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A musician usually plays a musical instrument, especially (although not necessarily) as a profession.^[1] Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music. It's also a person who makes music a profession, anyone (professional or not) who's skilled in making music or performing music creatively, or one who composes, conducts, or performs music (especially instrumental music).^[2]

Musicians can be of any music style not limited to classical, orchestral or choral, and musicians can have skills in many different styles outside of their professional experience. Examples of musicians' skills are the orchestration of music, improvisation, conducting, singing, composing, arranging, and/or being an instrumentalist.^[3]

Medieval Musicians (400-1450)[link]

For further information, see Medieval Music

During this time period, instrumental musicians mostly improvised and with soft ensembles with soft (bas) or loud (haut) instruments, categorized by their use (indoor or outdoor). Most musicians during this time period catered to the influences of the Roman Catholic Church, providing arrangements structured around Gregorian chant structure and Masses from church texts.^[4]

	"It Was A Lover And His Lass" Written by Thomas Morley.
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Notable Musicians:[link]

• Phillipe de Vitry
• Guillaume Dufay
• Guillaume de Machaut
• Hildegard of Bingen

Renaissance Musicians (1450-1600)[link]

For further information, see Renaissance Music

Musicians in the Renaissance produced pieces of music that needed to be able to be played during masses for any church and important chapel. Vocal pieces were in Latin, as it was the basis for church texts of the time, and they typically were known as Church-polyphonic or "made up of several simultaneous melodies". By the end of the sixteenth century, however, patronage was split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing—all were sources of income for composers.^[5]

	"Combattimento" Written by Claudio Monteverdi.
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Notable Musicians:[link]

• Giovanni Gabrieli
• Thomas Tallis
• Claudio Monteverdi

Baroque Musicians (1600-1750)[link]

For further information, see Baroque Music

From about 1600 to 1750, the Baroque period was an era of music encompassed by counterpoint and basso continuo characteristics. Vocal and instrumental “color” became more important compared to the Renaissance style of music, and emphasized much of the volume, texture and pace of each piece.^[6]

	"Hallelujah Chorus" from George Frideric Handel's The Messiah.
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Notable Musicians:[link]

• George Frideric Handel
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Antonio Vivaldi

Classical Musicians (1750-1820)[link]

For further information, see Classical Music

Classical music was created by musicians that lived during a time of a rising middle class called the bourgeoisie. Many middle class inhabitants of France during this time were living under the absolute power of their absolute monarchy that had been in power for some time. This caused much of the music to be made an performed in more constraint environments compared to the flourishing times of the Renaissance and the Baroque Era's.^[7]

	"Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor" Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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Notable Musicians:[link]

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Franz Joseph Haydn
• Franz Schubert

Romantic Musicians (1820-1910)[link]

" The early Romantic period thus coincides with what is often called the "age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789) revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. Some of its major precepts have survived into the twentieth century and still affect our contemporary period".^[8]

	"Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major- Andante con moto" Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.
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Notable Musicians[link]

• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Frédéric Chopin
• Ludwig van Beethoven

Twentieth-Century (1920-2000)[link]

The world made the transition from 19th-century Romanticism to 20th century Modernism and its inhabitants witnessed a drastic musical change. Twentieth-Century music started from composers and musicians rejecting the emotion-dominated Romantic period and represented the world as "it was actually perceived". Artists wrote to be "objective, while objects existed on their own terms. While past eras concentrated on spirituality, this new period placed emphasis on physicality and things that were concrete."^[9]

	"3 Pieces for Clarinet Alone" Composed by Igor Stravinsky, who also arranged The Rite of Spring
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Notable Musicians[link]

• Igor Stravinsky
• Claude Debussy
• Arnold Schoenberg
• Philip Glass
• John Cage

See also[link]

• Renaissance music
• Baroque music
• Classical music
• Romantic music
• Twentieth-Century music
• Singer
• Composer
• Music Artist (Occupation)
• American Federation of Musicians
• Eastern Fare Music Foundation

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Musician

Look up musician in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Media related to Musicians at Wikimedia Commons

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Raymond Edward Johnson (1927–1995), known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art. Once called “New York’s most famous unknown artist",^[1] Johnson also staged and participated in early performance art events associated with the Fluxus movement and was the founder of a far-ranging mail art network – the New York Correspondence School - which picked up momentum in the 1960s and is still active today. He lived in New York City from 1949 to 1968, when he moved to a small town in Long island and remained there until his suicide.

Early Years and Education[link]

Born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 16, 1927, Ray Johnson grew up in a working class neighborhood and attended an occupational high school where he was enrolled in the advertising art program. He took weekly classes at the Detroit Art Institute and spent a summer drawing at Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan, affiliated with the Art Institute of Chicago.

