Sophie Ellis-Bextor is an English singer and songwriter. She first came to prominence in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the indie rock band Theaudience. The band released four singles, including the UK Top 40 hits “I Know Enough (I Don’t Get Enough)” and “A Pessimist is Never Disappointed”, and one self-titled album […]
The Great Society
The Great Society was a 1960s San Francisco rock band that existed from 1965 to 1966, and was closely associated with the burgeoning Bay Area acid rock scene. Best known as the original group of model-turned-singer Grace Slick, the initial lineup of the band also featured her then-husband Jerry Slick on drums, his brother Darby […]
Laurie Johnson
Laurie Johnson, who died in January 2024, was an English composer and bandleader who wrote scores for dozens of film and television series. He studied at the Royal College of Music, where his tutors included Herbery Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He spent four years in the Coldstream Guards (playing French horn) before moving to […]
Candi Staton
Canzetta Maria “Candi” Staton is an American singer–songwriter. Born in Hanceville, Alabama, Staton and her sister Maggie were sent to Nashville around the age 11 or 12 for school. While attending Jewell Christian Academy, Staton’s vocal abilities were soon noticed by her peers and the school’s pastor. Amazed by her voice, the pastor paired Staton […]
Susanne Sundfør
Susanne Aartun Sundfør is a Norwegian singer-songwriter and record producer. Born and raised in Haugesund. In 2006, she joined Norwegian band Madrugada on tour, performing their song “Lift Me”, a duet the band originally recorded in the studio with singer Ane Brun. In November 2006 she released her debut single “Walls”, which would climb to […]
Vaughan Williams – Easter (Five Mystical Songs)
The Five Mystical Songs are a musical composition by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), written between 1906 and 1911. The work sets four poems (“Easter” divided into two parts) by seventeenth-century Welsh poet and Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633), from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems. While Herbert was a priest, Vaughan Williams […]
Recessit Pastor Noster (Our Shepherd Has Departed)
Recessit Pastor Noster – today’s piece, written for a Tenebrae service for Holy Saturday, mourns the death of the Good Shepherd who has laid down his life for his sheep. After the sorrow of the Cross, the Church enters into the silence of Holy Saturday. On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb […]
Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei is the Latin name under which the “Lamb of God” is honoured within Christian liturgies descending from the historic Latin liturgical tradition, including those of Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism. It is the name given to a specific prayer that occurs in these liturgies, and is the name given to the music pieces […]
The Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet
The Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet have been set by various composers for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Thomas Tallis set the first lesson, and second lesson, of Tenebrae on Maundy Thursday between 1560, and 1569: “when the practice of making musical settings of the Holy Week readings from the Book of Jeremiah enjoyed a […]
Tavares
Tavares (also known as The Tavares Brothers) is an American R&B, funk and soul music group composed of five Cape Verdean-American brothers. They started performing in 1959 as Chubby and the Turnpikes when the youngest brother was nine years old. Future Aerosmoth drummer Joey Kramer appeared as the drummer with the group in a later […]