1.
Norah Jones
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Norah Jones is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Throughout her career, Jones has won awards and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. Billboard named her the top jazz artist of the 2000–2009 decade and she has won nine Grammy Awards and was 60th on Billboard magazines artists of the 2000–2009 decade chart. In 2002, Jones launched her music career with the release of Come Away with Me. It was certified diamond, selling over 26 million copies, the record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. They were also well received by critics. Jones fifth studio album, Little Broken Hearts, was released on April 27,2012, Jones is the daughter of Indian sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar, and half-sister of fellow musician Anoushka Shankar. Jones was born Geetali Norah Shankar on March 30,1979 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, to American concert producer Sue Jones, after her parents separated in 1986, Shankar lived with her mother, growing up in Grapevine, Texas. She attended Colleyville Middle School and Grapevine High School before transferring to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing, while in high school, she sang in the school choir, participated in band, and played the alto saxophone. At the age of sixteen, with parents consent, she officially changed her name to Norah Jones. Jones always had an affinity for the music of Bill Evans and Billie Holiday and she once said, My mom had this eight-album Billie Holiday set, I picked out one disc that I liked and played that over and over again. As a child, Jones began singing in church and also took piano and she considers herself spiritual and appreciates the rituals of her church but does not consider herself deeply religious. She attended Interlochen Center for the Arts during the summers, while at high school, she won the Down Beat Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist and Best Original Composition. Jones attended the University of North Texas, where she majored in jazz piano, during this time, she had a chance meeting with future collaborator Jesse Harris. She gave a ride to a band playing at the university whose members happened to be friends of Harris and he was on a cross-country road-trip with friend and future Little Willies member Richard Julian, and stopped to see the band play. After meeting Jones, Harris started sending her lead sheets of his songs, in 1999, Jones left Texas for New York City. Less than a later, she started a band with Harris. As artist Peter Malick states in the notes, I started looking for a singer who could record for me
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
3.
Blue Note Records
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Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards and it derives its name from the characteristic blue notes of jazz and the blues. Originally dedicated to recording traditional jazz and small group swing, from 1947 the label began to switch its attention to modern jazz, while the original company did not itself record many of the pioneers of bebop, significant exceptions are Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro and Bud Powell. Historically, Blue Note has principally been associated with the hard bop style of jazz, but also recorded essential albums in the avant-garde and free styles of jazz. Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Grant Green, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, the label is currently owned by the Universal Music Group. Lion first heard jazz as a boy in Berlin. The Blue Note label initially consisted of Lion and Max Margulis, musicians were supplied with alcoholic refreshments, and recorded in the early hours of the morning after their evenings work in clubs and bars had finished. Francis Wolff, a photographer, emigrated to the USA at the end of 1939 and soon joined forces with Lion. In 1941, Lion was drafted into the army for two years, Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store offered storage facilities and helped keep the catalog in print, with Wolff working for him. By late 1943, the label was back in recording musicians. Johnson, who was returning to a degree of musical activity after having largely recovered from a stroke suffered in 1940. Towards the end of the war, saxophonist Ike Quebec was among those who recorded for the label, Quebec would act as a talent scout for the label until his death in 1963. Although stylistically belonging to a generation, he could appreciate the new bebop style of jazz. Lion recorded several Monk sessions before he began to release the resulting sides, monks recordings for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952 did not sell well for some years, but have since come to be regarded as the most important of his career. The sessions by Powell are commonly ranked among his best, J. J. Johnson and trumpeter Miles Davis both recorded several sessions for Blue Note between 1952 and 1954, but by then the musicians who had created bebop were starting to explore other styles. The recording of musicians performing in a jazz idiom, such as Sidney Bechet and clarinettist George Lewis. In 1951, Blue Note issued their first vinyl 10 releases, the label was soon recording emerging talent such as Horace Silver and Clifford Brown. Meanwhile, Milt Jackson and the Jazz Messengers recorded for Blue Note, the Milt Jackson Quartet session was a one-off, but Blakeys various groups recorded for the label extensively, if intermittently, for the next decade
4.
EMI
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EMI was a British multinational conglomerate founded in March 1931 and was based in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, it was the fourth-largest business group and its EMI Records Ltd. group of record labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records and Capitol Records. EMI also had a publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing—also based in London with offices globally. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, other members of the Sony consortium include the Estate of Michael Jackson, The Blackstone Group, and Abu Dhabi–owned investment fund Mubadala Development Company. The new vertically integrated company produced sound recordings as well as recording, the companys gramophone manufacturing led to forty years of success with larger-scale electronics and electrical engineering. He was killed in 1942 whilst conducting flight trials on an experimental H2S radar set, post-war, the company resumed its involvement in making broadcasting equipment, notably providing the BBCs second television transmitter at Sutton Coldfield. It also manufactured broadcast television cameras for British television production companies as well as for the BBC, the commercial television ITV companies also used them alongside cameras made by Pye and Marconi. Exports of this piece of equipment were low, however, the company was also for many years an internationally respected manufacturer of photomultipliers. This part of the business was transferred to Thorn as part of Thorn-EMI, in 1958 the EMIDEC1100, the UKs first commercially available all-transistor computer, was developed at Hayes under the leadership of Godfrey Hounsfield, an electrical engineer at EMI. In 1973 EMI was awarded a prestigious Queens Award for Technological Innovation for what was called the EMI scanner. After brief, but brilliant, success in the imaging field, EMIs manufacturing activities were sold off to other companies. Subsequently, development and manufacturing activities were sold off to companies and work moved to other towns such as Crawley. Emihus Electronics, based in Glenrothes, Scotland, was owned 51% by Hughes Aircraft, of California, US and it manufactured integrated circuits electrolytic capacitors and, for a short period in the mid-1970s, hand-held calculators under the Gemini name. Early in its life, the Gramophone Company established subsidiary operations in a number of countries in the British Commonwealth, including India, Australia. Over 150,000 78-rpm recordings from around the world are held in EMIs temperature-controlled archive in Hayes, in 1931, the year the company was formed, it opened the legendary recording studios at Abbey Road, London. During the 1930s and 1940s, its roster of artists included Arturo Toscanini, Sir Edward Elgar, during this time EMI appointed its first A&R managers. These included George Martin, who brought the Beatles into the EMI fold. When the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1931, at this point RCA had a majority shareholding in the new company, giving RCA chair David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board
5.
The Fall (Norah Jones album)
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The Fall is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Norah Jones, released November 17,2009, through Blue Note Records. The album debuted at three on the Billboard 200, selling 180,000 copies in its first week. As of August 2012, the album has more than three million copies worldwide. Jones enlisted several songwriting collaborators, including Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, the cover artwork for the album features a portrait by photographer Autumn de Wilde. The first single, Chasing Pirates, was released on October 13,2009, “Young Blood” was released as the second single for North America, Europe and Japan. The music video was available at iTunes on 30 March 2010. The song has reached #33 on the Japan Hot 100, stuck was released as the second single on March 5,2010 in the UK. Its Gonna Be was released as the single for North America in April 2010. It charted on the billboard Triple A Chart and peak on airplay chart #11 in April 2010, Jones performed the song on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Jones reappeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on June 25 and performed Its Gonna Be on the show for a second time and she performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on August 31,2010. Billboard gave the album a score of 83 out of 100 and stated that Jones ditches the gentle piano-playing of her previous work and rises to a new level of creative boldness. The New York Times gave it a review and called it the sonic and emotional expansion music needed. Uncut gave it four out of five and said that The emotional imprint. Moves beyond the pining, wistful tones that are trademark in favor of Sex And The City scenarios bursting with heartbreak, regret, Q also gave it four stars out of five and praised the album for its copper-bottomed classics. MusicOMH likewise gave it four out of five and said, Less predictable was her now clear desire to take risks and step off the all-too-well-forged path of safe. Instead, on The Fall Norah Jones chooses to defy categorization, Hot Press gave it a score of four out of five with the header, Easy listening princess goes indie-goth. Filter gave the album a score of 78% and stated that unlike Not Too Late, in a way, she has indeed found a different beat to groove to, and if anyone can play in a piano bar without a piano, it would certainly be Norah Jones. Paste gave it a score of 7.6 out of 10 and stated that Jones is clearly comfortable with where she’s arrived, spin gave it a score of seven out of ten and said that the album has been billed as Norah Jones rock album
6.
