World-class Ego
Of all the great composers, none had a bigger ego than Richard Wagner (pronounced Ree-card Vawg-ner). Wagner (1813-1883) was famously...
Of all the great composers, none had a bigger ego than Richard Wagner (pronounced Ree-card Vawg-ner). Wagner (1813-1883) was famously...
Frank Sinatra was famous for “My Way”— the song and what it said about him. Music was personal for Sinatra. It was the one thing in his...
At the age of eight he was playing piano and composing music that your high-school music teacher could only dream of doing. It was only a...
“Roll over Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news,” sang Chuck Berry in one of Rock’s classics. It seems Pyotr (that's Peter to you)...
Beatles' producer George Martin called him "The Three-Minute Mozart". He was referring to Paul McCartney, of course, and to his gift for...
Robert Schumann achieved fame in the mid-nineteenth century--after Beethoven, and before Brahms and Wagner were recognized as musical...
Not all composers possess gigantic egos. Franz Schubert is a case in point. Shy, quiet, bespectacled, known but to a small cadre of...
Orchestral music had moved from the parlors of the nobility and into the public forums by the time Johannes Brahms made his mark in the...
If you were in Vienna in, say, 1780, and looking for the world-famous composer Wolfgang Mozart, chances are you’d find him at the local...
It took a year-and-a-half of waiting in anterooms, of personal humiliations, of lobbying the government for official recognition, and of...
How does he do it? Joan Baez wanted to know. How does Bob Dylan write such folk classics as “Masters Of War” and “Only A Pawn In Their...
The California of the 1850s that greeted the first wave of American settlers was primarily comprised of large, fenceless cattle ranches...
It seems ironic, even cruel, that the quintessential British racing driver, Graham Hill, should never have won the British Grand Prix. ...
One of the most famous roads in all the world is California Route One, a coastal highway that traverses the entire length of the state. ...
It was the ultimate gig. A 30-piece orchestra at your beck and call. The run of the palace, and servants to meet your every whim. ...
He’s the one who alienates half the dinner guests at your party, gets roaring drunk, makes a pass at your wife, breaks your $1,000 vase,...
Back in the mid-sixties, when the Beatles were hot, it seemed everyone was claiming to be "The Fifth Beatle"; in New York City, a popular...
There’s Frankenstein and there’s Frankenstein. There is a difference. There’s the classic Frankenstein movies of Universal Pictures,...
If you love baseball, and were lucky enough to have lived in Los Angeles some time in the past 60 years, then you are familiar with one...
How can you not love a girl who adores the Beatles, gets Frank Sinatra, loves Jazz, and who enjoys sitting under the stars at the...