Composer/Songwriter
Peter Tork was an original member of the Monkees and enjoyed great success on TV and the top of the pop charts during the mid and late 1960s. Years later, Peter admitted that the cast members of the TV show were not playing their instruments on the first recording, however Peter and Micky Dolenz on...
Charlie Daniels won the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1979 for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", which reached #3 on the charts. The following year, "Devil" became a major crossover success on rock radio stations, after its inclusion on the soundtrack for the hit movie Urban...
Tom T. Hall loved telling a good old country story, you know the ones with a twist at the end and plenty of references to beer and fishin’. When he set those stories to music he helped launch a new era in country music. Beginning with “Harper Valley P. T. A.” in the late 1960s, Tom T. wrote and...
Don Schlitz likes to tell the story about how he was in the right place at the right time when his song, “The Gambler,” was recorded by Kenny Rogers in 1978. The truth is, if that was Don’s only hit song that might have been the case, but talent plays a big part in his story-telling songwriting...
Shep Shepherd co-wrote the now classic instrumental “Honky Tonk Part 2” while playing in the Bill Doggett band. The recording became a hit in the late 1950s and helped build a stronger audience for rock instrumentals, which remained popular throughout the mid 1960s. Shep began playing drums and...
Ian Anderson grew up in England during the 1960s and had a long list of guitar heroes who inspired him to play music. However, he found the power of people like Eric Clapton to be disconcerting, as young Ian felt inferior next to such guitar gods. He felt his best chances to success in rock was to...
Peter B. Smith was a composer and publisher who began his career as a musician in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, later joining the Coldstream Guards and eventually the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars. Working as a Flutist, he collaborated with the BBC for broadcasts and recordings in the 1960s. In...
Gerald “Wig” Wiggins was a world renowned composer, arranger and jazz keyboardist. As an early pioneer in playing jazz on the Hammond B-3 organ, Wig had a strong interest in new and inventive sounds. His creatively can be heard in hundreds of recordings and motion pictures beginning in the 1930s....
Antonio Sanchez began playing drums at the age of five in his native Mexico and by the time he was a teenager he was playing professionally. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Antonio earned a masters in jazz improvisation from the New England Conservatory of Music. After performing...
Rick Marotta taught himself to play drums at the age of 19. Since then, he has made a name for himself in the music world. Rick has played with artists such as John Lennon, Paul Simon and James Taylor, and has composed music for the popular show Everybody Loves Raymond. In his 2008 interview, Rick...