Little Broken Hearts
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Little Broken Hearts is the fifth solo studio album by American singer and songwriter Norah Jones, released on April 25,2012, through Blue Note Records. The album was produced by Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, who is notable for his work with The Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley. Happy Pills was released as the lead single on March 6,2012. It reached No.13 on Billboards Adult Contemporary chart and No.44 on the Hot Rock Songs chart, the second single, Miriam, was released on July 25,2012, and peaked at No.82 on the Japan Hot 100. In 2009, Jones and Burton jammed in the Gnarls Barkley producers Los Angeles studio to work on a project about which nobody knew. They spent five days together in June 2009, working on what would eventually become Jones fifth solo album, the sessions were fruitful, but neither of them were quite satisfied. Burton started a new project Broken Bells with James Mercer, spending time in studio with U2 and working on their 13th studio album and produced The Black Keys seventh studio album. The duo previously collaborated on the 2011 album Rome, on which she contributed vocals to the tracks Seasons Trees, Black, soon after the project was completed, the two headed into the studio again to work on her fifth album. In mid-2011, Jones and Burton reconvened at Burtons studio to finish Little Broken Hearts, at that time, Jones brought a handful of raw, emotionally charged new tunes she penned in the wake of a harsh breakup with her fiction-writer boyfriend. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she said, I always heard the old stories about how you write songs when you go through some shit. Little Broken Hearts follows from experimental chamber serenades to stark, electronic-embellished confessions, as Burton mentioned in his interview with Rolling Stone, this album is very different from anything Jones has ever done before. Rolling Stone writer Matt Diehl pointed the track Take It Back as Jones boldest departure, which features fuzzed-out guitars and spooky, distorted vocals. On 4 Broken Hearts, he compared her to Dusty Springfield while confronting a mutual infidelity and, the cover art for the album was inspired by the poster to the 1965 film Mudhoney. Jones was recording the album at Danger Mouses studio and saw the poster on the wall and she said, Brian has this great collection of Russ Meyer posters in his studio. And this particular one. was right over the couch where I sat every day, I always was looking at it and thinking thats so cool I want to look like her. I remember staring at the poster the whole time we made the record. The photos for the album were taken by the photographer of Mad Men Frank Ockenfels III, the rest of the album design and directions were by Frank Harkins. The title of the album allude to a recent break-up, on February 28,2012, Jones premiered Happy Pills, the first single from the album, via an announcement on her Facebook page on SoundCloud
7.
Metacritic
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Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of media products, music albums, games, movies, TV shows, DVDs, and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged, Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source, a color of Green, Yellow or Red summarizes the critics recommendations and therefore the general appeal of the product to reviewers and, to a lesser extent, the public. It is regarded as the game industrys foremost review aggregator. Metacritics scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to the critics fame, stature, and volume of reviews. Metacritic was launched in July 1999 by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts, rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews, but Doyle, Roberts, and Dietz saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. They sold Metacritic to CNET in 2005, CNET and Metacritic are now owned by the CBS Corporation. Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote in September 2004, Mr. Doyle,36, is now a product manager at CNET. Speaking of video games, Doyle said, A site like ours helps people cut through. unobjective promotional language and he added that the review process was not taken as seriously when unconnected magazines and websites provided reviews in isolation. In August 2010, the appearance was revamped, reaction from users was overwhelmingly negative. Certain publications are given more significance because of their stature, games Editor Marc Doyle was interviewed by Keith Stuart of The Guardian to get a look behind the metascoring process. Stuart wrote, the phenomenon, namely Metacritic and GameRankings, have become an enormously important element of online games journalism over the past few years. The ranging of metascores is, Metacritic is regarded as the foremost online review site for the video game industry. Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal has written that Metacritic influence the sales of games and he explains its influence as coming from the higher cost of buying video games than music or movie tickets. Many executives say that low scores can hurt the sales potential. He claimed that a number of businesses and financial analysts use Metacritic as an early indicator of a games potential sales and, by extension. In 2004, Jason Hall of Warner Bros. began including quality metrics in contracts with partners licensing its movies for games, if a product does not at least achieve a specific score, some deals require the publisher to pay higher royalties. In 2008, Microsoft began using Metacritic averages to de-list underperforming Xbox Live Arcade games and these are the top 10 individual games with the highest scores on the site as of 2 April 2017
8.
AllMusic
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AllMusic is an online music guide service website. It was launched in 1991 by All Media Guide which later became All Media Network, AllMusic was launched in 1991 by Michael Erlewine of All Media Guide. The aim was to discographic information on every artist whos made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost and its first reference book was published the following year. When first released onto the Internet, AMG predated the World Wide Web and was first available as a Gopher site, the AMG consumer web properties AllMusic. com, AllMovie. com and AllGame. com were sold by Rovi in July 2013 to All Media Network, LLC. All Media Network, LLC. was formed by the founders of SideReel. com. The following are contributors to AllMusic, as of this date, All Media Network also produced the AllMusic guide series that includes the AllMusic Guide to Rock, the All Music Guide to Jazz and the All Music Guide to the Blues. Vladimir Bogdanov is the president of the series, in August 2007, PC Magazine included AllMusic in its Top 100 Classic Websites list. All Media Network AllGame AllMovie SideReel All Music Guide to the Blues All Music Guide to Jazz Stephen Thomas Erlewine Official website
9.
Billboard (magazine)
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Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and it is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows, Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegens interest in 1900 for $500, in the 1900s, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows. It also created a service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the industry as the jukebox, phonograph. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment so that it could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegans children, until it was sold to investors in 1985. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1,1894 by William Donaldson, initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production, the first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns like The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable, a department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897, after a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegans interest in the business in 1900 for $500, to save it from bankruptcy. That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London and he also re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment like fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism, economics and it had a stage gossip column covering the private lives of entertainers, a tent show section covering traveling shows and a sub-section called Freaks to order. According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published articles attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting good taste
10.
Clash (magazine)
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Clash is a popular music and fashion magazine and website based in the United Kingdom. It is published four times a year by Music Republic Ltd. after Clash Music Ltd went into liquidation and it concentrates on music and fashion, and often their effect on surrounding culture, as well as film and technology. The magazine won the Best New Magazine award in 2004 at the PPA Magazine Awards and has won awards in England and Scotland. Most notably, it won Magazine Of The Year at the 2011 Record Of The Day Awards, at the turn of 2011, Clash took on an entirely new look, ditching the previous glossy feel and music led design, for an altogether more led approach. In 2013 Clash launched a Smartphone channel which went on to win Best Music Magazine at the Digital Magazine Awards for their IOS Apple Magazine App, in February 2014 it expanded onto Android Handsets. The publication draws on the larger Clash brand, which extends to live events around the country and festival partnerships/parties,2011 saw Clash partner Levis and Spotify to bring Primal Scream to Londons Electric Brixton for one of their final shows with the former Stone Roses member, Mani. More recently this activity re-branded to be called Next Wave in order to reflect changes in the magazine. In November 2014, the magazine published its 99th edition, the Web-based service continued throughout the magazines absence from the news-stands. In late 2015 it was announced that Clash would return to print as a magazine from February 2016. Clash magazine was bred out of long running free listings magazine Vibe based in Dundee, the website features numerous ongoing features such as DJ Disasters, Rapture & Verse and A Letter From. It runs a Track of the Day feature from Monday to Friday, the website enjoyed a redesign, bringing it in line with the look of the print magazine, in October 2012. On 30 March 2009, ClashMusic began publishing the Essential 50 – fifty albums which the website considered the 50 greatest, most significant, downright brilliant albums of Clashs lifetime. Made up entirely of albums released in the past five years, list of magazines published in Scotland Music magazine Official website
11.
Entertainment Weekly
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Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by Time Inc. that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Different from celebrity-focused publications like Us Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EW primarily concentrates on entertainment media news, however, unlike Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, which are aimed at industry insiders, EW targets a more general audience. The first issue was published on February 16,1990, the cover price was $1.95 The title word entertainment was not capitalized on the cover until mid-1992 and has remained so since. By 2003, the weekly circulation averaged 1.7 million copies per week. In March 2006, managing editor Rick Tetzeli oversaw an overhaul of EWs graphics, Entertainment Weekly follows a typical magazine format by featuring a letters to the editor and table of contents in the first few pages, while also featuring advertisements. While many advertisements are unrelated to the entertainment industry, the majority of ads are typically related to up-and-coming television and these beginning articles open the magazine and as a rule focus on current events in pop culture. First Look, subtitled An early peek at some of Hollywoods coolest projects, is a spread with behind-the-scenes or publicity stills of upcoming movies. The Hit List, written each week by critic Scott Brown, highlights ten major events, Typically, there will be some continuity to the commentaries. This column was written by Jim Mullen and featured twenty events each week. The Hollywood Insider is a section that reports breaking news in entertainment. It gives details, in the columns, on the most-current news in television, movie. The Style Report is a section devoted to celebrity style. Because its focus is on celebrity fashion or lifestyle, it is rich in nature. Recently, the converted to a new format, five pictures of celebrity fashions for the week. A spin-off section, Style Hunter, which finds reader-requested articles of clothing or accessories that have appeared in pop culture recently, appears frequently. The Monitor is a two-page spread devoted to events in celebrity lives with small paragraphs highlighting events such as weddings, illnesses, arrests, court appearances. Deaths of major celebrities are typically detailed in a one-half- or full-page obituary titled Legacy and this feature is nearly identical to sister publication Peoples Passages feature. Harris column focuses on analyzing current popular-culture events, and is generally the most serious of the columns, harris has written about the writers strike and the 2008 presidential election, among other topics
12.
