ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Anthony Lewis is a pop-R&B vocalist, dancer, and actor who was born in Los Angeles, California to parents who passed down their singing and acting talents. Active as an entertainer since he was a toddler, the clean-cut Lewis developed his voice in the church. As a teenager, he built a following on YouTube through uploaded covers of contemporary pop hits such as Bruno Mars' "Grenade" and Frank Ocean's "Thinkin Bout You." Lewis signed with the Chemists, a venture of former Interscope executive Garnett March. His debut single, a blend of 2 Chainz' 2012 hit "I'm Different" and Soul for Real's 1995 R&B classic "Candy Rain" -- with a guest appearance from rapper Billy Bang -- was released in February 2014. ~ Andy Kellman

Alfred Deller was the first renowned countertenor. As a child, Deller studied voice first with his father as a boy soprano, and when his voice changed he continued his singing as a countertenor. He joined the Canterbury Cathedral choir in 1940, where Michael Tippett heard him and invited him to London to make his debut. He came to the attention of the English public after a 1946 radio broadcast of Purcell's Come, ye sons of art, away. During the early years of his career, he concentrated on performing English Baroque and pre-Baroque composers such as Purcell and Dowland. In 1950 he formed the Deller Consort, a group that dedicated itself to performing early music using authentic performance practice. For many years, the group toured Europe and the Americas, bringing the music of this period to a new public. In 1964, Deller's son, Mark, joined the Deller Consort, also as a countertenor. Deller founded the Stour Music Festival in 1963 in order to have another venue for his Consort and to team with other early music specialists such as Franz Bruggen and Gustav Leonhardt. In 1960, he sang the role of Oberon in the premiere of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This was the first important countertenor role in opera of the 20th century. He repeated the role at Covent Garden Opera House, London, the following year. Other composers who wrote works specifically for Deller include Fricker, Mellers, Ridout, and Rubbra. In 1970, he was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He died while on vacation in Italy.

Alfred Deller set the standard for countertenors for many years. His voice was very light with a wonderful lyric quality. He was most effective in the more contemplative pieces, but when necessary he was able to sing very florid pieces extremely well. Although he could sing the dramatic arias of Handel, he never allowed his voice to be pushed beyond its basically light sound. Deller's recordings cover the entire range of his repertoire from the lute songs of Dowland to Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with many stops along the way. Without Alfred Deller, the international recognition of countertenor voice might not have come as quickly as it did.

Contralto Helen Watts was a leading member of that school of Welsh singers which came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Nurtured in a British Isles atmosphere that had turned from insularity to international performance, Watts became the leading British contralto (or mezzo-contralto) in the post-Kathleen Ferrier age. Though never wanting in artistic temperament, she was a model colleague, always well-prepared and ready to sing a fully invested performance. Her voice, of medium size though firmly focused, had a plushness that often made it seem larger than its actual size. She began by specializing in Handel and Bach, but grew artistically to become an exemplary singer of Mahler and Wagner. Watts did not neglect the works of Britten and Tippett either, performing and recording them as a part of her exceptionally extensive discography.

Watts studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and made her debut as Didymus in Handel's Theodora in a production mounted by the Handel Opera Society. She followed those performances with both Juno and Ines in Semele. She also sang in Rinaldo, an opera which she repeated at Berlin's Komische Oper and at Halle in 1961. By the early 1960s, she had established a relationship with the English Opera Group and played an important part in performances of Britten's operas, assuming the title role in The Rape of Lucretia during the EOG's 1964 tour of Russia. She sang at Covent Garden from 1965 to 1971, offering her richly vocalized Erda and First Norn, portraying Mrs. Sedley in Britten's Peter Grimes, and offering a commanding Sosostris in a revival of Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage. At the Welsh National Opera, she also performed numerous roles suitable for a contralto, among them Sosostris, Mrs. Sedley, a delicious Dame Quickly, and Lanina. At Salzburg in 1971, she was well received as Farnace in Mozart's Mitridate, Re di Ponto and in 1978, she sang a moving Arnalta in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea with the Scottish Opera.

