1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Etta James
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Etta James was an American singer who performed in various genres, including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll, jazz and gospel. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with such as The Wallflower, At Last, Tell Mama, Somethings Got a Hold on Me. She faced a number of problems, including heroin addiction, severe physical abuse. James powerful, earthy voice bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll and she won six Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, Hawkins was born on January 25,1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was 14 at the time. Her father has never been identified, James speculated that he was the pool player Rudolf Minnesota Fats Wanderone, whom she met briefly in 1987. Her mother was absent from their apartment in Watts, conducting relationships with various men. James referred to her mother as the Mystery Lady, under his tutelage, she suffered physical abuse during her formative years, with her instructor often punching her in the chest while she sang to force her to voice to come from her gut. As a consequence, she developed a strong voice for a child her age. She became a popular singing attraction, and Sarge tried unsuccessfully to pressure the church into compensating their family for her singing, Sarge, like the musical director for the choir, was also abusive. During drunken poker games at home, he would awaken Jamesetta in the morning hours. She was a bed-wetter and often soaked with urine on these occasions, the trauma of her foster father forcing her to sing under these humiliating circumstances led to difficulties for her to sing on demand throughout her career. In 1950, Mama Lu died, and Jamesettas biological mother took her to the Fillmore district of San Francisco, within a couple of years, she began listening to doo-wop and was inspired to form a girl group, the Creolettes. At the age of 14, she met the musician Johnny Otis, stories on how they met vary. In Otiss version, she came to his hotel after one of his performances in the city, another story was that Otis spotted the Creolettes performing at a Los Angeles nightclub and sought for them to record his answer song to Hank Ballards Work with Me, Annie. Otis took the group under his wing, helping them sign to Modern Records and he also gave the singer her stage name, transposing Jamesetta into Etta James. James recorded the version, for which she was given credit as co-author, in 1954, the original the name of the song was Roll with Me, Henry, but it was changed to avoid censorship due to the off-color title
3.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
4.
Christmas music
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Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music was a feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works intended for use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the written in the vernacular. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing, later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England, Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan, like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwells interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday and this attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of Father Christmas. The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the holy day in the calendar in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognised this in 1645 and its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend which continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William Sandyss Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world. Christmas festivities, including music, are celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the Santa Claus Village, in Rovaniemi. The tradition of singing Christmas carols in return for alms or charity began in England in the century after the Restoration. Also from the century, there was the English custom, predominantly involving women, of taking a wassail bowl to their neighbours to solicit gifts. The status of Christmas as an important feast within the year also means there is a long tradition of music specially composed for celebrating the season. S. This is in due to the efforts of amateur choral societies during the nineteenth century. When it was composed, it was performed during Passiontide, jakub Jan Ryba, Czech Christmas Mass Hey, Master
5.
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
6.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
7.
Cedar Walton
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Cedar Anthony Walton, Jr. was an American hard bop jazz pianist. He came to prominence as a member of drummer Art Blakeys band before establishing a career as a bandleader and composer. Several of his compositions have become standards, including Mosaic, Bolivia, Holy Land, Mode for Joe. Walton was born and grew up in Dallas, Texas and his mother Ruth was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Waltons initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas, Walton cited Nat King Cole, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Art Tatum as his major influences on piano. He began emulating recordings of artists from an early age. This switch later proved extremely useful since Walton learned to play and arrange for various instruments, in 1955, he decided to leave school and drove with a friend to New York City. He quickly got recognition from Johnny Garry, who ran Birdland at that time, Walton was drafted into the U. S. Army, and stationed in Germany, cutting short his rising status in the after-hours scene. While in the Army, he played with musicians Leo Wright, Don Ellis, upon his discharge after two years, Walton picked up where he left off, playing as a sideman with Kenny Dorham, J. J. Johnson, and with Gigi Gryce. Joining the Jazztet, led by Benny Golson and Art Farmer, in April 1959, he recorded an alternate take of Giant Steps with John Coltrane, though he did not solo. In the early 1960s, Walton joined Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers as a pianist-arranger for three years, on the day as Freddie Hubbard. In this group, which also featured Wayne Shorter, he demonstrated a sense of arranging in originals such as Ugetsu. For a year, he served as Abbey Lincolns accompanist, during the mid-1970s, he led the funk group Mobius. Walton arranged and recorded for Etta James from the mid 1990s helping her to win a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Mystery Lady, Songs of Billie Holiday in 1994. Many of Waltons compositions have been adopted as jazz standards, including Firm Roots, Bolivia, Holy Land, Mode for Joe, Bolivia is perhaps his best-known composition, while one of his oldest is Fantasy in D, recorded under the title Ugetsu by Art Blakey in 1963. In January 2010, Walton was inducted as a member of the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters, after a brief illness, Walton died on August 19,2013, at his home in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 79. 1968, Spectrum 1969, The Electric Boogaloo Song 1969, Soul Cycle 1972, with Hank Mobley 1973, A Night at Boomers, Vol.11973, A Night at Boomers, Vol. With Kenny Dorham This Is the Moment, with Kenny Dorham and Cannonball Adderley Blue Spring With Teddy Edwards Its All Right
8.
