Template:Distinguish Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates James Blades OBE (9 September 1901Template:Spaced ndash19 May 1999) was an English percussionist.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref>
He was one of the most distinguished percussionists in Western music, with a long and varied career. His book Percussion Instruments and their History (1971) is a standard reference work on the subject.<ref name="skinner">Michael Skinner, In Memoriam: James Blades OBE, Percussive Arts Society, 1999. Retrieved August 8, 2007. Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Blades was born in Peterborough in 1901.<ref name="ravo">Nick Ravo, "James Blades Is Dead at 97; a Percussionist for Victory" Template:Webarchive, The New York Times (May 25, 1999). Retrieved August 8, 2007.</ref> He was a long-time associate of Benjamin Britten, with whom he conceived many of the composer's unusual percussion effects.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1954, Blades was appointed Professor of Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music.
As a chamber musician he played with the Melos Ensemble and the English Chamber Orchestra.
Blades' pupils included the rock drummers Max Sedgley, Carl Palmer, and Richard James Burgess as well as percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
His most famous and widely heard performances were the sound of the drum playing "V-for-Victory" in Morse code, the introduction to the BBC broadcasts made to the European Resistance during World War II, and providing the sound of the gong seen at the start of films produced by the Rank Organisation. Blades played this sound on a tam-tam. On screen Blades's sound was interpreted by an actor miming a character called the "Gongman".
His autobiography Drum Roll: A Professional Adventure from the Circus to the Concert Hall was published by Faber & Faber in 1977.
BibliographyEdit
- Orchestral Percussion Techniques (Oxford: University, 1961) Template:ISBN
- Percussion Instruments and their History (London: Faber & Faber, 1971) Template:ISBN
- Early Percussion Instruments from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Oxford: University, 1976) Template:ISBN (with Jeremy Montagu)
- Drum Roll: A Professional Adventure from the Circus to the Concert Hall (London: Faber & Faber, 1977) Template:ISBN
- Ready to Play (London: BBC, 1978) Template:ISBN (with Carole Ward)
- From Cave to Cavern (London: Sussex, 1982) Template:ISBN
- A Check-List of the Percussion Instruments in the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments (Edinburgh: Reid School of Music, 1982) Template:ISBN
- How to Play Drums (London: Penguin, 1985) Template:ISBN (with Johnny Dean)
- These I Have Met... (London: Music Sales, 1998) Template:ISBN
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Obituary from The Guardian