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SOUTH CAROLINA
MUSIC HALL OF FAME
INITIATIVE

STANFIELD GRAY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

843.478.1167
grayjs@cofc.edu

JANUARY 6, 2006
QUENTIN BAXTER

Quentin Baxter was born in Charleston, South Carolina on August 28, 1970.  He grew up in a family of percussion musicians who were also, very religious.  Quentin spent much of his youth playing drums in the church with his parents and three brothers.  While in his teens, Quentin earned himself a reputation as one of the most well respected gospel musicians around.  He toured the region as a minister of music; drumming for the Christians United for Christ Community Choir and youth Musicians for Gospel Music Workshop of America.  Baxter continued his education after graduating from high school, first at the University of South Carolina, and then on to the College of Charleston where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Music Theory Composition.  Baxter has played with greats like Oscar Rivers, Teddy Adams, Frank Duvall and Lonnie Hamilton III.  His drumming versatility has allowed him to tour throughout Europe, Japan, Korea, Guam, St. Croix, Hawaii, and Jamaica.  Currently he lives and plays jazz in Charleston where he also serves on the College of Charleston faculty as an Adjunct Professor of Jazz Percussion.  http://www.quentinbaxter.com/
www.aframejazz.comhttp://www.aframejazz.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2006
SKIPP PEARSON

Thales Thomas “Skipp” Pearson was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina on November 21, 1937.  Skipp began playing the drums at an early age but by the sixth grade, had switched to the saxophone.  By 15, he was leading a five-piece orchestra called the Rhythm Artists.  At 19, he enlisted in the United States Air Force which gave him the opportunity to play in clubs wherever he traveled.  Skipp returned to South Carolina where he spent 24 years as a band director and/or music teacher in the public school system.  Pearson has shared the stage with Jazz greats Wynton Marsalis, Charles Jordan, and Charles Brown.  Pearson has been a tremendous advocate for jazz music in South Carolina.  In 1998 he was inducted into the South Carolina State University Jazz Band Hall of Fame and in 2003 received the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Award for the Arts in the category of individual artist.  Currently, Pearson resides in Columbia, South Carolina where he supporst the “The Skipp Pearson Foundation,” which strives to preserve the art of jazz music in South Carolina.  He also performs weekly at the “Hunter Gatherer.”  http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/images/pdf/102004.pdf

Taylor, Otis R. “Saxophone Colossus: Skipp Pearson’s shadow looms large over the S.C.; Jazz scene.”  The State 12Feb06: E1,E4.

www.state.sc.us/arts/verner/2003/2003.htm

MARCH 2, 2006
DANIELLE HOWLE

"I like to think of myself as a photographer...who uses melody and words in place of film and camera. I just take pictures of time." Danielle Howle

Oft-compared to Nina Simone and Flannery O'Connor, Danielle Howle is a powerful frontwoman whose vivid yet off-kilter musical stories weave a sweet sensibility and bare honesty into her work. Her solo performances are breathtaking, with captivating vocals. A comedian between songs, her prattles are filled with insight, inquiry, and wonder that speak of true romanticism. Howle's polished yet spontaneous hilarity creates a singular experience on the music scene.

The New York Times calls her "an extraordinary mind, a southern storyteller with a gorgeous sense of melody that should be pouring out of stereos everywhere. She is one to be treasured."

Consistent critical acclaim has kept press and fans eagerly anticipating her new album, scheduled for release this year. A realized performer and songwriter constantly reinventing herself, Howle's latest album is the signature album of her career and is produced by musical peer Mark Bryan of Hootie and The Blowfish.

http://www.daniellehowle.com/

APRIL 6, 2006
CHUBBY CARRIER

Zydeco musician Chubby Carrier was born on July 1, 1967 in Churchpoint, Louisiana.  Coming from a family of zydeco artists, he began playing music at an early age.  By 17, Chubby was playing with Terrance Siemien and traveled the world for 2 1/2 years before forming his own band, The Bayou Swamp Band, in 1989.  Chubby and his band have recorded five cd’s and traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe, performing at festivals such as the New Orleans Jazz Fest, The Chicago Blues Fest, Summerfest in Milwaukee, and Memphis in May.

http://www.chubbycarrier.com/index1.html
Photos available on this site.   

