Guitarist Peter Leitch's website features reviews, sound bites, itinerary, biography, cds ...
PETER LEITCH has over the years, gained an international reputation for his unique personal style, rooted in tradition but recognizably his own. Of his fourteen recordings as a leader, many feature his long-time rhythm section of pianist John Hicks, Ray Drummond and Smitty Smith. Several also include a saxophonist (Pepper Adams, Bobby Watson and Gary Bartz have each contributed to Peter's recordings) ...
Joyce Cooling:
Guitarist,
Vocalist,
Songwriter:
A few short years ago, guitarist and songwriter Joyce Cooling took a good, hard look at her life. Glued to the TV like the rest of us, Cooling remembers the days after 9/11 and found her perspective on life jolted. "I asked myself," she recalls, "Is what Iím doing as a musician meaningful?" After lengthy, ardent talks with her long-time collaborator and partner Jay Wagner about a potential life without a career in music, Cooling proclaimed, "I don't know about you, but this girl's got to play."
Cooling has always wanted to make music.
Growing up in New Jersey and New York, she absorbed a wide variety of music and amassed a huge record collection. "My collection contains Ornette Coleman, João Bosco, and Bill Evans, but it also includes James Brown, Maurice Ravel, Jimi Hendrix, Abbey Lincoln and Aerosmith as well music from all over the world," she notes. "I like R&B. I like folk. I like heavy metal and headbanger stuff. I like punk. I like rap. I just like good music. There are no boundaries with me."
Coolingís penchant for the eclectic continued when she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980s and began dabbling in keyboards and percussion. Music had long been the most passionate part of her life, but an actual career as a musician started taking shape only after she began hanging around an African drumming class taught by C.K. Ladzekpo, a renowned Ghanaian percussionist. Integrating the polyrhythmic sophistication of West African music with her passion for melody and harmony, Cooling focused her attention on playing, singing, and songwriting. "Everything crystallized when I heard Wes Montgomery's solo on If You Could See Me Now. From then on, it was as if guitar had chosen me."
Teaching herself to play guitar by ear, she developed a personal style of finger picking that has given her playing its unique sound and feel ...
For Johnny A., the guitar has held a lifelong fascination, her six strings exerting a powerful influence and addictive beauty since the first time he held them. The pursuit of this musical lady with the perfect shape has driven his years - shaping the course of his life – taking him places he never could have imagined. Through inspiring moments of ecstatic improvisation, deep contemplation and inevitable gaps of frustration it has been a stormy affair with a tempestuous hollow-body lover, but the marriage has been nothing less than remarkable.
Johnny A. is widely regarded as one of America's finest contemporary guitarists. Gibson thinks so – their Custom Shop designed a Signature Edition guitar per his specific requests which, when it was marketed in 2003, placed him in an exclusive club that included legends like BB King, Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins, Joe Perry, Pat Martino and Les Paul himself. The public thinks so too - Johnny A.'s latest works have sold many thousands of copies as well as being his personal best. The most recent CD's - 2004's Get Inside and 1999's Sometime Tuesday Morning, are the critically acclaimed solo culmination of a lifetime of learning, sharing and bonding in a long parade of bands and players.
As a bright-eyed six-year old in Malden, Massachusetts, Johnny became fascinated with the drums, a habit his father encouraged by buying him a kit. There were lessons and the Jr. High School marching band, but as fun as the skins were, he realized that their melodic capability was quite limited. Rhythm had taken a backseat to melody and since the most melodic instrument in any 60's beat group was guitar, those six-strings now began their inexorable pull on Johnny A's life. Once the four “mop-tops” from Liverpool dropped like a bomb from Ed Sullivan's studio into his living room in 1964, his course was set.
A $49 Lafayette Electronics guitar became Johnny A.'s first girlfriend. A humble beginning for sure, but his mom was no fool and wanted to be safe if this ‘guitar thing' just turned out to be another passing teenage phase. It wasn't. Johnny saw the Beatles at Suffolk Downs outside of Boston in 1966 and their magical presence sent the impressionable lad into a blur of activity – sweeping up hair and doing odd jobs at his aunt's salon to save up the 88 bucks needed to buy a Vox Clubman guitar. Then, of course, he had to have a Gretsch too. No, this was no passing phase ...
John Cipollina is a legendary San Francisco electric guitar player whose 25 year career spans bands from Quicksilver Messenger Service to Zero. His signature rodent gnawing sound will stand alone for all time.
Born in Berkeley, California on August 24, 1943, John Cipollina represents the archetypal San Francisco 1965-1975 musician.
As a founding member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, John went on to perform and record with dozens of bands , blazing a trail from rock to blues to jazz over a brilliant twenty-five year career.
John Cipollina's guitar sounded like no other. His unique resonance touched people in places they didn't know existed. His signature sound will stand alone for all time as a part of the musical thread the San Francisco Bay Area has wrapped around the world.
John passed away from a lifelong respiratory ailment on May 29, 1989. He left behind a great musical contribution for his worldwide audience to enjoy. For those of us who knew him, we share the memory of a truly wonderful person, whose being so perfectly reflected the magic in his music.
In 1995 John's legendary amp stack was donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame , ensuring him a place in music history ...
The Official Jim Weider Band Site:
Jim Weider is a master of classic telecaster and traditional blues slide guitar techniques. He is one of a select group of musicians to have an endorsement from Fender, and has built an international reputation among fellow musicians and music fans world wide.
Jim has performed/recorded with such well known artists as:
The Band Bob Dylan
Los Lobos Robbie Dupree
Doctor John Taj Majhal
Mavis Staples Paul Butterfield
Scotty Moore Keith Richards
Hot Tuna Bob Weir/Rat Dog
Kim Wilson Paul Burlison
Lee Rocker Graham Parker.
Jim Weider, a master of classic telecaster guitar, is renowned for his rock and blues-based signature sound. He is among a select group of musicians with an endorsement from Fender and, for the past three decades, he's earned enormous respect from fellow musicians and music fans throughout the world.
Born and raised in the famed arts colony of Woodstock, NY, Jim received great acclaim during his long tenure (1985-2000) as lead guitarist (replacing Robbie Robertson) for Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductees, The Band. During 15 years of international touring with original members Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko, Jim was featured on numerous albums, films, videos and television appearances. Highlights included a 1990 performance with The Band and Ronnie Hawkins at The Berlin Wall concert produced by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd; several cable TV specials (notably "The Bob Dylan Tribute" at Madison Square Garden; "The Road," and "This Country's Rocking"); a performance and recording at the "Unofficial Blue Jean Bash" for President Clinton's 1993 Inaugural Ball, with special guests Bob Dylan, Steven Stills and Dr. John; a 1994 pay-per-view concert telecast from the Woodstock '94 Festival; and a 1995 appearance on the A&E Biography documentary "The Authorized Video Biography The Band" for cable TV and video, released by ABC Video ...
You may know Steve from The Sopranos (he plays Silvio Dante) or as the longtime guitarist from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Now you can get to know him as the coolest DJ in the country, a proud throwback to the late-night hipster jocks of long-gone 1960s and ‘70s FM radio.
- Kurt Loder, MTV News.com, April 15, 2002.
little steven's underground garage, sopranos, abc, cbs, fox, dj, bruce srpingsteen, southside johnny, asbury jukes, artist united against apartheid, darlene love, lone justice, gary u.s. bonds, michael monroe, lords of the new church, arc angels, songwriter, little steven and the disciples of soul, hearts of stone, sun city, rolling stone, the rising, born again savage, renegade nation, affection, peppers & eggs, nobody loves and leaves alive, the lost boys, jon weiss, caverstomp!,