining me for this driving session. I hope you enjoyed the song, and I invite you to take a look at my harmonica school page, where you’ll find many courses that can improve your playing skills on the harmonica. Assist you to there!

How to play Piano Man by Billy Joel on a C harmonica for beginners (Video)

You can see more Piano Man Tabs For Harmonica Here


Big Boss Man

CHORUS
7 b-6 -5 -6 b-7 7 7 -6 -6 -5
Big Boss Man can`t you hear me when I call
7 b-6 -5 -6 b-7 7 7 b-6 b-6 -5
Big Boss Man can`t you hear me when I call
7 7 7 7 b8 7 b-6 6 -5
You know you ain`t so big You`re just tall
-4 -5
That`s all
1.
4 4 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5-5 -5-5 -5 -5
Well you got me working baby working `round the
-6
clock
4 -5 -5 -5-5 -5 -5 -5-5 -6 7 b8 -8
I want a little drink of water but you won`t let
7-7 -6
Jimmy stop
REPEAT CHORUS
2.
Well I`m gonna get a Boss Man one who treats me right
Work hard in the daytime rest easy at night
REPEAT CHORUS
3.
Well you got me high baby got me worried too
Tell me, tell me, tell me what you`re gonna do
REPEAT CHORUS


Got My Mo-Jo Working

Verse 1
6 6 6 6 -5 5 4 4 4 7 6 -5 5
I Got My Mo-Jo Working but it just won`t work
4 5
on you
6 6 6 6 -5 b5 4 4 4 7 6 -5 b5
I Got My Mo-Jo Working but it just won`t work
4 5
on you
6 -5 5 -5 -5 -5 b5 4 7 6 -5 b5
I want to love you so till I don`t know what
-5 4
to do

Verse 2
4 4 b-3 4 4 4 b5 4 4 4 4
I got my black cat bones all pure and dry
3 b-3 3 4 4 4 b5 4 6 -5 5
I got a four leaf clover all hanging high

Chorus
5 5 4 7 6 -5 b5 4 4 7 6 -5 5
I Got My Mo-Jo Working but it just won`t work
4 5
on you
6 6 -5 5 -5 -5 -5 b5 4 7 6 -5 5
Oh I want to love you so till I don`t know what
-5 4
to do

All the next verses are the same as verse 2
3 Got my hoo-doo ashes all round your bed
got my black snake boots underneath your head
4 I got a gypsy woman giving me advice
I got some red hot tips I have to keep on ice
5 I got my rabbit`s foot I know it`s working right
I got your strand of hair I keep it day and night

Play with a moving beat


House of the Rising Sun (New – Working 100%)

This House of the Rising Sun is working 100%

[ I have made some mods, cos i dont like keys repeated many times over
in a row, IE -8 -8 -8 -8. XX ]

-4 -4 5 -5 -6 6 -4,-4
There is a house in_new Or-leans

-8 -8 8 -8 7 -6,-6
thay call IT the ris- ing_sun

-6 -8 -8 -8 7 -6
And It’s been, the ru-in

-6 -6 -5 4 -4
of ma-ny, poor boys.

-4 -4 -5 5 -4 4 -4
And God I Kno-ow I’m One.

PLEASE!!
After trying this song, Please Vote and add to you fav list’ `so that
this song can be build-up for others to find.

THNX

PS.
If good response? then i find other songs that work with-out to many
repeated keys,,, like plenty of others tab’s I’ve seen here are
continually repeating keys -> sometimes 5 time in a row. “I just hate
that”!!


Woman Alone w/ the blues

For my love sick-ness there’s no phy-si-cian
3 -5 -4 -4 -4 3 <-3 3 <-3 <-3What could he tell me to use? No liq-uid or pill -3 <-3 3 <-3 3 -5 3 -4 -5 -5 -5 -4I'm sure ev-er did or will cure a wom-an a-lone -5 -4 4 -3 4 -4 -5 -5 3 <-3 -3 <-3 <-3with the blues. Burn-ing mem-ries of the man that <-3 3 -5 3 -5 -4 -4 -4 3 <-3 3I love, haunt all my men-tal re-veiws. For all of <-3<-3 -4 4 3 4 3 -5 3 -4 -5 -5the pain I feel his two lov-ing arms could heal a -5 -4 -5 -4 4 -3 4 -4 -5 3 4 4Wom-an a-lone with the blues. To a blue mel- o -dy 3 -5 5 -4 -4 4 -3 -5 3 <-3 <-3 <-3<-3that's all I got for now still working on it


Taxman

1.
-4 -5 6 6 -5 -6 -5 -3
Let me tell you how it will be
-4 -5 6 6 -5 -6 -5 -4
There`s one for you nineteen for me
-5 6 -5 -6 -5 -8 7 6 6 6 5
`Cause I`m the Taxman Yeh I`m the Taxman
2.
Should five per-cent appear too small
Be thankfull I don`t take it all
-5 6 -5 -6 -5 -6 7 6 6 6 5
`Cause I`m the Taxman Yeh I`m the Taxman
-4 -4 -5 6 6 6 -5 -4 -3
If you drive a car I`ll tax the street
-3 -4 -5 -5 6 6 -5 5 4
If you try to sit I`ll tax your seat
-4 -4 -5 6 6 6 -5 -4 -3
If you get too cold I`ll tax your heat
-3 -4 -5 6 6 6 -5 5 4 -4 -4
If you take a walk I`ll tax your feet Taxman
3.
Don`t ask me what I want it for
If you don`t want to pay some more
`Cause I`m the Taxman yeh I`m the Taxman
4.
Now my advice for those who die
Beware the pennies on your eye
-5 6 -5 -6 -5 -8 7 6 6 6 5
`Cause I`m the Taxman Yeh I`m the Taxman
-4 5 -5 -5 -5 6 -5 5 -(34)~~~~~
And you`re working for no-one but me~~~~


Susan Salidor

Susan Salidor is an award-winning children’s music composer and performer with the heart of a teacher.  She is the author, along with illustrator Natalka Soiko, of two picture books for young children, I’ve Got Peace In My Fingers and One Little Act of Kindness (Sideline Ink Publishing), based on two of her most widely-known original songs.

Susan has written over 150 songs for children.  Her original music is influenced by her professional experience in musical theatre, cabaret folk and in her work as a preschool music specialist. Her recording Come and Make a Circle 3: Even More Terrific Tunes for Children and Those Who Love Them, is the third in the Circle series. All three Circle albums have received Parents’ Choice awards, and they are among the most popular of Susan’s eight recordings for children.

Susan has also been honored as a songwriter with several ASCAP Popular Awards for Songwriting.  In addition, the song “Color Me Singing,” is featured in a primary school textbook Making Music (Scott Foresman/Silver Burdett).  Susan’s recordings are recommended in The Best of Everything for Your Baby (Krantz/Exley, Prentice Hall), and her song, “Ruby B.,” appears in the first edition of civil rights icon Ruby Bridges’ autobiography Through My Eyes (Scholastic Press).  She has also published The Susan Salidor Songbook, a songbook and CD set of original music from her first four recordings.  For five years Susan co-hosted “Kids Play Radio,” a weekly broadcast on Chicago’s WLUW 88.7 FM.  Her songs have been heard on in-flight kids’ programming on UNITED Airlines, XM Radio, Spotify, Sirius Satellite Radio and are available wherever music is streamed and downloaded.

Susan’s concert venues include schools, libraries, colleges, theatres, children’s museums, music festivals and bookstores throughout the country.  On the educational front, she teaches preschool music in and around Chicago each weekday throughout the school year, and her music workshops (Sure-Fire Hits for Preschool Teachers, Sure-Fire Hits 2: Just the Songs, and Come and Make a Circle) have received rave reviews at professional teaching conferences nationwide.  She has presented multiple times for the NAEYC conference, which draws 25,000 early childhood educators annually.  Susan has served as an “Artist in Residence” for the Rockford Public Schools’ Early Childhood Program, Waukegan Public Schools and Mary Meyer School (Chicago), teaching music classes and training teachers.  Susan and husband Jay Rehak created a children’s show, Noah’s Ark: The Musical, which has been produced in both Chicago and Michigan.  All of Susan’s recordings are available on Spotify,  Apple iTunes, Amazon.com and CDBaby.com.  Susan and Jay have created dozens of YouTube videos to her songs, but they are most delighted by the hundreds of original videos recorded by fans of Susan’s music found on the internet.  Her song, “I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers,” is included in the songbook Rise Again! compiled by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson (a follow up songbook to Rise Up Singing!).  The song is sung in elementary schools throughout Spain to help celebrate its Day of Non-Violence and Peace each year on January 30th, and it can be heard in school celebrations throughout Canada for its Remembrance Day each November.

Susan continues to teach and perform online and in-person, as COVID protocols allow, and she is working on her third picture book for children plus a brand new album of songs written during the last decade.


Westlife

Westlife is an Irish pop vocal group formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1998. The group currently consists of members Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, and Nicky Byrne. Brian McFadden was a memer, until he left in 2004. The group temporarily disbanded in 2012 after 14 years of success and later reunited in 2018.

The group has released twelve studio albums: four as a five-piece and eight as a four-piece. They rose to fame with their debut international self-titled studio album, Westlife (1999). It was followed by Coast to Coast (2000), World of Our Own (2001), Unbreakable – The Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (2002), and Turnaround (2003), which continued the group’s success worldwide. The group released their cover albums Allow Us to Be Frank (2004) and The Love Album (2006) and the studio albums Face to Face (2005) and Back Home (2007). After a hiatus of studio recording for almost one year in 2008, they released the studio albums Where We Are (2009), and Gravity (2010), and the compilation album Greatest Hits (2011). After eight years, the quartet group released their eleventh studio album, Spectrum, in 2019, followed by their twelfth studio album, Wild Dreams, in 2021.

Westlife is the act with the most Number 1 debuts on the UK Singles Chart, with all 14 of their chart-toppers landing there in their first week.[1] They have the most singles certifications for a pop band on the UK number one singles artists chart since The Beatles. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Westlife has been certified for 13.2 million albums, 1.3 million video albums, and 10.6 million singles, with a total of more than 25 million combined sales in the UK.[2][3] They are also currently ranked 19th with the most number-one albums of all time and sixth-highest band in the list.[4] The group has accumulated 14 number-one singles as a lead artist as well as having eight number-one albums in the United Kingdom, making them Ireland’s and non-British act’s (since Elvis Presley) most prolific chart-toppers. In 2012, the Official Charts Company listed Westlife 34th among the biggest-selling singles artist, 16th amongst the biggest selling groups, and 14th with most top ten hits—all the highest for a boy band and a pop group in British music history.[5] They are also the biggest selling album group of the 2000s, and three of their studio albums were part of the 50 fastest-selling albums of all time in the UK.[6]

The group has the most consecutive number-one studio albums in a decade in the UK and Ireland for a band, since the Beatles, and for a pop band and act since ABBA. Also in Ireland, they have 11 number-one albums with a total of 13 top two albums, 16 number-one singles, as well as 34 top-fifty singles. They have sold over 55 million records.[7] and are holders of the following Guinness World Records: first to achieve seven consecutive number-one singles in the UK; most public appearances in 36 hours by a pop group; most singles to debut at number one on the UK chart; and top-selling album group in the United Kingdom in the 21st century.[8][9][10] Westlife is one of the most successful music groups of all time, among the highest-profile acts in 2000s popular culture in most territories worldwide, and one of the few boy bands to have continued success after their commercial peak. On the best-selling boy bands of all time list, they are currently tenth worldwide along with the biggest-selling boy band from Ireland in history globally. They have received numerous accolades including one World Music Award, two Brit Awards, four MTV Awards, and four Record of the Year Awards. As a live act, Westlife has sold 5.5 million concert tickets worldwide from their fourteen concert tours so far. They hold the record for the most shows played at The SSE Arena, Belfast and SSE Arena, Wembley; this makes them the biggest arena act of all-time in the United Kingdom. They sold out Croke Park Stadium in their home country in a record-breaking five minutes.[11] Their fourteenth, and latest concert tour is called The Wild Dreams Tour.

 

History

Origin: Byrne, Egan, Feehily, Filan and McFadden’s beginnings

Kian Egan, Mark Feehily and Shane Filan, all schoolmates in Summerhill College in Sligo, Ireland, participated in a school production of Grease with fellow Sligo men Derrick Lacey, Graham Keighron, and Michael Garrett. They considered it as the start of Westlife. The sextet formed a pop vocal group called Six as One in 1997, which they later renamed IOYOU. Before this, Egan was part of a punk-rock bands called Skrod, and Pyromania. The group, managed by choreographer Mary McDonagh and two other informal managers, released a single titled “Together Girl Forever” under Sound Records which was written by Feehily and Filan with fellow Irish Those Nervous Animals and The Strong are Lonely band members Padraig Meehan and Daragh Connolly. Another song “Everlasting Love” included in the single was written by Feehily, Keighron, Meehan, and Connolly. There is also an unreleased song called “Good Thing”.[13] McDonagh first encountered Egan as a six-year-old student at her weekly dance classes, and came to know Filan and Feehily in their early teens as they starred in shows such as Oliver! and Godspell for Sligo Fun Company.
Louis Walsh, the manager of fellow Irish boy band Boyzone, came to know the group after Filan’s mother Mae contacted him, but the group failed to secure a BMG record deal with Simon Cowell. Cowell told Walsh: “You are going to have to fire at least three of them. They have great voices, but they are the ugliest band I have ever seen in my life.”[14] Lacey, Keighron, and Garrett were told they would not be part of the new group, and auditions were held in Dublin where Nicky Byrne and Brian McFadden were recruited. McFadden was part of an R&B group called Cartel before this.

The new group, formed on 3 July 1998, was originally named Westside, but as another band was already using that name, the group was renamed Westlife. It was revealed that Walsh was already calling them Westlife before the Westside name came along.[15] In Westlife – Our Story, Byrne revealed that, unlike the others in the group, he was keen to change the name to West High. McFadden also changed the spelling of his name to Bryan to facilitate signing autographs. They managed to secure a major record deal the second time around under BMG with all other record labels competed. They signed a four million pound record deal with RCA Records. Westlife’s first big break came in 1998 when they opened for Boyzone and Backstreet Boys’ concerts in Dublin. Boyzone singer Ronan Keating was brought in to co-manage the group with Walsh. Later, they won a special Smash Hits Roadshow award at that year’s Smash Hits Poll Winners Party. Their first live television performance as a group in Ireland and worldwide was on the Irish TV series and the world’s second longest-running late-night talk show, The Late Late Show that had its broadcast on 13 November 1998. They performed “Flying Without Wings”.[16] The band then released an EP titled Swear It Again afterwards. Both recorded songs under Westside were produced by Steve Mac and written by Mac and Wayne Hector. Cowell chose the debut extended play and single with the guidance of his father, Eric Cowell, who stated then, “I think they will be big”.

International breakthrough, Debut album, Coast to Coast, World of Our Own and super stardom (1999–2002)

In April 1999, the group released their first single, “Swear It Again” which immediately topped the charts in Ireland and in the UK for two weeks. It became the biggest-selling single in a week one by a debut artist.[17][18] On the week of its release and its chart achievement announcement, Cowell’s father Eric died. Their second single, “If I Let You Go” was released in August 1999, which established them as the first boy band to hit the No. 1 with its first two singles.[19] They also performed for billions in 1999 at the Miss World telecast with this song. The third single was the highly acclaimed “Flying Without Wings” (their first ‘Record of the Year’ and their third No. 1 single), released in October the same year, also followed suit. It made them the only the second Irish act and fourth act to debut at No. 1 with their first three singles, B*Witched, Robson and Jerome, and Spice Girls being the other three. “Flying Without Wings” was also included on the soundtrack of the Warner Brothers film, Pokémon: The Movie 2000. Their first album, simply titled Westlife, was released in November 1999 and went to No. 2 in the UK and their first No. 1 in Ireland. The album was the biggest chart dropper on the top 40 in UK music history when, in its 58th week on the charts it leapt from No. 79 to No. 3 before falling to No. 37 the following week.[20] Despite the history, the album successfully managed to peak at No. 1 in Scotland in the year 2001 after premiering at No. 6 at the Scottish Albums Chart in 1999.[21]

In December 1999, a fourth and a double-side single was released, “I Have A Dream”/”Seasons in the Sun”. It knocked Cliff Richard’s “The Millennium Prayer” off the top spot and earned them the 1999 UK Christmas number-one single. It is also their fourth No. 1 single.[22][23] It was the first official No. 1 single music act in the 2000s of UK Singles Chart and also the last official No. 1 single music act in the 1990s decade of UK Singles Chart. They are one of only five acts to achieve four number ones in the UK Singles Chart in one calendar year, the others being Elvis Presley, The Shadows, The Beatles and Spice Girls.[24] The fifth and last single from the album, “Fool Again”, also peaked at No. 1.[25] With this, they broke records of being the only male band to have every singles released from an album to reach No. 1 in the UK and the only male group with most original songs in an album that went straight to No. 1 in the UK with multiple and/or with four original singles. Afterwards, Westlife signed to Arista Records for the North American territory after auditioning for the label’s founder, Clive Davis.[26] Then the group had a promotional tour in the United States for their “Swear It Again” single and peaked at No. 20 in the Billboard Hot 100.[27] An Asian tour followed in support of their debut album before releasing a second album. On 1 July 2000, they were honored as Freemen of the Borough of Sligo.[28]

Coast to Coast, their second album, was released a year later and was their first No. 1 UK album, beating the Spice Girls’ Forever album by a large margin, the said chart battle was widely reported by British media. It became the country’s 4th biggest selling album of 2000.[29][30] This is their second No. 1 album in Ireland. The album was preceded by a duet with Mariah Carey singing “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” and the original song “My Love” (their second Record of the Year award). Both singles reached No. 1 on the UK charts, their sixth and seventh number ones respectively.[31][32] With this, Westlife broke an unexpected record of the most consecutive No. 1 singles in the UK, having their first seven consecutive singles debut at the top by a debuting act and group, and by an act, a group, a male group, a pop act and a pop group in UK and became the fastest number one music act beating Elvis Presley’s previous record of three years versus 23 months of Westlife getting each its first No. 1 singles and second music act to have the longest string of number ones in UK history.[33] However, in December 2000, their eighth and an Ireland and UK exclusive single “What Makes a Man”, only debuted at No. 2.[34] The single “My Love” was controversially used by Central Intelligence Agency as part of a torture program in Afghanistan. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “the music pounded constantly as part of a scheme to assault prisoners’ senses”.[35] They survived the 2000 Mexico City major earthquake and lightning during this time.[36] As the 2000 had ended, Westlife achieved four number one singles in a year for two straight years (1999, 2000) since Elvis Presley (1961, 1962).

Outside the UK and Ireland, they gained chart success with “I Lay My Love on You” and “When You’re Looking Like That”. This time as well, they were included in the top ten earners list of all acts in UK and Ireland and sold over 2.5 million units in Asia Pacific region.[37][38] Also in this year, they launched their first world tour, “Where Dreams Come True Tour”.[18] A recording of a concert from the tour live from Dublin was released on 19 November 2001. Also in the same month and year, Westlife released their third album World of Our Own, their second No. 1 album in the UK and their third No. 1 album in Ireland.

“Uptown Girl” (their first single to be on the List of million-selling singles in the United Kingdom), “Queen of My Heart” and “World of Our Own” were released as singles, all of which peaked at No. 1 in the UK. Those singles are also their eighth, ninth, and tenth number ones respectively.[39][40][41] With their tenth No. 1, they made history by being the shortest music act or band to have ten or double-figures number ones in the UK Singles Chart (2 years and 10 months or 149 weeks) – more than 3 months quicker than The Beatles (165 weeks). “Bop Bop Baby” was also released as a single, but it peaked at No. 5 in the UK. In 2002, Westlife went on their second world tour, the World of Our Own Tour (In The Round). Overall in 2002, IRMA awarded the band plaque about their 1 million units sold in Ireland and ranked seventh as Irish’s millionaires under age 30 with 18 million euros for all of the five members.[42] For every performance each band member will get 228,000 euros, which means the 68 dates raked in 1.55 million euros for them by June 2002. The cash rolled in from sales of their merchandise, while a recent advertising deal with Adidas was worth 488,000 euros to each of them with a total of 3.33 million euros each at the end of the said tour.

UnbreakableTurnaround, and departure of McFadden (2002–2004)

The group sold more than 12 million records in a span of three years during this time.[44] They released their eleventh UK No. 1 single, “Unbreakable” in 2002.[45] Amidst rumours of a split, Westlife released their first greatest hits album in November that same year titled Unbreakable – The Greatest Hits Vol. 1, which zoomed all the way to No. 1 in the UK and Ireland. Their third No. 1 in the UK and the fourth one in Ireland. Also during that time, Westlife bagged another Guinness World Record for most public appearances by a pop group in a 36-hour period. The band made stop-offs in five different cities (Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, London and Manchester) to promote their then-new album. The release was followed by the double A-side single “Tonight”/”Miss You Nights”, which debuted at No. 3 in the UK and No. 1 in Ireland.[46] At this time, Because Films Inspire made a TV documentary titled “Wild Westlife”, directed by Iain MacDonald and starred the group, featuring their daily life as musicians and their tour experiences. It was aired on BBC Choice.[47] In 2003, Westlife went on their third world tour, The Greatest Hits Tour and was invited to play at the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo, shrugging off rumours of a split which is what most of the pop bands do after a Greatest Hits album and tour.[48] A recording of a concert from the tour, live from Manchester, was released in November 2003.

Back in September 2003, Westlife released “Hey Whatever”, which peaked at No. 4 in the UK.[49] Their fourth studio album, Turnaround, was then released in November, earning the group another UK No. 1 album, the fourth one. The album is also their fifth No. 1 in Ireland. “Mandy”, was released a week before the album release. The band’s twelfth No. 1 single. Their version won them their third Record of the Year award, in under five years.[50] Their version of “Mandy” is also considered the single with the longest leap to the top (from No. 200 to No. 1) in UK music history.[51] “Obvious” was released as the final single from the album, charting at No. 3.

On 9 March 2004, just three weeks prior to embarking on their fourth world tour, McFadden left the group to spend more time with his family and six months later to release solo music projects.[52] On that day, a press conference was held where all the group’s members were present, each giving emotional individual speeches. McFadden’s final public performance as part of Westlife was at Newcastle upon Tyne’s Powerhouse nightclub on 27 February 2004.[53][54] McFadden attended the first day of the band’s tour date as an audience. The last time the five had reunited in public was when McFadden acted in an Irish reality television show Anonymous where he disguised as a fan in an album signing event of the group in November 2005 and had a broadcast in January 2006. He subsequently began a solo career, and reverted the spelling of his first name back to its original ‘Brian’. McFadden later released more albums and singles, but only with moderate success.

Less than a month after McFadden’s departure, the group kicked off their “Turnaround Tour”.[55] A live version of “Flying Without Wings” from the said tour was released as an official UK download, earning them the first official UK Downloads No. 1.[56] A recording of a concert from the Turnaround Tour, live from Stockholm, Sweden, was released in November 2003.