DISCOGRAPHY
1991 ~ Boogie Woogie Zydeco ~ Flying Fish
1993 ~ Dance All Night ~ Blind Pig
1996 ~ Who Stole the Hot Sauce? ~ Blind Pig
1999 ~ Too Hot to Handle [live] ~ Louisiana Red
1999 ~ It's Party Time ~
~ Go Zydeco Go ~ Jewel

MAY 5, 2006
ROB SAVOY

JUNE 1, 2006
EMMANUEL ABDUL RAHIM

Emmanuel Abdul-Rahim was born in Charleston, South Carolina but relocated to New York with his family at a young age.  He grew up in Spanish Harlem where he began to learn traditional African drumming.  He became familiar with members of secret societies who held occult wisdom handed down by Africans who had escaped slavery and thrived in the mountains of Cuba.  Emmanuel shard the stage with the Beatles at Yankee stadium, was the drummer and percussionist for twelve years for Duke Ellington, and performed with John Coltrane. 

http://www.djembe.dk/no/14/14abdul.html

JANUARY 6, 2006
SHANE PRUITT

Shane Pruitt was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1977.  Encouraged by his dad, he began playing the guitar at the age of 12.  Shane has worked with Little Pink Anderson and has played with Patrick Vining’s Blues Sharks.  Shane formed the high-energy band Flat Front Tire which still plays today and has allowed him to come into his own as a guitar player, singer, and songwriter.

http://www.shanepruitt.com/Bio.html

  AUGUST 3 , 2006
EMMANUEL ABDUL RAHIM ( PART 2)

SEPTEMBER 3, 2006
PATTERSON HOOD

Patterson Hood grew up in Florence Alabama, across the Tennessee River from Muscle Shoals. Patterson began writing songs when he was in third grade and began playing guitar in bands at about 14. His father is David Hood of the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Who played with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Cliff, Traffic, The Staple Singers, Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart...). In 1985 he began a band with college roommate Mike Cooley. The band, Adam's House Cat, played together for six years, making an EP and a finished (but still unreleased) album Town Burned Down. They also were 1st Place Winners in Musician Magazine's Best Unsigned Band Contest and their song "Smiling At Girls" appeared on Warner Bros./ Musician Compilation (Best of the BUBS) in 1988.

After Adam's House Cat broke up, Cooley and Hood moved to Memphis and later to Auburn AL. playing shows as an acoustic duo (Virgil Kane) and in a band (Horse Pussy) before going separate ways. Hood settled in Athens GA. in early 1994, playing solo anywhere they would let him. In 1996 he and Cooley reunited and formed Drive-By Truckers. In 1998 they released their first of five albums to date and hit the road with a vengeance. Nearly 1000 shows later, Drive-By Truckers is one of the most critically acclaimed bands in America.

RIDDICK LYNCH

Riddick Lynch is one of the former owners of the Music Farm and is current owner of Shoreline Productions, one of the producers of the Charleston Music and Heritage Festival. Held Saturday, September 16, on Daniel Island, the festival will feature Al Green, Drive By Truckers, Sam Bush, Buddy Guy, Dumpstaphunk, Cary Ann Hearst, Danielle Howle, and many more. For more information visit www.chazzfest.com


DRINK SMALL

They call me the blues Doctor 'cause I can play all the styles, bottleneck, ragtime, Piedmont Blues I can tear them up, Chicago Blues; I am the blues Doctor.

Rich people got the blues because they are trying to keep the money, the poor people are trying to get the money and I ain't got no money.

Jesus had the blues. He had them because he didn't want the devil to get all of the souls. He turned the rocks to souls, so the devil wouldn't get them all. You know he turned the water into wine, I guess he did get drunk. Three quarters of the world is water. I'm glad he didn't turn all of the water into wine or we would be in trouble.

I was born in1933 in Lee County in Bishopville, South Carolina. I started playing when I was 11 years old. We had an old pump organ; I started playing Coon Shine Baby on that. Then I started on the one string guitar; I played Bottle, Up and Go. My uncle had a guitar around and I fooled around on that. I made my own little guitar, for strings I cut up an old inner tube.

