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George Cole (musician)
Encyclopedia
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
, vocalist, and lead guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
for the Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
band George Cole and Vive Le Jazz. He was also a guitarist for the pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch were a short-lived pop rock band and can be considered the predecessor of the band Jellyfish.They consisted of Chris Witt Kettner , Andy Sturmer , and George Cole...
and Big Blue Hearts. He played on Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak
Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak is an American rock musician and occasional actor.-Early life:Isaak was born in Stockton, California, the son of Dorothy , a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak, a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa...
's platinum selling Forever Blue album. He was the guitar instructor of Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong is an American rock musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, main songwriter and lead guitarist for the American punk rock band Green Day...
for ten years and also taught Mike Dirnt
Mike Dirnt
Michael Ryan Pritchard is an American musician, best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the American Rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass." While pretending to pluck the strings, he made the noise, "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt"...
before they started the punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
.
Early life
George Cole was born on October 10, 1960. He was born at San Francisco General Hospital. He grew up in Richmond, CaliforniaRichmond, California
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
. He attended Kennedy High School. He performed in the band "Young Country" in the late 1970s and The Upstarts in the early 1980s. His favorite band as a child was The Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
Quartet.
Guitar Instructor
George Cole has taught guitar lessons to promising musicians for twenty-five years. He began teaching guitar lessons in California in the 1980s. Among his many students, he taught and mentored Billie Joe ArmstrongBillie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong is an American rock musician and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist, main songwriter and lead guitarist for the American punk rock band Green Day...
for ten years and the bassist Mike Dirnt
Mike Dirnt
Michael Ryan Pritchard is an American musician, best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the American Rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass." While pretending to pluck the strings, he made the noise, "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt"...
of the punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
. "Cole and Billie Joe would frequently spend afternoons jamming together, free-form style with the teacher winging off as many odd notes as his pupil. He helped them have their first recording session at a studio at RDR studios in San Francisco in 1986. Armstrong received his first electric guitar, a Fernandes
Fernandes Guitars
Fernandes Guitars is a guitar and accessory manufacturer that originated in Japan in 1969, building flamenco guitars. As the company grew it expanded production to include more acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass guitars, amplifiers, and accessories to become one of the biggest guitar...
Stratocaster copy that he named "Blue", that his mother bought from Cole. Cole bought the guitar new from David Margen of the band Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
. Cole gave Armstrong a Bill Lawrence Humbucking pickup and told him to install the pickup in the bridge position. Armstrong then switched back to a Seymour Duncan JB pickup that he still uses today. "Armstrong fetishized his teacher's guitar, partly because the blue instrument had a sound quality and Van Halen - worthy fluidity he couldn't get from his little red Hohner. He prized it mostly, however, because of his relationship with Cole, another father figure after the death of Andy."
Career
George Cole was lead guitarist in the pop rockPop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch were a short-lived pop rock band and can be considered the predecessor of the band Jellyfish.They consisted of Chris Witt Kettner , Andy Sturmer , and George Cole...
from 1984-1988. With Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch were a short-lived pop rock band and can be considered the predecessor of the band Jellyfish.They consisted of Chris Witt Kettner , Andy Sturmer , and George Cole...
, he performed with Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
and Buster Poindexter. Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch were a short-lived pop rock band and can be considered the predecessor of the band Jellyfish.They consisted of Chris Witt Kettner , Andy Sturmer , and George Cole...
has a music video featuring George Cole on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
. They won a California Music Award for Best New Major Label Artist. George Cole was a member of the band Big Blue Hearts from 1997-2000. He toured with Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...
of The Eagles, recorded with producer Roy Thomas Baker
Roy Thomas Baker
Roy Thomas Baker is a multiple award-winning Anglo-American music producer, songwriter, arranger and Recording Academy Governor, who has produced Platinum and Gold certified pop and rock records from the 1970s to the present.- Career :Baker began his career at Decca Records in England at the age...
, and they performed with Robert Cray
Robert Cray
Robert Cray is an American blues guitarist and singer. A five-time Grammy Award winner, he has led his own band, as well as an acclaimed solo career.-Career:...
, Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
, and Boz Scaggs
Boz Scaggs
William Royce "Boz" Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 hit singles in the United States, along with the #2 album, Silk Degrees. Scaggs continues to write, record music and tour.-Early life and career:Scaggs was born in Canton,...
. George Cole started the Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
band George Cole and Vive Le Jazz in 2006 and is the Producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, Composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, Lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
, Vocalist, and lead guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
. The band is a seven piece acoustic jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
band. George recently performed a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in New York. The band performed at a San Francisco Chapter of National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., known variously as The Recording Academy or NARAS, is a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its...
’s (Grammy's) celebration.
Instruments
George owns and plays acoustic Selmer Guitars 103 and 520. His Selmer 520 was played by Django ReinhardtDjango Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
on a tour in Europe in the 1940s.
Selected discography
The Hot Club- Samois Faire (2007) -- Executive Producer, vocals, guitars
George Cole
- George Cole (2004) -- Producer, guitars
Compilation (Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, Lavay Smith
Lavay Smith
Lavay Smith is an American singer specialising in the Blues and Jazz, from Swing to Bebop. Smith tours internationally with her 8-piece "little big band", Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. She is known as The Queen of Classic Jazz & Blues....
...)
- New Sirens of Song: Sultry Singers (2003) -- Producer, guitars
Christie McCarthy
- Everyday Real (2003) -- Producer, guitar
Glassbrick Boulevard
- A Ride Up The Mountain Where Miracles Live (2002) -- guitars
Lee Seung-Hwan
- Egg (over Easy) (2003) -- guitars
Fred Horn
- Steady Fready (1999) -- guitars
Jerry Shelfer
- Slipaway (1992) -- guitars
Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak
Christopher Joseph "Chris" Isaak is an American rock musician and occasional actor.-Early life:Isaak was born in Stockton, California, the son of Dorothy , a potato chip factory worker, and Joe Isaak, a forklift driver. Isaak's mother is Italian American, originating from Genoa...
- Forever Blue (1995) -- guitar
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch
Beatnik Beatch were a short-lived pop rock band and can be considered the predecessor of the band Jellyfish.They consisted of Chris Witt Kettner , Andy Sturmer , and George Cole...
- At the Zula Pool (1986) -- guitar
- Beatnik Beach (1986) -- guitar
External links
- George Cole and Vive Le Jazz - Official Website
- Djangology.net
- Certified Vintage Guitars