Face to FaceBack Home, and cover albums (2004–2008)

In September 2004, they performed on the World Music Awards, where they were recognised as the Best Irish Act of that year. They then released a Rat Pack-inspired album and fifth album …Allow Us to Be Frank, which peaked at No. 3. No singles from this album were released in the UK but “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?”, accompanied with a music video, was released as a digital download in the UK and peaked at No. 4 and as a physical single in other European countries. “Smile” and “Fly Me to the Moon”, both with music videos as well, were released as digital downloads only.

Prior to the release of the …Allow Us to Be Frank album, Westlife scouted for “the perfect fan” to help promote their album.[57] After X Factor-style auditions, they found Joanne Hindley, who recorded “The Way You Look Tonight” with the group.[18] To mark this special collaboration, a special programme was televised, showing auditions and live performances, called She’s The One, presented by Kate Thornton.[58] It also featured a live performance by their fathers with their version of “That’s Life”. Westlife continued to tour Europe as part of their “The Number Ones Tour” which started in early 2005. The tour ranked at number 84 worldwide with top concert tour ticket sales with 191,361.[59] A recording of a concert from the tour, live from Sheffield, was released in November 2005.

By 2004, they sold over 30 million albums already, the biggest live act in UK, and making around £4m each as reported in 2005.[60] In October 2005, Westlife returned with their comeback single, “You Raise Me Up”, which was taken from their sixth album Face to Face, their thirteenth No. 1. On 5 November 2005, both the album and the single were at No. 1 in the UK, at the same time, during the second week of the single. It was the first time that Westlife had held both the top album and the top single position in the same week and the first Irish music act to have such feat.[61][62] This is their fifth No. 1 in the UK and sixth one in Ireland. “You Raise Me Up” was awarded as their fourth Record of the Year in the UK, for 2005. In December of that year, the group released “When You Tell Me That You Love Me”, a duet with Diana Ross, as the second single, and it debuted at its peak position of No. 2.[63] This single marked its fourteenth year since the original Diana Ross version was released and peaked at No. 2, the same chart position in the UK Singles Chart in 1991. Westlife then released a third single, “Amazing”, which debuted at No. 4.[64] After that, Westlife embarked on the “Face to Face Tour”, travelling extensively to the UK, Ireland, Australia and Asia. This tour marked the first time that Westlife travelled to mainland China for a concert.[65][66] The tour ranked the band sixth for the year with a number of performances with 32 shows and recorded 238,718 paid-for attendances.[55] A recording of a concert from the tour, live from Wembley Arena, was released in November 2006. The band was mentioned as part of the names of male groups that peaked in the United Kingdom album sales in 2005 with 45 percent of the market.[67] By this time, they already sold over 36 million records worldwide.

In late 2006, Westlife signed a brand new five-album deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Their seventh album, The Love Album was a compilation concept album which consisted of popular love-song covers. The album outsold other compilation albums by Oasis, The Beatles, and U2 in its first week of release and went straight to No. 1 in both UK and Ireland. It was the top selling album of 2006 in Ireland and Westlife’s seventh and sixth No. 1 album in Ireland and the UK, respectively. Moreover, the only single from The Love Album, “The Rose”, became their 14th UK No. 1 single.

This made Westlife the third act (along with Cliff Richard) in the UK to have the most No. 1 singles, tailing behind Elvis Presley (21) and The Beatles (17). In Ireland, they made it to the second place (tied with The Beatles) to have most number one singles, tailing behind U2 (21). They also returned to the Miss World stage where billions saw the exclusive live performance of The Rose. Westlife then kicked off their eighth world tour, “The Love Tour”, in Perth, Australia.[69] The group then went on to other Australian cities before moving on to South Africa, the UK and Ireland. The tour had a total of £1,031,033 secondary gross sales.[70]

On 5 November 2007, Westlife released their eighth album, Back Home, which contained nine new original songs along with three cover songs. The album debuted at No. 1 on the UK, their seventh No. 1. It was also 2007’s fifth biggest selling album in the UK. This makes them as one of the only five band, with Coldplay, The Prodigy, Stereophonics, and Take That, in UK chart history to claim seven No. 1 albums. With seven of their albums reaching the number one spot from 2000-2007, they attained the fastest accumulation of UK number one albums record in recent history until Taylor Swift’s re-recording release of her album Fearless in 2021.[71] The album was their eighth No. 1 in Ireland. The first single released from the album was “Home”, which peaked at No. 3 in the UK.[72][73] “I’m Already There”, not released as a single, managed to chart in the UK based on downloads alone, following a performance on an episode of The X Factor UK.

On 15 December 2007, they had a two-hour show called The Westlife Show where they performed 10 of their songs, some of which were voted online by fans and some from Back Home. It was hosted by Holly Willoughby.[74] Months later, “Us Against the World” was announced and released as their second single in UK and Ireland. Before the release of the second single, they embarked on the Back Home Tour on 25 February 2008. This tour marked the first time that the group had travelled and performed in New Zealand, performing four sold-out shows in Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth and Christchurch. Meanwhile, “Something Right” was released as the second single and “Us Against the World” became the third single in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. Both songs performed well on several music charts.

10th anniversary and hiatus (2008–2009)

From 2005 to 2008, Music Week revealed on their website that Westlife was the official third top touring act within the years while they were the seventh top touring act of 2008.[75] On 28 March 2008, after 27 sell-out shows, in the space of 10 years and have sold 250,000 tickets. All four members were presented with a plaque cast of their hands, which can also be seen in the Wembley Square of Fame similar to Hollywood Walk of Fame.[76] Then to mark their tenth year in music, Westlife staged a special 10 Years of Westlife, a sold-out concert at the world’s thirty-third biggest and Europe’s fourth biggest stadium,[77] Croke Park, on 1 June 2008.[78] which Egan described to be a “pop extravaganza”.[79] It was only the second time for an Irish act to headline the stadium after U2.[80] Filan confirmed that a corresponding live concert DVD would be released. The group announced that they would be on hiatus for a year after their Back Home Tour[81] and that there would not be an album release in 2008 as they would be spending more time on the production of their tenth album.[82] As promised, the group’s official website confirmed on 27 September 2008 the release of a DVD on 24 November 2008 entitled 10 Years of Westlife – Live at Croke Park Stadium which went straight to No. 1 on UK, Ireland, South African, Hong Kong and New Zealand Music DVD charts. As the group ended another successful tour, Walsh announced in the show Xpose that 1 July 2008 would be the official start of the longest hiatus of the group. He said that it will be a one-year break, from that day up to 1 July 2009. On 13 December 2008, while on a break, Westlife made an unexpected appearance during that year’s X Factor final where they performed “Flying Without Wings” with runners-up JLS. After the performance, Filan and Byrne were interviewed on The Xtra Factor with Boyzone’s Keating and Stephen Gately. As JLS also performed, “I’m Already There”, Westlife’s version of the song re-entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 63 while a new entry on Ireland Singles Chart at No. 47 due to extensive downloads only. In the last week of January 2009, a DVD entitled The Karaoke Collection was released. This is the first time Sony Music has released an official Karaoke disc for music videos in DVD format. On 27 February 2009 issue of Herald Ireland, Walsh revealed that Cowell had already picked three new songs which he believed would be instant hits. On 18 March 2009, Westlife won the Best Irish Pop Act on the 2009 Meteor Awards for the ninth consecutive time.

Where We Are and Gravity (2009–2010)

Their tenth album, Where We Are, was released on 30 November 2009 in the UK and peaked at No. 2 on both Irish and UK Albums Charts. The lead single, “What About Now”, was released a few weeks earlier on 23 October 2009, with digital downloads being available the day before. The said single peaked at No. 2 on both Irish and UK Singles Charts and ranked No. 85 in the year-end official sales chart.[83] Following that month was the announcement of the Guinness Book of World Records for Westlife as the top selling album group of the 21st century with 10.74 million albums sold in the UK alone.

They were also part of the Haiti charity single in early 2010 with “Everybody Hurts”, which was organised by Cowell.[84] The said single peaked at No. 1 on both Irish and UK Singles Chart. The tour in support of this album was called, “The Where We Are Tour”. The tour entered at number 50 of top concert tour for the third quarter of the year with 241,865 ticket sales.[85] A recording of a concert from the tour, live from London, was released in November 2010. The eleventh album was recorded and processed with songwriter and producer John Shanks in London and Los Angeles and was entirely produced by Shanks.[86] On 14 November 2010, the single “Safe” was released. It debuted on the UK Singles Chart on 21 November at No. 10, giving the group their 25th Top 10 single in the United Kingdom. The new album titled Gravity was released on 22 November 2010.[87] It went to No. 1 in Ireland and No. 3 in the UK. This is their ninth No. 1 in Ireland and this album made Westlife as one of the few musical acts and band and the only pop band to have number one albums in three consecutive decades (1990s, 2000s, 2010s) in their home country.

As the 2000s decade ends with 275 singles reached the No. 1 position on the chart in the UK. Over this period, Westlife were the most successful musical act and group at reaching the top spot with 11 No. 1 singles only from the said decade, top act with most total number of weeks at No. 1 with individual credits and second to most total number of weeks at No. 1 with 14 weeks. Ten out of their fourteen No. 1 singles were released and came from this decade. Westlife is also the second biggest selling music act in the UK of the 21st century. And second from the list of artist from the past decade, 1990s, in UK Albums and Singles Charts. While in 2005, half of the decade, they were the fifth.[88]

Westlife was named the fourth most hard-working music artist and third most hard-working band in the UK by PRS in 2010.[89] Also from the said year Billboard compiled the top international touring acts worldwide, the group ranked 14th with $5,104,109 estimated net take of tour grosses (assuming a typical 34% artist cut after commissions and expenses).[90] In March 2011, they started their eleventh major concert tour, the Gravity Tour. This tour marked the first time the group travelled to Oman, Namibia, Guangzhou and Vietnam for concerts.

Greatest Hits and split (2011–2018)

As of 2011, the group were the longest reigning band and second longest reigning number one music act in the 21st century in UK. On 14 March 2011, Westlife confirmed that they had left Cowell after 13 years and his record label Syco Music after nine years. The group cited Syco’s decision not to release a second single from Gravity as the reason Byrne felt it as another reason of being unloved,

We signed to Simon back in 1998 and he was brilliant, but then came the development of The X Factor and American Idol. Simon became famous himself and his interests went that way rather than on Westlife. We almost felt a little bit unloved with Simon Cowell, if I was to be honest. We had it (full time support) with Simon but he got so busy and would do it at the very last minute and we needed someone who was on it all the time.[91]

On 23 April 2011, Egan’s Twitter account posted a series of tweets saying he was to walk away from the group. He later said his account was hacked and debunked the announcement.[92] After going back to RCA Records full-time for a one-year album contract, they announced their Greatest Hits album to be released on 21 November 2011. It debuted at No. 1 in Ireland and No. 4 in the UK. This is their tenth No. 1 album in Ireland. The first and lead single, “Lighthouse” was released in November 2011. And a follow-up promotional single “Beautiful World” released later. In October 2011, Egan ruled out speculation that McFadden would reunite with them for the new compilation album and its promotion for a television show. Egan said: “All the rumours about Brian re-joining Westlife are untrue. We have been a 4 piece for too long now. We love Brian but it’s not going to be. That includes any TV performances.”[93] With a new compilation album coming out, it was speculated Westlife would be doing a new greatest hits tour. They were scheduled to headline the ChildLine Concert in Dublin on 12 November 2011 and to have another exclusive concert on O2 Blueroom, also in Dublin on 24 November.[94][95]

A UK tour was first officially announced on 18 October 2011, with dates confirmed for May 2012 and it was titled, The Greatest Hits Tour or The Farewell Tour. Stereoboard reported that the tour sold out within minutes.[96] On 19 October 2011, Westlife officially announced they were splitting after an album and a tour.[97]

After 14 years, 26 top ten hits including 14 number one singles, 11 top 5 albums, 7 of which hit the top spot and have collectively sold over 44 million copies around the world, 10 sell out tours and countless memories that we will forever cherish, we today announce our plan to go our separate ways after a Greatest Hits collection this Christmas and a farewell tour next year. The decision is entirely amicable and after spending all of our adult life together so far, we want to have a well-earned break and look at new ventures. We see the Greatest Hits collection and the farewell tour as the perfect way to celebrate our incredible career along with our fans. We are really looking forward to getting out on the tour and seeing our fans one last time.

Over the years, Westlife has become so much more to us than just a band. Westlife are a family. We would like to thank our fans who have been with us on this amazing journey and are part of our family too. We never imagined when we started out in 1998 that 14 years later we would still be recording, touring and having hits together. It has been a dream come true for all of us.

Kian, Mark, Nicky and Shane[98]

During this time, the Official Charts Company compiled the band’s chart history which states that other than their number-ones they had, 25 UK Top 10s, 26 UK Top 40s, 27 UK Top 75s, 20 Weeks at No. 1, 76 Weeks in Top 10, 189 Weeks in Top 40 and 282 Weeks in Top 75 in the UK Singles Chart. While 7 No. 1s, 12 UK Top 10s, Top 40s, Top 75s, 7 Weeks at No. 1, 92 Weeks in Top 10, 189 Weeks in Top 40, and 299 Weeks in Top 75 in the UK Albums Chart.[99] They also had seven number-one albums in eight years, the most number-ones with different albums by a music album act, group, pop group, and male group in the UK Albums Chart in the 2000s and the second most number ones, tied with Rod Stewart, with different albums by a music album act, group, pop group, and male group in the UK clustered per decade since The Beatles in the 1960s and of all time. In Ireland, they have fourteen No. 1 singles and ten No. 1 albums, the most for a pop band and act and male band and act, and Irish band next to U2.

A second statement was issued through their official site, saying the fans were continuing to be the best support system.[100][101] Some fans on social networks described themselves as feeling “devastated” following news of the split.[102][103] People left their messages on Twitter by using #WestlifeForever and #Westlife, it trended on Ireland, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sweden, and the UK. A live stream Q&A happened on 28 October 2011 as a “thank you” to their fans. As part of it, ITV commissioned a one-off music event as they took to the stage to sing some of their greatest hits, it was entitled Westlife: For the Last Time.[104] Another show entitled, The Westlife Show: Live, was broadcast from Studio One of London Studios on the same channel on 1 November 2011.[105] They then had a live guesting on The Late Late Show.[106] They were honored at that time by Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) with four specially commissioned bar stools to mark 49 performances at the venue for over 380,000 fans, selling more tickets than any other act.[107] The band had their final concert on 23 June 2012 at Croke Park Stadium in Ireland. The 82,300 capacity show was sold out in 4 minutes. Due to this popular demand, an extra date was added at Croke Park on 22 June 2012, which also sold out. Combined, there was a total of 187,808 spectators on both nights, exceeding the capacity of the stadium.[108] Their last concert was also screened live in more than 300 cinemas in the United Kingdom,[109] and 200 cinemas worldwide.[110][111] They also released a DVD, which went to number 1 in both UK and Irish chart. In that year they were also declared the 34th top-grossing tour act of the year with earnings of $35.2 million (€27 million). The farewell tour consisted of eight dates in China and 33 in the UK and Ireland; in total, the band sold 489,694 tickets from the tour.[112]

Cowell and some media predicted a possible reunion in the future,[113] but Westlife put an end to that speculation by vowing they would never reunite.[114] Later reports from the Daily Record said there was an “irreparable rift” in the band,[115] but was later denied by a source close to the band saying: “There’s no bad blood in the band, they’re still great pals. But all good things come to an end and they are all keen to do their own thing.”[116] Later, the band also denied it and called the split a “united decision”.[117] However he confessed three months after the split, Byrne said that members of the group fought with one another more and more often in the latter years leading up to the split and he felt that it was the right time to end their time together. A year after Westlife ended, they agreed to all voluntarily wind up Bluenet Ltd, their main entertainment firm, after going their own ways and split €2.3million to €595,500 each except for Filan who missed out any of it as he declared bankruptcy at that time due to property crash problems.[118]

Since the split, the four lads have released albums and singles individually. Filan, with three studio albums and with singles and tours (with support act dates for Lionel Richie) released and a Top 5 hit album in UK. Feehily associated with an independent record label (which he is the co-director) and released albums and singles. He also made it as a supporting act to Mariah Carey and Wet Wet Wet. Egan was voted King of the Jungle on the 2013 series of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity series, released one studio album with singles, was a coach judge on The Voice of Ireland, and was a support act for Boyzone. Byrne released one studio album, joined Strictly Come Dancing, hosted several major Irish television and radio shows, and represented Ireland in Eurovision, which was also his debut solo single.[119]

In 2014, Syco Music said to The Sun: “All the guys are up for it in principle. It’s now just a matter of sorting out all the details, Syco would love Brian to be part of the band again. It’d create the same sort of buzz as when Robbie Williams returned to Take That. But the other lads will need to be convinced because they were always very clear that when Brian left it was for good.”[120] but Egan later tweeted, “Guys I’m sorry to say but I don’t know where these rumours are coming from about a Westlife reunion but it’s untrue. Sorry #westlifeforever.”[121] In 2015,[122] 2016 (On this year, Walsh posted on the band’s social accounts that they will not regroup as of the moment),[123] 2017,[124] Walsh expressed that the four-piece band would reunite. He had been in contact with Ed Sheeran and James Arthur to create songs for the band.[125]

However, on 2016–2017, four years following the split, Filan told Lorraine and other media outlets that while there are currently no plans for a Westlife reunion, he would not rule it out for the future.[126] Byrne expressed in 2017, “Shame this Westlife news is not true. They were always my guilty pleasures.” He also talked about touring with the group: “Who wouldn’t want to do that again? The laugh with the boys and travelling around and seeing all the fans again. It’s nearly six years next summer since we’ve done it so who knows? Maybe in ten years. I’ve spoken to all the lads individually but we’ve never brought up a Westlife reunion, the thing about it is the four of us haven’t been in a room together since Jodi’s [Kian’s wife] mum’s funeral,’ That was the last time we spoke properly as a band, if you want to call it that., I’m sure it will happen but I don’t know when and I don’t know if even we know when the right time will be.”[127] Feehily added, “People have offered us blank cheques to get back together but it’s not about money. There are no plans to reform. The time isn’t now. We all have a lot more that we want to achieve first. It feels way too soon to be honest, a 20th anniversary tour could still happen one day as 2019 is 20 years since we released our first single, while 2021 is 20 years since our first world tour. So you never know”.[128]

On 31 March 2018, it was reported on Allkpop that all of them might guest on a popular Korean musical show Immortal Songs 2 but Filan was the only one who appeared on the show as a judge and a guest performer afterwards.[129] Egan answered that this and other reports were untrue and the rest of the group members sided with Egan’s response after as well.[130] Later they revealed they had been phoned up by Walsh and Cowell every six months since their split. On 23 September 2018, several Irish news outlets started reporting that the group has been signed to Universal Music Group for a new five-year album and tour deal with Virgin EMI Records.

Reunion, Spectrum album, and tour (2018–2021)

On 3 October 2018, the group formally announced that there’ll be new music and a tour coming soon on their official social media accounts like on their newly created Instagram.[133][non-primary source needed] Their reunion story caused huge fan reaction worldwide. According to the reports, they had been preparing for their comeback for the past year of 2017 as Feehily had said on the same year that he hoped to get them all together for a proper catch-up.[134] It was later revealed that Egan and Filan first talked about their reunion when Adele released “Hello” in late 2015.[135] While Byrne raised his concerns about “…where Westlife’s music fits into the current market” and not wanting to be simply a “nostalgia” act.[136] He went on to say, “While we were away, we realised what Westlife really meant to the fans – and to us.”[137] McFadden was not involved in the reformation as he said on an interview with Closer Magazine, “…there’s no reason for me and the boys to stay buddies.” and “For me, it was just a job. I only met the guys when I joined the band and have no regrets about leaving.”[138] Their first live interviews and press conferences as a four-piece in six years were made 20 days later held in Dublin and Belfast where they revealed their plans to stick around longer.[139][140] Days later, it was followed by several radio interviews in Manchester, Ulster, Dublin and Glasgow. Walsh also said in separate interviews that the most important things now are the songs, it will be featured as an introduction to their new sound and added, “I was just waiting for them to decide when. There were record deals on the table, but the icing on the cake was Ed Sheeran writing these amazing songs for them, as well as having Steve Mac, who produced their early songs, on track too.” […] “Sheeran’s input adds a contemporary edge”, “I’ve heard the first two songs and they are just incredible.”[141] Mac and Sheeran have come up with four new tracks for them. One will be a single co-written by Sheeran. Some had been composed since 2016. The duo have co-written recent hits like the most streamed song on Spotify, “Shape of You”, and also “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix, and “Thursday” by Jess Glynne. Mac revealed the band’s signature sound will be back.[142][non-primary source needed] Feehily and Filan added, “We’re not trying to change Westlife’s sound, we’re trying to evolve”, “We need to be a Westlife 2.0, a better version of ourselves. We wanted to come back and recreate Westlife’s sound, but better, and be a better band, and the most important thing about any band is music.”[143] In November 2018, Byrne expressed 2019 will be “one hell of a year”[144][non-primary source needed] On 19 December 2018, Egan and Feehily posted a picture of the group’s first rehearsals together in six years and Egan added that “2019 will be nothing but epic”.[145][non-primary source needed][146][non-primary source needed] A musical and a documentary film about them and their reunion were also reported.

“Hello My Love”,[141] their first single since 2011 was released on 10 January 2019.[147][non-primary source needed] It reached No. 1 in iTunes Store Top Songs in more than fifteen countries that include the United Kingdom and Ireland, reached top 10 in 23 countries, and charted in more than 50 countries only minutes after its release. It was released in four official versions: Original, instrumental, acoustic, and a remix. Their first UK, worldwide television and recorded professional appearance, performance in seven years and of the single was on The Graham Norton Show on 11 January 2019 where it was tagged as “one of the most highly-anticipated TV comebacks of the decade”.[148][149] They also performed the single on the 24th National Television Awards on 22 January 2019 and it was their first live television performance, first The O2 Arena and arena performance together in seven years. Their first Irish performance and television appearance together was in the finals night of Dancing With the Stars Ireland on 24 March 2019. Their first tour and first promotional tour in general and for a single release together outside UK and Ireland in seven years was on Singapore on 29 January 2019 to 1 February 2019.[150][non-primary source needed] It reached number-two in Ireland and Scotland. It was their highest charting on their official singles charts since the band’s “What About Now” single in 2009, ten years ago. The single got its Silver certification four months after its release and its Gold certification seven months after its premiere in the UK. In Ireland, it has a 2× Platinum certification.

The full-length album is released on 15 November 2019. It is in different formats like the CD, digital download, vinyl, and a limited box set edition. Some of the album formats are bundled with their official tour merchandise. It is their eleventh studio album, their first major album to be released in eight years and first studio album in nine years.[151][non-primary source needed] In November 2018, the pre-order links for the upcoming album were released on Amazon Australia,[152] Japan,[153] UK,[154] and HMV.[155] The album is titled Spectrum. The album peaked at number one in Ireland, Scotland, and the UK and was certified as Gold in the UK and as Platinum in Ireland. This is their first number one album in twelve years in the UK and in eight years in Ireland. This is also the fastest selling album in 2019 in Ireland. This is their eighth UK number-one album making them the fifth band (fourth until Coldplay got their eight number-one album week after) to have eight UK number-one albums with the likes of Led Zeppelin, and R.E.M. Overall, they are one of the only ten bands that has had eight number-one albums.[4] It marks their eleventh number-one album in Ireland.

