The 13th studio album by Prince and the New Power Generation, colloquially referred to as the Love Symbol or as O(+>. It was released as a double vinyl or single CD, on October 13, 1992.
Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince has shown remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music can be maddeningly inconsistent because of this eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeed; no other contemporary artist can blend so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.
In a dispute with Warner Bros. in 1993, Prince decided to change his stage name to the album's eponymous symbol. He kept that name for several years until re-adopting the Prince moniker in 2000.
Prince's albums include among others 1999 (1983), Purple Rain (1984), Lovesexy (1988), Newpower Soul (1998) and 3121 (2006). He also starred in the 1984 feature film Purple Rain. Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. (All Music Guide, Wiki, Who2 Biographies).
As Prince doesen't like his videos being on line this post will be without any music sample.
The is the 100th post (see here the first one) on this blog celebrated by presenting one of the greatest bands in music history: The Beatles.
The Beatles were John Lennon (guitar), George Harrison (guitar), Paul McCartney (bass) and Ringo Starr (drums). Lennon and McCartney began playing together in The Quarrymen in 1957; Harrison joined
later that year. Before they became The Beatles, they were also Johnny and the Moondogs and The Silver Beatles, joined at times by bandmates including bassist Stuart Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 - 10 April 1962) and drummer Pete Best (b. 24 November 1941); Best was replaced by Ringo to form the final foursome. The early Beatles performed shows in Hamburg, Germany and Liverpool, England, playing covers of early American rock and roll plus original songs by Lennon and McCartney. Their 1962 release of "Love Me Do" charted in the U. K., and in 1963 their song "She Loves You" was the biggest hit in U. K. history. Their personal charm and charisma helped boost "Beatlemania," and their tour of the U.S. in 1964 led to sold-out concerts and mob scenes. Their movies A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965) capitalized on their humor and youthful exuberance and were box office successes, and the hit songs kept coming: in 1964 they had five straight number one albums. In the late '60s their songs became more sophisticated and their worldwide celebrity status prompted Lennon to joke "we're bigger than Jesus." By 1970 they were no longer performing in public and were beginning to pursue individual projects. In December of 1970 McCartney brought a lawsuit to dissolve The Beatles as a legal entity, and the group broke up. Their hits are too numerous to mention, and their impact on pop music can't be overstated. In 1980 Lennon was murdered, and in 2001 Harrison died of cancer, but McCartney and Starr continue to have busy solo careers.
This is "Don't Let Me Down" from their best period (1969).
Read also:
Music dictionary - Soft Rock
Cover Art: Abbey Road - The Beatles
The Four Seasons - December 1963 (Oh What A Night)
As promised, here it is the short history of a huge rock band:
Deep Purple survived a seemingly endless series of lineup changes and a dramatic mid-career shift from grandiose progressive rock to ear-shattering heavy metal to emerge as a true institution of the British hard rock community; once credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the globe's loudest band, their revolving-door roster launched the careers of performers including Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, and Ian Gillan.
Deep Purple was formed in Hertford, England, in 1968, with an inaugural lineup that featured guitarist Blackmore, vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice.
Initially dubbed Roundabout, the group was first assembled as a session band for ex-Searchers drummer Chris Curtis but quickly went their own way, touring Scandinavia before beginning work on their debut LP, Shades of Deep Purple. The most pop-oriented release of their career, the album generated a Top Five American hit with its reading of Joe South's "Hush" but otherwise went unnoticed at home. The Book of Taliesyn followed (in the U.S. only) in 1969, again cracking the U.S. Top 40 with a cover of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman."
With their self-titled third LP, Deep Purple's ambitions grew, however; the songs reflecting a new complexity and density as Lord's classically influenced keyboards assumed a much greater focus. Soon after the album's release, their American label Tetragrammaton folded, and with the dismissals of Evans and Simper, the band started fresh, recruiting singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover from the ranks of the pop group Episode Six.
The revamped Deep Purple's first album, 1970's Concerto for Group and Orchestra, further sought to fuse rock and classical music. When the project, which was recorded with the
1971's Fireball was also a smash, scoring a hit with "Strange Kind of Woman." Plans to record the follow-up at the Casino in Montreux, Switzerland, were derailed after the venue burned down during a live appearance by Frank Zappa, but the experience inspired Deep Purple's most enduring hit, the AOR staple "Smoke on the Water." The song, featured on the multi-platinum classic Machine Head, reached the U.S. Top Five in mid-1972 and positioned Deep Purple among rock's elite; the band consolidated its status with the 1973 studio follow-up Who Do We Think We Are and the hit "Woman From Tokyo." However, long-simmering creative differences between Blackmore and Gillan pushed the latter out of the group that same year, with Glover soon exiting as well; singer David Coverdale and bassist/singer Glenn Hughes were recruited for 1974's Burn, and Gillan meanwhile formed a band bearing his own name.
All the changes clearly took their toll, however, and following a farewell tour, the group dissolved in 1976 with Coverdale going on to form Whitesnake; Bolin died of a drug overdose later in the year. The classic lineup of Blackmore, Gillan, Lord, Glover, and Paice reunited Deep Purple in 1984 for a new album, the platinum smash Perfect Strangers; The House of Blue Light followed three years later, but as past tensions resurfaced, Gillan again exited in mid-1989. Onetime Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner was recruited for 1990's Slaves and Masters before Gillan again rejoined to record The Battle Rages On..., an apt title as Blackmore quit the group midway through the supporting tour, to be temporarily replaced by Joe Satriani.
