Byrdie Green

Byrdie Green (occasionally credited as Birdie Green) (1936 – April 26, 2008) was a jazz and R&B singer from Michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Byrdie Green was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936. The daughter of a Baptist minister, she sang first in her father's church. Later she went to New York City and performed in clubs, and at one time was a protege of Ruth Brown. She was the first artist signed to Perri Records, who debuted with Green's single "Now is the Time For Love" b/w "Be Anything." She began recording with End Records and 20th Century Fox Records, cutting singles "How Come" b/w "Tremblin'" and "Get a Hold of Yourself" b/w "Don't Take Your Love From Me" in the early 1960s. The song "Get a Hold of Yourself" is a blend of blues and gospel, and Billboard calls it "a slew rockaballad" and "her strongest item." Green performed at many popular venues, including The Apollo, Baby Grand, The Cookery and Pier 52, as well as Rutgers University, in Boston and in Bermuda. Around 1965, she was hired by organist Johnny "Hammond" Smith and signed with Prestige Records. Smith's The Stinger Meets the Golden Thrush was released in 1966, with Green singing on "They Call It Stormy Monday" and "If I Ruled The World."

 

 

 

 

 

 

That same year Green released her first solo full-length The Golden Thrush Strikes at Midnight, featuring Smith on organ on "Goin' Out of My Head," "The Shadow of Your Smile" and "Hurt So Bad." She released two more albums, I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) in 1967, which featured Smith, Houston Person, Thornel Schwartz and Jimmy Lewis, and Sister Byrdie! in 1968. The same year, she appeared on a Nipsey Russell TV show, and, at a performance in New York, was asked by Frank Sinatra to sing an extra set of songs.

After a nine year break, Green returned to perform at Carnegie Recital Hall in a show entitled Byrdie Green Sings the Blues on March 7, 1975, and continued to work on tour with The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.  In the 1980s she sang at Lickety Split, Adam Clayton Powell Blvd, Sutton's and at Jimmy Weston's, sometimes accompanied by Walter Bishop Jr.

Green died from a chronic illness at St. Luke's Hospital on April 26, 2008, and was eulogized at Mt. Neboh Church in New York City on May 3, 2008.

Lijadu Sisters

The Lijadu Sisters (born 22 October 1948), Taiwo and Kehinde Lijadu (died 9 November 2019), were identical twin sisters from Nigeria who were a music duo from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. They achieved success in Nigeria and had modest influence in the United States and Europe. They were notable mixing Afrobeat sounds with jazz and disco. 

 

 

 

 

 

The twins grew up in the Nigerian city of Ibadan, and were inspired musically by various artists including Aretha Franklin, Victor Olaiya and Miriam Makeba. Their music was a mix of Jazz, Afrobeat, Reggae and Waka. Sometimes they sang in English and other times in African languages. One of their first songs was arranged with assistance from jazz saxophone player Orlando Julius. They released their first album Iya Mi Jowo in 1969 after winning a record contract with Decca Records. They worked with the late Biddy Wright on their third album Danger (1976). They recorded Sunshine in 1978 and Horizon Unlimited in 1979.

 

The sisters were top stars in Nigeria during the 1970s and 1980s. During these years, they branched out to America and Europe and found modest success. They performed with drummer Ginger Baker's band Salt at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in Munich at the World Music Festival. In 1984 Shanachie Records released Double Trouble in the US which was a compilation of their previously recorded material from their albums Horizon Unlimited and Danger. Their song "Orere Elejigbo" was included on a double CD entitled Nigeria 70, Africa 100, and was added to the Roots & Wings playlist in 1997.

The sisters moved to Brooklyn. They performed in various venues including the lower Manhattan club Wetlands and in Harlem with King Sunny Adé's African Beats as their backing band. They performed with the Philadelphia-based band Philly Gumbo. They were featured in the music documentary Konkombé by English director Jeremy Marre, and their music was featured in the Nigerian instalment of the 14-episode world music series entitled Beats of the Heart which aired on PBS during the late 1980s.



On 1 April 2014, they appeared live at an all-star tribute, the Atomic! Bomb Band, for reclusive Nigerian musician William Onyeabor at the Barbican Centre in London. They sang some of their own tracks including "Danger", as well as providing backing and lead vocals on William Onyeabor material. They also performed with the Atomic! Bomb Band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and on tour dates in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles in May 2014.

 

 

On 9 November 2019, Kehinde suffered a stroke and died on the same day, at the age of 71.

The Charmaines

The Charmaines were an American female vocal trio of the 1960s. Supported by Irene Vinegar and Dee Watkins, the group's lead singer and sometime lyricist was Gigi Jackson. Born Marian Jackson, and later known as Gigi Griffin, Jackson had started her career in a family band called the Jackson Sisters. On certain recordings Watkins was replaced by Gigi's sister Jerri Jackson who later recorded in her own right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Charmaines were considered Cincinnati's leading female R&B trio in the early 1960s, notably as a backing unit for many better known artists on the King label including Conway Twitty, James Brown, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Little Willie John, Bobby Freeman and Gary U.S. Bonds. As a group in their own right, The Charmaines' first single was Rockin’ Old Man (late 1960) with lyrics by Jackson and backed with If You Were Mine. The nearest they came to a hit was #117 on the billboard chart in 1961 with What Kind Of Girl (Do You Think I Am) which out-sold a rival version of the same song by Erma Franklin. 