Johnson left Detroit after high school in the summer of 1945 to attend the radically progressive Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he stayed for the next three years (spending the spring 1946 semester at the Art Students League in New York but returning the following summer). Josef Albers, before and after his notable sabbatical in Mexico, was in residence at Black Mountain College for six of the ten semesters that Johnson studied there. Anni Albers, Walter Gropius, Lyonel Feininger, Robert Motherwell, Ossip Zadkine, Paul Rand, Alvin Lustig, Ilya Bolotowski, Jacob Lawrence, Beaumont Newhall, M.C. Richards, and Jean Varda also taught at BMC during Johnson’s time there. Johnson decided on Albers’ advice to stay at BMC for a final term in summer 1948, when the visiting faculty included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, and Richard Lippold. Johnson took part in “The Ruse of Medusa” – the culmination of Cunningham’s Satie Festival - with Cage, Cunningham, Fuller, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Lippold, Ruth Asawa, Arthur Penn, and others among the cast and crew. “Because of those who participated, the event has taken on the reputation of a watershed event in ‘mixed media’…” wrote Martin Duberman in his history of BMC.^[2]

New York Years[link]

Johnson moved with Richard Lippold to New York City by early 1949, rejoining Cage and Cunningham and befriending, within the next couple of years, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Ad Reinhardt, Stanley Vanderbeek, Norman Solomon, Lucy Lippard, Sonja Sekula, Carolyn Brown and Earle Brown, Judith Malina, Diane Di Prima, Julian Beck, Remy Charlip, James Waring, and innumerable others. With the American Abstract Artists group, Johnson painted geometric abstractions that, in part, reflected the influence of Albers. But by 1953 he turned to collage and left the American Abstract Artists, rejecting his early paintings, which he would later burn in Cy Twombly’s fireplace. Johnson began to create small, irregularly shaped works incorporating fragments from popular culture, most notably the Lucky Strikes logo and images from fan magazines of such movie stars as Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Shirley Temple. In the summer of 1955, he coined a term for these small collages: “moticos”. He carried boxes of moticos around New York, showing them on sidewalks, at cafes, in Grand Central Station and other public places; he asked passersby what they thought of them, and recorded some of their responses. He began mailing collages to friends and strangers, along with a series of manifestos, mimeographed for distribution, including “What is a Moticos?”, excerpts of which were published in an article by John Wilcock in the inaugural issue of the Village Voice.^[3]

A friend of Ray’s, art critic Suzi Gablik, brought photographer Elisabeth Novick to document an installation of dozens Johnson’s moticos in autumn of 1955. (Most of these were destroyed or recycled by the artist.) “The random arrangement … on a dilapidated cellar door in Lower Manhattan may even have been the first informal Happening,” she recalled later.^[4] According to Henry Geldzahler, “[Ray’s] collages ‘Elvis Presley No. 1’ and ‘James Dean’ stand as the Plymouth Rock of the Pop movement.”.^[5] Ray’s friend Lucy Lippard would later write that “The Elvis … and Marilyn Monroe [collages]… heralded Warholian Pop.” ^[6] Johnson was quickly recognized as part of the nascent Pop generation. A note about the cover image in January 1958’s Art News pointed out that “[Jasper] Johns’ first one-man show … places him with such better-known colleagues as Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kaprow and Ray Johnson”.^[7]

Johnson worked part-time at the Orientalia Bookstore in the Lower East Side as he began to deepen his understanding of Zen philosophy and to employ "chance" in his work. Both of these interests increasingly informed his collages, performances, and mail art. Johnson also found occasional work as a graphic designer. He had met Andy Warhol by 1956; both designed several book covers for New Directions and other publishers. Johnson had a series of whimsical flyers advertising his design services printed via offset lithography, and began mailing these out. These were in joined in 1956-7 by two small promotional artists’ books, BOO/K/OF/THE/MO/NTH and P/EEK/A/BOO/K/OFTHE/WEE/K, self-published in editions of 500.

Johnson participated in about a dozen performance art events between 1957 and 1963 – in his own short pieces ("Funeral Music for Elvis Presley" and "Lecture on Modern Music"), in those of others (by James Waring and Susan Kaufman), and via his own compositions performed by his colleagues at The Living Theatre and during the Fluxus Yam Festival of 1963. From 1961 on, Johnson periodically staged events he called "Nothings", described to his friend William Wilson as “an attitude as opposed to a happening”, which would parallel the “Happenings” of Allan Kaprow and later Fluxus events. The first of these, "Nothing by Ray Johnson", was part of a weekly series of events in July 1961 at AG, a venue in New York operated by George Maciunas and Almus Salcius; Yoko Ono’s first solo show was on view in the gallery at the time. Ed Plunkett later recalled entering an empty room. “… Visitors began to enter the premises. Most of them looked quite dismayed that nothing was going on … Well, finally Ray arrived … and he brought with him a large corrugated cardboard box of wooden spools. Soon after arriving Ray emptied this box of spools down the staircase … with these … one had to step cautiously to avoid slipping … I was delighted with this gesture.” ^[8] Johnson’s Second Nothing took place at Maidman Playhouse, New York, in 1962.