To promote the album before its release, more singles were released like the second one, also by Mac and Sheeran with Fred Again (George Ezra, Prettymuch, Rita Ora), which was called “Better Man”. It was their second number one on the UK Singles Physical Chart and reached number two on the UK Singles Sales Chart and Scottish Singles Chart in 2019. It was also released in orchestral and acoustic versions. The third single, “Dynamite”, was released on 5 July 2019 and was released in three different mixes. The single was their 27th Top 10 hit in Scotland and 29th Top 40 hit in Ireland. The fourth single from the album, “My Blood”, was released on 25 October 2019. “My Blood” ended up peaking at number ninety-six on the UK Singles Chart and at number-six on the Scottish Singles Chart. It also peaked at number forty-six in the Irish Singles Chart.

Since their comeback in 2018, their previous singles “What About Now”, “Queen of My Heart”, “If I Let You Go”, and “My Love” reached the higher Gold certifications in the United Kingdom after ten, seventeen, eighteen, and twenty years of their releases respectively. “Flying Without Wings”, and “World of Our Own” were certified Platinum twenty years after its release. While “When You’re Looking Like That” after twenty years and “The Rose” after thirteen years achieved their Silver certifications since their releases respectively in the same country. Six were certified in 2019, one in 2018, and two in 2020.

On the evening of 17 October 2018, the UK and Ireland dates of their latest tour were announced through Westlife’s social networks and was called The Twenty Tour. A pre-order site of the forthcoming new Westlife album, for both unsigned and limited signed (which was taken down minutes later), from their official store was cited where fans will receive an exclusive pre-sale code for early access tickets to the 2019 tour.[156] Pre-sale tickets were all sold out before the general sale and the event had been described as a “big one”[157] making the original tour dates sold out at the very time of its general sales opening. The tour had twelve original dates and fourteen more dates added on places like Liverpool, Leeds, and Sheffield in less than seven hours due to high demand.[158][159][160][161][162] In their first full print interview as a band in six years, they said: “We will get to everyone eventually.” Egan added, “Every country that wants to see Westlife will see us at some point. We won’t step away from this until we’ve managed to tour the world.”[135] Seventeen additional Asian dates were announced from 21 March 2019 onwards; the tour has a total of fifty-one dates and took place at some of Asia’s and Europe’s largest indoor arenas and stadium. It was their fastest selling tour to date.

The second day of the tour in Croke Park had a live film broadcast in selected cinemas in at least fourteen European countries on 6 July 2019, and in more than 600 cinemas live via satellite in UK and Ireland alone. A delayed broadcast in at least nine Asian countries that include Hong Kong, India, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and in Australia and New Zealand were done from August 2019 as well. They hired the Cirque du Soleil team for the production, stage design, and routines of the tour. A follow-up cinema screenings of the filmed tour date was produced from August 2019 onwards as well in a sing-along version that kick-started in Denmark, Ireland, and UK. This was released in a video album in different formats on 13 March 2020. It reached the number one in UK and Ireland and stayed at the top spot for more than thirty weeks on their official charts.

On 13 September 2019, they announced that they are scheduled to play at Wembley Stadium in London, England and at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork, Ireland, both for the first time, as part of their Stadiums in the Summer Tour, which was later renamed. The tour play dates were moved from 2020, 2021 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic with most of the original scheduled tour dates were also cancelled.

On 8 February 2021, the band revealed the mutual parting of ways with Virgin EMI Records and details of a new and groundbreaking partnership are imminent.

Wild Dreams (2021–present)

On 17 March 2021, they formally announced through different medias that they signed a new album deal through Warner Music UK and East West Records.

After 514 days since their last get together, they played eight of their songs live together for a BBC Radio 2 event on Ulster Hall, Belfast on 25 August 2021 and was broadcast from 10 September 2021. An estimate of sixty-eight thousand people have applied to be part of the audience that night but an approximate number of only 160 people has been picked due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Starlight”, the lead single from their twelfth studio album, was released on 14 October 2021. The album, Wild Dreams, was released on 19 November 2021 but was pushed back to 26 November 2021 on 13 October 2021.[163][non-primary source needed] It is in different formats like the CD, digital download, streaming. Some of the album formats are bundled with their official tour merchandise.

On 29 October 2021, new schedule for their renamed fourteenth concert tour, The Wild Dreams Tour, were released. It is comprised of fourteen new dates and venues and eight dates added later. They also announced that their Wembley Stadium date will be streamed live in different cinemas in Europe.

On 17 December 2021, a Westlife concert filmed at London’s Bush Hall Venue and broadcast by Tencent’s WeChat (Weixin) across China’s most popular social media platform had an audience of almost 28 million. It received 160 million likes during the 100 minute stream. It was the first ever livestream concert by the band, and by an international artist in China. This was followed by being the special guest on Backstreet Boys livestream concert on the same said platform on 24 June 2022. The two band’s collaboration of Westlife’s song “My Love” had trended to number-one on the country’s top social media Weibo.[164][165] As of 7 April 2022, according to Official Charts Company, they are currently the fifth biggest-selling albums artist of the 21st century alone in the UK with 12,907,183.


Should i use guitar pro crack?

Should i use guitar pro crack? When we mention Guitar Pro, we immediately realize this is a famous software for guitar players. And of course, it is not a free software. And often, when a piece of software is not free, we look for a cracked version to use. But have you ever asked yourself “Should i use guitar pro crack?”.

Today, Harmonica tabs will talk more about this issue. Should or should not use Guitar Pro crack.

Should i use guitar pro crack?

How does Guitar Pro develop better features?

How does Guitar Pro develop better features?

A software doesn’t generate itself, and it doesn’t get better on its own! It needs developers to develop, based on actual needs as well as comments from users.

Programmers, just like us. They need food and living expenses. So they can’t do it for us for free without any income. That is the basic reason for them to commercialize the Guitar Pro product.

That’s not to mention the costs of office rental, internet service, electricity, water… Which you know are not provided for free.

So you can’t expect a free Guitar Pro software!

What is Guitar Pro Crack?

What is software cracking?

Software cracking (known as “breaking” mostly in the 1980s) is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software (software cracker), especially copy protection features (including protection against the manipulation of software, serial number, hardware key, date checks and disc check) or software annoyances like nag screens and adware.

A crack refers to the means of achieving, for example a stolen serial number or a tool that performs that act of cracking. Some of these tools are called keygen, patch, loader, or no-disc crack. A keygen is a handmade product serial number generator that often offers the ability to generate working serial numbers in your own name. A patch is a small computer program that modifies the machine code of another program.

This has the advantage for a cracker to not include a large executable in a release when only a few bytes are changed. A loader modifies the startup flow of a program and does not remove the protection but circumvents it. A well-known example of a loader is a trainer used to cheat in games.[6] Fairlight pointed out in one of their .nfo files that these type of cracks are not allowed for warez scene game releases. A nukewar has shown that the protection may not kick in at any point for it to be a valid crack.

Software cracking is closely related to reverse engineering because the process of attacking a copy protection technology, is similar to the process of reverse engineering. The distribution of cracked copies is illegal in most countries. There have been lawsuits over cracking software. It might be legal to use cracked software in certain circumstances. Educational resources for reverse engineering and software cracking are, however, legal and available in the form of Crackme programs.

Guitar Pro Crack

As such, Guitar Pro Crack is a software version of Guitar Pro, but has been cracked by others for use without purchasing a valid license from the manufacturer.

Who has crack Guitar Pro?

Those who can crack Guitar Pro are those with programming knowledge and understanding of how this software works.

It can be said that they are the same programmers as the people who developed Guitar Pro. So they can create Guitar Pro Crack from Guitar Pro.

Why would someone crack Guitar Pro?

As mentioned above, the person who can crack Guitar Pro are programmers, or at least someone with programming knowledge.

It also means that they jailbreak their purposeful Guitar Pro software. More than simply satisfying a passion for Guitar! There is an old saying “No free lunch”.

They crack the Guitar Pro software, then resell it for less than the manufacturer’s price. But why can you find Guitar Pro Crack for free on the internet?

Right now, you can go to Google.com and type in “Download Guitar Pro Crack“, you will find there are thousands, even tens of thousands of websites that provide links to download Guitar Pro Crack. Ex: productstheme.com:

Download Guitar Pro Crack Free

What do they get from sharing Guitar Pro Crack for free?

The answers to this problem are many, but you need to know that using Guitar Pro Crack contains many risks!

Reasons Not to Download Guitar Pro Cracked to use

Tempted to download some cracked software and save money? Think again—you risk malware, security issues, and copyright theft.

Purchasing software can be expensive. When you need a new piece of software for your PC, you can either look for free options, or pay out for potentially pricey software. Some people are tempted to avoid these costs by downloading cracked or illegal software.

This is software that is pirated via file sharing sites and accessed illegally using a stolen or generated unlock code.

However, cracked and illegal software can be a security risk in more ways than you might imagine. Here are some of the risks of downloading and using illegal software.

It Can Cause Malware Infections

Downloads of illegal software (Guitar Pro Crack) are frequently stuffed full of dangerous malware. A report by security company Cybereason estimates that over 500,000 machines have been infected by malware from just one cracked app. Once a user has downloaded and installed cracked software, the malware hidden inside can steal information from their computer. And it can even go on to download more malware, making the problem much worse.

The malware profiled in the report could do all sorts of invasive things. There are two particular pieces of malware described in the report, Azorult Infostealer and Predator the Thief.

Predator the Thief steals information like passwords from browsers and can steal cryptocurrency wallets. Or it could take pictures using the camera and take screenshots, which allows it to collect very personal data.

Azorult Infostealer also steals information, such as browsing history, usernames and passwords, cookies, and cryptocurrency information.

Further research from the Digital Citizens Alliance found that one third of illegal software contained malware. It also found software downloaded from illegal sources was 28 times more likely to contain malware than software downloaded from legitimate sources.

A lot of the smarter malware hides itself. So you may not even know that your machine has been compromised. You could continue using your device for a long time without ever realizing that it has been infected.

You Have to Visit Dodgy Websites

Another reason to be skeptical of cracked software is the websites which distribute it. To download cracked software, you generally need to visit sites which specialize in cracking. These sites are already on the wrong side of the law. So they have little incentive not to harm their users.

Cracking sites often have popups or redirects which send you browser to further dangerous sites. You are exposing yourself to risks like adware infections or even ransomware.

The Software May Not Work

When you download Guitar Pro Crack, there’s no guarantee it will actually work. Many companies take steps to prevent their software being pirated. So you might find that the software never works in the first place. Or it might work for a while, before eventually it stops working.

You also won’t be able to download updates for cracked software. This means you won’t be able to get any new features for the software. More concerning, it also means you won’t receive security updates. If a security vulnerability is discovered in a piece of software, the company responsible for the software will usually roll out a fix as quickly as possible.

If you continue to use the software without updating it, you could be open to even more security threats. Hackers can use vulnerabilities in software to access all sorts of data from your machine.

It Could Lead to Legal Problems

Downloading and using cracked software is illegal. If you are caught using it, you could face a range of consequences.

One of the more minor consequences is that you may be blocked by the software vendor temporarily or permanently. For example, if you pirate a copy of Adobe Photoshop, then Adobe could block you from using any of their software in the future. If you rely on this software for your work, this could cause a serious problem.

This is particularly a problem with cracked games. If you download a game illegally and try to play it online, you may well be caught. And if you are, you might find yourself banned not only from that particular game, but also from online gaming platforms like Xbox Live. This would prevent you from gaming online at all using that platform.

Alternatively, if you are caught with pirated software you might receive a fine. In the US, these fines can be up to $250,000. If you are caught distributing pirated software, you could even face jail time.

Another problem might arise with your ISP. If it catches you pirating software, they could report you to the software vendor. Or they could chose to block your internet connection. This can also lead to massive problems if, like most people, you rely on your home internet for work or entertainment.

This affects businesses as well. If you are the director of a business and you have illegal software on your company’s devices, you could be held liable.

You Could Infect Other Devices on Your Network

Something that some people don’t realize is that cracked software isn’t only a danger to your device. When you connect to the internet using your home network, your device shares information with other devices on the network like phones, tablets, and other computers. This means that if your device is compromised by malware, that malware can spread.

Once it has penetrated the security of one device via cracked software, malware can travel over networks. If one family member downloads cracked software, then the whole family’s devices can be compromised.

It’s even worse for businesses, as many have networks of hundreds or even thousands of computers. One person who downloads cracked software onto a work computer, even if they use their home network to do the downloading, can introduce malware to the entire business network. And if you infect your work’s network with malware, even unwittingly, you could be disciplined or lose your job.

Don’t Risk Using Guitar Pro Crack

We’ve laid out some of the security risks of using cracked software. From facing fines to acquiring malware infections, there are many risks which comes from using illegal software.

If you can’t afford a piece of software, then don’t look for a cracked version. Instead, look for a free or open source alternative. For a list of places to look, see our list of the safest free software download sites for Windows.


Aca Lukas

Aleksandar Vuksanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Вуксановић; born 3 November 1968), better known by his stage name Aca Lukas (Serbian Cyrillic: Аца Лукас), is a Serbian pop-folk singer and musician.

Life and career

Vuksanović was born on November 3, 1968 in Belgrade, and grew up in the downtown neighborhood of Karaburma. He graduated from a music high school.

Vuksanović began his career in the early 90s performing various genres of music, from jazz to Gypsy, in Belgrade nightclubs, such as the bar “Lukas” from which he got his stage name. He later toured throughout Yugoslavia with rock musician Viktorija and her band. Lukas released his first album, Ponos i laž, in 1995, on which he started collaborating with song-writing duo Marina Tucaković and Aleksandar Radulović. He achieved more significant popularity upon his next two albums and stand-out hits like the 1998 Anna Vissi cover “Lična karta” (ID), which became his signature song. Lukas held his first solo concert at the Pionir Hall in 1999, and then embarked on his first tour.

Today, Aca Lukas is regarded as one of the biggest Serbian turbo-folk singers. To date, he has released ten studio albums and has also performed at the Belgrade Arena over ten times. However, his biggest concert was held at the Marakana Stadium in June 2013 to 50,000 people.[2] Lukas also recorded duets with other popular regional performers, such as: “Daleko si” (2012) and “Omaklo mi se” (2015) with Ivana Selakov, “Ne zanosim se ja” (2014) with Ceca, “Kraljevi grada” (2015) with MC Stojan, “Da me je ona volela” (2017) with Mile Kitić and Saša Matić, “Bankina” (2017) with Jelena Karleuša, “Kidaš me” (2018) with Milica Pavlović, “Problem” (2019) with Maya Berović and “Sad i zauvek” (2021) with Dragana Mirković.

Additionally, he served as a judge on the televised singing competition Zvezde Granda between 2013 and 2018. Lukas also made a cameo appearance in the 2016 Serbian movie The Samurai in Autumn.

Personal life and controversies

Vuksanovic’s public perception is significantly impacted by a series of personal struggles, controversial remarks and legal troubles. He was married three times and has two sons and two daughters. His third wife, Sonja Vuksanović, reported him for a domestic a*sault, which he was eventually charged for in 2017 after he had pleaded guilty. Furthermore, in 2003, he was arrested for illegal gun possession during the police action Sablja.[6] Over the years, there have also been reports of his substance abuse and gambling addiction.[ In 2001 Lukas admitted himself to a rehabilitation facility in Switzerland.

Lukas has also been a vocal supporter of the President Aleksandar Vučić and has been known for making inappropriate remarks aimed at the opposing side, such as sending a death treat to popular talk show hosts Ivan Ivanović and Zoran Kesić in April 2020.[8] He was publicly denounced in November 2020 for insulting journalist Žaklina Tatalović in a sexist narrative during a live TV program on Pink. Lukas subsequently apologized for his action in a manner that was perceived as insincere by the public. In June 2021, Lukas released a memoir titled “Ovo sam ja” (This Is Me), which was poorly received from the critical public due to his views and statements like those regarding the a*sassination of Zoran Đinđić. Human rights organization ‘Da Se Zna!’ filed a complaint against Vuksanović for homophobic speech during a television appearance of his in January 2018.

After the final of the Serbian selection show for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, Pesma za Evroviziju ’22, where Lukas had placed 5th in the final with the song “Oskar”, he accused the Serbian public broadcaster RTS of irregularities in the voting of the selection, stating he would file a criminal complaint against the head of the Radio Television of Serbia, editor of entertainment program Olivera Kovačević and general director Dragan Bujošević for “stealing votes”. RTS responded, stating that the SMS votes were counted automatically by software which did not allow interference. The Comtrade System Integration company, which set up the software to count the votes, said it was prepared to hand the votes to the authorities if requested to do so, adding that the same data is available from mobile phone operators. He also made comments about the winning performer Konstrakta, saying: “I could have gone on stage and washed my legs, but I chose instead to perform,” also claiming she is working for opposition political parties. Konstrakta, laughing off his suggestion, jokingly offered “to wash his legs for him.[15]” After the controversy, RTS and Kovačević announced they would sue Lukas.

Discography

Studio albums
  • Ponos i laž (1995)
  • Pesme od bola (1997)
  • Lična karta (1998)
  • Rođendan (2000)
  • Nešto protiv bolova (2001)
  • Istina je da te lažem (2003)
  • Jagnje moje (2006)
  • Lešće (2008)
  • Stil života (2012)
  • Uspavanka za ozbiljne bebe (2021)
Cover albums
  • Jedno veče u kafani (1998)
  • Drugo veče u kafani (1999)
  • Još sam tu (za drugove) (1999)
  • Zora beli… (1999)
  • Aca Lukas & O.K. Band (2000)
Live albums
  • Najveća žurka na Balkanu (1999)
  • Žurka (2002)
Compilations
  • The Best of Aca Lukas (2000)
  • Aca Lukas – Hitovi (2008)
  • Aca Lukas – Stil Zivota (2012)

 


Tim Maia

Tim Maia (Brazilian Portuguese: [tʃĩ ˈmajɐ], born Sebastião Rodrigues Maia; September 28, 1942 – March 15, 1998) was a Brazilian musician, songwriter, and businessman known for his iconoclastic, ironic, outspoken, and humorous musical style. Maia contributed to Brazilian music within a wide variety of musical genres, including soul, funk, disco, jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, romantic ballads, samba, bossa nova, baião and música popular brasileira (MPB). He introduced the soul style on the Brazilian musical scene. Along with Jorge Ben, Maia pioneered sambalanço, combining samba, soul, funk and rock and roll.[1] He is recognized as one of the biggest icons in Brazilian music.

Tim Maia recorded numerous albums and toured extensively in a long career. After his death in 1998, his recorded oeuvre has shown enduring popularity. A theatrical retrospective of his career, the popular musical Vale Tudo, was first staged in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.

Biography

1950s

Maia was born in the Tijuca neighbourhood, in the northern suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. He began writing melodies while a child, the second youngest of nineteen children. Then known as “Tião Maia”, he wrote his earliest songs at age eight. At fourteen, as a drummer, he formed the group Os Tijucanos do Ritmo, which lasted one year. He took guitar classes and was teaching other children in Tijuca. He gave lessons to his friends Erasmo Esteves and Roberto Carlos, fellow members of the so-called Matoso Gang. Named after the street where they used to hang out, the gang also included Jorge Ben, among others. They liked to listen to the earliest styles of rock and roll, with both Maia and Ben being nicknamed “Babulina” after their enthusiastic pronunciation of Ronnie Self’s rockabilly song “Bop-A-Lena”.

In 1957, Maia, Carlos, Arlênio Silva, Edson Trindade and Wellington started the vocal group The Sputniks. After a televised appearance on Carlos Imperial’s Clube do Rock on TV Tupi, Imperial arranged a solo appearance for Roberto Carlos the following week. Maia got annoyed at this, leading him to insult Carlos in the following rehearsals until his bandmate left the group. After watching Carlos’ concert the following week, Maia left The Sputniks, and went after Imperial for a solo appearance. Imperial eventually suggested another artistic name, Tim, which Maia accepted with reservations.

In 1959, Maia went to study in the United States, where he lived for five years. He joined a vocal harmony ensemble, The Ideals, and wrote the lyrics to “New Love”, which was recorded as a demo with guest percussion by Milton Banana.[4] (Maia also recorded the song as a soloist in 1973). The group’s career was derailed in 1963 when Maia was arrested for possession of marijuana and deported back to Brazil.

1960s

After returning, Maia had a few unsuccessful jobs and arrests in Rio. Eventually he decided to move to São Paulo to try to get help to kickstart his musical career from Carlos, who was beginning to enjoy the massive success of Jovem Guarda with Esteves. Carlos was inaccessible, but Maia started to perform in São Paulo’s nightlife and in Wilson Simonal’s radio program, and also had a televised appearance at TV Bandeirantes with Os Mutantes. By the end of 1967 Maia managed to send a homemade recording to Carlos, who got Maia a deal for a single at CBS and an appearance on the Jovem Guarda TV program. His first single in 1968, “Meu País” backed by “Sentimento”, went unnoticed, as was another single, “These Are the Songs”/”What Do You Want to Bet?”, recorded in English for RGE Discos. Maia also wrote one of Carlos’ hits, “Não Vou Ficar”. He became more visible after 1969 when he launched his “These Are the Songs”, which was re-recorded by Elis Regina in the next year in a duo with Maia. Maia managed a deal with Polydor/Philips and recorded the successful single “Primavera”.

1970s

In the 1970s, Maia started to record albums and perform shows promoting his synthesis of American soul and Brazilian music with elements of samba and baião. The movement gradually took the working-class suburbs of the north side of Rio de Janeiro, exploding in 1976 with the black movement.

In 1970, Maia recorded his first full-length LP, Tim Maia, which included the classics “Azul da Cor do Mar”, “Coroné Antônio Bento”, and “Primavera”, and topped the charts for 24 weeks in Rio de Janeiro. His first four albums were all self-titled. Next year’s Tim Maia had other hits including “Não Quero Dinheiro (Só Quero Amar)” and “Preciso Aprender a Ser Só”. His fourth album, released in 1973, included “Réu Confesso” and “Gostava Tanto de Você”. Angry at how the music publisher distributed the royalties, Maia opened his own, Seroma (derived from the first syllables of his first, middle and last names), to make sure he had a bigger cut of the profits.

After his fourth album, Maia left Polydor for RCA Victor, who offered him a chance to record a double album. The instrumental parts were all ready when Maia went to his composing friend Tibério Gaspar for help with the lyrics. In his house Maia found the book Universo em Desencanto (Disenchanting Universe), revolving around the cult of Rational Culture. Maia converted to the cult, abandoned the drugs and red meat, and decided to write the lyrics for the songs about the knowledge contained in the book. RCA rejected the albums Tim Maia Racional, Vols. 1 & 2 for the newly found spiritual content, but Maia bought the master tapes from them and released the albums independently through label Seroma Discos, which would split its profits with the cult. While the lead single “Que Beleza (Imunização Racional)” had some airplay, at the time these records were not well received, due to inadequate distribution, and the spiritual content alienating both the radios and Maia’s fans. Eventually, the artist could only perform at events promoted by the Rational Culture. Eventually in 1975, Maia got fed up with the cult, destroyed the unsold records and went back to his carefree life. The Racional albums are now regarded as classics and saw re-release in 2005.

