musicians

East 17 (E17)

A pop boy band consisting of Brian Harvey, John Hendy, Terry Coldwell and Terry Mortimer. Brian Harvey is the lead vocalist and Tony Mortimer wrote most of their songs. They have charted 18 top 20 singles and 4 top 10 albums. The band name came from the postcode of Walthamstow.

Steve Harris

The self taught base guitarist and composer of heavy metal band Iron maiden, was born 12th March 1956 in Leytonstone. He founded the band when he was in his teens and he and Dave Murry are the only members to have appeared on all the bands albums.

Talvin Sigh

A British DJ and Tabla player born 1970 in Leytonstone. He is famous for his original fusion of classical Indian Music and drum and bass. He is involved in an electronica sub genre called Asian Underground. As a child he grew up playing the Tabla, break dancing and listening to punk rock. At 15 he went to India and studied Tabla, but returned to the UK after a year. Despite his classical training his tabla playing was not accepted by British promoters of classical Indian music, because they felt his western influences were too strongly incorporated. In the late 1980’s he started looking at the fusion of sounds and soon began working as a musician with artists such as Madonna, the Indigo Girls and Massive attack to name a few. He worked as on remixes until he released his solo album in 1998 entitled OK. The album won him the Mercury music prize for 1999.