Stan Ridgway

Stanard Stan Ridgway born April 5 1954 is an American singersongwriter and film and television composer known for his distinctive voice dramatic lyrical narratives and eclectic solo albums He was the original lead singer and a founding member of the band Wall of Voodoo Stan Ridgway was born in Barstow California in the high desert and raised in Los Angeles He claims to have been a budding ventriloquist who spent his first night in jail at the age of 12 for stealing street signs Ridgway also had a childhood fascination with folk music pestering his parents until they bought him a banjo at the age of 14 The band was named overlinking by Ridgway before their first show in reference to a comment made by a friend of Ridgways while recording and overdubbing a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine which was a gift from voice actor Daws Butler While listening to some of the music that created in the studio Ridgway jokingly compared the multipledrummachine and Farfisaorganladen recordings to Phil Spectors Wall of Sound whereupon the friend commented it sounded more like a wall of voodoo and the name stuck Wall of Voodoos music was a mix of New Wave and Ennio Morricones Spaghetti Western soundtracks of the 1960s Adding to the musics distinctiveness was percussive and textural experimentation ie mixing drum machines with unconventional instruments such as pots pans and various kitchen utensils raw electronics with interlocking melodic figures as well as twangy spaghettiwestern guitar On top of the mix was Ridgways unusual vocal style and highly stylized cinematic narratives heavily influenced by science fiction and film noir sung from the perspective of ordinary people and characters wrestling with ironies inside the American Dream Ridgway embarked on a solo career in 1983 shortly after Wall of Voodoos appearance at the US Festival that same year After collaborating on the song Dont Box Me In with Stewart Copeland from the Police for the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppolas Rumble Fish starring Mickey Rourke Matt Dillon and Dennis Hopper he released his first proper solo album The Big Heat 1986 which included the top 5 European including UK hit Camouflage This was followed by numerous other solo recordings Mosquitos 1989 Partyball 1991 Black Diamond 1995 and Anatomy 1999 The Way I Feel Today 1998 a collection of big band standards and Holiday in Dirt 2002 a compilation of outtakes and previously unreleased songs Ridgways album Snakebite Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs 2005 features the narrative song Talkin Wall Of Voodoo Blues Pt 1 a history of his former band in song Ridgways album Holiday in Dirt was a quasicinematic project with the release of the album accompanied by a showing of 14 short films by various independent filmmakers each film a visual interpretation of one of the songs on the album A compilation DVD of the films was released in February 2005 Source Article Stan Ridgway from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30