For his return in 1976, Maia signed with Polygram and recorded an album also titled Tim Maia, which included the hit “Rodésia” (inspired by the Rhodesian Bush War), and also did a self-published album in English.[11] In 1977 Maia signed with Som Livre, where he recorded the album Verão Carioca. In 1978 Maia signed with Warner Bros. Records and incorporated the disco sound of the period in the album Tim Maia Disco Club, which spawned the hits “Sossego” and “Acenda o Farol”.In 1979 Maia recorded Reencontro for EMI-Odeon, but revolted at the label’s estimated promotion costs which were the same as the money spent recording, Maia fought with the marketing executive, and in response EMI president fired Maia, releasing the album with no publicity to low sales.

1980s and 1990s

In 1980, Maia recorded another self-titled album for Polygram. The following year, with turbulent passages through all the major labels in Brazil, Maia released again through Seroma the album Nuvens, which flopped due to inefficient distribution. To earn cash for his future albums, Maia was a guest in songs by Fevers, Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque, Ivan Lins and Sandra de Sá. His collaboration with Sá, “Vale Tudo”, later became a solo hit for Maia. In 1983 he had hits with “O Descobridor dos Sete Mares” and “Me Dê Motivo”, included on O Descobridor dos Sete Mares (Polygram). Another milestone of his career in the 1980s was Tim Maia (1986), which had the hit “Do Leme ao Pontal (Tomo Guaraná, Suco de Caju, Goiabada Para Sobremesa)”.

In 1990, Maia saw Caetano Veloso’s songbook and asked editor Almir Chediak to do one for his own work. Chediak was working on such an album with bossa nova classics, and Maia requested a copy, which eventually inspired him to do a self-released album of bossa nova covers, Tim Maia Interpreta Clássicos da Bossa Nova. After a period of poor presence in the media, he was again on top after being mentioned by Jorge Ben Jor’s “W/Brasil” in 1991. In the same period, Maia had another hit with his re-recording of Lulu Santos’ “Como uma Onda” for a television advertisement – Santos in return recorded Maia’s “Descobridor dos Sete Mares.

At the same time, he withdrew from majors, recording his next albums through Vitória Régia, including What a Wonderful World (1997), where he recorded American pop/soul classics, and Amigos do Rei/Tim Maia e Os Cariocas, with the famous vocal group. Obese and in bad health, on March 8, 1998 he was performing at the Municipal Theater of Niterói when he became ill. He was hospitalized and died a few days later.

Personal life

Maia lived in the United States of America from 1959 to 1964. He first resided in Tarrytown, New York, with the family of an acquaintance of his father’s customer. There he learned English and did not speak much Portuguese because so few Brazilians were living in the US at the time. In 1961, Maia moved to New York City, and, in late 1963, with a group of three friends, decided to travel to the Southern United States. With a stolen car and performing small thefts to finance the journey (which got him arrested five times), Maia and friends traveled through nine states before arriving in Florida. In Daytona Beach, Maia had his final imprisonment for marijuana possession, which earned him deportation back to Brazil.

He had three sons. The first was José Carlos da Silva Nogueira (b. 1966). Maia only met Nogueira when he was already 15. Maia never legally recognized Nogueira as a son, but the two reportedly had a good relationship. A sister of Maia claims that, once he found out about Nogueira, he allowed the boy to live in one of his properties and helped him financially. Nogueira was shot and killed in 2002, in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, four years after Maia’s death.

Maia had a live-in girlfriend, Maria de Jesus “Geisa” Gomes da Silva. After some time together, they broke up. When they made up, she was pregnant with a boy, whose father refused to recognize the child as his. Maia then adopted the boy, Marcio Leonardo “Léo” Maia (b. 1974). Afterwards, Maia and Geisa married and had another son, Carmelo “Telmo” Maia (b. 1975). When Léo was 12, Tim Maia and Geisa divorced.

Tim Maia became a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro – PSB) in October 1997. He was rumoured to have joined the party in order to run for a seat in the Federal Senate for Rio de Janeiro in the 1998 general elections, but died before that. When asked by a reporter why he chose to join the then small PSB, he replied: “Brazil is the only country where: whores fall in love, pimps get jealous, drug dealers become addicted and the poor vote for the right-wing”. His phrase would become a famous aphorism on the way Brazilians face politics.

He was also known for his easygoing lifestyle, and for his habit of lightheartedly missing appointments and even important gigs. Indeed, Maia had a tradition of arriving late at concerts, at times missing them altogether. He also frequently complained about the sound quality in them. Many of his missed concerts were due to what he called his “triathlon”: consuming whiskey, cocaine and marijuana before a gig. Towards the end of his life, Tim Maia suffered from many health problems, which included diabetes, acute hypertension, obesity and pulmonary embolism. In 1996, he had a Fournier gangrene solved through an emergency operation.

Legacy and homages

After his death, Maia was the subject of numerous tributes by Música popular brasileira artists; two lavish commemorations in 1999 and 2000 were each released on CD and DVD. A biography, Vale Tudo – O Som e a Fúria de Tim Maia, was published in 2011 by one of Maia’s personal friends, Nelson Motta. Motta later worked with João Fonseca on a stage version of the book – their musical retrospective Tim Maia: Vale Tudo began a successful theatrical run in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The film adaptation Tim Maia based on the book was released in 2014.

In 2004, Som Livre released an album of posthumous duets entitled Soul Tim: Duetos.[28] Maia’s entire discography, including the never before seen third volume of Tim Maia Racional, was reissued by Editora Abril in 2011.[29] In October 2012, American record label Luaka Bop released a Maia compilation entitled Nobody Can Live Forever.

In January 2001, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Robin Finck sang “Sossego” during the Rock in Rio III festival.[30] In 2007, TV Globo recorded a special program about Maia, Por Toda a Minha Vida,[31] and in 2009, Globo had an episode of its show Som Brasil with Maia’s songs, performed by his son Léo and Seu Jorge among other artists. TV Cultura (São Paulo’s public broadcasting) released in 2012 Tim Maia’s 1992 episode on YouTube of their Ensaio music program. Posthumously, an unprecedented album was released on digital platforms entitled “Yo Te Amo”, which brings the musician’s hits sung in Spanish and arrives 51 years after his original recording, made in 1970.

Discography

Maia released his first album in 1970 and recorded frequently throughout his career. The following is a representative list drawn from his extensive catalog:

  • Tim Maia (1970)
  • Tim Maia (1971)
  • Tim Maia (1972)
  • Tim Maia (1973)
  • Racional (1975)
  • Racional, vol.2 (1976)
  • Tim Maia (1976)
  • Tim Maia (1977)
  • Tim Maia Disco Club (1978)
  • Tim Maia (1978)
  • Reencontro (1979)
  • Tim Maia (1980)
  • Nuvens (1982)
  • O Descobridor dos Sete Mares (1983)
  • Sufocante (1984)
  • Tim Maia (1985)
  • Tim Maia (1986)
  • Somos América (1987)
  • Carinhos (1988)
  • Dance Bem (1990)
  • Tim Maia Interpreta Clássicos da Bossa Nova (1990)
  • Sossego (1991)
  • Não Quero Dinheiro (1993)
  • Romântico (1993)
  • Voltou Clarear (1994)
  • Tim Maia Ao Vivo (1995)
  • Nova Era Glacial (1995)
  • Pro Meu Grande Amor (1997)
  • Sorriso de Criança (1997)
  • What a Wonderful World (1997)
  • Amigos do Rei (1997)
  • Só Você: Para Ouvir e Dançar (1997)
  • Tim Maia Ao Vivo II (1998)
  • Yo Te Amo (2021)

Linked Horizon

Sound Horizon is a Japanese musical group with composer Revo   (Japanese pronunciation: [ɾebo]) as the leader and only permanent member. They describe themselves as a “fantasy band” and have released works that closely resemble classical suites. Their songs often revolve around historical events and classic fairytales. When creating music based on other people’s stories, the band uses the name Linked Horizon.

History

Sound Horizon began with Revo releasing his music creations on the internet on his website in the late 1990s. In 2001, Sound Horizon participated in Comic Market as part of a dōjin music circle and released their first story CD, Chronicle, an all-instrumental track CD, with occasional narration, background chorus and sound effects.[4][5] The inclusion of actual singing began from their second release (Thanatos) onwards. Their subsequent works were released at Comic Market and M3.[3][6]

Sound Horizon’s first major release was in 2004, with the album Elysion ~Rakuen e no Zensōkyoku~ (lit. Elysion ~Prelude to Paradise~). Their first maxi-single, “Shōnen wa Tsurugi o…”, which was released in 2006, includes “Shūtan no Ou to Isekai no Kishi ~The Endia & The Knights~”, the theme for the PlayStation 2 simulation RPG Chaos Wars, and “Kamigami ga Aishita Rakuen ~Belle Isle~”, the opening theme for the MMORPG Belle Isle.[4]

Although Aramary was their main female singer through the Elysion album, her departure afterward led Sound Horizon’s style to shift quite a bit, to having many vocalists, rather than just one main female one (previously Aramary) and one main male vocalist (Jimang). Revo himself also tended to sing more often in the later albums, beginning with Roman.[6]

On September 3, 2008, Sound Horizon released the album Moira. The album featured Takashi Utsunomiya of TM Network as one of the vocalists.[7] Moira debuted at No. 3 on the Oricon weekly album charts, selling over 45,000 copies in its initial week.[8]

Sound Horizon released the single “Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido” on June 16, 2010. The single featured guitarist Marty Friedman and Vocaloid Hatsune Miku,[9] along with a beta voicebank for Vocaloid known as “Junger März PROTOTYPE β”.[3]

In 2012, Revo began a new project called Linked Horizon, beginning with his work on the score for the Nintendo 3DS game Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, a series of EPs and album.[2] In 2013 and subsequent years, Linked Horizon performed the first, second, third and fifth opening themes, as well as the fourth ending theme, for the anime adaptation of Attack on Titan along with a series of EPs and albums.[10]

In June 2014, Revo also composed the first opening theme of Sailor Moon Crystal, “Moon Pride”.

Band members

Current

NameYears activeInstrumentsRelease contributions
Revo2001 onwardvocals, composer, arranger, guitar, percussion, conductor, accordion, bagpipes, pianoAll Sound Horizon releases
yokoyan2001 onwardalbum artistAll Sound Horizon releases
Jimang2002 onwardvocals, narratorAll Sound Horizon releases from Lost (2002) to Märchen (2010), except Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido (2010)
Takashi Utsunomiya2008 onwardvocalsMoira (2008)
Kaori Oda2006 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from Shōnen wa Tsurugi wo… (2006) to Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Yuuki Yoshida2006 onwardvocals, harmonicaAll Sound Horizon releases from Shōnen wa Tsurugi wo… (2006) to Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Remi Tanaka2006 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from Shōnen wa Tsurugi wo… (2006) to Märchen (2010)
Miki Masuda2008 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from Moira (2008) to Märchen (2010)
Mari Endo2008 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from 6th StoryConcert: Moira~Soredemo oyukinasai kora yo (2008) to Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Haruka Shimotsuki2002 onwardvocalsLost (2002), Pico Magic (2003), Chronicle 2nd (2004), Elysion ~Rakuen e no Zensōkyoku~ (2004), all Sound Horizon releases from Moira (2008) to Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Azumi Inoue2008 onwardvocalsRoman (2006), all Sound Horizon releases from Moira (2008) to Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Minami Kuribayashi[1]2008 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from Moira (2008) to Märchen (2010)
Ritsuki Nakano2006-2008 2009 onwardvocalsAll Sound Horizon releases from Shōnen wa Tsurugi wo… (2006) to Triumph~Great Invasion of Territorial Expansion II (2008), Triumph of Territorial Expansion III Celebration of Revo’s Inception (2009)
Joelle 2010 onwardvocalsIdo e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido (2010), Märchen (2010), Nein (2015)

Discography

Sound Horizon’s main albums are called ‘Stories’ or ‘Horizons’ and are numbered, starting with Chronicle.

Pico Magic, Pico Magic Reloaded, Elysion ~Rakuen e no Zensōkyoku~ and Chronology are compilation albums and are not counted as story albums.

Chronicle 2nd is an expanded reissue of the first Chronicle album.

The ninth story Nein was released in 2015, even though the eight story, with the working title Rinne, hasn’t been released yet.

Doujin albums

Doujin albums

TitleAlbum details
1st Story Chronicle
2nd Story Thanatos
  • Released: August 11, 2002
  • Label: Self-released
  • Format: CD
3rd Story Lost
  • Released: December 30, 2002
  • Label: Self-released
  • Format: CD
Pico Magic
  • Released: May 4, 2003
  • Label: Self-released
  • Format: CD
Pico Magic Reloaded
  • Released: August 17, 2003
  • Label: Self-released
  • Format: CD
1st Story Chronicle 2nd
  • Released: March 19, 2004
  • Label: Self-released
  • Format: CD

Sound Horizon major releases

Albums

TitleAlbum detailsPeak positionSalesCertifications
JPN
[12]
Elysion ~Rakuen e no Zensōkyoku~Elysion ~楽園への前奏曲~ (Elysion ~Prelude to Paradise~)
  • Released: October 27, 2004
  • Re:Master Production released: July 29, 2020
  • Label: Bellwood Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
N/A
4th Story Elysion ~Rakuen Gensō Monogatari Kumikyoku~Elysion ~楽園幻想物語組曲~ (Elysion ~Paradise Fantasy Story Suite~)
  • Released: April 13, 2005
  • Re:Master Production released: July 29, 2020
  • Label: Bellwood Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
29N/A
5th Story Roman
  • Released: November 22, 2006
  • Re:Master Production released: August 26, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
19N/A
6th Story Moira
  • Released: September 3, 2008
  • Re:Master Production released: September 30, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
3
  • JPN: 45,000+
7th Story Märchen
  • Released: December 15, 2010
  • Re:Master Production released: October 21, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2
  • JPN: 100,000+
Chronology [2005–2010]
  • Released: April 13, 2012
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
4
9th Story Nein
  • Released: April 22, 2015
  • Re:Master Production released: November 25, 2020
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2
7.5th or 8.5th Story Ema ni Negai wo! (Prologue Edition)(絵馬に願ひを! (Prologue Edition) “Wish on the Ema)
  • Released: January 13, 2021
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: Blu-ray, digital download
1 (Blu-ray chart)
“—” denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Singles

TitleDetailsPeak positionSalesAlbum
JPN
[16]
“Shōnen wa Tsurugi o…”(少年は剣を… “A Boy’s Sword Is…”)
  • Released: October 4, 2006
  • Re:Master Production released: August 26, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
9N/ANon-album single
“Seisen no Iberia”(聖戦のイベリア “Holy War of Iberia”)
  • Released: August 1, 2007
  • Re:Master Production released: September 30, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
8N/ANon-album single
“Ido e Itaru Mori e Itaru Ido”(イドへ至る森へ至るイド “The Id That Leads to the Forest Leading to the Id”)
  • Released: June 16, 2010
  • Re:Master Production released: October 21, 2020
  • Label: King Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2
  • JPN: 64,308+
Prologue to Märchen
“Halloween to Yoru no Monogatari”(ハロウィンと夜の物語 “The Story of Halloween and The Night”)
  • Released: October 19, 2013
  • Re:Master Production released: October 30, 2020
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
3
  • JPN: 65,827+
Non-album single
“Vanishing Starlight”(ヴァニシング・スターライト)
  • Released: October 1, 2014
  • Re:Master Production released: November 25, 2020
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
3
  • JPN: 47,516+
Prologue to Nein

Linked Horizon

Albums

TitleDetailsPeak positionSales
JPN
[17]
Luxendarc Daikikōルクセンダルク大紀行 (Rukusendaruku Daikikō)15N/A
Shingeki no Kiseki進撃の軌跡 (Shingeki no Kiseki)
  • Released: May 17, 2017
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2

Singles

TitleDetailsPeak positionSalesCertificationsAlbum
JPN
[19]
“Luxendarc Shōkikō”ルクセンダルク小紀行 (Rukusendaruku Shōkikō)
  • Released: August 22, 2012
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
8Luxendarc Daikikō
Jiyū e no Shingeki(自由への進撃 “March to Freedom”)
  • Released: July 10, 2013
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2
  • JPN: 250,000+
Shingeki no Kiseki
“Seishun wa Hanabi no Yō ni”(青春は花火のように “Youth is Like Fireworks”)
  • Released: October 5, 2015[22][23]
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: Digital download
N/A
“Rakuen e no Shingeki”(楽園への進撃)
  • Released: September 19, 2018
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
5TBA[25][26]
“Shinjitsu e no Shingeki”(真実への進撃)
  • Released: June 19, 2019
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
8TBA
“—” denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Revo

TitleDetailsPeak position
JPN
Bravely Default Original Soundtrack(ブレイブリーデフォルト フライングフェアリー オリジナル・サウンドトラック Bureiburī Deforuto Furaingu Fearī Orijinaru Saundotorakku)21[28]
Bravely Default II Original Soundtrack
  • Released: March 3, 2021
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD, digital download
12
“—” denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryWork/NomineeResult
2013Newtype Anime AwardsBest Theme Song“Guren no Yumiya”
(from anime Attack on Titan)
Won[29]
Animation Kobe AwardsTheme Song Award“Guren no Yumiya”
(from anime Attack on Titan)
Won[30]
Billboard Japan Music AwardsAnimation Artist of the YearLinked HorizonWon[31]
2017Newtype Anime AwardsBest Theme Song“Shinzou wo Sasageyo!”
(from anime Attack on Titan Season 2)
8th place[32]
The Anime AwardsBest Opening“Shinzou wo Sasageyo!”
(from anime Attack on Titan Season 2)
Nominated[33]

How to Clean a Harmonica

You have a harmonica and You want to know How to Clean a Harmonica ? Harmonica maintenance can be a delicate matter because of how fragile the inside of the instrument is. Follow these tips to successfully clean your harmonica.

Regular cleaning is essential with regards to many musical instruments. This also true for wind instruments, because the saliva left out can be detrimental.

Harmonica’s are no exception to the rule. The difficulty is many people don’t understand how to properly clean a harmonica. And without regular thoroughly cleaning, the reeds and combs may become caked with all sorts of nastiness. THIS CAN affect the ability for the reeds to sound the correct note, if any at all.

I’ve been playing harmonica as a hobby now for a couple decades. Regular, quick cleanings have helped keep my harp working like new.

Harmonicas that haven’t been routinely maintained might need a more thorough clethening. That’s what we’ll be concentrating on here. In the case below I have two diatonic Hohner’s which have been played by toddlers for nearly 2 yrs and need some serious TLC!

How to Clean a Harmonica

[toc]

How to clean a harmonica without taking it apart?

Before getting into deep cleaning, there’s one preventative step to take to really keep your instrument in great shape: avoid eating before playing! And if you do eat first, rinse the mouth area out thoroughly, or better still, brush your teeth.

This simple step will keep your harmonica from ever being too much of a hassle to clean. Your harp will stay much cleaner simply by keeping your mouth clean before playing.

Limiting the amount of moisture left in your harmonica after playing is another important and easy solution to keep it clean. Every time you finish playing the harmonica give it a good tap with the holes against your hand to knock out just as much saliva out as possible.

If you have a plastic, metal or sealed harmonica, you can even run it under lukewarm water after each use. But be sure to tap the water out to dry it whenever you can when following this method. Moisture is our enemy in this example.

Supplies you’ll need for cleaning a harmonica

Below is a list of some supplies that will help you give your harmonica a deep clean:

How to Clean a Harmonica
  • A clean towel
  • Proper screwdriver
  • A bowl or pan to soak the reed plates
  • Lemon juice or vinegar for soaking
  • Baking soda (optional)
  • A soft toothbrush or makeup brush
  • Dental tools (nothing to sharp)
  • Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol/alcohol spray

There are also harmonica cleaning kits available with nice spatula-like blades to greatly help clean under the reeds. But you’ll generally be fine with just a toothbrush and a soaking. If you’re missing a number of the supplies above, you can still give your harmonica a good deep thoroughly clean with a light acidic cleaner and a soft brush.

I like to use a dull dental tool to help remove any tough chunks (on the rare occasions I find them). But to be clear, this can ruin a reed and damage the wood comb. Even flat spatula blades can perform damage to your harmonica with an excessive amount of force.

Give your harmonica a deep cleaning in 7 steps

Depending on how often you play, your harp might need a deep cleaning every three to six months. I’d also suggest a heavy cleaning before playing any used harmonica you may buy.

The deep cleaning method below works for diatonic, octave and tremolo harmonicas. We won’t address chromatic harmonicas for now, as those are less common and involve more steps.

Expect cleaning a harmonica to take at least one hour from disassembling, soaking, cleaning, drying and reassembling.

1. Disassemble the harmonica

I have two diatonic Hohner Blues Harp harmonicas (C and G) my children have manhandled and need cleaning. Although it may take less time to clean them together, I’ll be cleaning them separately to avoid potentially switching parts by mistake. We don’t need a C harmonica with G reeds!

Pick one harp and start to take it apart. Often the screws on the top and bottom interlock with one another. So as you unscrew the top, the bottom will come out at the same time. Be sure to keep track of which screws belong where.

Now remove the reed plate screws and set them aside so you know the exact order to replace them in. As I take the harmonica apart, I keep the parts in a strict order, and I take pictures. This process can help you avoid confusion later when it’s time to reassemble your harmonica.

2. Soak the reed plates

Soaking the reed plates in a lightly acidic solution for 15-30 mwithinutes helps loosen and split up any grime left on them from prolonged use. You need a light acidic solution that will do most of the cleaning, sufficient to interact with any kind of stray particles.

Here I’ll work with a slightly stronger solution of lemon juice and tepid to warm water because of the harsher treatment these harmonicas have seen. But vinegar will continue to work just as well.

Soaking in a stronger mixture is generthelly unnecessary. Cleaning your harmonica is all about using common sense and being careful. Allow vinegar or lemon juice do the majority of the cleaning for the fragile reeds.

3. Clean the cover plates

While the reed plates are soaking, clean the cover plates with rubbing alcohol or really any common instrument thoroughly cleaner. The famous Formula 65 for guitars also cleans a harmonica cover plate beautifully.

Wipe the cover plates, inside and out, with a nice clean cloth. Take care never to bend the plates, which is a possibility with cheaper harmonicas. You may also desire to clean the protect plate screws with alcohol. Just be sure to keep track of where each screw belongs.

4. Clean the comb

If you have a metal or plastic comb, you can simply wash it under lukewarm water with a little soap and work with a soft brush to clean it. While a gentle scrub with a dry, soft toothbrush is often enough for cleaning wooden combs.

Any appearance of mold or serious discoloration on a wooden comb is normally caused by excess moisture remaining after playing. Playing a moldy harmonica could make you sick, and replacing the comb is frequently wise in such cases.

Some harmonicists advocate applying a little bit of sesame oil on wooden combs after cleaning. Sesame essential oil is known to have antifungal and antibacterial properties, and also providing a moisture barrier. These factors help keep the comb clean and mold-free.

5. Clean the reed plates

After soaking the reed plates, it’s time to clean them with the brush. Several vital points to keep in mind listed below are:

  • Be gentle. Use the slightest pressure to brush the reed plates.
  • Brush down the reeds. Never brush across.
  • Avoid bending the reed plates. Even damaging one reed can make your harp pretty much unplayable. And you have to learn how to repair along with cleaning!

