Those hundreds of songs the trio members found around their Virginia and Tennessee homes, after being sung by A.P., Sara, and Maybelle, became Carter songs, even though these were folk songs and in the public domain. A.P., the family patriarch, collected hundreds of British/Appalachian folk songs and, in arranging these for recording, enhanced the pure beauty of these "facts-of-life tunes" and at the same time saved them for future generations. It's unlikely that bluegrass music would have existed without the Carter Family. Carter and two reserved country girls - his wife, Sara, and their sister-in-law, Maybelle - the Carter Family sang a pure, simple harmony that influenced not only the numerous other family groups of the '30s and the '40s, but folk, bluegrass, and rock musicians like Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe, the Kingston Trio, Doc Watson, Bob Dylan, and Emmylou Harris, to mention just a few. Comprised of a gaunt, shy gospel quartet member named Alvin P. Along with Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family were among the first country music stars. The most influential group in country music history, the Carter Family switched the emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals, made scores of their songs part of the standard country music canon, and made a style of guitar playing, "Carter picking," the dominant technique for decades. His most successful year was 1963, when he scored two British number one hits one of the chart-toppers, "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)," a cover of a Rudy Vallée hit, made it to the middle reaches of the U.S. Later that year, he went to London, and had his first British hit in 1960 with "Lucky Devil." He remained in England and in 1962 became a star with his yodeling classic "I Remember You." The song stayed at the top of the British charts for over two months, and when released in the States it hit number five on the pop charts. By 1959, Ifield was appearing on all three of the Sydney television channels. Ifield signed with EMI Australia in 1953 and released two successful singles, including "There's a Loveknot in My Lariat." Soon he was hosting a weekly television show, Campfire Favourites. He appeared on other radio shows as well, finally landing on the traveling Ted Quigg Show, where he stayed for many years. While still in his teens, he became a regular on Bonnington's Bunkhouse, a popular radio program, and dropped out of school to pursue a music career full-time. His father was an inventor and engineer famed for creating the Ifield pump, a device used in fuel systems for jet aircraft. He was born in England, and moved to Australia in 1948. charts during the early '60s, Australian singer/songwriter/yodeler Frank Ifield was one of the more original country artists to come from outside North America. ![]() The most successful recording artist in the U.K. Connolly was a musician and comedian who'd found that telling jokes from the stage was as appealing an activity to him - and the audience - as making music. ![]() Enter Billy Connolly, late of Scottish bands like the Skillet Lickers and the Acme Brush Company. By 1968, at age 21, Rafferty was a singer/guitarist and had started trying to write songs professionally, and was looking for a gig of his own. His father was deaf but still enjoyed singing, mostly Irish rebel songs, and his early experience of music was a combination of Catholic hymns, traditional folk music, and '50s pop music. Gerry was born in Paisley, Scotland in 1947, the son of a Scottish mother and an Irish father. His career long predated that fixture of Top 40 radio, however indeed, by the time he cut "Baker Street" Rafferty had already been a member of two successful groups, the Humblebums and Stealers Wheel. Gerry Rafferty was a popular music giant at the end of the '70s, thanks to the song "Baker Street" and the album City to City. ![]() Atlantic Records acquired the Robins in 1955, when the Leiber & Stoller composition "Smokey Joe's Cafe" was becoming too big a hit for their small Spark label to handle its success scored the duo an independent contract with Atlantic as producers and composers. The Coasters grew out of a successful Los Angeles doo wop group called the Robins, which had been recording since 1949 and working with Leiber & Stoller since 1953. ![]() That engaging and infectious combination made them one of the most popular early R&B/rock & roll acts, as well as one of the most consistently entertaining doo wop/vocal groups of all time. Their undeniably funny lyrics and on-stage antics might have suggested a simple troupe of clowns, but Coasters records were no mere novelties - their material, supplied by the legendary team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, was too witty, their arrangements too well-crafted, and the group itself too musically proficient. The Coasters were one of the few artists in rock history to successfully straddle the line between music and comedy.
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