Robert Ward

1. Robert Ward (October 15, 1938 - December 25, 2008) was an American blues and soul guitarist. He was known for founding the Ohio Untouchables, the band that later would become the Ohio Players. He played the guitar with a unique tone soaked in vibrato coming from the Magnatone amplifier. Having been raised in Georgia, he moved to Dayton, Ohio in 1960 and formed the Ohio Untouchables. The group released series of singles from LuPine label including "Your Love Is Amazing" which would become one of Ward's signature songs. Ward left the group in 1965. Then he moved to the Detroit area, actually residing in Toledo, OH and released some single under his name in the late 60's. He disappeared from the music scene sometime in the 70's after working as a session player for Motown. It was in the early 90's that he came back into the spotlight. He was "rediscovered" by Black Top Records and released his first full-length album Fear No Evil in 1991. He released 2 more albums in the next 4 years for the label. After the label folded in the late 90's, he signed with Delmark Records to release New Role Soul in 2000. In his last years he faced a series of health problems which prevented him from performing or recording. He died at his home on December 25, 2008. 2. Robert Ward (born September 13, 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio) has been a prolific American composer for over seventy years and is perhaps most widely known for his opereratic setting of The Crucible, Arthur’s Miller’s dramatic recounting of the Salem witchcraft trials; a work that has been performed around the world and in a number of different languages. Ward’s catalog of works includes eight operas, seven symphonies, four concertos, numerous shorter works for orchestra, music for wind ensemble, compositions for a variety of instrumental chamber groups, two cantatas, various genres for vocal ensembles, and many songs for solo voice. To date, the life of Robert Ward has been an extraordinary one by any account. He has lived and continues to live a life filled with composition, family, and service to humankind. During his long and distinguished career, Ward has been a successful composer, conductor, educator, administrator, and businessman. Despite the many limitations this multifaceted career imposed upon his time for composition, Ward has never lost sight of his true calling as a composer, a fact witnessed by a prolific output of music in almost eve ry compositional genre. Ward’s various careers have brought him into close association with the most notable figures in the world of contemporary American music and taken him to many parts of the world including Austria, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Korea, Poland, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, and Taiwan. There have been performances of The Crucible in Japan (performed in Japanese), England, Germany (performed in German with the composer conducting), and Korea (performed in Korean). His achievements in music have been recognized with four honorary doctorates, numerous grants and fellowships, and, for his best-known opera, The Crucible, a New York Music Critics Circle Citation Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Ward has always accepted new challenges and incorporated into his music the vast experiences of his life. Because of this, he considers himself an “eclectic” composer whose works reflect the totality of musical styles and vocabularies practiced by composers throughout the history of Western art music. In every aspect of his composition, Ward consciously expresses his philosophy and interpretation of American idealism, which have become part of his being during a long and varied career. As a composer who enjoys the rich palette of life in the United States to its fullest, Robert Ward proudly represents himself as a truly “American” composer. 3. Robert Ward is an upcoming singer/songwriter out of London. He is marked by his unique sound mixed with his consciousness. He is about to have his first release from Indiginous Records. http://www.myspace.com/globalizer Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.