To help remove any persistent grime on reed plates, you can also scrub with a bit of baking soda. Limit your baking soda scrub to 30 secuponds roughly, to avoid damaging the final on the reed plates. Then immediately rinse under lukewarm water while lightly brushing downward on the reeds.

Let the chemistry do most of the cleaning. Any difficulty here can be a sign that you haven’t taken enough care to regularly clean your harmonica after play. Even my 10-year-old harmonica that is used by children isn’t too dirty because easy steps were always taken up to keep it dry and free from particles.

6. Leave the harmonica parts to dry

Remember that moisture isn’t our friend here. And the very last thing we want to do is put the harmonica back together while damp.

Spread the parts of your harmonica from a clean towel to air dry. The components will typically need 20 minutes to one hour to completely dry, based on surrounding humidity.

You may be tempted to dry the parts with a towel by hand. But doing so can leave behind tiny towel fibers, which can result in your mouth later during play. If you’re the impatient type, easier to use canned air-usually CO2- to dried out the parts faster.

7. Reassemble the harmonica

Reassembling your harmonica ought to be a breeze if you’ve kept tabs on all the parts.

Take one last look at your reeds to make sure they’re dry and have nothing stuck inside them. Then place them back into the comb. Insert the screws in reverse order and avoid overtightening. Ensure everything looks good and put the cover plines on.

You can use a tuner or perhaps a tuning app on your smartphone and check each hole to be sure everything is working fine. Find the right notes for your harmonica key and make certain each blow and draw match with the corresponding notes.

Conclusion

When you take a harmonica apart you’ll realize just what a simple instrument it really is. There’s no reason to not get good care of it. If you neglect to maintain it, your harmonica can end up being unplayable. And any repairs necessary will most likely cost more than the instrument will probably be worth!

Each time you play your harp make sure to have a clean mouth. When finished tap out any moisture and every now and again give your harmonica a deep clean. In the event that you follow those basic steps, your harmonica can last you for several years!


Harmonica FAQs

Harmonica FAQs

Harmonica FAQs – Welcome to over 100+ questions and answers about the harmonica. You’ll find the most common queries asked by beginners (and not only) harmonica players on this page. I categorized the topics into four sections for easier consultation. You’ll discover some generic questions concerning the instrument, some about playing theory, and a number of questions about how the harmonica is built and works. Of course, there are also many questions and answer about how exactly to play the harmonica.

The information you’ll find on this page is provided by experts, harmonica players, and teachers all over the world.

Do you doubt your preferred musical instrument and want to ask a fresh question? Get in touch, and we’ll answer you soon! You can reach out to me utilizing the contact form or on my social media marketing pages.

 Harmonica Frequently Asked QuestionsHarmonica FAQs

[toc]

GENERIC QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HARMONICA

Can a harmonica play chords?  

A standard diatonic harmonica can play several chords; both most important are the first-degree chord (holes 1, 2 and 3 blow) and the fifth-degree chord (holes 1, 2, and 3 draws). There’s also some other chords, but their usage is bound.

Can playing harmonica help in singing? 

Learning to play a musical instrument will help you sing better because you’ll learn about music and train your ear. However, if you cannot sing, studying the harmonica doesn’t guarantee become familiar with to sing.

Can you play any song on a harmonica? 

With a standard diatonic harmonica, it is possible to play most of the song out there; however, some require bending and overbending capabilities. The simple truth is that the average harmonica player will never be able to everything he listens to.

Can you teach yourself, harmonica?

Yes, you can teach yourself harmonica, nonetheless it takes more time and effort. Being guided by a teacher is the better option. If you want to teach yourself harmonica try at least carrying out a structured learning path with online courses.

Do you need to read music to play the harmonica?

Reading music isn’t a prerequisite to understand harmonica, but your learning journey will undoubtedly be easier and faster if you can read music. Reading music offers you more opportunities when you look for new material to study, and knowing the musical language is fantastic if you want to communicate with other musicians.

How can I tell what key my harmonica is in?

If your harmonica is not labeled, blow in hole 4 and work with a common tuner to read the not reallye you obtain; that’s the key of your harmonica.

How do you know what key a song is in?

If you want to find a song key, first discover the root note (the one that plays better on the entire song) and then check the minor third and the third major intervals. For example, if you discover that a D notice always sounds good on the track, check D and F#, and the D and F. If you discover that the first pair sounds good, the song is in D major; otherwwill bee, it is in D minor. To get the small third interval, count 3 half-tone up beginning with the main note, add a half-tone to get the 3rd major interval.

How long does it take to learn harmonica? 

It depends, you can learn well in 4 years if you study well and you’re followed by a good teacher, or you can be a beginner all lifelong if you just watch YouTube videos.

How much does a harmonica cost? 

A cheap harmonica costs less than $10, and a professional custom harp can cost more than $150. Good harmonicas cost not significantly less than $40. However, I will advise that you don’t purchase a very inexpensive instrument; they normally don’t play because they should and make your practice harder.

How much should I practice to improve my skills on harmonica?

Aim for at least 30 minutes per day, every day, better if you practice one hour each day. Professional harmonica players practice up to 4 hours each day. If you practice many hours during the day, split your study routines right into a 20-minutes block, including a break between each prevent.

Is playing harmonica good for my health? 

Of course, playing the harmonica is good for your health. You learn to breathe properly, and music is definitely therapeutic. Additionally, there are a couple of harmonica models designed for pulmonary rehabilitation.

Is the harmonica hard to learn?

Learning harmonica is hard and takes time. It costs few and even though it is often considered as a toy, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be respected as any other instrument. The majority of the students don’t succeed since they don’t go on it seriously.

What are the 3 chords used in the blues? 

In the blues, the three main chords used are the first-degree, the fourth-degree, and the fifth-degree chord. In a G blues, the first chord is the G chord, the fourth chord may be the C chord, and the fifth chord may be the D chord. Blues often makes usage of dominant seventh chords so that a G blues could have G7, C7, and D7.

What do I have to study to learn harmonica?

If you want to learn harmonica well, you should study songs, exercises, scales, and arpeggios. You would also desire to work on your tone and figure out how to bend notes. The harmonica is really a musical instrument like many others, in fact it is not easier.

What is the easiest song to play on the harmonica? 

 There are many easy songs to play on harmonica. “Piano Man” by Billy Joel is a good one for beginners.

What is the lowest key harmonica? 

In the standard harmonica set, the G harmonica is the lowest, whereas the F sharp harmonica may be the highest. There are also many low-tuned harmonicas like low F and low C.

What key are most blues harmonica songs in?

Many blues are played in E, G, and A. The best way to play an E blues is to use an A harmonica and play in second position (cross harp). You may use a C harmonica fpr a G blues; and for an A blues, work with a D harp.

What key harmonica should I buy to play with a guitar? 

It depends; you should consider the song key you play on the guitar and the position you would like to play on harmonica. For example, if you enjoy a G track on the guitar, it is possible to take a C harmonica and play in the second position or a G harmonica and play in the first position. Many rack harmonica players, particularly of days gone by, used to play harmonica on your guitar in the 1st position.

What type of harmonica is used in country music?

A standard diatonic harmonica may be used in country music. You can also buy a country-tuned harmonica to have an F sharp note on hole 5 in place of the natural F; this would fit more in the event that you play major mode melodies. To play country songs on harmonica, you’ll make large usage of the second position pentatonic scale, and the G scale on a C harmonica.

Who is the most famous harmonica player? 

It is hard to choose the most famous harmonica player. Here is a small list of great artists:
Alan Wilson 
Cliff Martin
Paul Butterfield
Little Walter
Sonny Terry
James Cotton
Sonny Boy Williamson II
Charlie Musselwhite

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HARMONICA

Can a harmonica go out of tune?

Yes, a hthermonica can go out of tune; however, this shouldn’t become an obsession. In the event that you play alone, your tuning doesn’t have to be perfect, and if you play with someone else, you then should check your harmonica tuning more regularly.

Can I wash a harmonica?

If your harmonica has a plastic comb, you can wash it under water, and then dry it with a soft cloth and a hairdryer. You can also opt for an ultrasonic cleaner that permits you to avoid disassembling the harmonica. If your harmonica includes a wood comb, you should be careful and prevent immersing the instrument in water becomecause the comb will get deformed.

How long does a harmonica last?

A harmonica can last for years once you learn how to play it properly and keep maintaining it. When learning, beginners break harmonicas easier; usually, they use an excessive amount of hair for performing and make an effort to bend notes.

How to retune a harmonica?

Tuning a harmonica reed isn’t complicated, but you should be careful because in the event that you move the reed, it could happen that it doesn’t vibrate well in its slot. You will need to file the reed on the tip part (far from the rivet) if you need to raise the note pitch, or on the start part (where the rivet is) to lower the pitch. A little action will be required; often check the way the reed sounds while tuning it.

What is a custom harmonica?

A custom harmonica can have a different comb design, different materials and can be worked to make bending and overbending easier. Customization can interest not only the instrument look, but especially how it’ll play.

What harmonicas are made of?

Common harmonicas are made of plastic, wood, steel, stainless steel, and brass.

Where did harmonica originate?

The harmonica, how we know it today, was born in Germany. Among its ancestors is the Sheng, a Chinese mouth-blown free reed instrument comprising vertical pipes.

How does a harmonica work?

In the harmonica, the sound is produced by the vibrations of the reeds in the slots. When you blow in the holes, the upper reeds vibrate; those in the bottom work once you draw.

QUESTIONS ABOUT HARMONICA THEORY

How many harmonica tunings are available?

The most common harmonica tuning is called “Richter,” followed by the “Country Tuning” that differs on hole 5 draw, where you discover an F sharp in place of a natural F note. There are also some minor tuning, such as the natural minor and harmonic minor. Some manufacturers also produce custom tuning (like Seydel) along with other special tunings. Among those, you will discover the melody maker by Lee Oskar and the Powerbender.

What are harmonica keys? 

There are twelve notes inside our musical system, those you find on a piano keyboard and form an octave. They’re basically, the white and black keys. A song can be in twelve different keys, and the diatonic harmonicas can be purchased in twelve keys and labeled with the name of the key. The standard range starts from G (the lowest key) to F sharp (the best). Once you learn how to play something on the blues harp, if you need to change the key, you only need to use a different harmonica and play the same holes. That’s the advantage of playing a pitched instrument. With an individual harmonica, you can play various song importants, nevertheless, you have to know something about “harmonica positions,” this means knowing various musical scales.

What are harmonica positions?

With the same harmonica, you can play different songs in different keys. Knowing the position is basically knowing the musical scales and where these scales’ notes can be found on the harmonica.

What are harmonica tabs?

Harmonica tabs certainly are a simple way to notate music for the harmonica. Simple harmonica tabs show only the hole number to blow or draw and some additional information like if you have to bend notes. Some more complex tabs also show the information on the staff plus some hybrids tabs with the name of the notes. You need to know the song you’re using the basic harmonica tabs as you don’t have whatever lets you know how each note lasts.

What harmonica key should I buy for blues?

The most common harmonica key for blues is A, this is because most of the blues are in E. Another common blues key is really a, and you need a D harmonica to play it. The G blues is also quite typical, also it requires a C harmonica. With these harmonica keys, you’ll play the blues in the second position (cross harp); in the event that you get the same key because the song, you will play in the initial position (straight harp).

Which harmonica key should I buy?

Harmonicas in the key of C and A are the most common for beginners. You also want to consider a D, a G, and an F harmonica to get a quite complete set. Knowing different playing positions will permit you to play most of the songs.

What is the fifth position on harmonica? 

The fifth position is one of the best harmonica positions to play minor songs and small blues. Your root note is located on hole 2 blow, 5 blow, and 8 blow with the fifth position. Once you learn the second position, you already know how to play in the fifth placement; in fact, the next position major pentatonic scale, and the fifth position minor pentatonic scale share exactly the same notices. On a typical C harmonica, in the 5th position, your root note is E.

What is the first position on harmonica?

The first position, also known as straight harp, is one of the best harmonica placements to play major songs. Your root note is located on hole 1 blow, 4 blow, 7 blow, and 10 blow. On a standard C harmonica, in the initial position, your root notice is C, and you also have a complete main scale on holes from 4 to 7.

What is the second position on harmonica?

The second position is an excellent harmonica position to play blues songs and major songs. Your root note is located on hole 2 draw, 3 blow, 6 blow, and 9 blow with the second position. On a standard C harmonica, in the next position, your root notice is G.

What is the most common key for a harmonica? 

The most common harmonica key is C.

What is the third position on harmonica? 

The third position is one of the best harmonica positions to play minor songs and small blues. Your root note is located on hole 1 draw, 4 blow, and 8 blow with the third position. On a standard C harmonica, in the 3rd position, your root notice is D. When playing in the third placement, the minor scale you play will be called “Dorian” and shares the same note as the first position major level. For example, a C major scale gets the same notes as the “Dorian” D minor scale. It’s suggested in order to avoid playing holes 3 and 7 draws in third position if the song mode is minor.

What’s the difference between a diatonic harmonica and a chromatic one?

Basically, the diatonic harmonica includes a three-octave extension but doesn’t permit you to play all of the notes that form them. The note layout follows a diatonic progression (major scale). With a chromatic harmonica, it is possible to play all the notices like a piano. The technique to perform these two kinds of harmonicas differs, and the sound is quite different too. On the chromatic harmonica, the blues is nearly always played in the 3rd position, and the fact you could play all the notes makes the chromatic harmonica ideal for jazz and classical music.

What’s the extension of a standard diatonic harmonica?

The extension of a standard blues harp is three octaves, but they are not complete. Even the major scale of the same key of the harmonica is found only on the middle octave, holes 4 to 10. To play exactly the same scale on the low octave, holes 1 to 4, you have to play a couple of bendings. On the best octave, holes 7 to 10, another bending must obtain the whole level.

Which harmonica should I use for minor key songs?

If you want to play minor chords, you need a minor tuned harmonica because the standard tuning permits you to enjoy only a minor chord on holes 3, 4, and 5 draws, and 8, 9, and 10 draw. On a C harmonica, the notes of the D small chord. If you need to play solos and melodic lines, a standard diatonic harmonica is fine, and you just have to find the right key and the right position. The most typical placements used to play minor songs will be the third and the fifth. You could also use the fourth position for minor playing, but getting the root note on hole 3 whole-step bending isn’t comfortable.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT PLAYING THE HARMONICA

How do I start learning harmonica? 

This is what you should start to learn harmonica: Figure out how to hold the instrument correctly, choose a technique such as puckering, tongue blocking, U blocking, or Lips blocking. Then figure out how to breathe correctly and play single notes, better if you practice long notes. Focus on your tone and don’t rush; learning to bend notes should happen later. Work on simple tunes and practice the whole instrument range. Avoid focusing too much on blues and on the blues scale. Make an effort to become a musician, not really a copy of everyone else.

How many embouchures to play the harmonica?

There are several techniques to play the harmonica. Puckering, tongue blocking, lips blocking, and U blocking, will be the most common, and all of them requires a different approach.

How to accompany on harmonica?

To accompany on harmonica, you should learn to play chords and how to interact with the other musicians. Avoid overenjoying; it is very important learn where to stop playing, leaving space for anothers. When accompanying with the harmonica, it is possible to play pads using octaves, emulate horn sections, and adapt your playing to the music style.

How to bend on harmonica?

Bending on harmuponica isn’t for beginners and often is really a trap that results in a waste of time plus frustration. Basically, to bend an email, you have to shape your oral cavity and use your tongue to modify the airflow. Blow bending differs from draw bending, and bending with puckering is different from bending with tongue blocking. Understanding how to bend notes takes much period; consider it a long-term goal, and do not neglect the most crucial what to learn, like playing at tempo and getting single clear information.

How to breathe for harmonica playing?

The correct breathing for harmonica playing involves the diaphragm. You should learn to make long breathes in a relaxed way while sustaining the flow. Controlling the airflow is fundamental for a good tone on harmonica. The majority of the harmonica players struggle with air and get full of it easily, in fact it is important to figure out how to manage the quantity of air you inhale and exhale, making use of your nose as a vent valve.

How to cup a harmonica microphone? 

Your tone on harmonica is strictly correlated to your embouchure, the seal you make with the harp, and the shape of your oral cavity. Sustain of the airflow also plays a big role in shaping your tone. Before relying on expensive harmonica mics and amps, try to build your tone with your embouchure. Basically, a bigger space in your mouth creates a bigger tone and vice versa.

How to have hole 2 draw playing well?

Getting a good sound from hole two draw is frequently difficult for beginners. Keep your throat relaxed and prevent sucking. The airflow should start in your opened throat, not in your mouth. Think about breathing from your own belly and not in the mouth area.

How to hold the harmonica?

Hold your harmonica without tilting it, and it should stay straight in front of your own mouth. Practice before a mirror to verify you don’t a*sume strange postures. Move the instrument rather than your head.

How to play a dip bending on harmonica? 

A dip bending is a note that starts with bending and ends with the normal pitch. The transition should be quick, and you also don’t want to hear two notices. Start like when you play the bending and immediately release it. Opening your nose can a*sist you to achieve the goal. It is possible to perform a dip bending on blow notes, on draw information, and on double stops too.

How to play a glissando on harmonica?

To play a glissthendo, start from a hole that is different than the target one. For example, to play hole 7 blow with a glissando, start hole 2, and continue blowing until you reach hole 7. The airflow remains constant while you move the harmonica. You can play a glissando with blow and draw notes, and you may go up or right down to achieve your target.

How to play a pull on harmonica? 

A harmonica pull is a feature of the tongue blocking technique. Basically, the sound is stopped by the tongue on the harmonica, and you start drawing or blowing before removing the tongue. Once you remove the tongue from the holes, the sound starts.

How to play a slap on harmonica? 

The slap is really a feature of the tongue blocking technique. To play a slap, your airflow (it could be draw or blow) starts with the tongue off the harmonica. You’ll slap the harmonica holes quickly to obtain a distinct sound attack. Very often, slap and pulls interact when performing with the tongue blocking technique. When playing by way of a bullet microphone and an amplifier, slaps and pulls help you to get that punching audio that lots of harmonica players love.

How to play a tremolo on harmonica?

A tremolo is a variation of the note volume. You can use your throat or the diaphragm, or both. When playing a tremolo, you can shape it by working on the amount of air variation (volume) and speed (frequency).

How to play a vibrato on harmonica? 

A vibrato involves a note pitch change. To play vibrato on harmonica, you should know how to bend notes. Basically, you perform a bent note and changing the airflow amount influences the note pitch. You can regulate how much the pitch is affected and the speed of change.

How to play a wah wah on harmonica?

The wah wah effect on harmonica is made by working on the cupping of the instrument. You apply the wah wah moving your hand (normally your right one), opening and closing the cupping. You can also help the wah wah by working with the airflow.

How to play a warble or shake on harmonica?

A warble, also known as a shake, is when you play two contiguous holes switching from one to the other very quickly. You don’t stop the airflow through the playing, and you may furthermore play a bent shake or warble. It is suggested to go the harmonica and not the head, or both, but never only the top.

How to play double stops on harmonica?

A double stop on harmonica is when you play two notes on two contiguous holes simultaneously. To play the double quit, open your embouchure a little. If you play using the tongue blocking technique, start like once you want to play a single hole, and open up your embouchure, moving your right lip side.

How to play single notes with lip blocking on harmonica? 

Lip blocking is really a particular technique used to play the harmonica. It involves blocking the holes with the inner side of your bottom lips. Tilt the harmonica a little bit when positioning it on your lips to possess better adherence. With lip blocking, you may also play double stops and bend notes. This system is easier than what most players think; test it out for, and you will be surprwill beed!

How to play single notes with puckering on harmonica? 

To play single notes on harmonica with puckering, you need to shape your embouchure, making a little “O.” Blow or draw in a hole to obtain the sound. If you hear two notes, you want to reduce your embouchure and check the harmonica’s position, and it might be that you are in the center of two holes. Puckering lips shape is comparable to the one you make by using a drinking straw.

How do I play single notes with tongue blocking on harmonica? 

When playing holes 3 to 10, cover the holes that must be blocked on the left, with the upper section of the tongue, closer to the end, and leave the right hole free. Don’t use the tip of the tongue if you want to protect two or three holes, as you need a slightly larger surface of your tongue to serve that purpose. Being an indication, put your tongue on the vertical separator between holes 2 and 3 if you need to play hole 4. The tongue covers two holes: i.e.2 & 3.
For hole 2 playing, put your tongue between hole 1 and the left border of the instrument. For hole 1 actively playing, you should learn to switch your tongue to the right and cover holes 1 and 2 with its left side.

How to play single notes with U blocking on harmonica?

U blocking is another technique used by some harmonica players. To use this method, you should be able to curl your tongue to possess its sides facing up. Essentially you will play like with the puckering technique, but with the added centering of your air via your tongue. Sounds very complicated? It is; most people can’t even curl their tongue.

How to play split notes on harmonica? 

You can play split notes on harmonica if you use the tongue blocking technique. The most common type of split notes may be the octave. To perform the hole 1 and 4 octaves (C octave on ha C harmonica), close holes 2 and 3 with the tongue. You can play many octaves on a diatonic harmonica, and they’re a good way to obtain a full sound which has low and high frequencies.

What chords can I play on harmonica? 

The most common chords you can play on a standard harmonica will be the first-degree chord and the fifth-level chord. On a C harmonica, the C major chord and the G main chord.

What is an overblow on harmonica?

An overblow on harmuponica is a note obtained with very advanced technique that most of the time requires to create the harmonica. Reed gap adjustment and embossing are a few of the modifications that help to obtain the overblow. Overblows allows you to play chromatically and have more notes on the instrument; for instance, on a C harmonica, on hole 1, you may get a D sharp, as well as on hole 4. On hole 5, with the overblow, you can perform an F razor-sharp, whereas, on hole 6, you will discover a B flat. The B smooth on hole 6 is essential for playing the second position blues scale on the higher section of the harmonica. With overblows, it is possible to play far better jazz music because it makes large usage of chromatics.

What octaves can I play on harmonica? 

On a standard harmonica, you can play many octaves if it is possible to tongue block. For example, on a C harmonica, blowing, you should have C, E, and G octaves overall instrument extension. Drawing notes enables you to play D, A, F, and B octaves.

What scales can I play on harmonica? 

There are many scales you can play on a harmuponica. Basically, the first position major scale, then the second position dominant seventh scale. You can also play the third position “Dorian” minor scale, and also the twelfth position major scale. It depends on your bending and overbending skills. The most common scales it is possible to play on a C harmonica are C major, G seventh, D Dorian minor, D blues, G blues, C, F, and G major pentatonic scales. It is possible to perform F major and D main scale on holes 1 to 4. They are only some examples.

Care and Maintenance of a harmonica

Basic Harmonica Maintenance – Care and Maintenance of a harmonica

Maintaining your own harps can give you longer lasting harps that play and sound better.  Just as guitar players have to change their strings and constantly tune, or sax players have to work with their mouthpiece, harmonica players should be able to set up their instruments to sound good and play well. 

Maintenance of a harp most often centers around the reeds, as shown in this picture.  The rivets attach the reeds to the reed plates, and the reeds vibrate through slots in the reed plates to generate the sound.  The action of the reeds depends on the gap between the reed and its slot in the reed plate.