Los Angeles Times
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The Los Angeles Times, commonly referred to as the Times or LA Times, is a paid daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008, the Times is owned by tronc. The Times was first published on December 4,1881, as the Los Angeles Daily Times under the direction of Nathan Cole Jr. and it was first printed at the Mirror printing plant, owned by Jesse Yarnell and T. J. Unable to pay the bill, Cole and Gardiner turned the paper over to the Mirror Company. Mathes had joined the firm, and it was at his insistence that the Times continued publication, in July 1882, Harrison Gray Otis moved from Santa Barbara to become the papers editor. Otis made the Times a financial success, in an era where newspapers were driven by party politics, the Times was directed at Republican readers. As was typical of newspapers of the time, the Times would sit on stories for several days, historian Kevin Starr wrote that Otis was a businessman capable of manipulating the entire apparatus of politics and public opinion for his own enrichment. Otiss editorial policy was based on civic boosterism, extolling the virtues of Los Angeles, the efforts of the Times to fight local unions led to the October 1,1910 bombing of its headquarters, killing twenty-one people. Two union leaders, James and Joseph McNamara, were charged, the American Federation of Labor hired noted trial attorney Clarence Darrow to represent the brothers, who eventually pleaded guilty. Upon Otiss death in 1917, his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, Harry Chandler was succeeded in 1944 by his son, Norman Chandler, who ran the paper during the rapid growth of post-war Los Angeles. Family members are buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery near Paramount Studios, the site also includes a memorial to the Times Building bombing victims. The fourth generation of family publishers, Otis Chandler, held that position from 1960 to 1980, Otis Chandler sought legitimacy and recognition for his familys paper, often forgotten in the power centers of the Northeastern United States due to its geographic and cultural distance. He sought to remake the paper in the model of the nations most respected newspapers, notably The New York Times, believing that the newsroom was the heartbeat of the business, Otis Chandler increased the size and pay of the reporting staff and expanded its national and international reporting. In 1962, the paper joined with the Washington Post to form the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service to syndicate articles from both papers for news organizations. During the 1960s, the paper won four Pulitzer Prizes, more than its previous nine decades combined, eventually the coupon-clipping branches realized that they could make more money investing in something other than newspapers. Under their pressure the companies went public, or split apart, thats the pattern followed over more than a century by the Los Angeles Times under the Chandler family. The papers early history and subsequent transformation was chronicled in an unauthorized history Thinking Big and it has also been the whole or partial subject of nearly thirty dissertations in communications or social science in the past four decades. In 2000, the Tribune Company acquired the Times, placing the paper in co-ownership with then-WB -affiliated KTLA, which Tribune acquired in 1985
13.
Paste (magazine)
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Paste is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine published in the United States by Wolfgangs Vault. Its tagline is Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture, the magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publication from 2002 to 2010 before converting to online-only, the magazine, headquartered in Avondale Estates, Georgia. It was founded as a quarterly in July 2002 by Josh Jackson, Nick Purdy and it later switched to a bimonthly format. In 2005, Paste fulfilled remaining subscriptions for the competing magazine Tracks, Paste became a monthly with its August 2006 issue. For two years in the mid-2000s, Paste had a segment on CNN Headline News called Paste Picks. In October 2007, the magazine tried the Radiohead experiment, offering new, amidst an economic downturn, Paste began to suffer from lagging ad revenue, as did other magazine publishers in 2008 and 2009. On May 14,2009, Paste editors announced a plan to save the magazine, by pleading to its readers, musicians, cost-cutting by the magazine did not stem the losses. The main crux cited for the financial troubles is the lack of advertiser spending, in 2009, Paste launched an hour-long TV pilot for Halogen TV called Pop Goes the Culture. On August 31,2010, Paste suspended the print magazine, on May 28,2011, Paste announced it was bringing back its weekly subscription services in a digital layout. The digital magazine now covers music, movies, TV, comedy, books, video games, design, tech, food, each issue also includes a digital version of the Paste Sampler with seven new songs each week. Although Pastes focus was music, covering a variety of genres with an emphasis on adult alternative, Americana and indie rock. Each issue originally included a CD music sampler but was dropped in favor of digital downloading as a Going-Green initiative, many of these artists also contributed to the Campaign to Save Paste. In 2005, Paste was listed at #21 on the Chicago Tribunes list of 50 Best Magazines, Paste was also named Magazine of the Year by the PLUG Independent Music Awards in 2006,2007 and 2008. In 2008,2009 and 2010, Paste was nominated for a National Magazine Award in the category of General Excellence, and in 2010, associate editor Rachael Maddux writings were nominated for Best Reviews
14.
PopMatters
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PopMatters is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. PopMatters launched in the fall of 1999 as a site providing original essays, reviews. Over time, the site went from a publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million, from 2006 onward, PopMatters produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. As of 2009, there are four different pop culture related columns each week, the PopMatters Book Imprint published Joss Whedon, The Complete Companion, edited by Mary Money, with Titan Books in May 2012. PopMatters publishes content from contributors located around the globe, based in six continents and its staff includes writers from various backgrounds, ranging from academics and professional journalists to career professionals and first time writers. Many of its writers are published authorities in various fields of study, notable former contributors include David Weigel, political reporter for Slate, Steven Hyden, staff writer for Grantland and author of Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation. And Rob Horning, executive editor of The New Inquiry, karen Zarker is the senior editor
15.
Uncut (magazine)
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Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, a DVD magazine under the Uncut brand was published quarterly from 2005 to 2006. Uncut was launched in May 1997 as a magazine aimed at 25- to 45-year-old men that focuses on music and movies. Jones has stated that he idea for Uncut came from my own disenchantment about what I was doing with Melody Maker, according to IPC Media, 86% of the magazines readers are male and their average age is 37 years. Uncuts contents include lengthy features on old albums, interviews with directors, music and film news. Its music features tend to focus on such as Americana, rock. Each month the magazine includes a free CD, which may include new and older music. Uncut underwent a redesign in May 2006, as a result of which the magazine no longer catered for books. Allan Jones writes a monthly column, recounting stories from his long career in music journalism. Uncuts monthly circulation has dropped from over 90,000 in 2007 to 47,890 in the half of 2015. Uncut often produces themed spin-off titles celebrating the career of one artist and this series has been known as Uncut Legends. Artists who have so far had magazines entirely devoted to them include Radiohead, Kurt Cobain, U2, Bruce Springsteen, the Lennon magazine was produced to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of the former Beatle. The majority of titles have been produced by magazine editor Chris Hunt. The series started in 2003 with an issue devoted to Bob Dylan. In 2008 Uncut launched their inaugural Uncut Music Award, which is described as a quest to find the most inspiring and rewarding experience of the past 12 months. A list of 25 nominees is selected by a panel of 10 judges, who are all musicians or music industry professionals, past winners have included Fleet Foxes, Tinariwen, Paul Weller and P. J. Harvey. In late 2005, Allan Jones and publishing director Andrew Sumner launched a spin-off of the movies and music magazine. Billed as the great movie magazine, Uncut DVD was designed to compete with such established titles as Ultimate DVD, DVD Review
16.
The Little Willies
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The Little Willies is an American alternative country supergroup formed in 2003. It features Norah Jones on piano and vocals, Richard Julian on vocals, Jim Campilongo on guitar, Lee Alexander on bass, the group formed around a love of country classics. Between members regular gigs, they first played at New York City’s Living Room, the show led to a series of events, including a benefit concert for public radio station WFUV. The loose-knit collective found itself with a growing following, the Little Willies’ self-titled debut album has added to their popularity. Their first album features covers of tracks by Fred Rose, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson. Fusing cover material with a few of their own original compositions and their second album was released in January,2012 and features covers from a variety of down-home legends, including Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and many more. Official website The Little Willies at AllMusic Review of the bands self-titled album Review of The Little Willies
17.
Ray Charles
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Ray Charles Robinson, known professionally as Ray Charles, was an American singer-songwriter, musician, and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called Brother Ray and he was often referred to as The Genius. Charles was blind from the age of seven and he pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He also contributed to the integration of music, rhythm and blues and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a record company. Charles cited Nat King Cole as an influence, but his music was also influenced by country, jazz, blues. In the late forties, he became friends with Quincy Jones and their friendship would last till the end of Charless life. Frank Sinatra called him the true genius in show business. In 2002, Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Billy Joel observed, This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. Robinson was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, at the time, she was a teenage orphan making a living as a sharecropper. They lived in Greenville, Florida, with Robinsons mother and his wife, the Robinson family had informally adopted Aretha, and she became known as Aretha Robinson. When she, scandalously, became pregnant by Bailey, she briefly left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be family members in Albany, Georgia. After that, mother and child returned to Greenville, and Aretha and he was deeply devoted to his mother and later recalled her perseverance, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life. His father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and took another wife elsewhere, in his early years, Charles showed a fondness about mechanical objects and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe, pitman would also care for Rays brother George, to take the burden off Aretha. George drowned in Arethas laundry tub when he was four years old, Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four or five, and was completely blind by the age of seven, apparently as a result of glaucoma. Destitute, uneducated and still mourning the loss of George, Aretha used her connections in the community to find a school that would accept a blind African-American student. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf, Charles further developed his musical talent at school, and was taught to play the classical piano music of J. S
18.