Red Holloway
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James Wesley Red Holloway was an American jazz saxophonist. Born in Helena, Arkansas, Holloway started playing banjo and harmonica and he graduated from DuSable High School, where he had played in the school big band with Johnny Griffin and Eugene Wright, and attended the Conservatory of Music, Chicago. He joined the Army when he was 19 and became bandmaster for the U. S, fifth Army Band, and after completing his military service returned to Chicago and played with Yusef Lateef and Dexter Gordon, among others. In 1948 he joined blues vocalist Roosevelt Sykes and later played with blues musicians such as Willie Dixon, Junior Parker, Lloyd Price. King, Bobby Bland and Aretha Franklin, during this period, he also toured with Sonny Stitt, Memphis Slim and Lionel Hampton. He became a member of the band for Chance Records in 1952. He subsequently appeared on many recording sessions for the Chicago-based independents Parrot, United and States, from 1963 to 1966, he was in organist Brother Jack McDuffs band, which also featured a young guitarist, George Benson. In 1974, Holloway recorded The Latest Edition with John Mayall and toured Europe, Japan, Australia, from 1977 to 1982, Holloway worked with Sonny Stitt, recording two albums together, and following Stitts death, Holloway played and recorded with Clark Terry. Red Holloway died in Morro Bay, California, aged 84 of a stroke and kidney failure on February 25,2012, one month after Etta James, with whom he had worked extensively. C. Pfeiler In the Red Live At the 1995 Floating Jazz Festival Standing Room Only A Night of Blues and Ballads Coast to Coast Something Old, meets the Bernhard Pichi Trio With Gene Ammons Soul Summit Vol. Brother Jack at the Jazz Workshop Live, prelude The Dynamic Jack McDuff The Concert McDuff Hot Barbeque Walk On By Hallelujah Time
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.
James Lord Pierpont
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James Lord Pierpont was a New England born songwriter, arranger, organist, and composer, best known for writing and composing Jingle Bells in 1857, originally entitled The One Horse Open Sleigh. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died in Winter Haven and his composition Jingle Bells has become synonymous with the Christmas holiday and is one of the most performed and most recognizable songs in the world. James Lord Pierpont was born on April 25,1822 in Boston and his father, the Reverend John Pierpont, was a pastor of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church in Boston, an abolitionist and a poet. Robert Fulghum confused James with his father in the book It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, James mother was Mary Sheldon Lord, the daughter of Lynde Lord, Jr. and Mary Lyman. James was the uncle of the financier and banker John Pierpont Morgan, John and Mary Pierpont had six children. In 1832, James was sent to a school in New Hampshire. He wrote a letter to his mother about riding in a sleigh through the December snow, in 1836, James ran away to sea aboard a whaling ship called The Shark. He then served in the US Navy until the age of 21, by 1845, he returned to New England where his father was the pastor of a Unitarian congregation in Troy, New York. James married Millicent Cowee, the daughter of Farwell Cowee and Abigail Merriam, in the late 1840s, and they settled in Medford and his father, Rev. John Pierpont, assumed a position as minister of a Unitarian congregation in Medford, Massachusetts in 1849. In 1849, James Pierpont left his wife and children with his father in Massachusetts to open a business in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush and he also worked as a photographer. His business failed after his goods burned in a fire, to support himself, he also gave organ and singing lessons. The organ is presently in the possession of Florida State University, on March 27,1852, James Pierpont published his composition The Returned Californian, based on his experiences in San Francisco, published in Boston by E. H. Wade of 197 Washington Street. The Returned Californian was originally sung by S. C, howard, of Ordways Aeloians, and was written expressly for Ordways Aeolians by James Pierpont Esq. and was arranged by John Pond Ordway. The song describes Pierponts experiences during the California Gold Rush and the failure of his San Francisco business, im going far away from my Creditors just now, I aint the tin to pay em and theyre kicking up a row. Library of Congress possesses a copy of the sheet music for the song. In 1854, Pierpont composed the songs Geraldine and Ring the Bell and he also copyrighted the song To the Loved Ones at Home in 1854 and Poor Elsie, a ballad, written and arranged expressly for Campbells Minstrels, who were rivals to Christys Minstrels. In 1855, he composed The Starlight Serenade, published by Miller, Pierpont also composed I Mourn For My Old Cottage Home. The songwriting credit appeared as, Poetry by Marshall S. Pike, Esq. the Melody by G. S. P. and Chorus, Pierponts name occasionally appeared incorrectly as J. S. Pierpont
