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Rock N Roll Band Bios

The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut album by American rock band The Velvet Underground and vocal collaborator Nico. It was originally released in March 1967 by Verve Records. Recorded in 1966 during Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour, The Velvet Underground & Nico would gain notoriety for its experimentalist performance sensibilities, as well as its focus on controversial subject matter expressed in many of their songs. Though largely ignored upon release, the record has since become one of the most influential and critically acclaimed rock albums in history, appearing at number thirteen on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time[1] as well as being added to the 2006 National Recording Registry by the Librarian of Congress.

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The Rolling Stones are a prominent English rock band formed in April 1962 by guitarist and harmonica player Brian Jones, pianist Ian Stewart, vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early lineup. Rhythm and blues cover songs dominated The Rolling Stones' early material; they are credited for raising the international regard for the earlier styles of blues typified by Chess Records' artists such as Muddy Waters who wrote "Rollin' Stone", the song after which the band is named. Unconcerned with being seen as authentic blues stylists, from the start the Rolling Stones have played rock and roll, and have written and recorded in many genres.[1] Jones led the band until Jagger and Richards teamed to write hit songs for the band while assuming band leadership. By 1969 Jones' contributions were minimal, and he was unable to tour the United States for legal reasons. By mutual agreement he left the band. Weeks later Jones drowned, while Mick Taylor had already joined the Rolling Stones on guitar. Taylor left in 1974 and was replaced by Ronnie Wood. Wyman left in 1990, and his replacement Darryl Jones became the primary bassist, but he has not been made a full member. Stewart was taken from the official lineup in 1963 to continue as the band's road manager and occasional keyboardist until his death in 1985. Chuck Leavell is the current primary keyboardist for the band. After gaining popularity in Europe, The Rolling Stones became successful in North America during the so-called British Invasion of the mid 1960s. They have released 22 studio albums in the United Kingdom (24 in the United States), eight concert albums (nine in the US) and numerous compilations; their worldwide sales are estimated at more than 200 million albums.[2] Sticky Fingers (1971) began a string of eight consecutive studio albums reaching number one in the United States. Their most recent album of entirely new material, A Bigger Bang, was released in 2005. In 1989 the Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 they ranked number 4 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[3] In 2008, Billboard ranked the Rolling Stones at number ten on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists", and as the second most successful group in the Billboard Hot 100 chart

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Pink Floyd were an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their psychedelic and progressive rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful rock music groups of all time. It is estimated that they have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million certified units in the United States. The band originally consisted of university students Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Syd Barrett. Founded in 1965, they first became popular playing in London's underground music scene in the late 1960s. Under Barrett's leadership they released two charting singles, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play", and a successful début album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). Guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd several months prior to Barrett's departure from the group due to deteriorating mental health in 1968. Following the loss of their principal songwriter, Pink Floyd bassist and vocalist Roger Waters became the band's lyricist and conceptual leader, with Gilmour assuming lead guitar and sharing lead vocals. With this lineup Pink Floyd achieved worldwide critical and commercial success with The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. Wright left the group in 1979, and Waters in 1985, but Gilmour and Mason (joined by Wright) continued to record and tour. Waters resorted to legal means to try to keep them from performing as Pink Floyd, but the dispute was resolved with an out-of-court settlement which allowed Gilmour and Mason to continue, and which also released Waters from his contractual obligations to the band. Two further albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell followed. Despite almost two decades of acrimony, the band reunited in at a charity concert Live in 2008.

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Syd Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006), born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and painter. He is most remembered as a founding member of psychedelic/progressive rock band Pink Floyd, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, although he left the group in 1968 amidst speculations of mental illness exacerbated by heavy drug use. Barrett was active as a rock musician for about seven years, recording two albums with Pink Floyd and two solo albums before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years. His post rock-band life was as an artist and a keen gardener, ending with his death in 2006. A number of biographies have been written about him since the 1980s and Pink Floyd wrote and recorded many tributes to him after he left, most known the 1975 album Wish You Were Here.

