Happy Birthday ANDY FLETCHER (video)

#andyfletcher #rockfile

Andy Fletcher (born 8 July 1961), popularly known as "Fletch", is an English keyboardist and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode.

In the late 1970s, Fletcher and schoolmate Vince Clarke formed the short-lived band No Romance in China, in which Fletcher played bass guitar. In 1980, Fletcher met Martin Gore at the Van Gogh Pub on Paycocke Road in Basildon. With Clarke, the trio, now all on synthesizer, formed another group called Composition of Sound. Clarke served as chief songwriter and also provided lead vocals until singer Dave Gahan was recruited into the band later that year, after which they adopted the name Depeche Mode at Gahan's suggestion. Clarke left the group in late 1981, shortly after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell.

Their 1982 follow-up, A Broken Frame, was recorded as a trio, with Gore taking over primary songwriting duties. Musician & producer Alan Wilder joined the band in late 1982 and the group continued as a quartet until Wilder's departure in 1995. Since then, the core trio of Gahan, Gore and Fletcher have remained active, most recently releasing the 2013 album Delta Machine, and with the ensuing world tour, which concluded in early 2014.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday JOHN KEEBLE (video)

#johnkeeble #rockfile

John Leslie Keeble (born 6 July 1959 in Hampstead, London) is an English pop musician, who is the drummer with the 1980s new wave band, Spandau Ballet.

Spandau Ballet disbanded in 1990, after their final studio album, Heart Like a Sky, failed to live up to the critical and commercial success of their earlier albums, such as True and Parade.

Keeble has consistently played in the Tony Hadley Band, and was on tour throughout 2006. He also played drums on Fish's 1989 hit single "State of Mind".

He has also formed his own band, I PLAY ROCK, with whom he plays drums.

On 25 March 2009, John Keeble joined the rest of his original classic-line-up Spandau Ballet bandmates for a press conference at HMS Belfast, to announce that the band had reformed for a world tour starting in Dublin in October 2009.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday ROBBIE ROBERTSON (video)

#robbierobertson #rockfile

Robbie Robertson, OC (born Jaime Royal Robertson; July 5, 1943) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. As a songwriter, Robertson is credited for such songs as "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Up On Cripple Creek", "Broken Arrow" and "Somewhere Down the Crazy River". He has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday PAUL BARRERE (video)

#paulbarrere #littlefeat #rockfile

Paul Barrere (born July 3, 1948, Burbank, California, United States) is a member of the band Little Feat, founded in 1969 by Lowell George having joined the band in 1972. Barrere has also recorded and performed with many notable musicians including Taj Mahal, Jack Bruce, Chicken Legs, Blues Busters, Valerie Carter, Helen Watson, Chico Hamilton, Robert Palmer, Eikichi Yazawa, and Carly Simon. Paul can be seen in the 1979 Nicolette Larson Warner Brothers promotional video of "Lotta Love".

Some of Barrere's best known contributions to Little Feat as a songwriter include "Skin It Back", and "Feats Don't Fail Me Now" from the album Feats Don't Fail Me Now, "All That You Dream" from The Last Record Album, "Time Loves a Hero" from Time Loves a Hero, and "Down on the Farm" from Down on the Farm.

Barrere is a swing man as a guitarist who plays a wide variety of styles of music including blues, rock, jazz, and cajun music and is proficient as a slide guitarist.

Barrere also records and tours as an acoustic duo with fellow Little Feat member Fred Tackett.

Barrere played several concerts with Phil Lesh and Friends in October 1999 and from March to June 2000. He has also toured with Bob Dylan, and most recently, he has been writing and recording with Roger Cole for their own label BetterDaze records as well as making videos for some of their newest songs.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday DEBORAH HARRY (video)

#deborahharry #rockfile

Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry (born July 1, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known as the lead singer of the new wave and punk rock band Blondie. She recorded several number one singles with Blondie and is sometimes considered the first rapper to chart at number one in the United States as well, due to her work on "Rapture". She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she recorded and performed with The Jazz Passengers. Her acting career spans over thirty film roles and numerous television appearances.

Harry was born in Miami, Florida, and adopted by Catherine (Peters) and Richard Smith Harry, gift shop proprietors in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She attended Hawthorne High School, where she graduated in 1963. She graduated from Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey, with an Associate of Arts degree in 1965. Before starting her singing career she moved to New York City in the late 1960s and worked as a secretary at BBC Radio's office there for one year. Later, she was a waitress at Max's Kansas City, a go-go dancer in a Union City, New Jersey, discothèque, and a Playboy Bunny.

In the late 1960s, Deborah Harry began her musical career as a backing singer for the folk rock group, The Wind in the Willows, which released one self-titled album in 1968 on Capitol Records. The group also recorded a second album, which was never released and the studio tapes remain lost.

In 1974, Harry joined The Stilettoes with Elda Gentile and Amanda Jones. Her eventual boyfriend and Blondie guitarist, Chris Stein, joined the band shortly after

After leaving The Stilettoes, Harry and Stein formed Angel and the Snake with Tish and Snooky Bellomo. Shortly thereafter, Harry and Stein formed Blondie, naming it after the term of address men often called her when she bleached her hair blonde. Blondie quickly became regulars at Max's Kansas City and CBGB in New York City. After a debut album in 1976, commercial success followed in the late 1970s to the early 1980s, first in Australia and Europe, then in the United States.

source: wikipedia

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