Here are 10 things you should know about Barton MacLane, born 122 years ago today. He was one of the busiest tough-guy actors of the 1930s and ’40s.
Tag: guitar
10 Things You Should Know About Lew Ayres
Here are 10 things you should know about Lew Ayres, born 114 years ago today. His film and television career spanned eight decades, from the 1920s through the 1990s.
Happy Birthday, Roy Smeck!
The great Roy Smeck, born on this date in 1900, is widely remembered today as a master of the ukulele, but he could play just about anything with strings on it, as evidenced by the following video. Happy birthday, Roy.
Happy Birthday, Django Reinhardt!
Today marks the 104th anniversary of the birth of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. He was born in Belgium and lived in Romani (gypsy) encampments near Paris after the age of eight. As a child, he played violin, banjo and guitar, but it was as a guitarist that he made an indelible mark.
His accomplishments may be viewed as all the remarkable given he was burned in a fire at the age of 18, causing the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand to be paralyzed. Thereafter he had to concoct his own unique fingerings for creating chords on the guitar.
As a young musician, Django came under the influence of Louis Armstrong and other jazz musicians, and his musical path was set. Around this time he met violinist Stephane Grappelli, with whom he would soon form the influential combo, the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Django toured the US in the autumn of 1946 as a guest soloist with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, but he soon returned to France as some promised solo gigs on the West Coast failed to pan out.
In 1951, he retired to Samois-sur-Seine, near Fontainebleau, though he continued to play gigs in Paris. He was intrigued by bebop and began to incorporate its vocabulary into his playing.
He died of a brain hemorrhage walking home from the Avon train station following a Saturday night gig. He was just 43.
Here’s an all-too-brief clip of Django performing his two-fingered, five-stringed magic: