Happy Birthday SUSANNA HOFFS (video)

#susannahoffs #thebangles #rockfile

Susanna Lee Hoffs (born January 17, 1959) is an American vocalist, guitarist and actress. She is best known as a co-founder of The Bangles.

Hoffs was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother played Beatles music for Hoffs when she was a child, and she began playing the guitar in her teens. Hoffs attended Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, graduating in 1976. While in college she worked as a production assistant and made her acting debut in the 1978 film Stony Island.

In 1980, Hoffs graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor's degree in art. When she entered Berkeley, she was a fan of classic rock bands that played in large stadiums. While a student at Berkeley, she attended the final Sex Pistols show at Winterland Ballroom and a Patti Smith concert. Exposure to punk rock changed her career goal from a dancer to musician in a band. She eventually joined Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson in what would later become the pop music group The Bangles.

The Bangles' first recorded release was a self-titled EP in 1982 on the Faulty Products Label. The Bangles released their first full album All Over the Place in 1984 on Columbia Records. They had a moderate hit with the single "Hero Takes a Fall", but their commercial breakthrough came with the album Different Light in 1986, which produced the hit singles "Manic Monday", "If She Knew What She Wants", and "Walk Like an Egyptian".

The Bangles disbanded in 1989 but in the late 1990s, Hoffs contacted the other members of The Bangles with the hope of reuniting. They recorded the single "Get the Girl" for the second Austin Powers movie in 1999. Subsequently, they announced their decision to reunite full-time in 2000. Their fourth album, Doll Revolution, was released in 2003.

Hoffs released a solo album, When You're a Boy, in 1991, which spawned a U.S Top 40 hit with "My Side of the Bed." In the UK the single landed at #44, for only 4 weeks on chart, and the album also landed decently in Europe.

Hoffs recorded another album in 1993-94, prior to leaving Columbia Records, but it went unreleased. In 1996, Hoffs released her second solo album, Susanna Hoffs. Although it received much praise in the media and yielded a minor US hit and a UK hit at #33 for 2 weeks with a cover of the Lightning Seeds single "All I Want", it still was not a big commercial success.

Mike Myers, Matthew Sweet, and Hoffs formed the faux British 1960s band Ming Tea after Myers' Saturday Night Live stint in the early 1990s. They all adopted pseudonyms for the band, with Hoffs using the name Gillian Shagwell and Myers creating Austin Powers. This group made a number of club and television performances and had a minor hit with the song "BBC". Myers's then wife Robin Ruzan encouraged him to write a film based on the character. The result was Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, directed by Hoffs' husband Jay Roach. Ming Tea performed in all three Austin Powers films.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday MICK TAYLOR (video)

#micktaylor #therollingstones #rockfile

Michael Kevin Taylor (born 17 January 1949) is an English musician, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1966–69) and the Rolling Stones (1969–74). He has appeared on some of the Stones' classic albums including Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St..

Since leaving the Rolling Stones in December 1974, Taylor has worked with numerous other artists and released several solo albums. From November 2012 onwards he participated in the Stones' 50th-Anniversary shows in London and Newark, and in the band's 50 & Counting World Tour, which included North America, Glastonbury Festival and Hyde Park in 2013. The band decided to continue in 2014 with concerts in the UAE, Far East & Australia and Europe for the 14 On Fire tour. He was ranked 37th in Rolling Stone magazine's 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash states that Taylor had the biggest influence on him.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday DONALD FAGEN (video)

 #donaldfagen #steelydan #rockfile

Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder (along with partner Walter Becker) and lead singer of the rock band Steely Dan.

Fagen is known for his use of jazz harmonies, elaborate arrangements and attention to detail. Following the initial breakup of Steely Dan in 1981, he launched a long-running, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning four albums to date. The fourth album—Sunken Condos—was released on October 16, 2012. In 1993, Fagen and Becker reunited and have since toured and released more albums as Steely Dan.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday AYNSLEY DUNBAR (video)

#aynsleydunbar #rockfile

Aynsley Thomas Dunbar (born 10 January 1946) is an English drummer. He has worked with some of the top names in rock, including Nils Lofgren, Eric Burdon, John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, Jefferson Starship, Jeff Beck, David Bowie, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar, Michael Schenker, UFO, Flo & Eddie and Journey. Dunbar is ranked by Rolling Stone as the twenty-seventh greatest drummer of all time.

Dunbar turned down both Jimmy Page's offer to form Led Zeppelin and Robert Fripp's to start King Crimson from out of the ashes of Giles, Giles & Fripp; quit the original Jeff Beck Group lineup over Jeff's notorious career-casualness (Dunbar wanted to play nightly, not monthly); lost Hendrix's coin flip to Mitch Mitchell to be the Experience drummer (shame on you, Jimi) before being aggressively courted by Frank Zappa to play the most complex arrangements in rock

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday ROD STEWART (video)

#rodstewart #faces #rockfile

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock singer-songwriter of Scottish and English ancestry. He is one of the best selling music artists of all time, having sold over 100 million records worldwide.

In the UK, he has had six consecutive number one albums, and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position. He has had 16 top ten singles in the U.S, with four of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then with the Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His early albums were a fusion of rock, folk music, soul music and R&B. His aggressive blues work with The Jeff Beck Group and the Faces influenced heavy metal genres. From the late 1970s through the 1990s, Stewart's music often took on a New Wave or soft rock/MOR quality, and in the early 2000s he released a series of successful albums interpreting the Great American Songbook.

In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him the 17th most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists". A Grammy and Brit Award recipient, he was voted at No. 33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time, and No. 59 on Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Singers of all time. As a solo artist, Stewart was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006 and was inducted a second time into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of Faces, in 2012.

source: wikipedia

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