It was in the time left over at the end of one of their King recording sessions that fellow Fraternity artist Lonnie Mack got the opportunity to record his first improvised hit Memphis. The Charmaines went on to appear on Lonnie Mack's best-known album Wham of That Memphis Man as well as recordings of comedian-singer Jack Larson. They would also record for Columbia and other labels - including two Canadian labels, Red Leaf ("Hypnotized" / "The One For Me") and RCA Canada (backing Lynda Layne on "I'm Your Pussycat") - when they were based out of Toronto ca. 1965.

In 2006 a 28-track compilation of the trio's 1960s recordings was issued on Ace Records and described by Record Collector as a delight for Northern fans and all girl group collectors. In 2012, NME celebrated The Charmaines as one of the unfairly forgotten girl groups of the 1960s. On the death of Lonnie Mack in April 2016, The Charmaines were one of the groups featured in a Lonnie Mack special on Classic 21's radio show Dr Boogie.

Katrina and the Waves

Katrina and the Waves were a British rock band widely known for the 1985 hit "Walking on Sunshine". The band's earliest incarnation was as the Waves, a group that played in and around Cambridge, from 1975 to 1977. The Waves featured guitarist Kimberley Rew and drummer Alex Cooper. This incarnation of the Waves did not issue any recordings, and broke up when Rew left to join the Soft Boys. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A more direct ancestor of Katrina and the Waves was the band Mama's Cookin', a pop cover band from Feltwell. This band, founded in 1978, featured American Katrina Leskanich on vocals and keyboards, and fellow American, Vince de la Cruz on vocals and lead guitar. By late 1980, Alex Cooper had joined the band on drums, with Bob Jakins on bass. Mama's Cookin' proceeded to gig steadily in England over the next two years.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When The Soft Boys broke up in 1981, Rew contacted his old Wave-mate Cooper to see about renewing their musical partnership. Cooper convinced Rew to join Mama's Cookin', and the five-piece group (Leskanich/Rew/Cooper/de la Cruz/Jakins) was quickly renamed the Waves after the band Rew and Cooper had been in together in the mid-1970s. Over the first year of the Waves' existence, Rew began to write material for Leskanich to sing, and she was soon the primary vocalist. A year later bassist Jakins left the band, and de la Cruz took over on bass. Now a quartet, the Waves issued the single "Brown Eyed Son" in the UK in August 1982 before permanently renaming themselves Katrina and the Waves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In early 1983, the fledgling band recorded, at their own expense, an album of their original material designed to be sold at gigs. The album was shopped around to various labels, but only Attic Records in Canada responded with an offer. Consequently, although they were based in England, Katrina and the Waves' first album Walking on Sunshine was only released in Canada. The album garnered enough critical attention and radio play (especially for the title track) to merit a Canadian tour. In 1984, the group released a follow-up album in Canada (Katrina and the Waves 2), with Leskanich now handling all the lead vocals. Rew was still the primary songwriter, but de la Cruz was also responsible for a few songs, including the Canadian airplay hit "Mexico". Also in 1984, the band received their first ever airplay on BBC Radio 1 when DJ Richard Skinner played the track "Que te quiero", whilst their song "Going Down to Liverpool" was covered by the Bangles, which added to their profile. With the group building a fan base with their recordings and extensive touring, major label interest began to build, and Katrina and the Waves eventually signed an international deal with Capitol Records in 1985.

 

 

 

A follow-up single to "Walking on Sunshine" called "Do You Want Crying" (written by de la Cruz) also became a top 40 US hit, reaching no. 37 in the late summer of 1985. However, the band's follow-up album to Katrina and the Waves (simply entitled Waves) did not meet with the same measure of success, either critically or commercially. Capitol dropped the band after the Waves album. The band subsequently recorded a 1989 album for Capitol-distributed SBK Records called Break of Hearts, a harder, more rock-oriented effort than their previous releases. The album included "That's the Way" which reached no. 16 in the US (credited to Leskanich/Rew), but subsequent singles, including "Rock 'n' Roll Girl", failed to chart, and the band once again were dropped from their label.

 

 

On 3 May 1997, the band won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with the song "Love Shine a Light". The song won by a then-record margin of 70 points over the Irish runner-up. "Love Shine a Light" became Katrina and the Waves' biggest-ever UK hit, peaking at no. 3 in the UK Singles Chart.

 

 

Despite their return to the public eye in the UK, Katrina and the Waves were not able to follow up "Love Shine a Light" with another hit, and Leskanich left the group in 1998 after several disagreements within the band. The three remaining group members eventually dissolved the band to pursue individual careers in 1999.