Belle and Sebastian
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Belle and Sebastian are a Scottish band formed in Glasgow in January 1996. Led by Stuart Murdoch, the band has released 9 albums to date, much of their work had been released on Jeepster Records, but they are now signed to Rough Trade Records in the United Kingdom and Matador Records in the United States. Though often praised by critics, Belle and Sebastian have enjoyed limited commercial success. Belle and Sebastian were formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1996 by Stuart Murdoch, as the band had a number of songs already and the label was extremely impressed with the demos, Belle and Sebastian were allowed to record a full-length album, which was titled Tigermilk. Murdoch once described the band as a product of botched capitalism, the band took their name from the television adaptation of the French novel Belle et Sébastien. Tigermilk was recorded in three days and originally only one thousand copies were pressed on vinyl and these original copies now sell for up to £400. After the success of the album, Belle and Sebastian were signed to Jeepster Records in August 1996 and If Youre Feeling Sinister. The album was named by Spin as one of the 100 greatest albums between 1985 and 2005, and is considered the bands masterpiece. Just before the recording of Sinister, Sarah Martin joined the band, following this a series of EPs were released in 1997. The first of these was Dog on Wheels, which contained four tracks recorded before the real formation of the band. In fact, the only band members to play on the songs were Murdoch, David, and Mick Cooke. It charted at No.59 in the UK singles chart, the Lazy Line Painter Jane EP followed in July. The track was recorded in the church where Murdoch lived and features vocals from Monica Queen, the EP narrowly missed out on the UK top 40, peaking at No.41. The last of the 1997 EPs was Octobers 3, the EP was made Single of the Week in both the NME and Melody Maker and reached No.32 in the charts, thus becoming the bands first top 40 single. The band released their third LP, The Boy with the Arab Strap in 1998, during the recording of the album, long-time studio trumpet-player Mick Cooke was asked to join the band as a full member. The This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EP followed later that year, in 1999 the band was awarded with Best Newcomer at the BRIT Awards, upsetting better-known acts such as Steps and 5ive. That same year, the band hosted their own festival, the Bowlie Weekender, Tigermilk was also given a full release by Jeepster before the band started work on their next LP. The result was Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, a stand-alone single, Legal Man, reached No.15 and gave them their first appearance on Top of the Pops
19.
Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
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Belle and Sebastian Write about Love is the eighth studio album by indie-pop group Belle and Sebastian released on 11 October 2010. The album is the collaboration between Belle and Sebastian and Tony Hoffer, who produced their previous album, The Life Pursuit. In a follow-up question, Stuart Murdoch confirmed that producer Tony Hoffer had returned for this album, the albums title was officially announced by Murdoch in a posting on Belle & Sebastians website on 11 August 2010. On 16 August 2010, Murdoch announced the cover, release dates. Two tracks from the album were played by the band during their 2010 tour, I Didnt See It Coming is a duet featuring Stuart Murdoch and Sarah Martin, while Im Not Living in the Real World features Stevie Jackson primarily on vocals. On 16 August 2010, another track was announced, titled I Want the World to Stop, Norah Jones is featured on the track Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John. The song also features on Jones compilation album, featuring Norah Jones, released one month after Write About Love in November 2010. On 3 September 2010, the names of five new songs set to feature on the album were shown during the credits of the promotional Belle and Sebastian TV programme. These are Blue Eyes of a Millionaire, Suicide Girl and I Can See Your Future, as well as The Telephone Song and If I Cant Help Myself. The title track, Write About Love, was announced as the single from the album and was also released as a free. The single was released in the US iTunes Store on 7 September 2010, I Want the World to Stop impacted US radio on October 5,2010. All tracks written by Belle & Sebastian, Belle & Sebastian Write About Love entered the UK albums chart in its first week of release, peaking at No.8 as of 19 October 2010. This marks their highest chart placement yet, tied with their previous studio album The Life Pursuit, the album has also risen to No.21 in Ireland, becoming their highest charting album in that country. It has also topped the UK independent album chart, additionally, the opening track I Didnt See It Coming entered the UK independent singles chart at No.38. In the United States the album peaked at No,15, their highest chart placement there. The album entered the Italian Album Chart at No,65, just a step backwards compared to the previous The Life Pursuit which reached No.56 in 2006. Belle & Sebastians official website Stuart Murdochs official statement confirming the album An article on Cuckoos – Belle & Sebastians Fansite
20.
Foo Fighters
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Foo Fighters is an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington in 1994. It was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the death of Kurt Cobain. The group got its name from the UFOs and various phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon, Goldsmith quit during the recording of the groups second album, The Colour and the Shape, when most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl himself. Smears departure followed soon afterward, though he would rejoin them in 2005 and they were replaced by Taylor Hawkins and Franz Stahl, respectively, although Stahl was fired before the recording of the groups third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose. The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined as the lead guitarist after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. The band released its album, One by One, in 2002. The group followed that release with the two-disc In Your Honor, Foo Fighters released its sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007. The bands seventh album, Wasting Light, produced by Butch Vig was released in 2011. In November 2014, the eighth studio album, Sonic Highways, was released as an accompanying soundtrack to the Grohl-directed 2014 miniseries of the same name. Over the course of the career, four of its albums have won Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album. As of 2015, the eight albums have sold 12 million copies in the U. S. and 30 million worldwide. Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl joined the grunge group Nirvana as its drummer in 1990, during tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs. Grohl held back these songs from the rest of the band, he said in 1997, I was in awe of, I thought it was best that I kept my songs to myself. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers of songs he liked, frontman Kurt Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home on April 8,1994, and Nirvana subsequently disbanded. Grohl received offers to work with artists, press rumors indicated he might be joining Pearl Jam and he almost accepted a permanent position as drummer in Tom Petty. Ultimately Grohl declined and instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record fifteen of the forty songs he had written. With the exception of a part on X-Static, played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Dave Grohl played every instrument
21.
In Your Honor
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In Your Honor is the fifth studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released on June 14,2005 by RCA Records. It is an album, with one disc containing heavy rock songs. Frontman Dave Grohl decided to do a diverse blend of songs as he felt that ten years of existence. The album was recorded at a newly built studio in Northridge, Los Angeles, the lyrics deal with both resonating and introspective themes, with a major influence from Grohls involvement on the campaign trail with John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. The promotional tour for the album included both rock shows in stadiums and acoustic gigs in smaller venues, reviews for In Your Honor were mostly positive, praising the composition and sound, although some critics found the album overlong and inconsistent. In Your Honor also broke the bands streak of Grammy Award for Best Rock Album wins that began in 1999 with There Is Nothing Left to Lose. After touring in support of One by One, Dave Grohl was uncertain on what to do next with the Foo Fighters and he felt that rushing to do another record would not be creatively rewarding. Grohl considered a film score, and began writing acoustic songs. Grohl, not wanting to make an album and accepting the drift from his usual style. Bassist Nate Mendel replied that the songs sound was why should go on the record. Development for In Your Honor took nine months with three and a half months installing equipment in the studio, and songs being written throughout 2004, I was afraid they were going to get stale. The recording sessions ran from January to March 2005, with two and a half weeks being spent on the acoustic record. Forty tracks were recorded – fifteen of them acoustic – with half of them ending on the track list. Studio 606 was not finished as the band moved in, eight of the rock songs were last-minute compositions done after the acoustic record was finished, as Dave started feeling that it was better than the rock record. The songs were recorded on analog tape—which was reused over and over due to a tape shortage, Raskulinecz mixed the rock songs, while Elliot Scheiner mixed the stereo and 5.1 versions of the acoustic sides. Dave was more meticulous on that one, the electric album was done in segments by instrument, starting with the drums and guitars, then vocals, and finally bass. Mendel would write a line on Pro Tools at home before showing it to Grohl. The bass was recorded after the vocals, which Raskulinecz said was done because By doing bass last, you can really tailor it for tuning, parts, if you do the drums and then the guitars, you can fill the hole thats left with bass
22.
Baby, It's Cold Outside
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Baby, Its Cold Outside is a song written by Frank Loesser in 1944. Originally recorded for the film Neptunes Daughter, it has been recorded by artists since its original release, including Ray Charles, Dolly Parton. Loesser would introduce himself as the Evil of Two Loessers, a play on the theme of the song, trying to keep the girl from leaving and this was a period when the Hollywood elites chief entertainment was throwing parties and inviting guests who were expected to perform. Garland wrote that after the first performance, We become instant parlor room stars and we got invited to all the best parties for years on the basis of Baby. It was our ticket to caviar and truffles, parties were built around our being the closing act. Garland considered it their song and was furious when Loesser told her he was selling the song, garland wrote, I felt as betrayed as if Id caught him in bed with another woman. The mouse wants to stay and enjoy herself, but feels obligated to return home, worried what family, every line in the song features a statement from the mouse followed by a response from the wolf, which is musically known as a call and response song. Although some critical analyses of the song have highlighted parts of the such as Whats in this drink. Was a common idiom of the used to rebuke social expectations by blaming ones actions on the influence of alcohol. In 1948, after years of performing the song at various parties, Loesser sold the rights to MGM. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song, in at least one published version the tempo of the song is given as Loesserando, a humorous reference to the composers name. The following versions were recorded in 1949, The recording by Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark was recorded on March 17 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6,1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.4. The recording by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer was recorded on March 18 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6,1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.4. The recording by Don Cornell and Laura Leslie with the Sammy Kaye orchestra was recorded on April 12 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on June 24,1949, and lasted 10 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.13. The recording by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan was recorded on April 28 and it first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on June 17,1949, and lasted seven weeks on the chart, peaking at No.17. A parody recording was made by Homer and Jethro with June Carter, it went to No.9 on the country charts, Baby, Its Cold Outside has been recorded by numerous other artists over the years. At least five different versions of the song have made at least one singles chart in the United States,120 on the Billboard 2002013, Jimmy Fallon and Cecily Strong on Saturday Night Live. The song begins in the manner, but after sex, roles reverse
23.
