Nati Cano
Natividad "Nati" Cano was born July 23, 1933 in Ahuisculco, Jalisco, a small rural town outside of Guadalajara, Mexico, Nati learned to play the vihuela, a small five-stringed guitar, from his father at age six. By eight Nati was playing professionally in cantinas with his father and grandfather. After studying the violin in the Academia de Música in Guadalajara read more...
Lord Invader
Born Rupert Westmore Grant in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, on December 13, 1914, Grant grew up around San Fernando and began improvising calypsos at a young age. Labeled a "country boy" by his fellow Trinidadians, Grant had great aspirations. Grant's tailor, supportive of the rising local star, gave Grant his moniker by commenting, "I tell you, Rupert, you read more...
Tito Matos
Héctor "Tito" Matos was born in 1968 in Villa Palmera, a poor neighborhood of Santurce, Puerto Rico. From an early age he was exposed to plena, a stylistic genre that, along with bomba, is the heart and soul of Afro-Puerto Rican music and expresses the social experience of Puerto Rico's African-descended population. After his grandfather gave him a pandereta read more...
Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe is credited with inventing the high energy, fast tempo, hard-edged style of country music known as bluegrass. The genre takes its name from Monroe's band, The Blue Grass Boys. From the 1940s, Monroe and The Blue Grass Boys defined the sound and style of classic bluegrass--a five-piece acoustic string band, playing precisely and rapidly read more...
Lucinda Williams
The daughter of English professor Miller Williams, Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Lousiana, and spent most of her youth moving from college town to college town in the American South and South America. Lucinda had begun singing and playing in 1965, at age 12, when Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited was the album on every hip tunrtable read more...