In 1994, Steve Morse took over the guitar slot, fresh from a stint in Kansas; the revitalized group returned to the studio for 1996's Purpendicular, which proved a success among the Purple faithful. 1998's Abandon followed, as well as a 1999 orchestral performance released the following year as Live at the Royal Albert Hall. Deep Purple was given the box set treatment the same year with the four-disc set Shades: 1968-1998, which collected hits, demos, live takes, and unreleased tracks from throughout the years (touching upon all of Purple's different lineups). The late '90s/early 2000s saw the release of several other archival releases and collections (Machine Head 25th Anniversary, Friends & Relatives, Rhino's The Very Best Of, and Days May Come and Days May Go: The 1975 California Rehearsals), as well as a slew of DVDs (Total Abandon: Live Australia 1999, In Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra, Bombay Calling, and New Live & Rare). Former member Blackmore also kept himself busy after leaving the band by issuing a single album with his briefly resuscitated outfit Rainbow (1998's Stranger in Us All), before forming the Renaissance-inspired Blackmore's Night with fiancée/vocalist Candice Night.
Despite numerous lineup upheavals during their career, Deep Purple remains alive and well in the 21st century. (All Music Guide)
This is "Highway Star" in a live performance from 2007. For the meanings of this hit read this article.
Read also:
- Songmeanings - Deep Purple , "Highway Star"
- Deep Purple - Son Of Alerik
- Whitesnake
- Biographies - Joe Satriani, "Always With You, Always With Me"
This is the newest category of Music Blessing JukeBlog. As the title clearly states here you will find career info on several artists mostly of corse from rock music (and genres...) but also from music linked domains.
Joe Satriani
Along with teaching some of the top rock guitar players of the '80s and '90s, Joe Satriani is one of the most technically accomplished and widely respected guitarists to emerge in recent times. Born on July 15, 1956, in Westbury, NY, and raised in the nearby town of Carle Place, Satriani -- inspired by guitar legend Jimi Hendrix -- picked up the guitar at the age of 14 (although he was initially more interested in the drums). Quickly learning the instrument, Satriani began teaching guitar to others and found a kindred spirit in one of his students, Steve Vai. By the late '70s, however, Satriani had relocated to Berkeley, CA. With his sights set on his own musical career, "Satch" kept teaching others, including such future rock notables as Kirk Hammett (Metallica), Larry LaLonde (Primus), David Bryson (Counting Crows), and jazz fusion player Charlie Hunter.
In the early '80s, Satriani got a gig playing guitar with power popster Greg Kihn, doing some session work and touring with the group (an archival release recorded around this time, King Biscuit Flower Hour, was later issued in 1996), and issuing his own solo self-titled EP in 1984, financing and releasing the project entirely on his own. But when Vai hit the big time as the guitarist of David Lee Roth's solo band in 1986, he offered praise for his good friend and former teacher in several major guitar publications, leading to widespread interest in Satriani's playing. The timing couldn't have been more perfect for Satch, as he'd just issued his first full-length solo album, Not of This Earth, which automatically made ripples in the rock guitar community.
But the best was still to come, in the form of his sophomore release, 1987's Surfing with the Alien. Almost overnight, Satriani was widely regarded as one of rock's top guitarists, as the album earned gold certification and the guitarist would finish at the top of guitar magazine polls for years afterward. He was even handpicked by Mick Jagger to accompany the famous singer on a tour of Australia and Japan around this time. A stopgap EP, Dreaming #11, combed both studio and live tracks and was issued a year later, and in 1989, Satriani issued his third solo full-length, Flying in a Blue Dream. Another sizeable hit, the album also marked Satch's debut as a vocalist on several tracks. His career received another big push the same year when his song "One Big Rush" was included on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's hit movie Say Anything.
The '90s began with Satriani creating his own line of guitars for the Ibanez company (the JS Joe Satriani model), but it wasn't until 1992 that he would issue his next solo release, The Extremist. The double-disc set Time Machine followed a year later (a combination of new tracks, live material, and the long out-of-print Joe Satriani EP from 1984), and in 1994, Satch filled in on tour for the departed Ritchie Blackmore for heavy metal pioneers Deep Purple. Although he was asked to become a full-time member, Satriani turned down the offer to return to his solo career.
Satriani issued two more solo albums during the '90s -- 1995's self-titled release and 1998's Crystal Planet -- and also started the G3 guitar showcase tour with Vai in 1996, becoming an annual event and issuing a live document of the tour's initial run, G3: Live in Concert, a year later. 2000 saw Satriani issue his most musically daring release yet, the electronic-based Engines of Creation, and a year later, Live in San Francisco. Engines was nominated for a Grammy the next year, and after a successful tour he stepped back into the studio. The result, Strange Beautiful Music, was released in 2002. Electric Joe Satriani: An Anthology arrived in 2003, followed by Is There Love in Space? in 2004, Super Colossal in 2005, and Satriani Live! in 2006. In addition to his own albums, Satriani has guested on several other artists' albums over the years, including Blue Öyster Cult's Imaginos, Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid, Stuart Hamm's Radio Free Albemuth, Pat Martino's All Sides Now, and Spinal Tap's Break Like the Wind.
"Always With Me, Always With You" is part of the 1987 album "Surfing With The Alien", (re-realesed in 2007).
Read also:
Who's who and where
