Show Biz

January 2008

What is Soul music? Soul Music is a music genre that combines rhythm and blues and gospel music, originating in the United States. According to the Rock

hall of Fame Soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of secular testifying. The genre occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds. Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and plastic body moves, are an important feature.

Other characteristics are a call and response between the soloist and the chorus, and an especially tense vocal sound.

What is Rock music? Rock Music is a loosely-defined genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other

influences. In turn, rock music drew on many other musical influences, including folk music, jazz, and classical music.

The sound of rock often revolves around the electric guitar or acoustic guitar, and it uses a strong back beat laid down by a rhythm section of electric bass guitar, drums, and keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or, since the 1970s, digital synthesizers. Along with the guitar or keyboards, saxophone and blues-style harmonica are sometimes used as soloing instruments. In its "purest form", it "has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody." In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rock music developed different subgenres. When it was blended with folk music it created folk rock, with blues to create blues-rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion. In the 1970s, a popular group called Freddy Pink began to incorporate influences from soul, funk, and latin music creating the term “Rock and Soul”.

What is Rock and Soul music? Rock and Soul music is a culmination of Blues, Gospel, Funk, Rock,

and Soul music, particularly soul music with funkier roots. It may also contain derivatives of latin music. What sets rock and Soul Music apart is the fact that it is typically felt, as opposed to listened to. Researchers have found that Rock and Soul music enters the central nervous system through the heart and not necessarily the auditory system, and almost always causes spontaneous movement of the hips, upper body, and limbs, of it’s listeners. According to studies at several of the nations leading medical centers, including the Mayo Clinic, Rock and soul music may contain certain healing benefits, and may promote health among the depressed and in-firmed. It has been found to produce a sense of well-being, and is used by dermatologists for the promotion of healthy tissue, tissue rejuvenation, and the reduction of laugh lines, crows feet, and those funny little brown patches that seem to appear out of nowhere.

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Rock & Soul?

By Gordon Yancey

Legendary Soul Singer James Brown

Legendary Rock Guitarist Jimi Hendrix

Legendary Rock & Soul Trumpeter DRC

Pics Of The Month

Back Stage Washington State Convention and Trade Center.

Marty demonstrates how to deal with unruly horn players.

Russian Cosmonauts, Association of Space Explorers

This is Marty, Mike and Kirk, hanging at the Space Needle with two of the former Soviet Unions most decorated “Heros of Russia”. Yuri and Gregori. It was quite and honor to perform for them. The audience was made up of Astronauts and Cosmonauts who had orbited the earth at least twice.

BAND SPEAK

By Gordon Yancey

I would like to write about epiphanies, and I’ll start by stating that I recently had one, however I won’t go into the circumstances surrounding it, that could be boring, or worse, construed as common. It has recently occurred to me that all those old guys that told me to enjoy it now, or make my mark now, or you can’t take it with you, and life is short, and it’s a short ride, you need to make every second count, well.........I’m pretty sure they were right.

At this juncture, or this crossroads, for lack of a cooler and more soulful music visual, I believe I am on the right track. I’m performing steadily with some of the best talent on the west coast, I have a wonderful family who supports my music and what I am, not what I do. I have met literally thousands of people, some who actually seem to enjoy what I bring to the plate, and at times actually tell me so. I have made some great friendships with the guys I work with, as well as the techs and staff of the various event companies, and production crews I work with. So what was so so eye opening about my recent experience, what was so profound about this epiphany that it would cause me to write an introspection. For starters.......I was going to be a Rock Star!

It was around 1966, when I was attending James Madison Jr. High in West Seattle, that I would tear home from the bus stop after school, feel for the key above the door jam, dump my books and coat in a heap in the middle of the foyer, and race for my record collection to throw an LP on my parent’s Silvertone Hi Fi. I loved groups like Paul Revere and The Raiders”, The “Standells”,“The Stones”, and the group “Them”. That was Van Morrison’s first group, where he sang the smash hit “Gloria. That old stereo was a fine piece of fine cherry veneer furniture with two forward facing twelve inch speakers, and two twelves facing out, sideways from each end. “ I would crank that thing up so loud (full-blast) as we used to say, where the speakers were actually flapping. You could actually feel the air being moved in front of them. The electronics and speakers, as low-tech as they were, were beautifully matched for the equally poor recordings back then, but jeeze that thing made those bands sound great! I was in all of those bands, and I mean all of them, and I’ll explain. Through album liner notes and various music rags, I knew all of their names, their habits, the members individual idiosyncrasies, their hobbies, and their love lifes. I read everything about them that I could get my hands on. I worked with them all right there in my parents living room, and I had cool conversations with them onstage, right in front of the mirror that hung over my parents upright piano, I grooved with them, and got down with them hard, as I strummed my sisters JC Higgins cat-gut string tennis racket to their infectious three chord tunes. I knew all of those cats, and they knew me, We grooved together. Two of my best friends would occasionally join me with their tennis rackets, and after performing as a trio to one of those great tunes, with me fronting...of course, we would sit back and talk about making a band. They were exciting times indeed, for me and my buds, but my dream was quite a bit deeper than theirs. The music moved me in such a way, that I became one with it as I flailed with 360 degree Pete Townshend-like arm motions over the strings of my sisters racket. I was way ahead of my time. The thought of hanging with, and actually becoming one those Rock Gods was more than a dream to me, I could feel it, taste it, and was actually living on stage with them....all day everyday. I was constantly getting in trouble at school for beating out rhytms on my desktop, either by hand, or with two #2 pencils for drumsticks.

So once again, here I am at one of life’s crossroads. One of my old tennis racket band-mates became an engineer, the other, an Anesthesiologist, so like most guys in their mid-life who took up music as a full-time career, i occasionally ask myself, what did i become, how will i leave my mark. Well.......

Okay, I didn’t become a rock Star per-say. I haven’t written a triple platinum CD, You will rarely find me hanging with Clapton or John Mayer, and I don’t own a home in Beverly hills, Brentwood, Malibu, Maydenbauer Bay, or Hunts Point. The home I do live in does not have a fancy name like Hurtwood Edge, or Willsington Manor, I don’t summer in the Hamptons, and I don’t really own my own jet. Heck...I don’t even own time in a Flex-Jet. Most of my personal banking is done onshore, with the exception of a gig I played for Seattle’s Seafair Hydroplane races on Lake Washington. We were out on the course, rafted up to the log-boom on what was called “the Commodores Barge” I wasn’t making much money back then, and ran out after purchasing a couple of beers during the Blue Angels half-time show. I had no choice but to seek an advance from the event planer , and frankly, that was the closest I have ever been to offshore banking. So there you have it...I don’t own many of the material things that some people would associate with being a “Rock Star”, however I do have is an unlimited supply of happiness. Yup! Lots and lots of happiness!!! In fact, I have more happiness than I know what to do with. As I mentioned, I have a wonderful family, a solid roof over my head, and good food on the table. I am actually making a living doing what I love to do, and hopefully sharing some of the happiness that has been bestowed upon me because of it. Funny thing is....When I think back about what it was like imagining to be a great musician, I had a deep sense of excitement inside, I was so very hopeful of the things life had in store for me, and I yearned to hang with the great guys that made that incredible music. So recently I says to myself.....Guess what? You’re doin’ it! However it is tough to sing the Blues......