Hammersmith

Coordinates: 51°29′34″N 0°13′22″W / 51.4928°N 0.2229°W / 51.4928; -0.2229

Hammersmith is a district in west London, England, located in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It is bordered by Shepherds Bush to the north, Kensington to the east, Chiswick to the west, and Fulham to the south, with which it forms part of the north bank of the River Thames. It is linked by Hammersmith Bridge to Barnes in the southwest. The area is one of west London's key commercial and employment centres, and has for some decades been the main centre of London's Polish minority. It is a major transport hub for west London, with two London Underground stations and a bus station at Hammersmith Broadway.

Neighbouring districts

History

In the early 1660s, Hammersmith's first parish church, which later became St Paul’s, was built by Sir Nicholas Crispe who ran the brickworks in Hammersmith. It contained a monument to Crispe as well as a bronze bust of King Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur. In 1696 Sir Samuel Morland was buried there. The church was completely rebuilt in 1883, but the monument and bust were transferred to the new church.

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, record producer, actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock n' roll, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the more than sixty albums he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers.

Zappa was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical composers such as Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, along with 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; later switching to electric guitar. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz or classical.

David Gilmour

David Jon Gilmour, CBE (born 6 March 1946), is an English musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he is best known for his work as the guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was estimated that by 2012 the group had sold over 250 million records worldwide, including 75 million units sold in the United States.

In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has produced a variety of artists, for example the Dream Academy, and has had a solo career. In 2005, Gilmour was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to music. He was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time. Additionally, Gilmour was voted number 36 in the greatest voices in rock by Planet Rock listeners in 2009.

Early life

David Jon Gilmour was born on 6 March 1946, in Cambridge, England. His father, Douglas Gilmour, eventually became a senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Cambridge, and his mother, Sylvia (born Wilson), trained as a teacher and later worked as a film editor for the BBC. At the time of Gilmour's birth they lived in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, but in 1956, after several relocations, the couple moved their family to Grantchester Meadows.

Bruce Springsteen

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Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and humanitarian. He is best known for his work with his E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Boss," Springsteen is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class and sometimes political sentiments centered on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running over three hours in length.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run (1975) and Born in the U.S.A. (1984), showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 64 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award as well as being inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.

David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known as David Bowie (/ˈboʊ.i/), was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, painter, and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, and was considered by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft significantly impacted popular music. During his lifetime, he sold an estimated 140 million records worldwide. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.