Johnson’s first known piece of mail directing a recipient to "please send to..." someone else dates from 1958; the phrases "please add to and return", “please add and send to”, and even “please do not send to” followed. Johnson’s mail art activities became more systematic with the help of several friends, particularly Bill Wilson and his mother, assemblage artist May Wilson, along with Marie Tavroges Stilkind and Toby Spiselman. In 1962, Ed Plunkett named Johnson’s endeavors ‘the New York Correspondence School’. On April 1, 1968, the first of the meeting of the NYSC was held at the Society of Friends Meeting House on Rutherford Place in New York City. Two more meetings were called by Johnson in the following weeks, including the Seating-Meeting at New York’s Finch College, about which John Gruen reported: “It was … attended by many artists and ‘members’ … all of whom sat around wondering when the meeting would start. It never did … people wrote things on bits of paper, on a blackboard, or simply talked. It was all strangely meaningless – and strangely meaningful.” ^[9] Johnson staged such events regularly, often following them up with witty typed reports, photocopied for wide distribution via the post. Such gatherings continued to be held in various guises into the mid-1980s.

Johnson produced the 12 known unbound pages of his enigmatic BOOK ABOUT DEATH in 1963-5. Consisting of cryptic texts and drawings (mostly) by Johnson, they were mailed a few at a time, randomly, and offered for sale via a classified ad in the Village Voice.,^[10] thus very few people ever received all the pages. Something Else Press published Johnson's The Paper Snake for a wider audience in 1965. Remarking about himself and the book, Johnson said:

I'm an artist and a, well, I shouldn't call myself a poet but other people have. What I do is classify the words as poetry. …The Paper Snake… is all my writings, rubbings, plays, things that I had given to the publisher, Dick Higgins, editor and publisher, which I mailed to him or brought to him in cardboard boxes or shoved under his door, or left in his sink, or whatever, over a period of years. He saved all these things, designed and published a book, and I simply as an artist did what I did without classification. So when the book appeared the book stated, ‘Ray Johnson is a poet,’ but I never said, 'this is a poem,' I simply wrote what I wrote and it later became classified. ^[11]

On June 3, 1968 - the same day that Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas with a gun she’d stored under May Wilson’s bed – Johnson was mugged at knifepoint. Two days later, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Severely shaken, Johnson moved to Glen Cove, Long Island, and the next year bought a house in nearby Locust Valley, where Richard Lippold and his family resided. He began to live in a state of increasing reclusion in what he called a “small white farmhouse with a Joseph Cornell attic.”

Locust Valley Years[link]

From 1966 into the mid-1970s, Johnson’s work was shown at the Willard Gallery (New York) and Feigen Gallery (Chicago and New York), as well as by Angela Flowers in London and Arturo Schwarz in Milan. In 1970, mail from 107 participants to curator Marcia Tucker was exhibited in a Ray Johnson - New York Correspondence School exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York - a significant moment of cultural validation for Johnson. Another notable exhibition followed - Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, 1976, organized by Richard Craven: 81 lenders’ works, 35 years of Johnson’s outgoing mail. Around that time, Johnson began his silhouette project, creating approximately 200 profiles of personal friends, artists, and celebrities which became the basis for many of his later collages. His subjects included Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs, Edward Albee, Louise Nevelson, Larry Rivers, Lynda Benglis, Nam Jume Paik, David Hockney, David Bowie, Christo, Peter Hujar, Roy Lichtenstein, Paloma Picasso, James Rosenquist, Richard Feigen, among others - a who's who of the New York arts and letters scene.

During the 1980s Johnson purposefully receded from view, cultivating his role as outsider, maintaining personal connections via mail art and telephone largely in place of physical interaction. Only a handful of people were ever allowed into his house in Locust Valley. Eventually, Johnson ceased to exhibit or sell his work commercially altogether. His underground reputation bubbled beneath the surface into the 1980s and 90s despite his general absence from the flourishing New York art scene. Johnson feverishly continued to work on richer and more complex collages. In contrast to his physical seclusion, Johnson's pre-digital network of correspondents increased in size exponentially.

Death[link]

On January 13, 1995, Johnson was seen diving off a bridge in Sag Harbor, Long Island, and backstroking out to sea. His body washed up on the beach the following day. Many aspects of his death involved the number "13": the date; his age, 67 (6+7=13); the room number of a motel he’d checked into earlier that day, 247 (2+4+7=13), etc. Some continue to speculate about a ‘last performance’ aspect of Johnson’s drowning. Hundreds of collages were found carefully arranged in his home. He left no will and his estate is now administered by Richard L. Feigen & Co.

Film & Television[link]

Following his suicide, filmmakers Andrew Moore and John Walter (in conjunction with Frances Beatty of Richard L. Feigen & Co.) spent six years probing the mysteries of Johnson's life and art. Their collaboration yielded the award-winning documentary "How To Draw a Bunny", released in 2002. The film includes interviews with artists Chuck Close, James Rosenquist, Billy Name, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Judith Malina, and many others.