Vivien Goldman

Vivien Goldman (born 1952) is a British journalist, writer and musician. She began her career as a journalist for Cassettes and Cartridges. She then became a PR officer for Atlantic Records and then Island Records, where she worked with Bob Marley. She was a writer and editor for London-based Sounds magazine in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s she began making documentaries for Channel Four television, developing and producing the world-music show Big World Cafe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goldman lived in Paris for a year and a half, where she was a member of new wave duo Chantage, which gained modest fame in France. She released the Dirty Washing EP in 1981, with tracks produced by John Lydon and Adrian Sherwood. The EP appeared first on Ed Bahlman's iconic 99 Records imprint on 3 June 1981.

 

 

 

 

 

In August 1981, two of the tracks from the EP, "Launderette" and "Private Armies," were issued as a 7" single in the UK. Later the song "Launderette" was included on Gomma Records' "Anti NY" compilation and the Chicks On Speed-produced Girl Monster collection. In that year she also contributed vocals (on the track "Private Armies," which is actually "Private Armies Dub", or "P.A. Dub", from the EP) to the New Age Steppers' self-titled debut.

Goldman wrote for the music magazines NME, Sounds and Melody Maker about reggae, punk and post-punk. She was a member of The Flying Lizards and is listed in the writing credits along with the band Massive Attack on the song "Sly". She also appeared in the song "Vetar i zastave"(Wind and flags), with the Yugoslavian band "Idoli"(Idols) in 1983.

The Delmontes

The Delmontes were a Edinburgh indiepop quintet active between 1979 and 1983. Original members were Mike Berry (guitar), Gordon Simpson (bass), Bernice Simpson (drums), vocalist Julie Hepburn (nee Hogg) and keyboard player Gillian Miller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The roots of the band lie in an earlier outfit called Strange Daze, with a keen interest in The Doors, although Mike and Gordon's burgeoning interest in garage and psychedelic music soon expanded to include the 13th Floor Elevators, Seeds, Electric Prunes, Red Crayola and Golden Dawn, along with the seminal Nuggets compilation album. Along with Ronnie Gurr and John McTernan, Mike Berry and Gordon Simpson were also responsible for punk fanzine Hanging Around, a cultural mix reflected in Strange Daze's valiant attemps to fuse vintage psychedelia with contemporary post-punk.

 

 

 

 

 

The band's progress was enhanced by the recruitment of accomplished keyboard player Gillian Miller, complete with vintage Farfisa organ and handy backing vocals, and by the end of the year Strange Daze had become The Delmontes. Much of 1980 was spent rehearsing, and playing live dates around Scotland with the likes of Orange Juice, Fire Engines, Revillos and The Associates, at venues including Teviot Row in Edinburgh and Paisley's celebrated Bungalow Bar.

The band released just two singles on indie label Rational Records: Tous les Soirs (1980) and Don't Cry Your Tears (1981). Boasting a poised avant-retro sound and vision (three of the five band members were female), the band anticipated several later indie trends, including C86, Creation, Sarah and TweeNet. Both DinDisc and Zoo Records competed to sign the group, who completed a full UK tour with the Teardrop Explodes, but sadly this potential went unfulfilled, and The Delmontes split at the beginning of 1983.

Mila Jam

Mila Jam is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, actress and LGBTQ activist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jahmila Adderley, known as Mila Jam, was born in Aurora, Illinois, on February 22, 1989. Before continuing her career in New York City at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she performed in several national stage productions and televisions commercials. She performed as the popular YouTube impersonator Britney Houston. She is known for creating parodies of popular videos and posting them on YouTube within days of the original videos' releases. She began creating her parodies while in the national touring company of Rent.

 

 

 

 

 

For her parody of the Pussycat Dolls' song When I Grow Up, Jam recruited four drag queens to serve as the "Britney Cat Dolls".[17] She choreographed and starred in the 2008 MTV original television pilot Newsical, which was not picked up. She recorded the song "And The Crowd Goes", which was written and produced by Jonny McGovern and released on his compilation, The East Village Mixtape 2: The Legends Ball, and is working on an album of original material. The song also features NYC-based LGBTQ rapper Jipsta. Mila has toured internationally with the Broadway musical RENT, has performed alongside James Brown, Mark Ronson, Laverne Cox, Travis Wall, Jody Watley, Lady Kier(Deee-Lite) & Natasha Bedingfield. She has appeared on the BBC's The Lilly Allen Show, MTV and MTV NEWS, and featured in special articles in The Hugffington Post, Billboard, BOSSIP, MTV.com, OUT.com and Perezhilton.com. Mila has also been a frequent host of the original YouTube talk show series titled I’m From Driftwood.

Mila Jam's video Faces was released to coincide with International Trans Day of Visibility and she was joined in the video by Laverne Cox, Tituss Burgess, Candis Cayne, Geena Rocero, Peppermint, Transparent's Zackary Drucker, Trace Lysette and Nathan Lee Graham. The song has been called an anthem for the LGBTQ movement and focuses on one's self acceptance, inner beauty, and sense of belonging.