Charlie Byrd, Guitar, 1925, Chuckatuck, VA
Charlie began studying the guitar as a youngster with several local teachers and in school. During military service (he was already playing professionally at this time) he was stationed in France where he had the opportunity to play alongside his idol, Django Reinhardt. During the late '40s, after his discharge, he worked with Sol Yaged, Joe Marsala, and Freddie Slack. Around this time Charlie became dissatisfied with the lack of professional opportunities open to jazz musicians and decided to pursue a career as a classical guitarist. He studied classical guitar with two of the most prominent teachers of that era, Sophocles Papas, and Andres Segovia. Although Byrd has performed extensively as a classical guitar soloist, he has concentrated on applying the classical technique to the performance of jazz and popular music. During most of the '50s he played regularly in and around Washington, and recorded with big bands such as Woody Herman's. His interest in Latin music came about during a tour of South America sponsored by the U.S. State Department and also his friendship with Stan Getz who had spent time in Brazil. Together they cut the album Jazz Samba, which became a huge hit during the early '70s. This actually contributed to the beginning of the the Bosa Nova movement in the U.S. In 1973 Charlie formed the group Great Guitars, with Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis. Byrd had considerable technical ability, although he admired Reinhardt, LesPaul and Antonio Carlos Jobim, his own style remains distinctive. Charlie Byrd died in 1999.
Joe Venuti, Violin, 1903, Philadelphia, PA
Venuti grew up in Philadelphia, where he formed a long-lasting musical partnership with guitarist Eddie Lang. They both moved to New York in 1925, where they played with most of the leading white jazz musicians of the period, including Red Nichols, Frankie Trumbauer, Benny Goodman, and Jack Teagarden. Their recordings were just as highly influential in Europe as they were in the U.S., and served as a model for the quintet led by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli in Paris. From the mid '30s to the mid '40s Venuti had his own moderately successful big band, then returned to a small-group format. He gave a wonderful performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1968 that marked the beginning of his return from several decades of relative obscurity. During the '70s, Joe made some important recordings with Zoot Sims, Marian McPartland, and Earl Hines. Venuti is considered the most important violinist in early jazz, with a full tone and a strong sense of swing. Joe Venuti died in 1978.
Earl Klugh, Guitar, 1954, Detroit, MI
Earl studied the piano for seven years, and at the tender age of ten, switched to the guitat. By the time he was sixteen he was employed by Yusef Lateef and next toured and recorded with George Benson. After touring and playing the electric guitar with Return to Forever, in the mid '70s, he became less active and from 1976 made recordings as a leader, while continuing to work occasionally as a sideman and as a guest soloist. In 1979, in collaboration with Bob James, he received a Grammy Award their album "One on One". The country-music guitarist Chet Atkins was an important influence on Earl's playing, even though he certainly was not a country-western musician. George Van Eps was probably his jazz influence. Later Earl formed a style that combined elements of modern jazz and rhythm-and-blues. Klugh has also made a niche for himself in film music with, of all people, the flautist Hubert Laws. They worked together in the film "How To Beat The High Cost Of Living, in 1980.
B. B. King, Guitar/Singer, 1925, Itta Bena, MS
B. B.s reign as King Of The Blues has been as long as that of any monarch on earth. At age 83, he is still light on his feet, singing and playing the blues with relentless passion. He seems to become more popular as time goes by. B. B. is as alive as the music he plays, and a grateful world can't get enough of him. He has defined the blues for a worldwide audience since he started recording in the 1940s. He has released over fifty albums, many of them classics. In his youth he played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. 1947 found King in Memphis, TN, where every important musician of the South gravitated, and which supported a large musical community where every style of African American music could be found. B. B. stayed with his cousin Bukka White, one of the most celebrated blues performers of his time, who schooled B. B. further in the art of the blues. B. B.'s first big break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program out of West Memphis. This led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a ten-minute spot on black- staffed and managed radio station WDIA. "King's Spot" became so popular, it was expanded and became "Sepia Swing Club." He needed a catchy radio name, so he chose Blues Boy King, and eventually B.B. King. In the mid '50s while performing in Twist, Arkansas, two men in the hall ot into a fight, knocked over a kerosene lantern and the club burned to the ground. In his haste to vacate the club, B.B. ran out without his guitar. After he remembered the instrument he ran back inside to rescue it, narrowly escaping death. When he found out the fight was over a woman named Lucille, he decided to give the name to his guitar, to remind him never to do a crazy thing like fight over a woman. Since then each of his Gibson guitars has been named Lucille. His first big hit was "Three O'Clock Blues," and B.B. began touring nationally. Before long King was playing symphony concert halls, universities, resort hotels and amphitheaters.. B.B. has become the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years. He was influenced by Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, integrating his precise and complex vocal-like string bends and his left vibrato, both of which have become indispensable components of rock guitarist's vocabulary. In 1968 he played the Newport Jazz Festival and at Bill Graham's Fillmore West on bills with the hottest rock musicians of the day. In 1969 the Rolling Stones chose B.B. to to open 18 American concerts for them. King was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Also in 1987 he received the NARAS' Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, and has received honorary doctorates from half a dozen universities. Since 1991 B.B. has opened a chain of his own nightclubs throughout the U.S.and released his autobiography, "Blues All Around Me". He continues to tour extensively, averaging over 250 concerts per year around the world.
Jon Hendricks, Singer, 1921, Newark, OH