11.
Jingle Bells
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Jingle Bells is one of the best-known and commonly sung American songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title One Horse Open Sleigh in the autumn of 1857. Some area choirs adopted it as part of their repertoire in the 1860s and 1870s and it was first recorded by the Edison Male Quartette in 1898 on an Edison cylinder, and became a Christmas favorite in the early twentieth century. It is a question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as Jingle Bells. According to the Medford Historical Society, the song was inspired by the towns popular sleigh races during the 19th century, Jingle Bells was originally copyrighted with the name One Horse Open Sleigh on September 16,1857. The song has passed into the public domain. In August of the year, James Pierpont married the daughter of the mayor of Savannah. He stayed on in the city even after the church closed due to its abolitionist leanings, Jingle Bells was often used as a drinking song at parties, people would jingle the ice in their glasses as they sang. Music historian James Fuld notes that the jingle in the title. The rhythm of the tune mimics that of a trotting horses bells, however, jingle bells is commonly taken to mean a certain kind of bell. Jingle Bells Although less well-known than the opening, the remaining verses depict high-speed youthful fun and it is unknown who replaced the words with those of the modern version. The original 1857 Jingle Bells had a different chorus featuring a more classical-style melody. The Jingle Bells tune is used in French and German songs, both songs celebrate winter fun, as in the English version. The French song, titled Vive le vent, was written by Francis Blanche and contains references to Father Time, Baby New Year, there are several German versions of Jingle Bells, including the popular Roy Black versions of Christkindl and Christmastime. The Swedish version titled Bjällerklang contains a few lines, eight bars long. Those were added by the Swedish lyricists, Eric Sandström and Gösta Westerberg, James Lord Pierponts 1857 composition Jingle Bells became one of the most performed and most recognizable secular holiday songs ever written, not only in the United States, but around the world. In recognition of achievement, James Lord Pierpont was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jingle Bells was first recorded by the Edison Male Quartette in 1898 on an Edison cylinder as part of a Christmas medley entitled Sleigh Ride Party, in 1902, the Hayden Quartet recorded Jingle Bells
12.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, a song written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, was introduced by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis. Frank Sinatra later recorded a version with modified lyrics, in 2007, ASCAP ranked Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas the third most performed Christmas song, during the preceding five years, that had been written by ASCAP members. In 2004 it finished at #76 in AFIs 100 Years.100 Songs rankings of the top tunes in American cinema. The song was written while Martin was vacationing in a flat in the neighborhood of Southside in Birmingham, Alabama, located at 1919 South 15th Avenue, the house became the home of Martin and his family in 1923. In a scene set on Christmas Eve, Judy Garlands character, Esther, sings the song to cheer up her despondent five-year-old sister, Tootie, some of the original lyrics that were penned by Martin were rejected before filming began. They were, When presented with the original lyric, Garland, her co-star Tom Drake and director Vincente Minnelli criticized the song as depressing. Though he initially resisted, Martin made several changes to make the more upbeat. For example, the lines It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past became Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight. In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to revise the line Until then well have to muddle through somehow and he told Martin, The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me, martins new line was Hang a shining star upon the highest bough. Martin made several alterations, changing the songs focus to a celebration of present happiness. On The Judy Garland Show Christmas Special, Garland sings the song to her children Joey, the song was recorded by gospel female vocalist Del Delker with Martin accompanying her on piano. Deserter in a bleak, snowy field on Christmas Eve – a scene inspired by the execution of Pvt. The New York Times film reviewer, while recognising the power of the scene, complained that the device itself is almost as specious, on December 6,2014, English singer Sam Smith released a cover version on the song. The song debuted at number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100, in Australia, the song charted at number 63, the second time a version of the song has charted, after Michael Bublés version reached number 98 in 2011
13.