John Cale's song "Hey Ray" from his 2011 E.P. Extra Playful is about Cale's encounters with Johnson in New York during the 1960's.^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Artpool’s Ray Johnson site
• Johnson, Ray with Diane Spodarek and Randy Delbeke. "Ray Johnson Interview”, Detroit Artists Monthly, February, 1968
• Ray Johnson's Estate - represented by Richard L Feigen
• Ray Johnson Resources
• How to Draw a Bunny at the Internet Movie Database
• Ray Johnson and New York Correspondance School by William S. Wilson 1966
• Nick Maravell's website about Ray Johnson
• Artistamp Gallery - Ray Johnson
• Essay by Ina Blom
• http://www.mailart.be/ray_johnson.html

Nick Mason
Nick Mason in 2004
Background information
Birth name	Nicholas Berkeley Mason
Born	(1944-01-27) 27 January 1944 (age 68) Edgbaston, Birmingham, England
Genres	Progressive rock, psychedelic rock, hard rock, instrumental rock
Occupations	Musician, drummer, record producer, author, composer, auto racer
Instruments	Drums, percussion, keyboards, guitar, vocals
Years active	1964–present
Labels	Capitol, Columbia, Sony, EMI, Harvest
Associated acts	Pink Floyd, Sigma 6, The Screaming Abdabs, The Tea Set, Mason & Fenn, Robert Wyatt, Carla Bley, Michael Mantler

Nicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason (born 27 January 1944) is an English drummer and songwriter, best known for his work with Pink Floyd. He is the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1965. Despite solely writing only a few Pink Floyd songs, Mason has contributed to some of Pink Floyd's most popular compositions such as "Interstellar Overdrive", "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Echoes".

He is the only Pink Floyd member to be featured on every one of their albums. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 250 million records worldwide,^[1][2] including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.

He also competes in auto racing events, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans.^[3]

Early life[link]

The son of the documentary film maker Bill Mason, he was born in Birmingham but brought up in Hampstead, London (many online biographies mistakenly cite the street address Downshire Hill – sometimes as "the Downshire Hills" – as a district of Birmingham) and attended Frensham Heights School, near Farnham, Surrey. He later studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), where he teamed up with Roger Waters, Bob Klose and Richard Wright in 1964 to form Pink Floyd's predecessor, Sigma 6.

Musical career[link]

Mason has been the drummer on every Pink Floyd album^[4] (but not on every song; some session drummers have been used^[4]).

Despite legal conflicts over ownership of the name 'Pink Floyd' which began when Roger Waters left the group in 1986 and lasted roughly 7 years, Waters and Nick Mason are now on good terms.^[4] Mason joined Waters on the last two nights of his 2002 world tour to play drums on the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", and he also played drums on some concerts of Waters' European tour in 2006, and during performances in Los Angeles and New York City in the United States. On 12 May 2007, Mason joined Waters again on stage at Earls Court to play The Dark Side of the Moon. Again on 12 May 2011 Mason was featured, along with David Gilmour, on the encore Outside the Wall at Waters´ concert who was performing The Wall in its entirety. Gilmour also performed on Comfortably Numb that night.

In July 2005, Mason, Gilmour, Wright, and Waters played together on stage for the first time in 24 years.^[4] A four song set was played at the Live 8 concert in London.^[4] Mason also joined David Gilmour and Richard Wright for the encore during Gilmour's show at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 31 May 2006, reuniting the post-Waters Pink Floyd. Mason has also claimed to be the link between Gilmour and Waters, and believes the band will play live again. His answers have ranged from "playing again for a charitable cause" to "a tour" given in various interviews in the last few years. He also stated in 2006 that Pink Floyd have not officially disbanded yet.

The only Pink Floyd songs that are solely credited to Mason are "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party Parts 1-3" (from Ummagumma) and "Speak to Me" (from The Dark Side of the Moon).^[4] The one-off song by the band entitled "Nick's Boogie" was named after him.^[4]

The only times Mason's voice has been included on Pink Floyd's albums are "Corporal Clegg", the single spoken line in "One of These Days" and spoken parts of "Signs of Life" and "Learning to Fly" (the latter taken from actual recording of Mason's first solo flight) from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.^[4] He does, however, sing lead vocals on two unreleased but heavily bootlegged tracks, "Scream Thy Last Scream" (1967) and "The Merry Xmas Song" (1975–76). In live performances of the song "Sheep", he did the spoken section.^[4]

Unlike the other members of Pink Floyd, Mason has rarely played an instrument other than his usual one (drums), although he has contributed sound effects to many Pink Floyd albums. He has only ever played non-percussive instruments on "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party", his personal composition from Ummagumma, where he provided some keyboard, guitar and bass noises, and on live versions of "Outside the Wall", where he played acoustic guitar along with the rest of the band. He has claimed that he took some failed violin and piano lessons as a child. However, on the Profiles album Nick released with Rick Fenn in 1985, he is also credited with keyboards.^[5] He can be seen playing a synthesizer in the promo video for "Lie for a Lie", but it is unknown if he actually played on the recording.

