About Me
Simply Red
Over their 25-year career, Simply Red brought their distinctive blue-eyed soul to the top of the charts everywhere, selling more than 50 million albums worldwide. Led by ginger-haired vocalist Mick Hucknall, the Manchester, England-based band took the classic R&B of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and brought it up to date with contemporary hints of reggae, rock, jazz, and pop.
Personally Signed by Warner Music UK A&R man Simon Potts and scouted by Saul Galpern, Simply Red released their debut album, Picture Book, via Elektra in 1985. The album was an international sensation, with singles including the funky U.S. top 30 hit, “Money’s Too Tight To Mention,” and Hucknall’s self-penned old school ballad, “Holding Back The Years.” The latter track was a universal smash, hitting #1 on Billboard’s “Hot 100” in July 1986 and spurring Picture Book to RIAA platinum certification.
Simply Red’s sophomore outing, Men and Women, was released in 1987, followed two years later by A New Flame. The RIAA gold-certified album was highlighted by the band’s second “Hot 100” chart-topper, a gold-certified cover of Harold Melvin & The Blue-Notes’ 1972 classic, “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” which Simply Red made a bigger hit the second time around.
Stars, the band’s fourth collection, was Europe’s best-selling album for two years running following its 1991 release. Certified gold in the U.S., the deeply personal, intensely political album turned Simply Red into megastars in their native UK, ultimately achieving 12-times platinum status. Over the next decade, the band released a string of UK multi-platinum hits, scoring #1 singles and albums as well as a trophy case full of honors like three Brit Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards (for songwriting and composing) and a MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Award.
In 2007, Hucknall announced the imminent end of Simply Red, declaring that the band would split at the end of their 2009/2010 tour, with a farewell concert slated for December 19th, 2010 at London’s O2 Arena. Ever anxious to stretch himself musically, Hucknall made his solo debut with his 2008 tribute album to the great Bobby “Blue” Bland and in 2010, stood in for lead singer Rod Stewart at a number of reunion concerts by The Faces.
Shinehead
In the late 1980s, Shinehead was among the influential artists who pioneered the now common blending of dancehall reggae with hip-hop. Born Edmund Carl Aiken in Kent, England, he eventually settled in New York, where he made his bones among the Bronx’s sound system scene.
Shinehead’s acclaimed 1990 Elektra debut, The Real Rock, saw the versatile vocalist showing off his many skills, from crooning to rapping to toasting inna DJ stylee. Where other crossover artists were concentrating on hip-hop elements, Shinehead’s music accentuated the sounds and riddims of Jamaica, from raggamuffin to lover’s rock to straight-up reggae. Songs like “Strive” and “Good Things” were buoyant and rhythmic, with lyrical messages of positivity and social consciousness.
Shinehead followed up two years later with Sidewalk University, which included his most popular single, “Jamaican In New York,” a lighthearted remake of Sting’s “Englishman In New York.” He left the label in 1995 but remains a potent force in the genre he helped create, now known simply as “reggae fusion.”
Saka Acquaye
Born in Accra, Ghana in 1923, Saka’s creative life began with music, as a popular leader of a Highlife band, Highlife is characterized by jazzy horns and multiple guitars. Recorded over 50 years ago the music still has the same propulsive energy as when it was first recorded at New York’s Columbia Hall in 1959.
Saka Acquaye would not have come to Elektra’s attention except for impresario Sol Hurok who toured the band and urged Jac Holzman to record them. The resulting album, Gold Coast Saturday Night, was later re-released by Elektra’s fraternal label, Nonesuch.
Remaining in the U.S. Saka Acuaye attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and also UCLA, with impressive careers as sculptor, painter and textile designer. He died in 2007.
Ruben Blades
Singer, songwriter, jazz musician, lawyer, activist, and politician, Rubén Blades pioneered the crossover of Latin dance music into the Anglo-American popular mainstream. The Panamanian-born superstar brought lyrical sophistication, experimental tempos, and politically inspired Nuyorican poetry to the irresistibly rhythmic music, creating salsa that was as intelligent as it was danceable.