White Christmas (song)
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White Christmas is a 1942 Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the single of all time. Other versions of the song, along with Crosbys, have sold over 150 million copies, accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. He often stayed up all night writing—he told his secretary, Grab your pen, I just wrote the best song Ive ever written—heck, I just wrote the best song that anybodys ever written. At first, Crosby did not see anything special about the song and he just said I dont think we have any problems with that one, Irving. The song initially performed poorly and was overshadowed by Holiday Inns first hit song, Be Careful, by the end of October 1942, White Christmas topped the Your Hit Parade chart. It remained in position until well into the new year. A few weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Crosby introduced “White Christmas” on a Christmas Day broadcast, the Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for the song. The recording is noted for Crosbys whistling during the second chorus, in 1942 alone, Crosbys recording spent eleven weeks on top of the Billboard charts. The original version hit number one on the Harlem Hit Parade for three weeks, Crosbys first-ever appearance on the black-oriented chart. Re-released by Decca, the returned to the No.1 spot during the holiday seasons of 1945 and 1946. The recording became a perennial, reappearing annually on the pop chart twenty separate times before Billboard magazine created a distinct Christmas chart for seasonal releases. In Holiday Inn, the won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1942. In the film, Crosby sings White Christmas as a duet with actress Marjorie Reynolds and this now-familiar scene was not the moviemakers initial plan. In the script as originally conceived, Reynolds, not Crosby, the song would feature in another Crosby film, the 1954 musical White Christmas, which became the highest-grossing film of 1954. The version most often heard today on radio during the Christmas season is the 1947 re-recording, the 1942 master was damaged due to frequent use. Crosby re-recorded the track on March 19,1947, accompanied again by the Trotter Orchestra, the re-recording is recognizable by the addition of flutes and celesta in the beginning. Although Crosby dismissed his role in the success, saying later that a jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully
14.
Irving Berlin
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Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, Marie from Sunny Italy, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights and he also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. Alexanders Ragtime Band sparked a dance craze in places as far away as Berlins native Russia. In doing so, said Walter Cronkite, at Berlins 100th birthday tribute, he helped write the story of country, capturing the best of who we are. He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which him a legend before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards. Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including Easter Parade, White Christmas, Happy Holiday, This Is the Army, Mr. Jones, and Theres No Business Like Show Business. His Broadway musical and 1942 film, This is the Army, Celine Dion recorded it as a tribute, making it no.1 on the charts after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In 2015, pianist and composer Hershey Felder began touring nationwide as a show, portraying Berlin. Composer George Gershwin called him the greatest songwriter that has ever lived, Berlin was born on May 11,1888, in Tolochin, Russian Empire. He was one of eight children of Moses and Lena Lipkin Beilin and his father, a cantor in a synagogue, uprooted the family to America, as did many other Jewish families in the late 19th century. In 1893 they settled in New York City, as of the 1900 census, the name Beilin had changed to Baline. By daylight the house was in ashes, as an adult, Berlin said he was unaware of being raised in abject poverty since he knew no other life. Tsar Alexander III of Russia and then Tsar Nicholas II, his son, had revived with utmost brutality the anti-Jewish pogroms, which created the spontaneous mass exodus to America. When they reached Ellis Island, Israel was put in a pen with his brother and his Yiddish-speaking family eventually settled on Cherry Street, a windowless cold-water basement flat in the Theater District of the Lower East Side. His father, unable to find work as a cantor in New York, took a job at a kosher meat market and gave Hebrew lessons on the side
15.