Willie Nelson
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Willie Hugh Nelson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist. He was one of the figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has involved in activism for the use of biofuels. Born during the Great Depression, and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven, during high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from school in 1950, he joined the Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music, during this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in Honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote Family Bible, in 1958, he moved to Houston, Texas after signing a contract with D Records. He sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey, during that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including Funny How Time Slips Away, Hello Walls, Pretty Paper, and Crazy. In 1960 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and later signed a contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Prices band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album. And Then I Wrote, due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, the ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters. In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the acclaimed album. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted, the Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. In 1990, Nelsons assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, the difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes, Wholl Buy My Memories, the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelsons assets cleared his debt. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television
24.
American Classic
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American Classic is an album by American country music artist Willie Nelson, released on August 25,2009. It focuses on the American popular songbook and standard jazz classics, in 2008, Nelson met at his ranch in Austin, Texas with his producer Tommy Lipuma, and jazzmen Joe Sample to select the songs for the album. The twelve songs selected were a collection of classics, that included a re-recording by Nelson of Always on My Mind, a duet with Barbra Streisand was planned for the recording of the album, that ultimately was not performed. The photo in the cover of the album was taken in Nelsons ranch by photographer Danny Clinch, rolling Stone rated the album with three stars out of five, receiving a mixed review, Nelson can be kind of lazy he only occasionally sounds like hes trying. But his band pushes the music into airless cocktail-jazz territory, and Nelson often sounds glib, the New York Times praised Nelsons band but criticized his performance of the songs, follows the lineage of “Stardust” in one sense, with a menu of songbook fare. But in another sense it feels like a capitulation. Its sound is lustrous, what’s missing is the sense of conviction that Mr. Nelson brings to his strongest work. What redeems much of “American Classic” is the singularity of Mr. Nelson’s voice, the Austin Chronicle rated the album with two stars out of five. Prefix magazine rated the album with eight out of ten. The magazine gave a review to the album, Country star seems quite comfortable flying to the moon. Nelson’s lackluster vocals put the listener to sleep and he murmurs the verses, and seemingly wakes up for a few seconds to sing the louder chorus. Then he goes back to his nodding-out rumblings, the album was nominated at the 52nd Grammy Awards for Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
25.
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
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The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a New Orleans, Louisiana, brass band. The ensemble was established in 1977 by Benny Jones together with members of the Tornado Brass Band, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band ultimately grew out of the youth music program established by Danny Barker at New Orleans Fairview Baptist Church. In 1972 Barker started the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band with the goal of providing people with a positive outlet for their energies. The band achieved local popularity and transformed itself into a professional outfit led by trumpeter Leroy Jones. By 1976, however, opportunities for brass bands were drying up, Jones left the group to mainstream jazz and, after a brief period as the Tornado Brass Band. By this point the popularity of brass music in New Orleans was at a low ebb, and paying gigs were rare. As Davis describes it, In the beginning, there was a lot of going on. We started to develop a repertoire and we were just rehearsing, and we were interested in learning the chord progressions and the melodies. We were all free to bring in whatever we wanted to rehearsal and we werent thinking about getting gigs. This sense of freedom allowed the band to incorporate bebop tunes and jazz standards into their repertoire, I thought it would be better to use the same people as often as I could, he explains. That helped to keep it tight, the Daryls performances caught the attention of Jerry Brock, a radio broadcaster and co-founder of new local radio station WWOZ. Brock describes his reaction to the band, Ill never forget the first time I walked in there. The people were so exuberant—the floor was covered with people, rolling on the floor and this is what the Fairview band and the Hurricane Brass Band had been leading up to—the Dirty Dozen had renewed this music to the New Orleans community. Going to Daryls became the weekly ritual, in 1980, Jerry Brock made the first professional recording of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which he played constantly on WWOZ. He also prepared a press kit for the group and, in his words, back in 1982 Brock had arranged a concert for the band at the well-known local music venue Tipitinas, which was the first time they had played at a white club in New Orleans. Afterwards the band had one of its first international appearances, when Kidd Jordan recommended the band to the organizers of Swingin Groningen in the Netherlands, the bands popularity began to take off in 1984. After a week at home in New Orleans the band travelled to California for four weeks,1984 also saw the recording and release of the bands first album, My Feet Cant Fail Me Now, on the Concord Jazz label. Gregory Davis assesses the bands popularity at the time, Outside Louisiana and it was okay in California, but our widest support was in Europe
26.
Outkast
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Outkast is an American hip hop duo formed in 1991, in East Point, Atlanta, Georgia, composed of Atlanta-based rappers André André3000 Benjamin and Antwan Big Boi Patton. Benjamin and Patton formed the group as high school students in 1991, OutKast released their debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik in 1994, which gained popularity after the single Players Ball reached number one on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart. With successive releases including ATLiens and Aquemini, the duo developed their sound, experimenting with a variety of styles. In 2000, Outkast released the critically acclaimed Stankonia, which included the singles Ms. Jackson, in 2003, the duo released the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which featured the number one singles Hey Ya. and The Way You Move. The album would win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America. Outkast next released the soundtrack for the 2006 musical film Idlewild, in 2007, the duo went on hiatus and both members have since pursued solo careers. In 2014, Outkast reunited to celebrate their 20th anniversary by performing at more than 40 festivals worldwide in 2014, the duo is one of the most successful hip-hop groups of all time, having received six Grammy Awards. Between six studio albums and a greatest hits release, Outkast has sold over 25 million records, meanwhile, they have garnered widespread critical acclaim, with publications such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork Media listing albums such as Aquemini and Stankonia among the best of their era. Benjamin and Patton met in 1991 at the Lenox Square shopping mall when they were sixteen years old. The two lived in the East Point section of Atlanta and attended Tri-Cities High School, an arts based academy, during school, Benjamin and Patton participated in rap battles in the cafeteria. Benjamins parents were divorced and he was living with his father, meanwhile, Patton had to move with his four brothers and six sisters from Savannah to Atlanta. Benjamin and Patton eventually teamed up and were pursued by Organized Noize, OutKast, Organized Noize, and schoolmates Goodie Mob formed the nucleus of the Dungeon Family organization. During the holiday season of 1993, they released their first single, the songs funky style, much of it accomplished with live instrumentation, was a hit with audiences. Players Ball hit number-one on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart, Players Ball also topped the R&B charts for six weeks. Their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, was issued on April 26,1994 and this initial effort is credited with laying the foundation for southern hip hop and is considered a classic by many. Every track on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was produced by Organized Noize and featured members of the Dungeon Family. Follow-up singles included the track and Git Up Git Out. OutKast won Best New Rap Group at the Source Awards in 1995, in the same year, the group contributed Benz or a Beamer to the popular New Jersey Drive soundtrack
27.
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
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Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is the fifth studio album by American hip hop duo Outkast. It was released on September 23,2003, by LaFace Records, issued as a double album, its playtime of more than two hours is distributed over solo albums from each of the groups members. Big Bois Speakerboxxx is a Southern hip hop album with a P-Funk influence, while André 3000s The Love Below features psychedelic, pop, funk, electro, and jazz styles. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised the consistency of Big Bois Speakerboxxx. The album was supported with the hit singles Hey Ya. and The Way You Move, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below has been certified diamond and 11 times platinum by the RIAA. As of March 2012, it has shipped 5,702,000 units in the United States, following the release of OutKasts fourth studio album Stankonia, André3000 felt urged to do something different from his previous projects and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He was relatively unsuccessful, obtaining a minor role in Hollywood Homicide and he quickly returned to music and began recording a solo album that was very different from the material he had recorded as part of OutKast. The output was a blend of pop, jazz and funk with live instruments, when writing songs he used a micro cassette recorder in order to record melodic ideas and lyrics, then build the melody around the lyrics. The CD artwork is designed so that the Speakerboxxx artwork is on the front of the case and these images are merged on the artwork displayed on online stores. The recording of The Love Below began at André 3000s Los Angeles home, which was unconventional for the time, as a frequent collector of music equipment, André3000 had a wide variety of equipment at his disposal, including a drum machine, keyboards and various synthesizers. His initial sessions were hampered by his inexperience with Pro Tools and, unaware how to edit his recordings, other gear used included an Avalon VT737 SP and AD2055 EQ and AD2044 compressors for his vocals. After creating five songs, he informed Big Boi of the project he had been working on. Big Boi had already recorded some songs when André3000 had contacted him, describing his approach in the studio, Big Boi later commented to XXL, the idea was just to keep it funky, keep it jamming, its always bass-heavy. And lyricism, its all about lyrics, taking pride in your pen and his favorite song to record was Unhappy. He spent several days working on Unhappys hook before driving to his mothers home and playing the song in her driveway, at some point in the recording, the project moved to OutKasts Stankonia Studios in downtown Atlanta, which had been used to record OutKasts previous release and namesake. He concedes that both enjoyed working solo and were doing so frequently, but they continued to share. John Frye also describes how the format of the projects changed rapidly, initially intended as two separate solo releases, they decided to merge their work and create a soundtrack album as André3000 had initially intended. The duo then began preparing to work on a motion picture and they eventually settled on releasing a double album
28.