Blades earned degrees in political science and law at the Universidad Nacional de Panama before moving to the U.S. in 1974 to begin his musical career. He started working in the New York City mailroom of legendary salsa label Fania Records, where his gift as a songwriter soon brought him to the attention of such superstars as Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow, and trombonist/bandleader Willie Colón, with whom he began collaborating.
1978 saw the release of Colón and Blades’ Siembra, which would go on to become the biggest-selling salsa album in history and bring Latin dance music to its widest audience to date.
In 1984, Blades signed with Elektra and assembled his own crack band that he dubbed alternatively “Seis del Solar” and “Son del Solar.” Their label debut, entitled Buscando América, saw Blades expanding his musical horizons to incorporate experimental textures and sociopolitical lyrical content. The following year, Escenas – featuring guest appearances from Linda Ronstadt and Joe Jackson – was honored with a “Best Tropical Latin Performance” Grammy – Blades’ first.
Nothing But The Truth, the first English-language album of Blades’ long career, arrived in 1988. The acclaimed recording featured contributions from three of Blades’ biggest fans in Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and Sting. Blades’ final Elektra release was 1990’s powerfully funky Rubén Blades Y Son del Solar…Live!
Blades has also pursued a remarkable range of other activities. He has acted in a number of films, including his breakthrough performance in 1985’s Crossover Dreams – which he co-wrote. In 1997, he made his Broadway debut, starring with Marc Anthony in Paul Simon and Derek Walcott’s The Capeman.
Long active in Panamanian politics, Blades put his artistic career on hold in 2004 to serve a five-year appointment as Panama’s Minister of Tourism. Upon the completion of his service, he returned to music in a big way by reuniting Seis del Solar to embark on a major tour of the Americas in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their now-classic Elektra debut, Buscando América.
Rhinoceros
In the wake of Cream, Blind Faith and Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield's "super session" recordings all of which brought top players together, Paul Rothchild's notion was to build: "a better supergroup, with quasi-famous people”. Rhinoceros was born out of auditions held in Laurel Canyon, the eventual group including Danny Weis on guitar, bassist Jerry Penrod, both out of Iron Butterfly, Doug Hastings, also on guitar, who had worked with Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield at Monterey, and, last to join, drummer Billy Mundi who had played with both Tim Buckley and the Mothers of Invention.
Rhinoceros’ chief flaw was their lack of great songs, however well they played as a unit. Rhinoceros worked on paper, but their self -titled debut didn’t live up to Rothchild’s hopes. More impressive than the music was Gene Szafran's stunning, brightly colored, beaded Rhinoceros cover art. Yet, “Apricot Brandy” remains as an often-requested track from their first album.
Queen
In 1972, Jac Holzman wrote an internal memo to his staff: “I have seen the future of pop music, and it is a band called Queen.”
Holzman fought hard to sign Queen against stiff competition from Columbia Records. He acquired them for Elektra in all major territories outside of Europe where they were signed to EMI. Holzman never doubted that Queen would make a worldwide impression, seeing them as dramatic and self-assured with a strong group dynamic not dissimilar to The Doors. Queen was also propelled by charismatic, flamboyant Freddie Mercury who would grow into one of rock’s greatest showmen in the mid-‘70s.
Queen’s records were powerful and inventive from the first. Queen became Britain‘s most consistently successful musical export for over two decades.
“Killer Queen,” from their third album Sheer Heart Attack gave the band its first U.S. hit. 1975’s A Night At The Opera and the following year’s A Day At The Races saw them break through as a spectacular live act, their shows dazzling and extravagantly staged.
In 1980, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Another One Bites The Dust” were both U.S. #1 hits – in the same year The Game mirrored that feat on the album charts.