Mason has done some work with other people, notably as a drummer and producer for Steve Hillage, Robert Wyatt (with whom he appeared on Top of the Pops^[4]), The Damned and Gong.^[5] He also drummed for Michael Mantler.^[5]

Nick Mason used Premier drums in the 1960s and occasionally in the 1970s (mainly on recordings up to Wish You Were Here). After that, he used Ludwig drums from 1970 until 1992. He currently uses Drum Workshop (DW) drums, pedals and hardware. His kit is a DW double bass kit with the Dark Side of the Moon logo on the drums. He has also used Paiste cymbals during his entire career with Pink Floyd. He currently uses a mixture of Paiste Traditional, Signature and 2002 cymbals.

Nick Mason's book, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, was published in the UK in October 2004.^[4] It is also available, abridged, as a 3CD audio book, read by Mason.^[4] An updated edition was published, in paperback, in 2011.

Notable Pink Floyd songs co-written by Mason[link]

• Pow R. Toc H. (1967) (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn)
• Interstellar Overdrive (1967) (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn)
• A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968) (A Saucerful of Secrets)
• Careful with that Axe, Eugene (1968) (B-side of their single Point Me at the Sky)
• Atom Heart Mother (1970) (Atom Heart Mother)
• Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (1970) (Atom Heart Mother)
• One of These Days (1971) (Meddle)
• Echoes (1971) (Meddle)
• Time (1973) (The Dark Side of the Moon)
• Any Colour You Like (1973) (The Dark Side of the Moon)

Drumming style[link]

Influenced by jazz and big band music, Nick was a pioneer who embraced acoustic drums, (both single and double headed) tuned percussion, electronic drums and Roto toms, melding all of these into a melodic whole. His snare drum sound shifted from harsh demarcation of beats 2 and 4 (Careful with that Axe, Eugene) to a fatter and gentler timbre (Echoes) — a change that reflected growing studio chops.^[6] Mason has been seen as playing a big part in creating the atmosphere and mood in Pink Floyd's compositions.

Non-musical ventures[link]

Nick Mason

Nationality	British
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	1979–80, 1982–84
Teams	Dorset Racing Associates EMKA Productions Dome Racing GTi Engineering
Best finish	18th (1979)
Class wins	0

Mason is married (to his second wife, Nettie) and has four children; two daughters (Holly and Chloe) from his first marriage and two sons (Guy and Cary) from his second. They live in Hampstead, London; however they often stay in the Wiltshire town of Corsham in the former home of Camilla Parker Bowles.

As Floyd's recording and touring schedule grew more sporadic, Mason was left with more time to pursue his favourite hobby: motor racing. He owns (through his company Ten Tenths) and races several classic cars, and has competed successfully at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. His collection has been a subject of his 1998 book, Into the Red in which he documents his experience with his cars, along with some histories.^[7] He is also a qualified pilot, and flies an Aerospatiale AS 350 Squirrel helicopter in specially painted colours.^[8]

Mason was invited by Ferrari to purchase one of their 400 Enzos, which he let Jeremy Clarkson borrow for reviewing purposes on the BBC motoring programme Top Gear. Mason agreed, on the sole condition that throughout the review, Clarkson promoted the release of the book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. This led to Clarkson using Pink Floyd album titles in his description of the Enzo and The Stig driving round the track with "Another Brick in the Wall" playing (despite the fact that the Enzo does not come equipped with a stereo). Mason says that his favourite car of all time is the Ferrari 250 GTO, and owns one of the 39 built (which is valued at between £16,000,000 and £20,000,000).

His wealth amounts to £55 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006–07.^[9]

Views and advocacy[link]

Mason has played concerts to raise funds for Countryside Alliance.^[10] He is a board member and co-chairman of the Featured Artists' Coalition.^[11][12]

Discography[link]

With Pink Floyd[link]

Pink Floyd portal

With Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports[link]

• Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports – 3 May 1981^[4]

With Rick Fenn[link]

• Profiles – 29 July 1985^[4]
• White of the Eye – 1987 (soundtrack)^[4]
• Tank Malling – 1988 (soundtrack)

With Michael Mantler[link]

• The Hapless Child - 1976^[5]
• Something There – 1982^[5]
• Live – 1987^[5]
• Review - 2000
• Concertos – 2008

As a producer[link]

• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – The Asmoto Running Band (1971)^[5]
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – Round One (1974)^[5]
• Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom (1974)^[5]
• Gong – Shamal (1976)^[5]
• The Damned – Music for Pleasure (1977)^[5]
• Steve Hillage – Green (1978); Co-produced with Steve Hillage. Mason also plays a drum on "Leylines to Glassdom"^[5]

Books[link]

• Into the Red: 22 Classic Cars That Shaped a Century of Motor Sport (with Mark Hales) – 3 September 1998 (first edition), 9 September 2004 (second edition)
• Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd – 28 October 2004^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Nick Mason's Drummerworld profile
• Nick Mason interviews
• Ten Tenths official site
• Inside Out book page from Pink Floyd official site
• Pink Floyd Drums: The Division Bell Tour Drums
• Nick Mason's interview for Hit Channel website

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2010)

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (May 2012)

Keaton Simons (born 20 July 1978) is a Los Angeles recording and performing artist. He is signed to CBS Records and his music has been featured on shows such as NCIS: Los Angeles, Crash, American Dad!, Harper's Island, and The Cleaner to name a few. Recent performances have included performing for Desmond Tutu at a United Nations event with members of Toto, Paul Simon, and John Mayer's band.