Q-Tip (musician)
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Kamaal Ibn John Fareed, better known by his stage name Q-Tip, is an American rapper, singer, actor, record producer and DJ. He embarked on his career as part of the critically acclaimed East Coast hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. In 2012, The Source ranked him #20 on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time, born Jonathan William Davis on April 10,1970 in Harlem, he converted to Islam in the mid-1990s, and changed his name to Kamaal Ibn John Fareed. He moved to St. Albans, Queens as a child, as referenced in the song Check the Rhime, he mostly resided around Linden Boulevard. His father was from Montserrat, a British territory in the eastern Caribbean and his sister, Gwen, is eight years his elder. He attended Murry Bergtraum High School in Manhattan, New York, according to Fareed, he was given his stage name by Afrika Baby Bam of Jungle Brothers, which he used as a replacement for his prior name, MC Love Child. He has also said that the Q in Q-Tip stands for Queens, in 1999 a Southern rapper known as TIP signed to Arista Records, but shortened his name to T. I. to avoid confusion with his then-labelmate Q-Tip. Throughout his career, he called himself The Abstract. He said that one of the people in his life that inspired him was his childhood friend. Q-Tip lives in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and he is the cousin of Consequence, who was featured heavily on Beats, Rhymes and Life. According to a DNA analysis, he descended, mainly, from the Jola people of Guinea-Bissau, in 1985, Q-Tip, together with high school friends Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White, founded the critically acclaimed hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. The band signed to Jive Records and released five albums during its initial run. A Tribe Called Quest reunited in 2006 and played a number of dates. All members of the original lineup returned for the 2006 group, including Q-Tip, in 2016, shortly before the death of Phife Dawg, A Tribe Called Quest recorded their sixth album, releasing it in November of the same year. After the breakup of Tribe in 1998, Q-Tip pursued a solo career, pitchfork noted on the change in tenor, remarking, Abstract the storyteller and social critic been replaced by a scarcely recognizable, sex-obsessed MC. The release of his 2002 follow-up, Kamaal/The Abstract, was delayed despite critical acclaim and it eventually leaked onto the Internet, and the distribution of promotional copies led several publications to run reviews of the album. The album was released on September 15,2009, on Battery Records after being shelved for seven years. Following his work on Kamaal/The Abstract, Q-Tip featured on R. E. M. s 2004 album Around the Sun, early in 2007, Q-Tip signed a new solo deal with Universal Motown Records
29.
The Renaissance (Q-Tip album)
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The Renaissance is the second studio album by American hip hop artist Q-Tip, released November 3,2008, on Universal Motown Records. The Renaissance was produced primarily by Q-Tip and features guest contributions by DAngelo, Norah Jones, Amanda Diva, the album debuted at number 11 on the U. S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 34,219 copies in its first week. It produced three singles and has sold 131,200 copies in the United States, upon its release, The Renaissance received universal acclaim from music critics, who praised Q-Tips lyricism and production aesthetic, and earned him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. The album is Q-Tips second released studio effort, following his solo debut Amplified, Q-Tip put together a band for recording The Renaissance. Production for The Renaissance was primarily handled by Q-Tip, with the exception of the J Dilla-produced Move, the album also features contributions from such artists as Norah Jones, DAngelo, Raphael Saadiq and Amanda Diva. The album cover art features Q-Tip in a silver suit holding an MPC2000XL in front of his face, music videos have been made for Gettin Up, Move, Renaissance Rap, Life Is Better and Manwomanboogie. The Renaissance debuted at number 11 on the U. S. Billboard 200 chart with sales of 34,219 copies. It has sold 131,200 copies in the United States, the Renaissance received universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics. Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot praised Q-Tips rapping and production, commenting that Comebacks don’t come more effortlessly than this, each song has distinctive characteristics, and brilliant sequencing allows for seamless transitions between tracks. About. coms Shannon Barbour gave it out of five stars. Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis gave the album out of four stars and commented that guest appearances by Raphael Saadiq, Norah Jones. He also touches society and music industry politics with an intelligence often lacking in todays music, barry Walters of Spin noted his eloquent flow over liquid arrangements shimmering with rhythmic finesse and commented that the album blurs distinctions between accessibility and avant-gardism. The Guardians Angus Batey wrote that the album cloak its eclecticism with a homogenising sheen frequent changes of mood and direction dazzle. In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album an honorable mention while picking out its two songs, and quipped, If jazz lite it must be, by all means. Entertainment Weekly ranked The Renaissance number five on its list of the years best albums, the Renaissance received a Grammy Award nomination for a Best Rap Album in 2009. The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. All tracks produced by Q-Tip, except tracks 8 and 14 produced by J Dilla, sample credits Credits adapted from liner notes
30.
Talib Kweli
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Talib Kweli Greene is an American hip hop recording artist, entrepreneur, and social activist. He is the son of professional educators, in 2011, Kweli founded Javotti Media, which is self-defined as a platform for independent thinkers and doers. Kweli earned recognition early on through his work with fellow Brooklyn artist, Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, Kwelis career continued with solo success including collaborations with famed producers Kanye West, Just Blaze, and Pharrell Williams. Kweli is known to artists on the rise, such as J. Cole, Jay Electronica, Kendrick Lamar. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Kweli grew up in a household in Park Slope and his mother, Brenda Greene, is an English professor at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York and his father an administrator at Adelphi University. His younger brother, Jamal Greene, is a professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School, a graduate of Yale Law School, and former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. As a youth, he was drawn to Afrocentric rappers, such as De La Soul, Kweli was a student at Cheshire Academy, a boarding school in Connecticut. He was previously a student at Brooklyn Technical High School before being academically dismissed and he later studied experimental theater at New York University. Kweli made his debut in 1996, with featured five appearances on Doom. In Cincinnati, Kweli also met DJ Hi-Tek and the two collaborated on a few well received underground recordings as Reflection Eternal, including Fortified Live, shortly afterwards, upon returning to New York, he reconnected with Mos Def and formed Black Star. Kweli brought along Hi-Tek to produce their album, 1998s Mos Def. The album, released amidst a late 90s renaissance of conscious, Afrocentric hip hop, was hailed by critics. Kweli and Hi-Tek continued their Reflection Eternal partnership on the 2000 album Train of Thought, which was met with critical acclaim. The album was recorded at Electric Lady Studios, Hip Hop for Respect was organized by Mos Def and Kweli to speak out against police brutality, specifically, the case of Amadou Diallo. The project released one EP for Rawkus Entertainment, on February 4,1999, Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times by four police officers while reaching into his pocket for his wallet. The project aimed to assemble 41 emcees to represent the 41 shots fired, producers included DJ Khalil Mr. Khaliyl, Organized Noize, and 88-Keys. In 2001, Kweli and Mos Def, contributed to the Red Hot + Indigo compilation album created by the Red Hot Organization, the compilation was a tribute to Duke Ellington, that raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease. Black Star collaborated with fellow artists John Patton and Ron Carter to record Money Jungle, in 2002, Kweli contributed to the critically acclaimed Red Hot + Riot, a compilation CD created by the Red Hot Organization in tribute to the music and work of Nigerian musician Fela Kuti
31.
Eardrum (album)
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Eardrum is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Talib Kweli. The album was released on August 21,2007, by Blacksmith Records, Eardrum scored 73 out of 100 from Metacritic based on generally favorable reviews. Vibe gave it three out of five and said it lacks cohesiveness. Spin gave it a score of five out of ten and said, Though Kweli cant change his voice he was born with, he needs to figure out how to make it as compelling as his material. Hot Press gave it an average review, however, and said. Having more fun with the music and ignoring his critics, Talib wants to proves about sometimes, hipHopDX gave it four stars out of five and said, There is still room for improvement, but this largely the album from Kweli that everyone has been waiting for. AllHipHop gave it a score of 8.5 out of 10, absolutePunk gave it a score of 74% and said, Though highly inconsistent due to its extraordinary number of songs, Eardrum impresses as a whole, making the early cop out absolutely unneeded. Los Angeles Times gave it a review and said, Kwelis commanding delivery. Eardrum debuted at number 2 on the US Billboard 200, selling 60,000 copies in its first week, in its second week, the album fell down to number 20, selling 25,000 copies, in total of 85,500 copies in the United States. “The Perfect Beat on Eardrum featured KRS-One and sampled the song from Bob Marley and the Wailers called, “Do It Twice”, Eardrum at Metacritic Eardrum Review at Billboard
32.