Harmonica Maintenance
Diatonic Harmonica Reeds

[toc]

Tuning

Tuning reeds is done by either removing (normally) or adding (infrequently) metal from/to the reeds.  Here’s how it works

  • To raise the pitch of a reed, remove metal from near the reed tip (see above picture).  This lightens the tip of the reed, allowing it to vibrate faster, which raises the pitch.
  • To lower the pitch of a reed, remove metal from near the reed base (see above picture).  This weakens the reed and makes its tip heavier relative to its base, which slows the vibration and lowers the pitch.
  • Alternately, to lower the pitch of a reed add lead-free solder to the tip of the reed to increase the weight at the tip and cause the reed to vibrate more slowly.  It is also possible to increase the weight near the base of the reed to raise the pitch.

You are removing metal from the flat surface of the reed, not at the edges, which would increase the air gap around the reed and cause air loss in the chamber.  Various tools can be used for removing metal from the reeds, and different people have their own preferences.

  • Small jeweler file
  • Small chisel
  • Wet-dry emery type (usually black) fine grained sandpaper
  • Dremel-type rotary tool
  • Fish-hook sharpener
  • Sandpaper pencil

I prefer a Dremel-type rotary tool with a hard rubber disk, which results in a smooth surface, and doesn’t remove material as fast as a stone or burr.  The Lee Oskar tool kit (around $30) has all the tools you need for tuning reeds, including a small chisel. 

Some people feel that filing a reed (i.e. using a file) can cause striations in the reed that can shorten its life, but manufacturers like Hohner file the reeds to tune them at the factory.  I suggest removing small amounts of metal from a large area, minimizing any gouging or scratching or the reeds.

Before attempting to remove metal from a reed, you need to support the reed so you don’t push it through the slot.  A thin shim like a .003 spark plug feeler gauge works well, as does a razor blade.  You can even use a business card–anything small and thin will do.

Be careful not to push the reed sideways in its slot, or the reed won’t vibrate freely.  Also, be careful about filing the reed edges, which can cause burrs that catch on the slot-edges as the reed vibrates through the slot.  If you get a burr you can shave it off gently with a razor blade, or carefully file it off.  Support the other side of the reed so you don’t get it misaligned when you apply pressure to the reed’s edge with the blade or file.

You need to use a chromatic tuner to check the pitch of the note.  You may notice small pitch differences between a note played with the cover off and when the cover is in place.  As you get experience doing it you’ll be able to judge how to read your tuner and end up with the right note.  A popular tuner for harp is the Seiko Chromatic AutoTuner model ST-1000. 

There are lots of others, both more and less expensive, and even software tuners that use a microphone plugged into your sound card.  Many small digital tuners have a mic input, which provides a better signal to the tuner and can help stabilize a “dancing needle” type problem. 

If you seldom tune your harps, an inexpensive model is probably just fine, but if you tune a lot it’s no good being frustrated by a poor tool.  No matter what tuner you use, don’t forget to use your ears.  Your ears are the final judge as to whether a note is properly in tune…  if the tuner says it’s perfect but it sounds off to you, you’ll probably be happier if you make it sound right to you.

Harmonica reeds often go flat, and sometimes you can tune the reed back up to pitch.  However, if the reed has gone flat by a semitone or more, it is probably fractured, and tuning the reed may not work.  In fact, it may stress the reed enough to cause it to break–but don’t worry, it was broken already.

Many harp players do not tune their harps often enough.  With a little practice you’ll know just how much metal to remove, and where, and it won’t take long at all to get your harp all tuned up.

Caution: be sure to check the tuning with a chromatic tuner first to see what the reference ptich frequency is.  Historically, the frequency of an A note is used as the reference frequency, but not everywhere uses the same reference! 

A=440 cycles per second is very common, but harps are often tuned to A=441 or 442 or even higher, because harps are often played slightly flat, so tuning them sharp makes the resultant note fit better with other instruments.

If you tune each note exactly to pitch according to your tuner, the result will be in so-called equal temperament.  Equal temperament is common on many models of harps, such as the Lee Oskar Major Diatonic and the Hohner Golden Melody.  This tuning is optimized for playing single notes and melodies, but the chords will sound a bit out. 

To make certain chords sound better, many harps are tuned to a justified (or just) intonation.  Just intonation involves modifying the pitch of certain notes to make some chords sound better–but melody notes may sound flat or off key.  Various compromised intonations that aren’t quite just intonation and aren’t equal temperament have been devised to try to work as well as possible for both melody notes and chords.

In addition to keeping your harp in tune, various special tunings can be done to provide different notes (without requiring special bending or overbending techniques) and different chords.  Examples include the Natural Minor, country tuning, and Lee Oskar’s Melody Maker tuning.  Using the above procedures, it is relatively easy to build your own specially tuned harps.  Pat Missin’s web page contains his “Altered States” document, which contains hundreds of different tunings for both the diatonic and chromatic harps.

Just Intonation

Just intonation is a modification to equal temperament that makes chords blend together and sound better. There are many variations to just intonation and an extensive discussion is beyond the scope of these pages. For an extensive discussion of tunings and temperaments, see Pat Missin’s web page at: http://patmissin.com/tunings.html.

The following table shows one tuning alteration that produces a just intonation. The values are cents deviations from equal temperament (the raw readings of your chromatic tuner) where negative values mean cents flat and positive values mean cents sharp.

Scale DegreeRootThirdFifthflat SevenNinth
Cents Adjustment0-14+2-32+4

Adjustment from Equal Temperament for Just Intonation

Notice how much flatter the dominant (flat) 7 (5 draw) note is-almost half a semitone. That?s pretty flat and can sound off when playing melodies instead of chords. There are lots of ways to compromise between pure equal temperament and just intonation.

The idea is to achieve a compromise tuning that sounds good for melodies without rough sounding chords, or analogously, sounds good for chords without melody notes sounding out of tune. Here?s one such compromise:

Scale DegreeRootThirdFifthflat SevenNinth
Cents Adjustment0-80-80

Adjustment from Equal Temperament for Compromise Tuning

For the draw reeds, the thirds are 3 and 7, the fifths are 4 and 8, the flat 7ths are 5 and 9, and the ninths are 6 and 10. (The root notes have no adjustments.)

Reed Gapping

A reed gap is the gap between the reed and the slot in the reed plate (see the picture above).  The gap height (and shape, or profile) greatly influences how the reed plays: how the harp responds to your breath.  A wider gap requires more playing pressure to make the reed sound, and allows more aggressive play before the reed sticks or chokes. 

If you attack notes hard, a relatively wide gap can help keep the reed from missing or refusing to sound.  A narrower gap allows less air to activate the reed.  If you play softly, a relatively small gap will help the reed activate with a soft attack. 

If the gap is too small, for instance with the reed tip inside the slot, the reed will refuse to play.  Since the reed gaps are so important to the harp action, each player should learn to set the gaps for his/her own style of play.

The reed gaps need to be wider for longer reeds than shorter ones for consistent action.  In other words, the low notes should have slightly more gap between the reed and the reed plate than the high notes. 

In order for the harmonica to play smoothly and uniformly, the response must be consistent for every reed, with the slight gap differences applied for different length reeds. The nominal adjustment is for the gap of the reed tip above the slot to be about the same as the thickness of the reed.  Fine tune the gap adjustments from there.

The reed’s gap is really the totality of it’s distance above the slot along its entire length.  This is the area that lets the air flow under the reed and start its vibration.  Every bit of the reed should be above the slot in the reed plate, and the distance between the reed and the slot (the gap) should continually increase from the base of the reed to the tip. 

If any of the reed dips into the slot, or if the reed arches up and then back down it will not respond properly.  If the shape of a reed is wrong, correcting the problem is more difficult and requires more care than the normal setting of the height of the reed tip.  You can use small tools to support the reed at different points and work through the slot when necessary to gently bend the reed to make it as flat as you can. 

The best shape for the reed is probably as flat as you can get it, though some players prefer a very slight arc up toward the tip.  You should be pretty well practiced at gapping your reeds at the tip before you try to work on the reed shape–and as always, it’s a good idea to practice on junk harps.  Never throw out a broken harmonica.. they’re great for practicing gapping and tuning, and they can be used to provide parts you need to fix other harps later.

Harmonica reeds are essentially just brass springs that vibrate through slots in the reed plates to chop the air stream, which produces the sound. To adjust the reed gaps, just use your fingernails or a small tool to gently press the reed down, to close the gap, or up to increase the gap. 

After an adjustment is made, flick the tip of the reed a few times to get the reed to settle to its rest position–if you don’t you can get fooled by the reed position.  It can look one way, but revert back to where it was after you play a little–remember, it’s a spring. 

Flicking the reed tip a few times is a good way to get the reed to settle so you can correctly determine its gap.  It’s best to bend the reed in very small increments, and not make over adjustments.  Slight over adjustments are inevitable, but repeated bending one way, then the other, will weaken the reed and could even cause it to break.  The more you do it the more familiar you will become with the characteristics of the brass, and the easier it will be to set the gaps quickly.

By the way, when you go to increase the gap you may want to slide something thin under the reed tip to get hold of the reed.  Be careful not to slide anything too far back toward the rivet.  If you lift the base of the reed out of the slot you’ll probably end up making the reed pitch flat.  It is always a good idea to make sure your harps are in tune, and after gapping is a good time to check since you’ve got the harp open anyway.

Gapping is easy, safe, and a basic requirement for making a harp play well.  Factory reeds are set to some average beginner gap, and are usually too wide–and most often inconsistent across the harp.  I strongly recommend re-gapping your harps according to your personal playing style and needs.

For overblows, the reeds should be gapped close to the reed plate, i.e. with a small or tight gap.   This can be crucial for getting the overblow to sound!  An improperly gapped reed will simply refuse to overblow, or at the very least make the overblow difficult and temperamental. 

I recommend setting the gap as tight as possible without causing the reed to feel “sticky” (slow to respond) when attacked moderately hard.  There is a trade-off between overblow ease and reed action for fast loud play, and you need to find the gap that works best for you.  There is no visible difference between a gap that seems perfect and one that just doesn’t quite work, so you pretty much have to experiment–gap and try, gap and try.

Misaligned Reeds

Misaligned reeds are not straight along the length of their slot, causing part of the reed to catch on the slot, preventing the reed from vibrating properly.  You need to get the reed centered in its slot along its entire length, and there is very little clearance.  Trying to use a tool to torque the reed back into place can be tricky since the tolerances are so tight, and sideways twisting can easily damage the reed. 

A small piece of cigarette paper (or a feeler guage about the same thickness) can be slid between the side of the reed and the edge of the slot to gently nudge the reed back into place.  I feel that a very thin piece of paper like that is more likely to break than the reed if something goes wrong, so its less risky than using a tool.  You can hold the reed plate up to a light to try to peek at the location of the misalignment.

Embossing Reed Slots

Harmonica Maintenance - Embossing

Embossing a reed slot is a narrowing of the slot in order to reduce the air loss around the sides of the reed. This can make the harp more air tight and increase the responsiveness of the reed. It can also help overblows to respond better.

Embossing is relatively simple. Use a smooth round item harder than brass as a tool (like a socket, the round end of a tuning fork or silverware, or even a penny) and run it along the edges of the reed-side of the reed slots a few times.

If you happen to get the slot too tight so the reed won’t vibrate freely or buzzes, run a small “exacto”-type knife or screwdriver blade along the inside of the slot to open it back up a little. Be careful not to mis-align the reed or you’ll have to adjust it back so it’s centered. A thin shim (0.002″) can be used to straighten the reed in the slot and also remove any small burrs that the embossing may have created.

Reed Replacement

This section has been graciously provided by master harmonica customizer Bill Romel.
“I find it troublesome that any harmonica tech or instrument modifier would present information that discourages players from performing simple maintenance on their own instruments. Replacing a reed on a diatonic or chromatic harmonica is a relatively simple technique and it does not require any sophisticated equipment.

Equipment can be obtained from most any hardware store or can be purchased for a few dollars from persons technically competent to make the tools.

  • A bar of steel about 2 inches wide and perhaps an inch thick with a hole drilled the size of the rivet head will suffice.
  • Two pins made of steel, one with a sharp point and one with a flat head will work very well.
  • A small ball peen hammer and some spare reed plates,

or today you can purchase new reeds from your Hohner district office. All Hohner reed plates use reeds that are the same in width, that eliminates one problem. Hering has reeds that are within a fraction of a thousandth of fitting on a Hohner plate if necessary. Run a small diamond file along the slide of the reed just once on both sides and you have a replacement reed from a Hering.

I advocate the rivet reed replacement method. Nine out of 10 times it works perfectly. The tenth time there is usually a problem with reed alignment but you can solve that problem with a screw.

The key to the rivet method is removing the reed used as a replacement from a spare reed plate without removing the rivet. Not a problem. Set the rivet head in the hole in the metal block and tap the rivet on the opposite side gently with your ball peen hammer a few times. The rivet will move. Turn the plate over and grasp the head of the rivet with a needle nose pliers and gently twist back and forth a few times and the rivet will release with the reed attached. It works every time.

Once you have obtained the reed you required, remove the old reed that is fractured or broken from your working reed plate.

To install the replacement reed, place the reed plate on the metal block and place the sharp pointed pin into the receiving hole and tap it once with the hammer. Why? It will spread the sides of the rivet hole outward just a very small amount without distorting the hole and allow you to start the new reed and rivet into the hole in the plate. You may be all fingers at this point.

Once the rivet has been started in the hole slide a thin shim under the reed so it will not fall into the slot and will remain relatively straight while you tap the rivet into the plate with the flat head steel pin and your trusty ball peen hammer. The reed will be loose in the hole.

Next is to set the rivet as my machinist friend use to say. Turn the plate over and place it on the flat surface of the metal block so the rivet head is flat on the surface. If the shaft of the rivet is protruding in the opposite side of the plate, then we must flatten it out with the flat head steel pin.

Turn the plate over and lay the head of the rivet on the metal block. Hold the plate steady and with the flat head pin resting on the protruding rivet body strike the pin a few times until the rivet is flat.

Now we will set the rivet with the sharp pointed pin. Place the point of the steel pin on the rear end of the rivet as close to the center as you can. Secure the reed plate and steel pin with one hand and strike the sharp pointed steel pin about two to three times with the hammer. This will cause the body of the rivet to expand sufficiently to be tight in the hole. Check the reed to ascertain that it is secure and tight. You may have to align the reed with a reed wrench and generally you will have to do some touch up tuning.

Thirty years of experience and trying all methods has convinced me that this is still the best method of reed replacement. Granted there will be times when a screw is necessary due to misalignment but it is the rare occurrence. I like the 0-80 Phillips Round Head stainless steels screws for this problem. Just tap the plate and drill out the reed. It is done in a few minutes.
Regards,
Bill”

Valves

Basic Harmonica Maintenance

On harmonicas, “valves” are flaps attached to the reed plate at the rivet over the slot opposite the reed.  See the picture above.  They are made out of a thin plastic strip, or pair of strips, though they used to be made of other materials such as leather.

Valves are most often found on chromatic harmonicas, on which they are usually called windsavers. They do indeed function as valves, blocking the air stream during a draw from entering through the blow reeds (and vice versa for draw reeds) while allowing the air stream during a blow to exit via the blow-reed slot (again vice versa for draw reeds).

And since they block the air stream from the opposite reed, less air is required overall to play a reed–thus they save wind, which is important on most chromatics because their mouthpieces and slide a*semblies typically leak substantial amounts of air.  Windsavers on chromatic are normally present for every reed, sometimes with the exception of the very highest notes.

Such is not the case on diatonics, which are generally much more air tight than their chromatic cousins. The valves on diatonics are not used as windsavers. They are used to facilitate valved bends.

A valved-bend is simply a bend on a reed whose paired-reed (i.e. in the same chamber) is valved.  On the diatonic, not all reeds are valved. The valves are used to obtain bends not normally available on the diatonic harp.  Normal bends are draw bends on holes 1 through 6, and blow bends on holes 7 through 10.  A valved diatonic allows all the regular bends, plus blow bends on holds 1 through 6, and draw bends on holes 7 through 10.  So, when valving a diatonic harp, the flaps are placed as follows:

  • Over the slots opposite the draw reeds on holes 1-6
  • Over the slots opposite the blow reeds on holes 7-10.

The valves for holes 1-6 are inside the reed chambers, so the bottom reed plate must be removed before the valves can be installed.

Installation is simply a matter of using super glue to attach the plastic flaps to the reed plate at the rivet point on the other side of the plate from where the reed is attached.  Only a tiny amount of super glue should be applied to the valve, and care must be taken not to get glue on the reeds! 

A small amount of glue should be put on a small slip of paper or plastic, and the end of valve should be dipped into the glue in order to control the amount of glue applied and make sure you don?t get too much.  If you try to squeeze the glue out of a tube onto the reed plate, you’re sure to get too much and have problems!

There are both single layer and double layer valves. Double layer valves have a slightly shorter, stiffer, usually clear plastic “spring” to help keep the actual valve layer flat over the slot. The double-layer valves are installed stiff side up. A good tip is to put a small kink about one third the way back from the tip of the stiff plastic layer so that the tip bends in to push harder on the actual flap layer, holding it down tighter so it lies flatter.

Some single layer valves have one side textured and one side smooth. The textured side goes toward the reed plate to help keep the valve from sticking to the plate. If there a dimple in one end of the valve, that sits over the rivet to help put the valve as close to the reed plate as possible.

You can buy valves from Hohner, Bill Romel, John Infande, and probably other harp customizers, or you can make your own.  In some sense, valves have not been perfected, and they frequently can rattle or buzz.  One of the best materials to use for valving is a thin (0.003) mylar covered with 3M Micropore tape.  The tape side goes down, toward the plate, which helps reduce sticking, popping, buzzing, etc. The valves should be trimmed to just barely cover the slot they’re on top of.

Take care when reassembling the harmonica that the comb does not interfere with the free operation of the valves.  If the comb keeps the valve from lifting during play, the reed won’t sound, or won’t sound right.

Valved bends are a little different than normal diatonic bends. During a normal bend, both reeds in the chamber can participate to produce the characteristic gutsy sound. These dual-reed bends tend to “snap” into place at the lowest note available.  Valved bends are more delicate and require more control to execute cleanly and clearly on pitch.  Only one reed participates in the generation of the sound, since the other reed is blocked by the valve.  It is especially important not to attack the bend hard when you initiate it, otherwise it will choke off and not sound.  It is also very important to bend “from your diaphragm” using resonance for valved bends.  A pinching of the lips will not produce a good valved bend. Valved bends can be done on the chromatic, as well as a valved diatonic.

The only commercially available valved diatonic at this time is the valved Suzuki ProMaster (or the semi-chromatic Hohner Slide Harp). But, with a little practice valving your own harp will only take 5 or 10 minutes.

Valve Problems

Valve can stick, buzz, rattle, and generally be a nuisance. Cleaning harps with valves takes extra care to avoid knocking off the flaps. Many valve problems are caused by twisted, curled, or bent flaps that don?t lie flat. Many times replacing the valve is the only way to fix a problem. Be careful when you install new valves that any textured side is toward the reed plate, and that the flap is as flat as possible. If it is a 2-layer valve, the stiff plastic goes on top to act as a spring to return the softer flap so it lies flat over the slot.

If the valve is sticking (possibly making a popping sound) there are a couple of things to try. First, tear a small piece of newspaper, moisten it, and slide it between the valve and the reed plate. Sometimes dried saliva is causing the flap to stick, and the wet rough paper can dissolve the “glue” and clean the flap without pulling it off. It sometimes seems to help to make small scratches in the reed plate where the valve hits it to break up the smooth surface to help prevent sticking due to “suction” (surface tension).

Since many sticking problems are due to moisture condensation of your warm breath on the cool harp, it greatly helps to warm up the harmonica before you play it. There are many ways to do that, including wrapping your harp in a warm heating pad for 10 or 15 minutes before you play, or even setting the harp on a warm stereo or TV monitor for a few minutes.

Harp Setup for Chromatic Play Using Valves And Overblows

Overblows and overdraws (overbends) work by choking the reed that normally plays for the airflow direction (blow or draw) and activating the other reed to play as an opening reed.  For overblows, this means the blow reed is choked so as not to sound, and the draw reed is activated to produce the sound.  Using overblows and overdraws it is possible to get full chromatic capability out of a diatonic harp, just as with valved bends.

Valves interfere with overbends.  For example, if a draw reed has been valved, an overblow is not possible in that chamber because the airflow cannot reach the draw reed during a blow.  The bottom line is that you can’t play valved bends and overbends in the same chamber.

Valving the draw reeds in holes 1, 2, 3, and the blow reed in hole 8, is the optimal way to valve a harp while still allowing full chromatic play without losing the most useful overblows.

Storage

Your harps should be stored so that they dry out thoroughly after being played.  It is a good idea to tap the harp on the palm of your hand first, to get out as much moisture as you can before putting the harp away.  Don’t store your harps in unvented plastic boxes, which unfortunately some of them come in.  This keeps them from drying out quickly and can lead to corrosion and reed fatigue.  If you store them with the holes down the moisture will be able to run down out of the harp instead of drying inside it.  Dried saliva is the primary culprit in gunked-up harps, and can keep the harp from playing right and sounding its best.

Cleaning

Occasionally it is a good idea to clean your harps since gunk (the official name..) builds up inside the holes and on the reeds and reed plates.  Saliva is sticky stuff, but fortunately it’s water based and so is best dissolved in water.  You don’t need to use alcohol or harsh chemicals to clean your harp, and you certainly shouldn’t use anything you wouldn’t want anywhere near your mouth–just use water to clean your harps.

I don’t think how you clean your harp is particularly critical, or recommend any specific period of time between cleanings.  Each person’s playing habits, body chemistry, and tolerance for gunk is different.  Obviously, if something is interfering with the way the harp plays you need to take care of it.  If that means some fuzz is lodged in there causing a reed not to respond you need to remove the foreign material.  If you use a brush, make sure to stroke in the direction of the reeds so you don’t cause them to be misaligned by pushing them sideways (not along the slot length).  An electric-shaver type brush works well for brushing out the dried gunk from inside the harp holes, but even a toothpick can be used pluck out any offending material.

Caution: wood comb harps (mainly the Hohner Marine Band) are not good to get wet, certainly not for very long.  Some people swear by soaking their wood comb harps , and others swear at it–bottom line, the comb will swell and dry out, and upon drying be more inclined to crack, split, or warp.  The swelling sometimes will push the comb teeth out beyond the mouthpiece making it very uncomfortable to play.  A swollen comb probably eliminates some air leaks, but once soaked you pretty much have to soak it every time or it won’t be playable, and the life of the harp is greatly reduced. I recommend against soaking wood comb harps.

Soaking plastic or metal comb harps presents no such problems, since neither the plastic nor metal absorb moisture, swell, or shrink.  Prolonged or very frequent soaking can increase corrosion on the reeds and may reduce their overall life, but periodic cleanings shouldn’t cause problems.  Some people report good success putting their harps (not wood!) in a dishwasher for a short time, say 5 minutes or so, using only a small amount of dishwasher detergent (like a tablespoon).  I’ve found that a quick soak in some denture cleaning solution does a pretty good job.  Be sure to shake the excess water out of harp when you’re done.