Keaton's multifaceted talents are not just in music, they have landed him appearances on television and film. He has made guest appearances on shows such as The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Malcolm in the Middle, and American Dreams. Keaton also appeared in the feature film Hollywood Dreams.^[1]

Keaton has shared the stage with many independent singer/songwriters including Tony Lucca, Curtis Peoples, Joe Firstman and Tyrone Wells. In the summer of 2010, Keaton was the opening act on a national tour for REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar. In 2009 and 2010, Keaton performed at Hotel Carolina, an annual two-day singer-songwriter festival held in South Carolina.

The music video of his song "Good Things Get Better" parodies the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, featured on Strictly Global VII.

He is the stepson of Eric Roberts.

References[link]

Joseph Arthur
Joseph Arthur playing in Barcelona, December 2007
Background information
Birth name	Joseph Arthur
Origin	Akron, Ohio, United States
Genres	Alternative rock, folk rock
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, bass
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Lonely Astronaut Records
Associated acts	The Lonely Astronauts, Fistful of Mercy
Website	www.josepharthur.com www.lonelyastronautrecords.com

Joseph Arthur (born September 28, 1971) is an American singer-songwriter and artist from Akron, Ohio. Combining poetic lyrics with a layered sonic palette, Arthur has built his reputation over the years through critically acclaimed releases and constant touring; his unique solo live performances incorporate the use of a number of distortion and loop pedals, and his shows are recorded live at the soundboard and made available to concertgoers immediately following the show on recordable media. Arthur was discovered by Peter Gabriel in the mid-'90s, and signed to Gabriel's Real World label as the first North American artist on the label's roster. Arthur released his debut album Big City Secrets (1997) and follow-up, Come to Where I'm From (2000) on Real World before signing with various independent labels between 2002 and 2006. He established his own record label, Lonely Astronaut Records, in 2006, and released two studio albums, Let's Just Be (2007) and Temporary People (2008) with backing band The Lonely Astronauts. Arthur subsequently returned to performing and recording as a solo artist, releasing The Graduation Ceremony in 2011 and the double album, Redemption City in 2012.

Arthur is also an acclaimed painter and designer. His artwork has graced the sleeves of his entire discography; the sleeve design for his 1999 extended play Vacancy was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

Musical history[link]

[edit] Early life and Big City Secrets

Joseph began writing and playing music in his early teens, after inheriting an electronic keyboard from his aunt.^[1][2] At age 16, he played bass in a blues band called Frankie Starr and the Chill Factor, which disbanded by 1995.^[3] Joseph graduated from Firestone High School in 1990 and continued developing his music.^[4] In the early '90s, Arthur relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, continuing to record home demos, playing local clubs and working as a guitar salesman at Clark Music Store.^[5]

In 1996, Peter Gabriel's A&R associate Harvey Schartz presented Gabriel with a demo of Arthur's first EP, Cut and Blind. Gabriel and Schwartz arranged a live audition at The Fez nightclub in New York City, and Arthur flew up from Atlanta. The night was a success; not only was Lou Reed a guest in the audience, but within a few months Arthur was officially signed,^[5] making him the first American recording artist signed to Gabriel's label^[6] Arthur recorded his debut album at Gabriel's Real World Studios in England with producer Markus Dravs (Björk, Coldplay, Arcade Fire). The debut album Big City Secrets was released worldwide in spring 1997, and Arthur joined Gabriel's WOMAD tour in Europe.^[7] Big City Secrets displayed Arthur's often angsty and emotionally-wrought lyrics coupled with diverse instrumentation, which he himself described as "someone struggling to heal over experimental folk-rock",^[8] but went virtually unnoticed by the mainstream.^[9] Two years later, he recorded an EP called Vacancy, which earned him a Grammy nomination in 2000 for best recording package.

[edit] 2000–2003: Come to Where I'm From and Redemption's Son

In April 2000, Arthur released his sophomore studio album Come to Where I'm From, which was co-produced with T-Bone Burnett and Tchad Blake. The album exhibited a more polished and accessible sound,^[10] and received positive accolades from Pitchfork Media^[11] and Entertainment Weekly.^[12] Arthur began playing for larger audiences, opening for Ben Harper and Gomez. During that same period, he released a promotional live album recorded at the Gypsy Tea Room bar in Dallas, Texas.