Here We Go Again (Ray Charles song)
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It was produced by Joe Adams for ABC Records/Tangerine Records. To date, this version of the song has been the biggest commercial success, spending twelve weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The most notable version is a duet by Charles and Norah Jones. This version has been the biggest critical success, when Genius Loves Company was released, Here We Go Again earned Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration at the 47th Grammy Awards posthumously for Charles who died in 2004. Another notable version by Nancy Sinatra charted for five weeks in 1969, johnny Duncan charted the song on Billboards Hot Country Songs chart for five weeks in 1972, while Roy Clark did so for seven weeks in 1982. The song has been covered in a variety of musical genres. In total, five different versions have been listed on the music charts, although its two most successful versions have been rhythm and blues recordings, many of its other notable covers were featured on country music albums. The song was released on their 2011 tribute album Here We Go Again, the song lent its name to Red Steagalls 2007 album as well. Cover versions have appeared on albums by a number of artists. In November 1959, after years as a professional musician, Ray Charles signed with ABC Records. According to Will Friedwald in A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, in the 1960s, he experienced crossover success with both rhythm and blues and country music. With the assistance of ABC executive Sid Feller, he gathered a set of songs to record. At this point, Charles began to more to a white audience. In 1962, he founded his own label, Tangerine Records. Here We Go Again was recorded during a phase in Charles career when he was focused on performing country music, thus, Here We Go Again was a country music song released by the Tangerine label ABC-Paramount, but performed in Charles rhythm and blues style. However, his works did not bear the Tangerine label until 1968, Feller left ABC in 1965, but he returned to arrange Charles 1967 album, Ray Charles Invites You to Listen. Joe Adams produced and engineered the album, which included Here We Go Again, first released by Charles in 1967, Here We Go Again was written by Lanier and Steagall and published by the Dirk Music Company. Charles recorded it at RPM International Studios, Los Angeles, starting in 1987, it was included in numerous greatest hits and compilation albums
33.
Genius Loves Company
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Genius Loves Company is the final studio album by rhythm and blues and soul musician Ray Charles, posthumously released August 31,2004 on Concord Records. Recording sessions for the album took place between June 2003 and March 2004, Genius Loves Company was the last album recorded and completed by Charles before his death in June 2004. This album was released as a double LP in 2014, for a better and warmer sound than CD and it served as the first original non-compilation release by Hear Music, as well as one of Ray Charles most commercially successful albums. On February 2,2005, Genius Loves Company was certified triple-platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America following sales of three million copies in the United States. On February 13,2005, the album was awarded eight Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, the cover featured an iconic image by photographer Norman Seeff. The Album of the Year award was presented to coproducer John Burk, Genius Loves Company proved to be a comeback success, in terms of sales and critical response, quickly becoming Charles first top-10 album in forty years and the best-selling record of his career. The release of Genius Loves Company served as Charles two-hundred fiftieth of his recording career, the Starbucks Coffee Company proved to be singularly responsible for nearly thirty-percent of the total domestic sales of the album. For the week ending September 18,2004, Genius Loves Company sold 202,000 copies and this was Charles highest charting album in over 40 years and represented an opening week record for a duets album. Frank Sinatras 1993 Duets sold 339,000 during the Christmas week, eight weeks after its 173, the initial shipment of 733,000 units was an all-time record for the 31-year history of Concord Records and the sales represented a Soundscan record for the company. In addition, the album placed at five on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums for Charles highest placement since A Portrait of Ray peaked at fifth in 1968. These albums sales occurred despite digital singles sales that saw 12 of the 13 tracks on the make the Hot Digital Tracks Top 50 chart. The previous record for most tracks from the album was 9 by Neil Young & Crazy Horse with their 2003 Greendale album. Here We Go Again was the sales leader among the albums tracks. In December 2004, announcements were made that the album had earned ten Grammy Award nominations, the New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Song by song analysis by Ray Charles - CD notes at Discogs. com Genius Loves Company, Ray Charles, Concord Music Group
34.
Gillian Welch
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Gillian Howard Welch is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Welch and Rawlings have released five acclaimed albums under the name Gillian Welch. Their 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time and their 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, they released their studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011. Welch was associate producer and performed on two songs of the O Brother, Where Art Thou. soundtrack, an album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. Welch has collaborated and recorded with distinguished musicians such as Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, and Ani DiFranco. Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2,1967 in New York City and her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her father could have been one of her favorite musicians. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that from an address they had been given, may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina. When Welch was three, her parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show, as a youngster, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles, Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a television program featured her as a student who excelled at everything she did. While a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Welch played bass in a goth band and it was just as powerful as the electric stuff, and it was songs Id grown up singing. All of a sudden Id found my music, after graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in photography, Welch attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she majored in songwriting. During her two years studying at Berklee, Welch gained confidence as a performer, Welch met her music partner David Rawlings at a successful audition for Berklees only country band. Upon finishing college in 1992, Welch and Rawlings moved to Nashville and she recalled, I looked at my record collection and saw that all the music I loved had been made in Nashville—Bill Monroe, Dylan, the Stanley Brothers, Neil Young—so I moved there
35.
David Rawlings
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David Todd Rawlings is a professional guitarist, producer, and singer. He is best known as the longtime partner of singer-songwriter Gillian Welch. He has also released two albums under the name Dave Rawlings Machine, david attended the Berklee College of Music and studied with guitar professor Lauren Passarelli. He is known in his own right as a producer, having produced Welch and he has recently performed as the frontman of a band titled Dave Rawlings Machine. Other members of the band include Gillian Welch, Willie Watson, Paul Kowert and he has also contributed to the Bright Eyes album Cassadaga, the Ryan Adams album Heartbreaker, and the Robyn Hitchcock album Spooked. Rawlings co-wrote the tracks To Be Young and Touch, Feel and Lose, david Rawlings achieves his signature guitar sound flatpicking a small archtop guitar. The 1935 Epiphone Olympic that has been his primary instrument was a guitar for its time, with a carved arched solid sprucewood top, carved arched solid mahogany back. It sold for about $35 in 1935, the guitars lower bout measures 13 5/8 inches wide, and it has three piece f-holes. The Dave Rawlings Machine album A Friend of a Friend was released on November 17,2009, Rawlings recorded the album in Nashville, and produced it himself. Co-writers and musicians on the album include Welch as well as members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Rawlings is also best friends with movie producer Douglas Wick. In 2015 Dave Rawlings Machine released a second album Nashville Obsolete
36.
Ryan Adams
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Ryan Adams is an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, poet and painter. He is best known for his solo career, during which he has released fifteen albums. In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released his solo album, Heartbreaker. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize, the following year, his profile increased with the release of the UK certified-gold Gold, which included the hit single, New York, New York. During this time, Adams worked on several unreleased albums, which were consolidated into a solo release. Working at a rate, Adams released the classic rock-influenced Rock N Roll, after a planned album. As a compromise, Love Is Hell was released as two EPs and eventually released in its state in 2004. After breaking his wrist during a performance, Adams took a short-lived break, and formed The Cardinals. In 2009, following the release of Cardinology, Adams disbanded The Cardinals, the following year, however, Adams resumed performing and released his Glyn Johns-produced thirteenth studio album, Ashes & Fire, in 2011. The album peaked at No.7 on the Billboard 200, in September 2014, Adams released his fourteenth album, Ryan Adams, on his own PAX AM label, and formed a new backing band, The Shining, to support the release. In 2015, Adams released 1989 a song-for-song cover of Taylor Swifts album of the same name, the release, Prisoner, was announced in late 2016. He has written Infinity Blues, a book of poems, and Hello Sunshine, Ryan Adams was born on November 5,1974, in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He has a brother and younger sister. His childhood has been described as dysfunctional and his father left when he was five and at that time he, his mother and his brother and sister had to move in with his grandparents as they became homeless as a result of the divorce. A year later his grandmother threw them out of the house because she did not want to deal with the children any longer, after that time Ryan never lived with his grandparents again but was a frequent visitor in their home. Ryan was raised by his mother as a parent until he was 13 at which time she remarried. I became who I am now because of my grandparents and he has said his grandmother raised me like my mom, she was like a mother to me. When he was eight, Adams began writing stories and limericks on his grandmothers typewriter
37.