When I was in high school I organized a group called the 6 stars. I was ashamed to sing, I was playing instrumental songs like Blind Boy Fuller stuff. I played piano in the church. Then I began to start singing. I came up playing both blues and gospel. On Friday and Saturday night I would make five dollars a night playing at house parties. That was more than a man plowing a mule all week was getting was.

I then went to school to be a barber but I did not want to cut no hair I wanted to cut up.

I became a great guitar player. I joined the Spiritualaires. We recorded on the Vee Jay label. We played the Apollo and toured with Sam Cooke, the Harmonizing Four, and the Staple Singers. We were out there with all the big groups.

When we broke up I came back to Columbia, South Carolina and I started to play for the college kids and they went wild. I recorded a song, "I Love You Alberta" and "Cold, Cold, Rain" on the Sharp label a subsidiary of Savoy. Tarhill Slim was on that label. Since that time I have been to Europe, played at Wolf Trap and toured around the country.

-Drink Small

ANN CALDWELL
Female Jazz and Blues Singer



Female Jazz and Blues Singer Ann Caldwell works full time as a jazz singer, jazz vocalist, blues singer, and musical producer. She has appeared in Porgy and Bess, Clay Rice’s musical production Lowcountry Legends and has studied with June Bonner, of the Metropolitan Opera. Ann is a master of accents, accurately recreating the tonalities of speech which are important to both jazz and blues.

Ann has a long list of performances as a jazz and blues singer. She is a vocalist with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra Pops Concert, as well as a featured artist for the Aid to Africa Concert. Other performances include:

* Indigo Jazz Concert
* Japanese National Athem in Japanese
* Charleston Symphony Orchestra Gospel Choir
* Somewhere Over the Rainbow
* Wrote and performed a short story to a sold-out crowd at South of Broadway Theatre Company

As a jazz and blues singer Ann is greatly influenced by the past. She has performed a series of centennial concerts devoted to the music of Duke Ellington and formed the Magnolia Singers to preform the spirituals of times past. Jazz and blues are rich in tradition and history and Ann wants to preserve this musical form.

Ann Caldwell is available for bookings throughout the U.S. and Europe. Please visit our booking page for more information.

RICHARD MORYL



Richard Moryl, composer – was born in Newark, N.J. in 1929. He attended Columbia and Brandeis Universities and the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin. As a composer, he has received many awards and fellowships, including two National Endowment for the Arts awards, grants from the Ford and Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundations and many others. In 1963 he was a Fulbright scholar in Germany.

He is the founder and director of the Charles Ives Center for American Music (CICAM), which for over twenty years has performed and supported American composers and their music. Over 300 performances of his works have been given in Europe, the United States and South America. Moryl was one of the international judges for the 2nd Annual Dmitri Shostakovich Chamber Music Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1991. Forty of his works are published and ten have been recorded.

Moryl founded and directed the New England Contemporary Music Ensemble which has performed extensively throughout the northeast and the south, and which has been recorded on Desto and Serenus records. A CD of his piece, Das Lied (sung by Jan De Gaetani and conducted by Gerald Schwartz) was released in 2000 on the Opus 1 label.

BOB BELDEN

One of the most adventurous arrangers of the 1990s and 2000s, Bob Belden took the music of Puccini, Prince, and (with the most success) Sting, and turned it into jazz. After graduating from the University of North Texas in 1978, he was with Woody Herman's Orchestra for 18 months, worked with Donald Byrd off and on during 1981-1985, played with the Mel Lewis Orchestra, and produced a couple of Red Rodney records. In 1983, Belden settled in New York as a writer for studio sessions. Influenced by Gil Evans, Belden debuted on Sunnyside with Treasure Island, before working on transforming non-jazz material into jazz. Belden also assisted with Columbia Records' Miles Davis reissue program. He played in a duet with trumpeter Tim Hagans, issuing a live album on Blue Note in 2000 entitled Re-Animation Live! The 2001 release Black Dahlia showcased a 12-part orchestra paying tribute to the late Elizabeth Short, a celebrated Hollywood actress who was killed in 1947.
~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/bio/0,,402699,00.html#bio

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