Sharp Edges

Some harps have reed plates that extend slightly beyond the comb and covers, and sometimes these plates have sharp edges that bother people’s lips.  The outside parts of the harp are not that delicate.. if there’s a sharp edge, file it smooth or sand it with fine grained emery type wet/dry paper.  If a corner feels too sharp or rough you can safely sand it down or round it out by pressing it firmly onto a hard surface.


Wayne Kirkpatrick

Wayne Kirkpatrick (born c. 1961) is an American songwriter and musician born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana but now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from Baton Rouge Magnet High School in 1979. His younger brother is American screenwriter and director Karey Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick has spent most of his career in the background, often providing background vocals, playing guitar, playing keyboards or writing songs for other artists. Writing in Contemporary Christian, Country, and Pop styles, his songs have been recorded by Little Big Town, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Babyface, Amy Grant, Joe Cocker, Kathy Mattea, Martina McBride, Wynonna Judd, Trisha Yearwood, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Ashton, Michael W. Smith, Jill Phillips, Michael Crawford, Peter Frampton, Casting Crowns and Eric Clapton, whose version of Kirkpatrick’s “Change the World” won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

At the 24th GMA Dove Awards, Kirkpatrick received the award for Producer of the Year.

In 2005, Kirkpatrick started to produce Little Big Town alongside the group starting with their second album The Road to Here and also the next 2 A Place to Land & The Reason Why. He also co-wrote most of the songs on all 3 albums with the group.

Also in 2005, The Road to Here came out for Little Big Town. Kirkpatrick has writing credit on 12 of the 13 songs. He has solo writing credits on one song, “Looking for the Reason”, with the rest written with him and part/all of the group or with other songwriters. He co-wrote with group members on their highest charting song “Bring It On Home”, which made it to No. 4 on Hot Country 100 songs chart. Kirkpatrick also wrote Little Big Town’s ‘signature’ song, “Boondocks”, which they use as the closing song at every show.

In 2007, Little Big Town and Kirkpatrick went back into the studio to make a new record, A Place to Land. He co-wrote 12 of the 16 tracks on the Deluxe Edition, including the first song that Little Big Town sang together called “Love Profound”.

In 2010, the newest record from Little Big Town, The Reason Why, was released which Kirkpatrick co-produced. The record debuted at No. 1, a first for Little Big Town. He co-wrote 7 of the 12 songs with the group, including the hit “Little White Church”.

Kirkpatrick has said that Karen Fairchild, Jimi Westbrook, Kimberly Schlapman and Philip Sweet have made him feel like the 5th member of the band.

In 2000, Kirkpatrick released a solo project entitled The Maple Room that included “Wrapped Up in You”, a song that would later become a hit for Garth Brooks, and “My Armageddon”, which was originally slated for Brooks’ Garth Brooks in … The Life of Chris Gaines project. Kirkpatrick served as a primary songwriter on that album, along with Gordon Kennedy and Tommy Sims.

Later in 2000, he teamed up with Kennedy and several other songwriters (Phil Madeira and Billy Sprague) to record Coming From Somewhere Else, which was a CD of their own music that had previously been recorded by other artists, including “Change the World”.

Around 2010, Wayne and his brother Karey began working on the musical Something Rotten!.[1] In 2015, they were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre[2] (along with many other awards), while Karey was also nominated for a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical with British author John O’Farrell.


Buju Banton

Mark Anthony Myrie (born 15 July 1973), professionally known by his stage name Buju Banton, is a Jamaican reggae dancehall recording artist. He is widely considered one of the most significant and well-regarded artists in Jamaican music. Banton has collaborated with many international artists, including those in the hip hop, Latin and punk rock genres, as well as the sons of Bob Marley.

Banton released a number of dancehall singles as early as 1987 but came to prominence in 1992 with two albums, Stamina Daddy and Mr. Mention, the latter becoming the best-selling album in Jamaican history upon its release. That year he also broke the record for No. 1 singles in Jamaica, previously held by Bob Marley and the Wailers. He signed with the major label Mercury Records and released Voice of Jamaica in 1993. By the mid-1990s, Banton’s music became more influenced by his Rastafari faith, as heard on the seminal albums ‘Til Shiloh and Inna Heights.

In 2009, he was arrested on drug-related charges in the United States, his first trial resulting in a hung jury. His 2010 album Before the Dawn won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. In 2011, he was convicted on the aforementioned criminal charge and was imprisoned in the U.S. until December 2018, whereupon he was deported home to Jamaica.

[toc]

Biography

Background

Buju Banton was born in Kingston, Jamaica in a poor neighbourhood known as Salt Lane. Buju is a nickname given to him by his mother as a child. Banton is a Jamaican word that refers to someone who is a respected storyteller, and it was adopted by Myrie in tribute to the deejay Burro Banton, whom he admired as a child. Buju emulated Burro’s rough vocals and forceful delivery, developing his own distinctive style. Buju’s mother was a higgler, or street vendor, while his father worked as a labourer at a tile factory. He was the youngest of fifteen children born into a family that was directly descended from the Maroons of Jamaica.

Banton has homes in Jamaica and Tamarac, Florida (United States). He also has 15 children.

Early career

As a youngster, Buju would often watch his favourite artists perform at outdoor shows and local dancehalls in Denham Town. At the age of 12, he picked up the microphone for himself and began toasting under the moniker of Gargamel, working with the Sweet Love and Rambo Mango sound systems. In 1986, he was introduced to producer Robert Ffrench by fellow deejay Clement Irie, and his first single, “The Ruler” was released not long afterward in 1987. This led to recording sessions with producers such as Patrick Roberts, Bunny Lee, Winston Riley, and Digital B.

1990s

In 1991, Buju joined Donovan Germain’s Penthouse Records label and began a fruitful partnership with producer Dave Kelly who later launched his own Madhouse Records label. Buju is one of the most popular musicians in Jamaican history, having major chart success in 1992, with “Bogle” and “Love me Browning”, both massive hits in Jamaica. Controversy erupted over “Love Me Browning” which spoke of Banton’s penchant for lighter-skinned black women: “Mi love my car mi love my bike mi love mi money and ting, but most of all mi love mi browning.” Some accused Banton of denigrating the beauty of darker-skinned black women. In response, he released “Love Black Woman,” which spoke of his love for dark-skinned beauties: “Mi nuh Stop cry, fi all black women, respect all the girls dem with dark complexion”. 1992 was an explosive year for Buju as he broke Bob Marley’s record for the greatest number of #1 singles in a year. Buju’s gruff voice dominated the Jamaican airwaves for the duration of the year. Banton’s debut album, Mr. Mention, includes many of his greatest hits from that year including “Bonafide Love” featuring Wayne Wonder, the singer who first brought Buju out as a guest star on the annual Jamaican stage show Sting. 1992 also saw the unsanctioned re-release of “Boom Bye Bye,” a controversial song recorded several years earlier when the artist was 19 years old, which resulted in a backlash that threatened to destroy his career. several years later, the song would later become the subject of outrage in the United States and Europe, leading to Banton being dropped from the line-up of the WOMAD festival as well as numerous other scheduled performances. Banton subsequently issued a public apology.

Now on the major Mercury/PolyGram label, Banton released the hard-hitting Voice of Jamaica in 1993. The album included a number of conscious tracks. These tracks included “Deportees”, a song which criticises those Jamaicans who went abroad but never sent money home; “Tribal War” a collaboration with Tony Rebel, Brian & Tony Gold, and Terry Ganzie, a sharp condemnation of political violence that interpolates Little Roy’s classic reggae song of the same name; and “Willy, Don’t Be Silly”, which promotes safe sex and the use of contraceptives, particularly the condom, profits from which were donated to a charity supporting children with AIDS.  Banton was invited to meet Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson, and won several awards that year at the Caribbean Music Awards and the Canadian Music Awards.

Some of Banton’s lyrics dealt with violent themes, which he explained as reflecting the images that young Jamaicans were presented with by the news media. The reality of Kingston’s violence was brought home in 1993 by the murders in separate incidents of three of his friends and fellow recording artists, the deejays Pan Head and Dirtsman and singer Mickey Simpson. His response was the single “Murderer”, which condemned gun violence, going against the flow of the prevailing lyrical content in dancehall. The song inspired several clubs to stop playing songs with the excessively violent subject matter. Late in 1994, Buju was also affected by the death of his friend Garnett Silk. Buju’s transformation continued, as he embraced the Rastafari movement and began growing dreadlocks. His performances and musical releases took on a more spiritual tone. Banton toured Europe and Japan, playing sold-out shows.

‘Til Shiloh (1995) was a very influential album, incorporating live instrumentation as well as digital rhythms, and incorporating the sounds of roots reggae along with the harder-edged dancehall sounds that first made Banton famous. The artist was embracing his Rastafari faith and his new album reflected these beliefs. Til Shiloh successfully blended conscious lyrics with a hard-hitting dancehall vibe. The album included earlier singles such as “Murderer” along with instant classics like “Wanna Be Loved” and “Untold Stories”. “Untold Stories” revealed an entirely different side of Buju Banton from the one that had stormed to dancehall stardom. It is regarded by many as one of his best works and has become a staple in the Banton performance repertoire. Reminiscent in mood and delivery to “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley, “Untold Stories” won Buju Banton many favorable comparisons to the late singer. This album had a profound impact on dancehall music and proved that dancehall audiences had not forgotten the message that Roots Reggae expounded with the use of “conscious lyrics”. Dancehall artists did not abandon slack and violent lyrics altogether, but the album did pave the way for a greater spirituality within the music. In the wake of Buju’s transformation to Rastafari, many artists, such as Capleton, embraced the faith and began to denounce violence in their music.

In 1996, Buju contributed “Wanna Be Loved (Desea ser Amado)” along with Los Pericos to the Red Hot Organization’s album Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin for the Red Hot Benefit Series. This series raises money to increase AIDS awareness.

That same year Buju Banton took control of his business by establishing his own Gargamel Music label, releasing the popular single “Love Sponge” on vinyl in Jamaica and overseas. In years to come Gargamel would expand into an outlet for Buju’s own productions and providing an outlet for fresh new talent.

Inna Heights (1997) substantially increased Banton’s international audience as Buju explored his singing ability and recorded a number of roots-tinged tracks, including the hugely popular “Destiny” and “Hills and Valleys”. The album also included collaborations with artists such as Beres Hammond and the legendary Toots Hibbert. The album was well received by fans at the time and critics praised Buju’s soaring vocals. The album has aged well and remains a highly regarded work over 20 years after its release.

In 1998, Buju met the punk band Rancid and recorded three tracks with them: “No More Misty Days”, “Hooligans” and “Life Won’t Wait”. The latter became the title track of Rancid’s 1998 album Life Won’t Wait.

2000s

Buju signed with Anti- Records, a subsidiary of Brett Gurewitz’s Epitaph Records, and released Unchained Spirit in 2000. The album showcased diverse musical styles, and featured guest appearances by Luciano, Morgan Heritage, Stephen Marley, and Rancid. It carried little of the roots feel heard on Til Shiloh and virtually none of the hardcore dancehall sound which had brought him to public acclaim early in his career.

Several singles followed in the start of the new decade, which was perceived as more mellow and introspective, as opposed to the dancehall approach of his early career. In March 2003, Banton released Friends for Life, which featured more sharply political songs, including “Mr. Nine”, an anti-gun song that was a hit in Jamaica’s dancehalls as well as internationally. The album focused on political messages regarding the African diaspora, featuring excerpts from a speech made by Marcus Garvey. “Paid Not Played”, also featured on the album, displayed a gradual return to the themes more popular in dancehall. The album also featured some hip hop influence with the inclusion of rapper Fat Joe.

2006 saw the release of the Too Bad, an album that was more dancehall-oriented in style. One of the slower tracks from the album, “Driver A”, went on to become a major hit, while at the same time reviving Sly and Robbie’s “Taxi” riddim.

Banton performed at the 2007 Cricket World Cup Opening Ceremony with Third World and Beres Hammond.

The album Rasta Got Soul was released on 21 April 2009, a date which marked the 43rd anniversary of Emperor Haile Selassie’s visit to Jamaica in 1966. Produced by Banton, with contributions from longtime collaborators Donovan Germain, Stephen Marsden and Wyclef Jean, Rasta Got Soul was a 100% roots reggae album recorded over a seven-year period before its release. It went on to earn Banton his fourth Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album in 2010.

2010s

On 13 February 2011, one day before the scheduled start of his second court trial in Tampa, Florida, Buju Banton’s Before the Dawn album was announced as the winner of Best Reggae Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

Upon his release from prison in the United States in December 2018, Banton started The Long Walk To Freedom tour and performed his first concert at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica in March 2019, the concert attracted over 30.000 people. During his tour, he continued putting out new music and new singles including Bagga Mouth, False Pretense, and Country for Sale.

In May 2019, Banton released Country For Sale, the song topped the iTunes Reggae Chart within minutes after the announcement of its release. The song was recorded at the Gargamel Music Studio, Donovan Germain’s own recording studio in the Corporate Area. On 12 November of the same year, he released his first official music video entitled “Trust”. The video marked the first anniversary of Banton’s release from prison and was produced in collaboration with Dave Kelly and directed by Kieran Khan. The track peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Reggae Digital Song Sales chart.

Banton announced his partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation in November of that year, becoming the second Jamaican reggae artist be represented by the agency, which coincided with the release of his music video Steppa. He also announced that Island Records will be the distributor of the collaboration’s new music.

2020s

In January 2020, Buju was featured on the Bad Boys for Life (soundtrack) which was produced by DJ Khaled. His song titled “Murda She Wrote” was a nod to a 1992 dancehall classic called “Murder She Wrote” by Jamaican reggae duo Chaka Demus & Pliers.

On 29 February 2020, Buju produced the Steppaz Riddim under this own Gargamel Music label. The riddim, released under Roc Nation, featured 11 tracks and included contributions from Vershon, Delly Ranx, Agent Sasco, Bling Dawg and General B.

Banton released his 13th studio album and his first in a decade, Upside Down 2020 on 26 June 2020. The album includes guest appearances from John Legend, Pharrell, Stefflon Don and Stephen Marley.

Controversies

Anti-gay controversy

Banton has been criticised for the lyrical content of his song “Boom Bye Bye”, which was released when he was 19 years old in 1992. The song has been interpreted as supporting the murder of gay men  although others have argued that the song’s lyrics should be read as metaphorical, following in a long tradition of exaggerated rhetorical violence in Jamaican dancehall music. In 2009 gay-rights groups appealed to venues around the United States not to host Buju Banton.

In 2007 Banton was allegedly among a number of reggae artists who signed a pledge, called the Reggae Compassionate Act, created by the Stop Murder Music campaign, to refrain from performing homophobic songs or making homophobic statements. The Act stated that the signers “do not encourage nor minister to HATE but rather uphold a philosophy of LOVE, RESPECT, and UNDERSTANDING towards all human beings as the cornerstone of reggae music” and promised that the artists involved no longer believed in sexism, homophobia, or violence and that they would not perform music that went against these beliefs on stage. Banton later denied that he had made any such commitment, although he did refrain from performing “Boom Bye Bye” and other offensive songs at the 2007 Reggae Carifest concert. He did, however, continue to play such songs afterwards.

On 20 March 2019, Buju Banton and his team officially removed “Boom Bye Bye” from his catalog. Banton’s team pulled the song from streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify, and Banton announced his intention to never perform the song again.  Banton issued a statement in which he clarified the importance of tolerance and love, saying, “In recent days there has been a great deal of press coverage about the song ‘Boom Bye Bye’ from my past which I long ago stopped performing and removed from any platform that I control or have influence over. I recognize that the song has caused much pain to listeners, as well as to my fans, my family and myself. After all the adversity we’ve been through I am determined to put this song in the past and continue moving forward as an artist and as a man. I affirm once and for all that everyone has the right to live as they so choose. In the words of the great Dennis Brown, ‘Love and hate can never be friends.’ I welcome everyone to my shows in a spirit of peace and love. Please come join me in that same spirit.”

U.S. drug charges

In December 2009 Drug Enforcement Administration agents remanded Banton to custody in Miami, where the U.S. Attorney charged him with conspiracy to distribute and possession of more than five kilograms of cocaine. Banton was then moved to the Pinellas County Jail where he remained until trial. A six-day trial in Tampa, Florida was declared a mistrial on 27 September 2010, after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. During the trial, audio recordings were presented of Banton and a drug-dealer-turned-government-informant discussing drugs, drug prices and smuggling. Banton was also seen on a video recording meeting the informant in a police-controlled warehouse tasting cocaine from a kilogram bag. The informant was reportedly paid $50,000 for his work on the case. The singer was released that November on bond.

He was allowed to perform one concert between trials, which was held on 16 January 2011 to a sold-out crowd in Miami.  A few weeks after the performance he won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album but was not allowed to attend the ceremony.

On 22 February 2011, Banton was found guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offense and using communication wires to facilitate a drug-trafficking offense. He was found not guilty on the charge of attempted possession of five kilograms or more of cocaine. Four months later, he was sentenced to ten years and one month in a federal prison for the cocaine trafficking conviction. His sentencing on a related firearms conviction (despite the fact that Banton was never found with a gun) was scheduled for 30 October 2012, and then postponed on his lawyer’s request for an investigation of possible juror misconduct. Despite the fact that a juror was found guilty of misconduct, Buju Banton waived his right to an appeal. On 14 May 2015 federal prosecutors agreed to drop the firearms charge.

Banton was released on 7 December 2018 from McRae Correctional Institution.

Discography

  • 1992: Stamina Daddy (later repackaged as Quick)
  • 1992: Mr. Mention
  • 1993: Voice of Jamaica
  • 1995: ‘Til Shiloh
  • 1997: Inna Heights
  • 2000: Unchained Spirit
  • 2003: Friends for Life
  • 2006: Too Bad
  • 2009: Rasta Got Soul
  • 2010: Before the Dawn
  • 2020: Upside Down 2020

James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the No. 3 single “Fire and Rain” and had his first No. 1 hit in 1971 with his recording of “You’ve Got a Friend”, written by Carole King in the same year. His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million US copies. Following his 1977 album, JT he has retained a large audience over the decades. Every album that he released from 1977 to 2007 sold over 1 million copies. He enjoyed a resurgence in chart performance during the late 1990s and 2000s, when he recorded some of his most-awarded work (including Hourglass, October Road, and Covers). He achieved his first number-one album in the US in 2015 with his recording Before This World.

He is known for his covers, such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” and “Handy Man”, as well as originals such as “Sweet Baby James”.

Early years

James Vernon Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where his father, Isaac M. Taylor, worked as a resident physician. His father came from a wealthy family from the South. Aside from having ancestry in Scotland, part of Taylor’s roots are deep in Massachusetts Bay Colony and include Edmund Rice, one of the founders of Sudbury, Massachusetts. His mother, the former Gertrude Woodard (1921–2015), studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before the couple’s marriage in 1946. James was the second of five children, the others being Alex (1947–1993), Kate (born 1949), Livingston (born 1950), and Hugh (born 1952).

In 1951, his family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina[10] when Isaac took a job as an a*sistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off the present Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated. James would later say, “Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people.” James attended a public primary school in Chapel Hill. Isaac’s career prospered, but he was frequently away from home on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica in 1955 and 1956. Isaac Taylor later rose to become dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971. Beginning in 1953, the Taylors spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard.

James took cello lessons as a child in North Carolina, before learning the guitar in 1960. His guitar style evolved, influenced by hymns, carols, and the music of Woody Guthrie, and his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate’s keyboards: “My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand.” Spending summer holidays with his family on Martha’s Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York. The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar felt that Taylor’s singing had a “natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing.”[19] Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at 14, and he continued to learn the instrument effortlessly. By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as “Jamie & Kootch”.

James went to Milton Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts in 1961. He faltered during his junior year, feeling uneasy in the high-pressure college prep environment despite having a good scholastic performance. The Milton headmaster would later say, “James was more sensitive and less goal-oriented than most students of his day.” He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School.  There he joined a band formed by his brother Alex called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964, they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James’s song “Cha Cha Blues” on the B-side. Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year, where he started applying to colleges to complete his education. But he felt part of a “life that [he was] unable to lead”, and he became depressed; he slept 20 hours each day, and his grades collapsed. n late 1965 he committed himself to McLean, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he was treated with chlorpromazine, and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure. As the Vietnam War escalated, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean a*sistants and was uncommunicative. Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital’s a*sociated Arlington School. He would later view his nine-month stay at McLean as “a lifesaver… like a pardon or like a reprieve,” and both his brother Livingston and sister Kate would later be patients and students there as well. As for his mental health struggles, Taylor would think of them as innate and say: “It’s an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings.”

Career

1966–1969: Early career

At Kortchmar’s urging, Taylor checked himself out of McLean and moved to New York City to form a band. They recruited Joel O’Brien, formerly of Kortchmar’s old band King Bees to play drums, and Taylor’s childhood friend Zachary Wiesner (son of noted academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass. After Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him, they called themselves the Flying Machine. They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as “Knocking ‘Round the Zoo”, “Don’t Talk Now”, and “The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream”. In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, but he was plagued by self-doubt. By summer 1966, they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, alongside acts such as the Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.

Taylor a*sociated with a motley group of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar’s dismay, and wrote the “Paint It Black”–influenced “Rainy Day Man” to depict his drug experience. In a late 1966 hasty recording session, the group cut a single, Taylor’s “Night Owl”, backed with his “Brighten Your Night with My Day”. Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast, but only charted at No. 102 nationally. Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album. After a series of poorly-chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, the Flying Machine broke up. (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song “Smile a Little Smile for Me”. The New York band’s recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)

Taylor would later say of this New York period, “I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs.” Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: “I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink.” He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment. Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions. Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.

Taylor decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living in various areas: Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea. After recording some demos in Soho, his friend Kortchmar gave him his next big break. Kortchmar used his a*sociation with the King Bees (who once opened for Peter and Gordon), to connect Taylor to Peter Asher. Asher was A&R head for the Beatles’ newly formed label Apple Records. Taylor gave a demo tape of songs, including “Something in the Way She Moves”, to Asher, who then played the demo for Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney remembers his first impression: “I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great … and he came and played live, so it was just like, ‘Wow, he’s great.’” Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple, and he credits Asher for “opening the door” to his singing career. Taylor said of Asher, who later became his manager, “I knew from the first time that we met that he was the right person to steer my career. He had this determination in his eye that I had never seen in anybody before.” Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including “Carolina in My Mind”, and rehearsed with a new backing band. Taylor recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968, at Trident Studios, at the same time the Beatles were recording The White Album. McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on “Carolina in My Mind”, whose lyric “holy host of others standing around me” referred to the Beatles, and the title phrase of Taylor’s “Something in the Way She Moves” provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison’s classic “Something”.[ McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Anthony Hewson to add both orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual “link” passages between them; they would receive a mixed reception, at best.

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit by using heroin and methedrine. He underwent physeptone treatment in a British program, returned to New York and was hospitalized there, and then finally committed himself to the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which emphasized cultural and historical factors in trying to treat difficult psychiatric disorders. Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US. Critical reception was generally positive, including a complimentary review in Rolling Stone by Jon Landau, who said that “this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I’ve inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out.” The record’s commercial potential suffered from Taylor’s inability to promote it because of his hospitalization, and it sold poorly; “Carolina in My Mind” was released as a single but failed to chart in the UK and only reached No. 118 on the U.S. charts.