Pointer Sisters
Elektra’s agreement with famed producer Richard Perry’s Planet Records gave the smaller label access to the marketing and distribution clout that only a major can provide. Among the successful results of the Planet/Elektra partnership were the revived fortunes of acclaimed R&B singing group the Pointer Sisters.
The Oakland, California-based group had achieved success with a number of R&B hits recorded while still a quartet. After a brief hiatus following the departure of sister Bonnie, the Pointer Sisters signed with Planet and returned as a trio comprising Ruth, Anita, and June. 1978’s RIAA gold-certified Energy included songs by some of the day’s biggest artists, including Steely Dan, Stephen Stills, and Bruce Springsteen, whose “Fire” became an RIAA gold-certified, #2 pop smash. The Pointers further explored their new rock-influenced sound on their next album, 1979’s Priority. Produced once again by Perry, the collection included a further Springsteen cover in “The Fever” alongside songs by Richard Thompson, Robbie Robertson, and Mick Jagger & Keith Richards.
Released the following year, Special Things saw the Pointer Sisters returning to their R&B roots, only now polished with Perry’s distinctly modern pop production. The result was another RIAA gold-certified success, fueled in part by the gold-certified, top 3 pop classic, “He’s So Shy.” The hits kept coming, with 1981’s Black & White yielding the #2-charting “Slow Hand.”
Elektra’s association with Planet Records ended in 1982, but its impact on the Pointer Sisters’ extraordinary career would continue – the trio went on to define ‘80s R&B dance-pop with such top 10 smashes as “I’m So Excited,” “Neutron Dance,” and “Jump (For My Love).”
Phish
Phish emerged in 1983 from the wreckage of several Vermont college bands. The improvisational quartet was co-founded by music composition student Trey Anastasio, whose senior thesis, an elaborate song cycle entitled “The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday,” became the core of Phish’s early repertoire. Uniquely combining a fondness for bluegrass, barbershop quartets, progressive rock’s big gestures, and the open-ended jamming of groups like The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Phish built a passionate following in New England, releasing their self-distributed cassette-only album, Junta, in 1988. Their small indie label folded shortly after the release of their second album, Lawn Boy, and Elektra seized the moment, reissuing their previous albums along with their RIAA gold-certified label debut, A Picture Of Nectar, in early 1992.
With committed major label backing, Phish ventured outside their New England stronghold and soon developed America’s most devoted fanbase, a loyal legion of fervent “Phishheads,” spellbound by the band’s inimitable blend of psychedelia, blues, jazz, country, funk, and whatever else might strike their fancy.
Despite little mainstream radio airplay, Phish unfurled a long string of gold-and-platinum-certified albums, including 2000’s Farmhouse, which included the band’s one-and-only “hit” single, “Heavy Things.” Phish’s journey culminated with 2004’s Undermind, after which the cult quartet called it quits “forever” with an emotional summer festival in Coventry, Vermont. However, Phish had a change of heart and returned to recording and touring together in 2009, now with no end in sight.
Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton were great friends but yin and yang in their approach to songwriting. Ochs early songs owed much to Woody Guthrie and to Bob Gibson with whom he had briefly collaborated. In New York he soon fell in with the more radical Greenwich Village set, recording some early songs for Broadside magazine, a song magazine dedicated to effecting change through song.
Ochs signed to Elektra in 1964 releasing two albums within a year, All The News That’s Fit To Sing and I Ain’t Marching Anymore. His early songs had an intense journalist’s ear for topicality and Ochs could nail his subject matter with an acerbic precision perfectly in tune with growing the antiwar and civil rights movements.
Two new songs that appeared on 1965’s Phil Ochs In Concert, introduced a gentler side, “There But For Fortune,” which provided Joan Baez with a hit single and the more reflective “Changes.” This led to a new phase in his career and a move away from Elektra and from New York to LA in an attempt to shake off his folk troubadour image. Ochs never entirely succeeded.
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