After releasing a series of four EPs called Junkyard Hearts, which were only available to purchase at his live shows, his third album, Redemption's Son, came out in May 2002 in the UK. The American release was delayed until November 2002 since Arthur had been dropped by EMI in North America, having been picked up by Universal Music Group imprint Enjoy Records.^[13] The double album furthered the themes of emotional and spiritual dislocation found on Come to Where I'm From,^[14] and was described by Allmusic reviewer Thom Jurek as a "sleeper hit."^[15]

While on tour, Arthur regularly released recordings of his performances soon after each show. He also recorded an album with alternative rock side project Holding the Void, featuring himself on vocals and guitar, Pat Sansone on vocals and bass, and Rene Lopez on vocals and drums.^[16] In Summer 2003, he toured with Tracy Chapman in the US.^[17]

[edit] 2004–2006: Our Shadows Will Remain

Arthur signed a new recording contract with Vector Recordings and began recording his fourth studio album, Our Shadows Will Remain across New Orleans, New York City, London, and Prague. The album was released in September 2004, and was Arthur's first album to feature string arrangements, provided by the City of Prague Philharmonic. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim; Allmusic's Thom Jurek awarded the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, praising that, "Arthur is in a class of his own and Our Shadows Will Remain is a monstrous, memorable outing, his finest moment in a career that is thus far full of them."^[15] Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A rating, hailing the album as "especially forceful and cohesive";^[18] The Guardian hailed that Joseph "might just be a genuine mad genius";^[19] Stylus Magazine gave the album an A– rating;^[20] and Chris Rubin of Rolling Stone named Our Shadows Will Remain as the number 1 album of the year 2004 in the year-end critics' pick list.

Arthur toured the US alone and with Joan Wasser to promote the album, and a new EP called And the Thieves Are Gone, which collected unreleased tracks from the Shadows recording sessions, came out in December. Shortly afterward, Arthur went on a brief tour of Europe with R.E.M..^[21] Our Shadows Will Remain was picked up by 14th Floor Records for distribution in the United Kingdom in 2005, which yielded the release of four singles: "Can't Exist" in July, "Even Tho" in September, "Devil's Broom" in February 2006 to coincide with his first headlining appearance at London's Shepherds Bush Empire, and a reissue of "Can't Exist" in May 2006, although none of the singles charted on the UK Singles Chart.

In August 2006, Joseph was invited to help launch the project A River Blue, where a group of young people in northern Uganda were brought together to participate in a music, drama, and art festival.^[22] Joseph also recorded the song "A River Blue" for the foundation.^[23]

[edit] 2006–2007: Lonely Astronaut Records, Nuclear Daydream, and Let's Just Be

Joseph Arthur performing live at Avalanche Records, Glasgow, in February 2006.

Also in 2006, Arthur started the record label Lonely Astronaut Records with longtime professional partner Lauren Pattenaude. He released a book entitled We Almost Made It, a visual collection of his artworks, along with an accompanying instrumental CD titled The Invisible Parade in May 2006.^[24] In September 2006, Arthur released his fifth studio album, Nuclear Daydream, which was recorded in Berlin and Los Angeles. The album would be the first release on his new label. Joseph then embarked on a worldwide tour with his new backing band, The Lonely Astronauts.

His song "In the Sun" was covered by Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Chris Martin of Coldplay in 2006 for a Hurricane Katrina relief EP. The EP includes six versions of the song, one featuring Arthur himself singing with Stipe and another remixed by Justin Timberlake, and is available only on iTunes. On March 26, 2007, Joseph's then-UK label 14th Floor Records released a re-recorded version of his 2002 song "Honey and the Moon" as a special single in the UK only. In April, he released his sixth studio album, Let's Just Be, and embarked on an extensive US tour. This was Joseph's first album with The Lonely Astronauts; the band recorded as many as 80 songs in late 2006,^[25] with only sixteen appearing on the album. The album was released to lukewarm critical reception, with Pitchfork Media calling the album "unfocused" and "sloppy", summarizing that the album "sounds like it came together on the fly, in jam sessions that didn't stem from any kind of solid idea."^[26]

2008–present[link]

In 2008, Arthur released four EPs in a four-month span: Could We Survive on March 18, Crazy Rain on April 15, Vagabond Skies on June 10, and Foreign Girls on July 8.^[27] Regarding these releases, Arthur noted, "I have so much music piled up, like strange animals in a cosmic cage begging for release. The jails were overcrowded. I had to let some of them go."^[28] He played seven solo shows during the SXSW 2008 Festival, six in Austin and one in Dallas.^[29] Live dates in Europe and an extensive US solo tour coincided with the new releases.^[30] Temporary People, his seventh full-length studio album and second with The Lonely Astronauts, was released on September 30, 2008. The album was received warmly by critics, with The Times Online stating that it "evokes the loose, rocking swagger and country melancholy of early-1970s Stones",^[31] and Crawdaddy! noting that Arthur "treats his audience to a brawny and brooding rock album, notching his most fully realized LP to date in the process."^[32] The album came out in Europe in late October, and afterward Arthur embarked on a solo tour and opened for Tracy Chapman on her six-week "Our Bright Future" European tour,^[33] followed by tour dates in Canada.