However busy she may have seemed in the opera world, Watts was busier still in recital and concert work. Her initial performances in Handel led to a recording of Handel cantatas and then a flood of discs of wide-ranging repertory. She made numerous recordings of Bach, paralleling her live performances throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and America. Her years at Covent Garden coincided with the musical directorship of Georg Solti. Taken by her sumptuous voice and quality of musicianship, he employed her services for several recording projects and afforded her the international prominence she deserved. Aside from her First Norn in his Decca Götterdämmerung, he engaged her for his recordings of Mahler's Second, Third, and Eighth symphonies, all widely distributed and warmly praised. When Solti assumed the directorship of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he brought Watts to Chicago for a series of memorable performances, including Mahler's Second Symphony and Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

Watts' Sosostris was recorded following the Tippett revival, the electronic medium greatly clarifying the composer's extremely thick orchestration and allowing her glorious singing to be heard. Watts was virtually on call to recording companies during her prime years, valued for her amazing consistency and unfussy approach to studio work. Her Angel in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius ranked with the best, and her interpretation of the contralto part in the Colin Davis recording of Handel's Messiah (including "But Who May Abide") is regarded by many as unsurpassed. Her recordings of Lieder were likewise exemplary, especially Brahms and Wolf.

Best known as the drummer in one of the longer incarnations of King Crimson (January 1971-April 1972) and as a drummer for Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ian Wallace was one of rock's busier drummers for more than half a century. Wallace's rock credentials went back to 1963 and a band called the Warriors, whose membership included a young vocalist named Jon Anderson, as well as future Badger bassman David Foster. The Warriors lasted until the end of 1967 -- Wallace's next band was the World, featuring the Bonzo Dog Band's Neil Innes on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, which lasted six months in 1970. Finally, in the spring of 1971, Wallace joined King Crimson in the wake of the collapse of the interim lineup of the group.

This version of King Crimson was a great performing unit, but its unity was always in doubt, especially when rumors began abounding of an impending breakup within six months of its formation. They toured extensively and won a serious following, but internally their relations were a nightmare, as Wallace and his bandmates Boz Burrell and Mel Collins insisted on a degree of autonomy as composers that clashed with guitarist and original bandmember Robert Fripp's musical vision of the group. During the first six months of his work with Crimson, Wallace's playing broke some new ground on-stage when Peter Sinfield, the group's lyricist and computer expert, used a VCS-3 synthesizer to process the sound of Wallace's drums. Additionally, subsequently released live tapes of that version of King Crimson, following Sinfield's exit but before the breakup of the whole unit, have revealed the full complexity of Wallace's playing with the band, and even Fripp has noted the quality of his work in live performance during those years.

As it turned out, Wallace, Burrell, and Collins turned out to enjoy working together more than they did working for Fripp, and they quit the band en masse in the early spring of 1972. They immediately hooked up with Alexis Korner and Peter Thorup, playing with them of the remainder of 1972. Wallace continued working with Korner for two years and on four albums, and also played with Steve Marriott, Big Jim Sullivan, and Alvin Lee. In 1978, he became Bob Dylan's drummer, beginning with the Street Legal album and continuing on the subsequent tour and the Live at Budokan album as well. During the 1980s, Wallace also played with Ron Wood, David Lindley, Jon Anderson, Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, the Traveling Wilburys, and Roy Orbison. In the 1990s, he played with Joe Walsh and Don Henley, but much of Wallace's activity centered around his own label, Artist Road Records of Santa Fe, NM. Wallace's work moved more in the direction of jazz in tandem with his business partner in Artist Road, pianist Brian Trainor, and guitarist Larry Coryell was among the musicians he played with during this period.

During the 2000s Wallace issued his only solo album, Happiness with Minimal Side Effects (2003), and he also revisited his King Crimson legacy, joining the Crimson Jazz Trio (appearing on the group’s 2005 release King Crimson Songbook, Vol. 1) and the 21st Century Schizoid Band (appearing on the 2006 album Pictures of a City: Live in New York). In 2006 Wallace was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he succumbed to the disease at 60 years of age on February 22, 2007, in Los Angeles. The Crimson Jazz Trio’s King Crimson Songbook, Vol. 2 had been completed -- with assistance from Crimson reedman Mel Collins on two tracks -- prior to Wallace’s death, and was released in 2009. ~ Bruce Eder