In July 1969, Taylor headlined a six-night stand at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. On July 20, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him. Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha’s Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months. However, while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969 signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.

1970–1972: Fame and commercial succes

Once he had recovered, Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. In December 1969, he held the recording sessions for his second album there. Titled Sweet Baby James, and featuring the participation of Carole King, the album was released in February 1970 and was Taylor’s critical and popular triumph, buoyed by the single “Fire and Rain”, a song about both Taylor’s experiences attempting to break his drug habit by undergoing treatment in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Both the album and the single reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts, with Sweet Baby James selling more than 1.5 million copies in its first year[22] and eventually more than 3 million in the United States alone. Sweet Baby James was received at its time as a folk-rock masterpiece, an album that effectively showcased Taylor’s talents to the mainstream public, marking a direction he would take in following years. It earned several Grammy Award nominations including one for Album of the Year. It went on to be listed at No. 103 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with “Fire and Rain” listed as No. 227 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.

During the time that Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace’s protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the US Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska; this performance was released in album format in 2009 as Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace. In January 1971, sessions for Taylor’s next album began.

He appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, singing “Sweet Baby James”, “Fire and Rain”, and “Country Road”, on February 17, 1971. His career success at this point and appeal to female fans of various ages piqued tremendous interest in him, prompting a March 1, 1971, Time magazine cover story of him as “the face of new rock”. It compared his strong-but-brooding persona to that of Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff and to The Sorrows of Young Werther, and said, “Taylor’s use of elemental imagery—darkness and sunlight, references to roads traveled and untraveled, to fears spoken and left unsaid—reaches a level both of intimacy and controlled emotion rarely achieved in purely pop music.” One of the writers described his look as “a cowboy Jesus”, to which Taylor later replied, “I thought I was trying to look like George Harrison.” Released in April, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon also gained critical acclaim and contained Taylor’s biggest hit single in the US, a version of Carole King’s new “You’ve Got a Friend” (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The follow-up single, “Long Ago and Far Away”, also made the Top 40 and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself reached No. 2 on the album charts, which would be Taylor’s highest position ever until the release of his 2015 album, Before This World, which went to No. 1 superseding Taylor Swift.

In early 1972, Taylor won his first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, for “You’ve Got a Friend”; King also won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony. The album went on to sell 2.5 million copies in the United States.

November 1972 heralded the release of Taylor’s fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured a cameo by Linda Ronstadt along with Carole King, Carly Simon, and John McLaughlin. The album consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. Reception was generally lukewarm and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, its overall sales were disappointing. The lead single, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”, peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, “One Man Parade”, barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment. A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years. They had two children, Sarah Maria “Sally” Taylor, born January 7, 1974, and Benjamin Simon “Ben” Taylor, born January 22, 1977. During their marriage, the couple would guest on each other’s albums and have two hit singles as duet partners: a cover of Inez & Charlie Foxx’s “Mockingbird” and a cover of The Everly Brothers’ “Devoted to You”.

1973–1976: Career ups and downs

Taylor spent most of 1973 enjoying his new life as a married man and did not return to the recording studio until January 1974, when sessions for his fifth album began. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster and was his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold only 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track failed to appear on the Top 100.

However, James Taylor’s artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached No. 6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, featuring wife Carly on backing vocals and reached No. 5 in America and No. 1 in Canada. On the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feelgood “Mexico”, featuring a guest appearance by Crosby & Nash, also reached the Top 5 of that list. A well-received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor’s electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with classics such as “Mexico”, “Wandering” and “Angry Blues”. It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, “Sarah Maria”.

Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor’s last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A melodic album, it was highlighted with the single “Shower the People”, an enduring classic that hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and almost hit the Top 20 of the Pop Charts. However, the album was not well received, reaching No. 16 and being criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Still, In The Pocket went on to be certified gold.

With the close of Taylor’s contract with Warner, in November, the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. With time, it became his best-selling album ever. It was certified 11× Platinum in the US, earned a Diamond certification by the RIAA, and eventually sold close to 20 million copies worldwide.

1977–1981: Move to Columbia and continued success

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Peter Herbst of Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album, of which he wrote in its August 11, 1977 issue, “JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That’s not meant to criticize Taylor’s earlier efforts. … But it’s nice to hear him sounding so healthy.” JT reached No. 4 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album’s Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor’s all-time biggest selling studio album. It was propelled by the successful cover of Jimmy Jones’s and Otis Blackwell’s “Handy Man”, which hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles; the up-tempo pop “Your Smiling Face”, an enduring live favorite, reached the American Top 20; however, “Honey Don’t Leave L.A.”, which Danny Kortchmar wrote and composed for Taylor, did not enjoy much success, reaching only No. 61.

Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor guested with Paul Simon on Art Garfunkel’s recording of a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”, which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979, with the cover-studded Platinum album titled Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin’s and Carole King’s “Up on the Roof”. (Two selections from Flag, “Millworker” and “Brother Trucker” were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel’s non-fiction book Working, which Terkel himself hosted. Taylor himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed “Brother Trucker” in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of “Mockingbird” with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.

On December 7, 1980, Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would a*sassinate John Lennon just one day later. Taylor told the BBC in 2010: “The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John.” The next night, Taylor, who lived in a building next-door to Lennon heard the a*sassination occur. Taylor commented: “I heard him shoot—five, just as quick as you could pull the trigger, about five explosions.”

In March 1981, Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work whose themes concerned his relationship with his father, the course his ancestors had taken, and the effect that he and Simon had on each other. The album was another Platinum success, reaching No. 10 and providing Taylor’s final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, “Her Town Too”, which reached No. 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart and No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings

Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 saying, “Our needs are different; it seem impossible to stay together” and their divorce finalized in 1983. Their breakup was highly publicized. At the time, Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program to cure him of his drug addiction.  Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children Sally and Ben, he discontinued methadone and overcame his heroin habit.

Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985. He was encouraged by the nascent democracy in Brazil at the time, buoyed by the positive reception he got from the large crowd and other musicians, and musically energized by the sounds and nature of Brazilian music. “I had … sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while”, he recalled in 1995:

I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track.

The song “Only a Dream in Rio” was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive. The October 1985 album, That’s Why I’m Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers, most notably the Buddy Holly song “Everyday”, released as a single reached No. 61. On the album track “Only One”, the backing vocals were performed by an all star duo of Joni Mitchell and Don Henley.

Taylor’s next albums were partially successful; in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic “Copperline” and the upbeat “(I’ve Got to) Stop Thinkin’ About That”, both hit singles on Adult Contemporary radio. In the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs spanning his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller’s descants in the codas of “Shower the People” and “I Will Follow”. He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode “Deep Space Homer”, and also appeared later on in the series when the family put together a jigsaw puzzle with his face as the missing final piece. In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman’s Faust.

1997–present: Comeback

In 1997, after six years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor’s troubled past and family. “Jump Up Behind Me” paid tribute to his father’s rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill. “Enough To Be on Your Way” was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade. The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker’s divorce, which took place in 1996. Rolling Stone Magazine found that “one of the themes of this record is disbelief”, while Taylor told the magazine that it was “spirituals for agnostics”. Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a commercial success, reaching No. 9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor’s first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on “Little More Time With You”. The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.

Flanked by two greatest hit releases, Taylor’s Platinum-certified October Road appeared in 2002 to a receptive audience. It featured a number of quiet instrumental accompaniments and passages. Overall, it found Taylor in a more peaceful frame of mind; rather than facing a crisis now, Taylor said in an interview that “I thought I’d passed the midpoint of my life when I was 17.” The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a “limited edition” two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, “Sailing to Philadelphia”, which also appeared on Knopfler’s album by the same name. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing “The Boxer” at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, “How’s the World Treating You?” In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.

Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004, Taylor joined the Vote for Change tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year’s presidential campaign. Taylor’s appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.

Taylor performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 24, 2004, on October 25, 2007, both the anthem and “America” for the game on October 24, 2013, and Game 1 on October 23, 2018. He also performed at Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals in Boston on June 5, 2008, and at the NHL’s Winter Classic game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins.

In December 2004, he appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled “A Change Is Gonna Come”. He sang Sam Cooke’s classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor’s wife Caroline. Later on, he appeared on CMT’s Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, MusiCares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes and had, for them, lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him.[64] They performed his song, “Shower the People”, with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals on Taylor’s live tours and albums for many years.

In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony. In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman’s song “Our Town” for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the Best Original Song. On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.

Taylor’s next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks’ Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. The introspective album grew out of a three-year tour of the United States and Europe called the One Man Band Tour, featuring some of Taylor’s most beloved songs and anecdotes about their creative origins—accompanied solely by the “one man band” of his longtime pianist/keyboardist, Larry Goldings. The digital discrete 5.1 surround sound mix of One Man Band won a TEC Award for best surround sound recording in 2008.

On November 28–30, 2007, Taylor accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at the Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, performed early in their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23, 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, “I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly”. Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.

In December 2007, James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008, Taylor recorded approximately 20 songs by others for a new album with a band including Luis Conte, Michael Landau, Lou Marini, Arnold McCuller, Jimmy Johnson, David Lasley, Walt Fowler, Andrea Zonn, Kate Markowitz, Steve Gadd and Larry Goldings. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008. The album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best known hits might suggest. The Covers sessions stretched to include “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”, from the musical Oklahoma!, a song that his grandmother had caught him singing over and over at the top of his lungs when he was seven years old. Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends. An additional album, called Other Covers, came out in April 2009, containing songs that were recorded during the same sessions as the original Covers but had not been put out to the full public yet.

During October 19–21, 2008, Taylor performed a series of free concerts in five North Carolina cities in support of Barack Obama’s presidential bid.  On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, singing “Shower the People” with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.  On May 29, 2009, Taylor performed on the final episode of the original 17-year run of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On September 8, 2009, Taylor made an appearance at the 24th-season premiere block party of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.

Taylor appeared briefly in the 2009 movie Funny People, where he played “Carolina in My Mind” for a MySpace corporate event as the opening act for the main character.

On January 1, 2010, Taylor sang the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, while Daniel Powter sang the Canadian national anthem.

On March 7, 2010, Taylor sang the Beatles’ “In My Life” in tribute to deceased artists at the 82nd Academy Awards.

In March 2010, he commenced the Troubadour Reunion Tour with Carole King and members of his original band, including Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and Danny Kortchmar. They played shows in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and North America with the final night being at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. The tour was a major commercial success and in some locations found Taylor playing arenas instead of his usual theaters or amphitheaters. Ticket sales amounted to over 700,000 and the tour grossed over $59 million. It was one of the most successful tours of the year.

He appeared in 2011 in the ABC comedy Mr. Sunshine as the ex-husband of the character played by Allison Janney, and he performs a duet of sorts on Leon Russell’s 1970 classic “A Song for You”.

On September 11, 2011, Taylor performed “You Can Close Your Eyes” in New York City at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On November 22, 2011, Taylor performed “Fire and Rain” with Taylor Swift who was named after him,  at the last concert of her Speak Now World Tour in Madison Square Garden. They also sang Swift’s song, “Fifteen”. Then, on July 2, 2012 Swift appeared as Taylor’s special guest in a concert at Tanglewood.

He was active in support of Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and opened the 2012 Democratic National Convention singing three songs. He performed “America the Beautiful” at the President’s second inauguration.

He appeared on the final of Star Académie, the Quebec version of American Idol, on April 13, 2009.

On April 24, 2013, Taylor performed at the memorial service for slain MIT police officer Sean Collier who was killed by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the men responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing. Taylor was accompanied by the MIT Symphony Orchestra and three MIT a cappella groups while performing his songs “The Water is Wide” and “Shower the People”.

On September 6 and 7, 2013, he performed with the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the Thirtieth Anniversary O.C. Tanner Gift of Music Gala Concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. He called the choir “a national treasure” In addition to the symphony and choir he was backed by some of his touring band pianist Charles Floyd, bassist Jimmy Johnson and percussionist Nick Halley.

After a 45-year wait, James earned his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with Before This World. The album which was released on June 16 through Concord Records, arrived on top the chart of July 4, 2015, more than 45 years after Taylor arrived on the list with Sweet Baby James (on the March 14, 1970 list). The album launched atop the Billboard 200 with 97,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 21, 2015 according to Nielsen Music. Of its start, pure album sales were 96,000 copies sold, Taylor’s best debut week for an album since 2002’s October Road.

Taylor cancelled his 2016 concert in Manila as a protest to the extrajudicial killings of suspects in the Philippine Drug War.

Taylor’s album American Standard was released on February 28, 2020. American Standard debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, making Taylor the first act to earn a top 10 album in each of the last six decades. In May 2020, James Taylor and Jackson Browne cancelled their 2020 tour dates due to the COVID-19 crisis, and rescheduled them to 2021. On November 24, 2020, the album was nominated for a Grammy in the category of “Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album”.

Family and personal life

Taylor’s four siblings (Alex, Livingston, Hugh, and Kate) have also been musicians with recorded albums. Livingston is still an active musician; Kate was active in the 1970s but did not record another album until 2003; Hugh operates a bed-and-breakfast with his wife, The Outermost Inn in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard; and Alex died in 1993 on James’s birthday.

Taylor and Carly Simon were married in November 1972. His children with Simon, Sally and Ben, are also musicians. After Taylor and Simon divorced in 1983, he married actress Kathryn Walker on December 14, 1985, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. She had helped him get off heroin, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996.

On February 18, 2001, at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, Taylor wed for the third time marrying Caroline (“Kim”) Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They had begun dating in 1995 when they met as he appeared with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. Part of their relationship was worked into the album October Road, on the songs “On The 4th Of July” and “Caroline I See You”.[90] Following the birth of their twin boys, Rufus and Henry in April 2001, Taylor moved with his family to Lenox, Massachusetts.

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards

  • 1972: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, “You’ve Got a Friend
  • 1977: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, “Handy Man”
  • 1998: Best Pop Album, Hourglass
  • 2001: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”
  • 2003: Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, “How’s the World Treating You” with Alison Krauss
  • 2006: Grammy Award-sponsored MusiCares Person of the Year. At a black tie ceremony held in Los Angeles, musicians from several eras paid tribute to Taylor by performing his songs, often prefacing them with remarks on his influence on their decisions to become musicians. Artists include Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, India.Arie, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and Keith Urban. Paul Simon performed as well, although he was not included in the televised program; Taylor’s brother Livingston appeared on stage as a “backup singer” for the finale, along with Taylor’s twin boys, Rufus and Henry.

Other recognition

  • 1995: Honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1995.
  • 2000: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2000.
  • 2000: Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2000.
  • 2003: The Chapel Hill Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Taylor. At the same occasion the US-15-501 highway bridge over Morgan Creek, near the site of the Taylor family home and mentioned in Taylor’s song “Copperline”, was named in honor of Taylor.
  • 2004: George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.
  • 2004: Ranked 84th in Rolling Stone’s list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”.
  • 2009: Honorary Doctorate of Music from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
  • 2009: Inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
  • 2010: Inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame
  • 2012: Received the Montréal Jazz Spirit Award
  • 2012: Named “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the Ministry of Culture & Communication of France.
  • 2014: Emmy Award for The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Presents an Evening with James Taylor
  • 2015: Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • 2016: Kennedy Center Honors

Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers

Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers are New York-based songwriters and record producers who are business partners and friends. They have produced hits for Ruben Studdard, Wild Orchid, Christina Aguilera, Evelyn Champagne King, and Rihanna. They helped build the career of Rihanna, and are the principals of her production company named SRP Music Group. As songwriters and record producers, Rogers and Sturken have achieved more than twenty top 40 hits, twelve top 5 hits and six BMI Awards. Their songs have sold more than 60 million albums around the world.

History

Sturken & Rogers started their careers in the New York R&B scene of the mid-1980s. During that time, Rogers himself released a full-length solo album, 1985’s Love Games for RCA Records (he would release a second album, Faces of Love for Capitol four years later), and the duo produced Gavin Christopher for EMI Manhattan Records, scoring their first big hit with Christopher’s “One Step Closer to You.” They also worked on the legendary Beat Street soundtrack and began to gain a reputation by producing such artists as Cheryl Lynn, Stephanie Mills and Jennifer Holliday. They then crossed over to the pop world by engineering the comeback of Donny Osmond, writing and producing the #2 smash “Soldier of Love” and the Top 10 hit “Sacred Emotion”. Following their success with Donny Osmond, they became artists themselves, forming an R&B group called Rythm Syndicate with John Nevin, Rob Mingrino and Kevin Cloud, all of whom hailed from Connecticut. In 1991, the group scored a #2 hit on the US Billboard charts, “P.A.S.S.I.O.N.”, as well as a Top 15 follow-up, “Hey Donna”. In addition to providing vocals for the group, Rogers and Sturken wrote or co-wrote all of their songs. However, after two years of touring and promotion, along with two unsuccessful albums and a few less successful singles, Sturken and Rogers disbanded the group to resume writing and producing full-time.

They wrote and/or produced six songs for Debbie Gibson’s 1993 album Body Mind Soul including US single “Losin’ Myself” and the UK single “Shock Your Mama”. Success came next in the UK with the Top 5 single “Power of a Woman” for Eternal. More work overseas followed, including contributions to the Brand New Heavies’ platinum album Shelter. For Irish boy band Boyzone, they wrote and produced four songs for the group’s Where We Belong album, which entered at #1 on the UK charts. The six-time platinum album includes the Sturken & Rogers penned “All That I Need”, which was a UK #1 single. The song also appears on Boyzone’s Greatest Hits package, By Request, which spent over two months at #1 and also had sales of over six million units.

In 1997, they shifted their attention back to the U.S. The hit “(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You”, written and produced for NSYNC, was a Billboard Top 10 single, before climbing into the Billboard Country Top 5 after being covered by country recording legend Alabama. The song also received a Grammy nomination in 2000 for Best Country Collaboration by a group or duo. NSYNC’s debut album sold over 10 million copies in the US alone. In addition to the pop and country versions of “(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You”, the song was also recorded by jazz artist Kirk Whalum for his album Unconditional, which was nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Performance at the 2002 Grammy Awards. Sturken & Rogers also wrote and produced several songs for Christina Aguilera’s debut album. The album entered the Billboard charts at #1 and went double platinum after only three weeks, eventually totaling sales in excess of 11 million worldwide. They also branched out into the jazz world working with Dave Koz on his album The Dance. The album contains two Sturken & Rogers penned songs, including “Can’t Let You Go”, co-written with Koz and featuring Luther Vandross on vocals, which went on to become a #1 hit on the Smooth Jazz chart. The duo also had songs on 98 Degrees’ double platinum album Revelation and the multi-platinum debut albums of Jessica Simpson, Alsou, Mandy Moore and Anastacia, as well as many other collaborations with such artists as Christina Milian and Emma Bunton. They also wrote sings with and for The Brand New Heavies Shelter LP notably Last To Know with Simon Bartholomew.

As the 1990s came to a close and teen pop died down, Sturken & Rogers changed gears once again, discovering and developing Javier, whom they signed to Capitol Records. They wrote and produced the majority of his debut album, including the hit single “Crazy”. Next to come calling was Clive Davis, who hired the team to work on Kelly Clarkson’s debut album, for which they wrote the hit single “The Trouble with Love Is”, also featured in the movie Love Actually. The Davis connection continued with the American Idol project in 2004, as well as Rod Stewart’s As Time Goes By: the Great American Songbook 2 and two tracks for Ruben Studdard’s double platinum debut album, Soulful.

The duo then decided to begin developing artists in earnest, forming Syndicated Rhythm Productions in 2005. Their first signing was Rihanna, whom Rogers discovered while visiting family in Barbados.[2] They brought her to Jay-Z and L.A. Reid at Def Jam Records and she was signed within hours of her audition. Rihanna’s first single “Pon De Replay”, co-written and produced by Sturken & Rogers, went on to be a worldwide smash. Rihanna’s second album, A Girl Like Me, contained the hit singles “SOS” and “Unfaithful”, and established her as an international star. In 2007 Rihanna scored one of the biggest singles of the year with “Umbrella” ; the follow up single “Shut Up and Drive” was written and produced by Sturken & Rogers, and became a top 10 hit worldwide, as well as being featured in the movies 21, I Love You Man, and Cars. Good Girl Gone Bad went on to be one of the best selling albums of that year, selling over 15 million copies worldwide to date. As of November 2013, Rihanna sold over 50 million albums and 180 million singles worldwide. The SRP artist roster continued to grow during this time; next up was Shontelle, who they brought to Steve Rifkind’s SRC/Universal Motown label, where they produced her debut album Shontelligence in 2008. Shontelle has joined fellow Barbadian Rihanna at the top of the charts with her first hit, “T-Shirt”, which was a top 15 hit in the US, and was top 5 for a month in the U.K., where she has followed it with her second hit “Stuck with Each Other”, a duet with Akon from the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. Shontelle’s follow up album included the worldwide platinum smash “Impossible”.

Sturken and Rogers continued writing and producing for artists outside of their own stable with their song “Issues”, they scored yet another top smash with British girl group The Saturdays. They also co-wrote the song “Gypsy” for Shakira, which was an international hit and won a Latin BMI award.  The time had come for the next chapter of Sturken and Rogers’ career, and thus the SRP Records label was formed in early 2009, in partnership with Universal/Motown. Their first signing was Vita Chambers who opened for Justin Bieber’s 2010 “My World” tour, and then scored a gold single in Canada with her single “Fix You”.

Singer/songwriter Taylor Berrett was discovered by SRP while still a high school student in Washington, DC. After signing a publishing deal with Kara DioGuardi’s Arthouse Music, Taylor inked a deal through SRP with Warner Bros. records, and recorded his debut album with producer Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran, Christina Perri).

Nashville born pianist/singer Kandace Springs was SRP’s next discovery; they signed her to Don Was at Blue Note/Capitol. In 2014 she performed her debut single “Love Got in the Way” on the Late Show with David Letterman, followed by a slew of other national television appearances, and performances at the Afropunk and Bonnaroo festivals, as well as performing with Prince at the “Purple Rain” 30th anniversary show at Paisley Park. Her upcoming debut album is being produced by Grammy legend Larry Klein.

The newest signing to SRP is 20-year-old singer/flute prodigy Elena Pinderhughes; having already toured the world, played the White House, and performed with such giants as Herbie Hancock, she is now recording her debut album for release in 2016.

Sturken and Rogers have also begun to build their own stable of writer/producers, forming a joint venture with Universal Music Publishing Group. Their first signing, Brandon Alexander, a.k.a. BAM, had his breakout with the Grammy nominated Tyrese smash “Stay” which spent 11 weeks at #1 on the Adult Urban chart. BAM was also nominated for a Grammy for the Chris Brown/Kendrick Lamar collaboration “Autumn Leaves”, and he wrote and produced 9 of the 11 cuts on Tyrese’s new album, which entered at #1 on the Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart. He is currently in the studio with Chris Brown, Trey Songz, and August Alsina. Most recently SRP paired two young writers, Jackson Foote and Emma Lov, to form the writing/production team Loote; they’ve already landed cuts on Natalie La Rose and are collaborating with a host of other major label artists.