Arthur recorded a cover of The Afghan Whigs's "Step Into the Light" from their 1996 album Black Love for the tribute album, Summer's Kiss: A Tribute to The Afghan Whigs. Following UK tour dates with The Lonely Astronauts in July, Arthur embarked on a solo tour of France in October 2009.^[34] A reissue of his 2006 album Nuclear Daydream with six previously unreleased bonus tracks was released during this tour.^[35]

Arthur, Ben Harper, and Dhani Harrison formed the supergroup trio Fistful of Mercy in 2010, and their debut album As I Call You Down was released on October 5, 2010.^[36] Arthur's first solo studio album since Nuclear Daydream, titled The Graduation Ceremony,was released on May 23, 2011.^[37][38]

Visual art[link]

Arthur has also received acclaim as a painter and designer. His artwork has graced the sleeves of his entire discography, notably the album covers for Come to Where I'm From and Our Shadows Will Remain, which included a 36-page booklet featuring prints of his original artwork, and was released with a die-cut outer slipcase sleeve.^[39] Arthur and frequent graphic design collaborator Zachary Larner's sleeve design for the 1999 extended play Vacancy was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. He staged his first art exhibition in 2006 at the Vertigo Gallery in London from February 10 to February 12,^[40] and released a 110-page book entitled We Almost Made It, a visual collection of his artworks, along with an accompanying instrumental CD titled The Invisible Parade in May 2006.

He set up his personal art gallery The Museum of Modern Arthur in June 2007 as a brick and mortar location in Brooklyn's DUMBO District.^[41] According to an article on Stereogum.com, Joseph and the MOMAR were evicted from the building. Joseph held a record release party for Temporary People before the closing of the gallery in September 2008.^[42] The MOMAR gallery soon morphed into an online gallery.^[43]

Live performances[link]

Arthur's one man band live performances incorporate looping techniques and several distortion techniques. His live performances are recorded through to the last note and then burnt to CD-R. They are sold immediately to fans after the concert.^[44] Beginning with his fall 2006 tour, Arthur incorporated a full band, The Lonely Astronauts. They are no longer together.

The Lonely Astronauts were:

• Joseph Arthur – vocals, guitar
• Kraig Jarret Johnson – guitar, keyboards, vocals
• Jennifer "Jen" Turner – guitar, vocals
• Sibyl Buck – bass, vocals
• Greg "G. Wiz" Wieczorek – drums, vocals

Instruments and loops[link]

Of the guitars that Joseph utilizes, his primary acoustic guitar is an Irish Lowden 012C.^[45] Some of Joseph's other guitars include a Garrison G-50-CE, a custom-painted Godin Kingpin CWII, a Gibson ES-335, and a '70s Fender Strat.

To incorporate his looping techniques, Arthur uses a myriad of rackmounted units of the Lexicon JamMan. He plays his guitars through an impressive floor of effects pedals.^[46] When performing solo live, he often records a sample of guitar, percussion, or vocals which he can then loop periodically throughout a song, allowing him to perform verses with the added effect of harmonizing with himself.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Big City Secrets (1997)
• Come to Where I'm From (2000)
• Redemption's Son (2002)
• Our Shadows Will Remain (2004)
• Nuclear Daydream (2006)
• Let's Just Be (2007) (with The Lonely Astronauts)
• Temporary People (2008) (with The Lonely Astronauts)
• The Graduation Ceremony (2011)
• Redemption City (2012)

EPs[link]

• Cut and Blind (August 1996)
• Vacancy (May 11, 1999)
• Junkyard Hearts I (February 15, 2002)
• Junkyard Hearts II (February 28, 2002)
• Junkyard Hearts III (March 15, 2002)
• Junkyard Hearts IV (March 28, 2002)
• And the Thieves Are Gone (December 7, 2004)
• Could We Survive (March 18, 2008)
• Crazy Rain (April 15, 2008)
• Vagabond Skies (June 10, 2008)
• Foreign Girls (July 8, 2008)

Soundtracks[link]

• Television
  • Conan (2011) ("Father's Son")
  • Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2010) ("Father's Son"))
  • Numb3rs (2009) ("Killer's Knife")
  • Hung (2009) ("Walk Away")
  • House (2008) ("Could We Survive")
  • True Blood (2008) ("Stumble and Pain")
  • Scrubs (2006) ("In the Sun")
  • The O.C. (2003) ("Honey And The Moon")
  • Wasted (2002) ("In the Sun")
  • The L Word ("In The Sun")

• Cinema
  • Shrek 2 (2004) ("You're So True")
  • Saved! (2004) ("In the Sun")
  • American Pie 3 (2003) ("Honey and the Moon")
  • The Bourne Identity (2002) ("In the Sun")
  • Shallow Hal (2001) ("Chemical")
  • The Bourne Identity (1999) ("Porcupine")
  • Bone Collector (1999) ("Bed of nails")
  • Hell's Kitchen (1998) ("Invisible Hands", "Lost Gypsy Weapon", "Eyes on My Back", "Pictures of Life", "Cinderella Under Glass", "Big City Secret", "Good About Me", "Crying Like a Man", "Porcupine")

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joseph Arthur

• Joseph Arthur's official website
• Joseph Arthur's Tumblr blog
• Lonely Astronauts – fan website
• Lonely Astronaut Records website
• Joseph Arthur on IMDb