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The Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) A.K.A is a rock band from Prague, Czech Republic. It was the foremost representative of Prague's underground culture (1968–1989). This avant-garde group went against the grain of the Communist regime and due to its non-conformism often suffered serious problems such as arrests. The Plastic People Of The Universe (a name inspired by Frank Zappa's second album), formed in Prague by bassist Milan Hlavsa in 1968 (right after the Soviet invasion), played avantgarde rock music that was reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, the Doors and Captain Beefheart. The line-up consolidated in 1969-70 by their mentor Ivan Jirous around guitarist Josef Janicek, viola player Jiri Kabes and (briefly) Canadian vocalist Paul Wilson became the main psychedelic act of Eastern Europe. In 1972 they adopted a more "progressive" sound, adding saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec to the stew. This phase is documented by their first cassette, Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned (1974), released in 1978 in western Europe, and by the subsequent releases: Pasijove Hry Velikonocni/ Passion Play (1978) and Jak Bude Po Smrti/ What It's Like After Death (1979). Despite unrelenting persecution (and frequent arrests) by the Communist authorities, the PPOTU remained a center of cultural resistance, and recorded Co Znamena Vesti Kone/ Leading Horses (1981), Kolejnice Duni/ Rails Rumble (1982), the unreleased Hovezi Prazka/ Beef Slaughter (1984) and Pulnocni Mys/ Midnight Mouse (1986). They dissolved in 1988, just before the communist regime collapsed. Hlavsa formed Pulnoc, which released Pulnoc (1990) and City of Hysteria (1991).

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The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area.[1] The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, jazz, psychedelia, and space rock[2][3]—and for live performances of long musical improvisation.[1][4] "Their music," writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists."[5] The fans of the Grateful Dead, some of whom followed the band from concert to concert for years, are known as "Deadheads" and are known for their dedication to the band's music.[1][4] Many referred to the band simply as "the Dead." The Grateful Dead's musical influences varied widely; in concert recordings or on record albums one can hear psychedelic rock, blues, rock and roll, country & western, bluegrass, country-rock, and improvisational jazz. These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world."[6] They were ranked 55th in the issue The Greatest Artists of all Time by R olling Stone magazine.

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Bob Dylan is a Folk/rock songwriter, singer. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. Driven by the influences of early rock stars like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard (whom he used to imitate on the piano at high school dances), the young Dylan formed his own bands, including the Golden Chords and Elston Gunn and His Rock Boppers. While attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he began performing folk and country songs at local cafés, taking the name "Bob Dylan," after the late Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college and moved to New York, where his idol, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, was hospitalized with a rare hereditary disease of the nervous system. Dylan visited with Guthrie regularly in his hospital room; he also became a regular in the folk clubs and coffeehouses of Greenwich Village, met a host of other musicians, and began writing songs at an astonishing pace, including "Song to Woody," a tribute to his ailing hero. In the fall of 1961, after one of his performances received a rave review in The New York Times, Dylan signed a recording contract with Columbia Records. Released early in 1962, Bob Dylan contained only two original songs, but showcased Dylan's gravelly-voiced singing style in a number of traditional folk songs and covers of blues songs. The 1963 release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan marked Dylan's emergence as one of the most original and poetic voices in the history of American popular music. The album included two of the most memorable 1960s folk songs, "Blowin' in the Wind" (which later became a huge hit for the folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary) and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." His next album, The Times They Are A-Changin', firmly established Dylan as the definitive songwriter of the '60s protest movement, a reputation that only increased after he became involved with one of the movement's established icons, Joan Baez, in 1963. While his romantic relationship with Baez lasted only two years, it benefited both immensely in terms of their music careers, as Dylan wrote some of Baez's best-known material and Baez introduced him to thousands of fans in her concerts. By 1964, Dylan was playing 200 concerts annually, but had become tired of his role as "the" folk singer-songwriter of the protest movement. Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded in 1964, was a much more personal, introspective collection of songs, far less politically charged than Dylan's previous efforts.

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