Jacksonville City Nights
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Jacksonville City Nights is the seventh studio album by American alternative country singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, released on September 27,2005 on Lost Highway. The album is Adams second with The Cardinals, and the second in a trilogy of albums released in a seven-month timespan during 2005, by 2007, the album had sold 100,000 copies in the United States and 158,000 worldwide. The album was recorded live in the studio, without overdubs, the title is a reference to Adams hometown of Jacksonville, North Carolina, which has been referenced throughout his career. Several limited American releases contained a DVD entitled September, which featured a 20 minute documentary about the band on the road, bassist Catherine Popper is featured in the photograph on the album cover. The album so far has a score of 72 out of 100 from Metacritic based on generally favorable reviews, spin gave it a B+ and said the album reminds you why Adams was once a big deal. NME gave it a score of seven out of ten and said, tiny Mix Tapes gave it a score of three-and-a-half stars out of five and said, As with most Adams records, the fact that some of the songs made the cut is perplexing. However, Blender gave it three out of five and said, Its the sound of a New Yorker coming home for a breath of country air. All lyrics written by Ryan Adams, all composed by Adams, J. P. Bowersock, Pemberton. Glenn Patscha, Piano & background vocals, the Nashville String Machine perform on the song My Heart Is Broken and are, Bergen White, Arranger and conductor. Violins, Carl Gorodetsky, Pamela Sixfin, Conni Ellisor, Allan Umstead, David Angell, violas, Kris Wilkinson, Gary Vanosdale & Jim Grosjean. Cellos, Carole Rabinowitz & Bob Mason
38.
Dolly Parton
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After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Dolly Parton made her album debut in 1967, with her album Hello, Im Dolly. However, in the new millennium, Parton achieved commercial success again and has released albums on independent labels since 2000, including albums on her own label, Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified Gold, Platinum, and Multi-Platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach No.1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, all-inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, and digital downloads during her career have topped 100 million worldwide. Parton has received 46 Grammy nominations, in 1999, Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has composed over 3,000 songs, notably I Will Always Love You, Jolene, Coat of Many Colors and she is also one of the few to have received at least one nomination from the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, and Emmy Awards. As an actress, she starred in such as 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone. Parton was born in Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children of Robert Lee Parton, a farmer and construction worker, Partons middle name comes from her maternal great-great grandmother, Rebecca Whitted. She has described her family as being dirt poor, Partons father paid the doctor who helped deliver her with a bag of oatmeal. She outlined her familys poverty in her early songs Coat of Many Colors and they lived in a rustic, one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, just north of the Greenbrier Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains, a predominantly Pentecostal area. Music played an important role in her early life and she was brought up in the Church of God, the church her grandfather, Jake Robert Owens pastored. Her earliest public performances were in the church, beginning at age six, at seven, she started playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight years old, her uncle bought her first real guitar, Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in the East Tennessee area. By ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, the day after she graduated from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville. Her songs were recorded by other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells. She signed with Monument Records in 1965, at 19, where she was pitched as a bubblegum pop singer. She released a string of singles, but the one that charted, Happy, Happy Birthday Baby. Although she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, after her composition, Put It Off Until Tomorrow, as recorded by Bill Phillips, went to number six on the country chart in 1966, the label relented and allowed her to record country
39.
Feels Like Home (Norah Jones album)
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Feels Like Home is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Norah Jones, released on February 10,2004, through Blue Note Records. It serves as the follow up to Jones 2002 breakthrough album, at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards the album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. Sunrise, the lead single, won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Creepin In, featuring Dolly Parton, was nominated for a Grammy. Feels Like Home received generally positive reviews music critics. Club also gave it a review and stated that the album should neither shock old fans nor disappoint those hoping to hear reach for more. E. Online gave it a B+ and said, Instead of making any concessions to her sudden celebrity. The Home girl plays it cool, carrying on with the same smooth vibes that made her a star, spin also gave it a B+, calling it A better record than Come Away--less piano bar, more honkey-tonk. Mojo gave it four out of five and said the album was similar to the debut. But theres a more vivid light-and-shade to the textures and a craft, the Village Voice gave the album a positive review and stated, If the choice of songs and beat and instrumentation were sometimes restrictive, still the piano and the voice endured. Blender gave it three-and-a-half stars out of five and said that its mood was more or less the same, if slight friskier. Other reviews are average, mixed or negative, Uncut gave the three stars out of five and stated that, Yes, its an unchallenging and even deeply conservative record. But its class is positively aristocratic, the Guardian only gave it one star out of five and said that the album was so inoffensive you have trouble remembering whether you put it on. Sleepless Nights Moon Song I Turned Your Picture to the Wall In the Morning She Long Way Home Creepin In Sunrise What Am I to You, interview with Norah Feels Like Home sold 1,022,000 copies in its first week of release in the U. S. It sold 395,000 copies in its week and spent its first six weeks of release atop the Billboard 200. It was the second best-selling album of 2004 in the U. S. selling 3,842,920 copies and it stands as the seventh largest first-week sales for a woman, behind Adeles 25, Britney Spears Oops. I Did It Again, Taylor Swifts 1989, Red and Speak Now, in the Netherlands, it was the years best-selling album and the twenty-fourth best-selling album of the 2000s. Worldwide, this album has shipped over 12 million copies, Feels Like Home at Discogs Feels Like Home at Metacritic Album Review at IGN Album Review at The New Yorker
40.
Herbie Hancock
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Herbert Jeffrey Herbie Hancock is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers, Hancocks music is often melodic and accessible, he has had many songs cross over and achieved success among pop audiences. Hancocks best-known compositions include Cantaloupe Island, Watermelon Man, Maiden Voyage, Chameleon, and his 2007 tribute album River, The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award, after Getz/Gilberto in 1965. Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Winnie Belle, a secretary, and Wayman Edward Hancock and his parents named him after the singer and actor Herb Jeffries. He attended the Hyde Park Academy, like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical music education. He studied from age seven, and his talent was recognized early, through his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher, but developed his ear and sense of harmony. He was also influenced by records of the group the Hi-Los. He reported that. by the time I actually heard the Hi-Los, I started picking that stuff out, my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and thats when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on Speak Like a Child – just being able to do that, I really got that from Clare Fischers arrangements for the Hi-Los. Clare Fischer was an influence on my harmonic concept. he and Bill Evans. You know, thats where it came from, in 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once, and begged him to accept him as a student. Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru, Hancock left Grinnell College, moved to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, during which period he also took courses at Roosevelt University. Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, the pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods. He recorded his first solo album Takin Off for Blue Note Records in 1962, Watermelon Man was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more importantly for Hancock, Takin Off caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer Tony Williams, Hancock received considerable attention when, in May 1963, he joined Daviss Second Great Quintet. Davis personally sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz, the rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist Ron Carter, 17-year-old drummer Williams, and Hancock on piano. After George Coleman and Sam Rivers each took a turn at the saxophone spot and this quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles, and the rhythm section has been especially praised for its innovation and flexibility. The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist, not only did he find new ways to use common chords, but he also popularized chords that had not previously been used in jazz
41.
River: The Joni Letters
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River, The Joni Letters is a 2007 album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. It is an album, featuring covers of songs originally written. It is Hancocks 47th studio album and it was released on September 25,2007 by Verve Records. Guest vocalists on River include Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner, Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza, the album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2008. It peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 after enjoying a huge post-Grammy sales boost, at #61 in Switzerland, #70 in France, on February 10,2008, the album won the Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. The Album of the Year award surprised the world, Hancock had faced competition from major-selling artists Kanye West, Foo Fighters, Amy Winehouse. River was only the second album to win Album of the Year in the awards history. The track Both Sides Now was also nominated for Best Jazz Instrumental, all songs were written by Joni Mitchell, except where noted
42.
More than This (Roxy Music song)
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More Than This is a 1982 single by English rock band Roxy Music. It was released as the first single from their album, Avalon. Although it only reached #102 in the United States, it one of Roxy Musics best-known songs in America. More Than This is somewhat unusual for a pop song in that Ferrys lead vocals end at 2,45 minutes, leaving the last 1,45 minutes as a synthesizer-driven instrumental. In 1997, a cover performed by 10,000 Maniacs with Mary Ramsey singing the lead became a US hit when it reached 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, the video for the cover was filmed at House on the Rock. Emmies cover of More Than This reached #5 in the UK charts in early 1999, jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter and singer Norah Jones covered the song for Hunters 2001 album Songs from the Analog Playground. Jimmy Gomma, an Italo dance producer did a cover of the song in 2002, during 2004, a compilation called Roxy Remodeled was released with Madison Parks version. Blondie played and recorded the song for their double-billed Road Rage Tour of 2006 and they also recorded the track, which is now available in two versions. The first one was released, first in a 10-track album along with the tour tickets and currently in a shortened 4-track EP entitled The New Cars and Blondie. The second version is an arrangement known as Paul mix and is only available as a bootleg. Electrelane did a cover of this song, which can be found on their album Singles, B-Sides & Live. Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins recorded a cover of the song that was released as a single in 2009, Low Pop Suicide covered the song on the 1997 tribute album Dream Home Heartaches. Robyn Hitchcock has covered the song live, a recording can be found on his greatest hits compilation. Contemporary folk artist Lucy Kaplansky covered the song on her 2007 album, canadian singer/songwriter Damhnait Doyle covered the song on her 2008 album of cover songs, Lights Down Low. Dance songwriter Alex Christensen released a cover in 2011 under the adopted name Jasper Forks, spanish band Peanut Pie covered the song for their only album in 1994. Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs covered the song for their 2013 album, Under the Covers, one Nation feat Victory did a dance cover in 1995.3. Bill Murray performed the song in the film Lost in Translation, Murray sings in a scene where his character is at a karaoke party. His performance is included as a track after a period of silence at the end of the soundtrack album