LL Cool J

Critics scoffed at his new direction, though, and by the release of Walking with a Panther (1989 in music), he was booed offstage at the Apollo Theater. Label-owner Shelly Siegel, died suddenly in 1979, leaving the label rudderless. The ballad "I Need Love" was one of the first pop-rap songs to be a hit. However, the North American rights for his album were held by the small Canadian label Mushroom. In 1987, he released Bigger and Deffer (see 1987 in music). He bounced from Elektra to CBS Records, to the small Rockburgh label, where he finally scored a hit single in 1978 with a cover of Terence Boylan's "Shake It", and a moderately successful follow-up covering Robert Palmer's "Gimme an Inch". "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and "Rock the Bells" were successful and helped the album go platinum. After Plainsong collapsed due to a bandmate's alcohol problem, and with his career now based in Los Angeles, he released several more albums with ad hoc bands, including one produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith, but none met with commercial success.

The album was released to critical acclaim, as LL Cool J was one of the first rappers to use conventional song structure to make pop-oriented rap. It also included "Even the Guiding Light", a spiritually positive answer to Thompson’s powerful but bleak "Meet on the Ledge". The song was the first hit record for Def Jam, and its success persuaded him to drop out of school to record Radio (1985 in music). The album included a cover of Dave McEnery's "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", plus a song of Matthews' own, "True Story of Amelia Earhart's Last Night" based on the research that suggest that Earhart on her round-the-world flight may have been spying on Japanese bases in the Pacific islands. He signed to Def Jam in 1984 and released the underground hit "I Need a Beat" (see 1984 in music). After solo two albums on Vertigo Records, under the sponsorship of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith and surrounded by a who's who of likeminded British semi-folkies (notably another ex-Fairporter, Richard Thompson), he formed Plainsong, who signed to Elektra Records and in 1972 produced In Search of Amelia Earhart, which solidified Matthews' songwriting reputation with the critics, if not with the general public. LL Cool J was born and grew up in Queens, New York City. The band went through several different lineups and toured extensively for the next two years, to general critical acclaim but no great commercial success.

He has also appeared in several films. With Thompson, Nicol, and Hutchings from Fairport, plus drummer Gerry Conway (of Fotheringay, and later to join Fairport) and pedal steel player Gordon Huntley, he formed Matthews Southern Comfort, whose sound was rooted in American country music and rockabilly; this was his first significant experience as a songwriter, although the band also covered the likes of Neil Young and Ian and Sylvia. He is best known for romantic ballads like "I Need Love" as well as hardcore rap like "I Can't Live Without My Radio". In 1969, as Fairport's music veered more toward British folk influences, Matthews was booted out. James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968) is an American hip hop artist better known by his stage name, LL Cool J (an abbreviation of "Ladies Love Cool James"). He recorded a couple of singles there in 1967 with a pop band called Pyramid, before being recruited by Ashley Hutchings as a male vocalist for Fairport Convention, where he duetted first with Judy Dyble, but more famously with Sandy Denny. Toys (1992). He moved to London in 1966, taking a job in a Carnaby Street shoe store.

In the House (1995). Matthews grew up in a working class family in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, where he sang with several minor bands during the British pop music explosion of the mid-1960s. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). He later had a solo career and fronted the bands Plainsong and Matthews Southern Comfort. [1] (http://www.richieunterberger.com/matthews.html). Deep Blue Sea (1999). Influenced by both rock'n'roll and folk music, he has performed mainly as a solo act, alghouth he was a member of Fairport Convention during the early period where they were heavily influenced by American West Coast folk rock. In Too Deep (1999). Iain Matthews (known in the 1960s first as Ian MacDonald, and from the late 1960s until 1989 as Ian Matthews) is a British musician and songwriter.

Any Given Sunday (1999). Plainsong, Pangolins (2003) Blue Rose. Charlie's Angels (2000). Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, La Terre Commune (2001) Blue Rose / rfect Pitch / Eminent. Rollerball (2002). Iain Matthews and Elliot Murphy, The Official Blue Rose Bootleg (2001) Blue Rose. S.W.A.T. (2003). No Grey Faith, Secrets All Told — The Songs of Sandy Denny (2000) Perfect Pitch / Unique Gravity.

Mindhunters (2004). Iain Matthews, Excerpts from Swine Lake (1998) Blue Rose. 7 Aurelius) #26 US, #3 UK. Iain Matthews, Skeleton Keys (1992) Line. 2005 "Hush" (feat. Ian Matthews, Walking a Changing Line (1986) Windham Hill. 2004 "Headsprung" #16 US, #25 UK. Hi-Fi,Moods for Mallards (1982) First American Records; live mini-album.

from "The DEFinition"