The Christmas Song
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The Christmas Song is a classic Christmas song written in 1945 by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé. According to Tormé, the song was written during a hot summer. In an effort to cool by thinking cool, the most-performed Christmas song was born. I saw a spiral pad on his piano with four written in pencil. Bob didnt think he was writing a song lyric and he said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written, I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics. The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the early in 1946. First recording, Recorded at WMCA Radio Studios, New York City, label credit, The King Cole Trio. Not issued until 1989, when it was included on the various-artists compilation Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits Rhino R170637 / R270637, second recording, Recorded at WMCA Radio Studios, New York City, August 19,1946. Label credit, The King Cole Trio with String Choir, issued November 1946 as Capitol 311. Third recording, Recorded at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, August 24,1953 and this was the songs first magnetic tape recording. Label credit, The King Cole Trio with String Choir, issued November 1953 as the new Capitol 90036 / F90036. Correct label credit issued on October 18,1954 as Capitol 2955 / F2955, label credit, Nat King Cole with Orchestra Conducted by Nelson Riddle. This recording is available on the 1990 Cole compilation CD Cole, Christmas, & Kids and it was also included, along with both 1946 recordings, on the 1991 Mosaic Records box set The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio. This version is played on the radio during the Christmas season and is nearly identical to the popular 1961 recording. It is easy to tell apart from the 1961 version in that the final notes sounds faster, fourth recording, Recorded at Capitol Studios, New York City, March 30,1961. This rendition, the first recorded in stereo, is played on radio stations during the Christmas season. The instrumental arrangement is identical to the 1953 version, but the vocals are much deeper
16.
The Little Drummer Boy
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The Little Drummer Boy is a popular Christmas song written by the American classical music composer and teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. It was recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers and realised on the choirs first LP Christmas with the Trapp Family Singers and these were the first recordings released on their new record label Decca Records and further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale. This version was re-released successfully for years and the song has been recorded many times since. The song was originally titled Carol of the Drum and was published by Davis as based upon a traditional Czech carol and it is headed Czech Carol freely transcribed by K. K. D, these initials then deleted and replaced with C. R. W. Robinson, a name under which Davis sometimes published, the Czech original of the carol has never been identified. In 1957 it was recorded, with an altered arrangement. Simeone and Onorati claimed joint composition credits with Davis, the album and the song were an enormous success, the single scoring on the U. S. music charts from 1958 to 1962. In 1963, the album was reissued under the title The Little Drummer Boy, A Christmas Festival, the following year the album was released in stereo. In 1988, The Little Drummer Boy, A Christmas Festival was released on CD by Casablanca Records, and subsequently, on Island Records. Harry Simeone, who in 1964 had signed with Kapp Records, recorded a new version of The Little Drummer Boy in 1965 for his album O Bambino, Simeone recorded the song a third and final time in 1981, for an album on the budget Holiday Records label. The story depicted in the song is similar to a 12th-century legend retold by Anatole France as Le Jongleur de Notre Dame. The Crusaders released their version of the song as a single, jackie Evancho covered the song with Il Volo on her album Someday at Christmas In Spanish speaking countries it is a common carol recorded under the name El niño del tambor or El tamborilero. One of the better known cover versions of the song is sung by Spanish singer Raphael, in French speaking countries since Nana Mouskouri 1965 version it is a common song recorded under the name Lenfant au tambour. A Punjabi version was recorded under the name Drummer Boy - Kich Ke in 2014 by Canadian YouTube sensation Jus Reign for his Geeta Brothers Presents - Punjabi Christmas Album. The Finnish band Northern Kings recorded a version with Finnish lyrics, entitled Pieni Rumpali, in 2015, Sonata Arctica frontman Tony Kakko, who sang on the Raskasta Joulua version, and Apocalyptica cellist Eicca Toppinen collaborated to record another version. The Little Drummer Boy at Keyframe - the Animation Resource The Little Drummer Boy at the Internet Movie Database Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
17.
Katherine Kennicott Davis
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Katherine Kennicott Davis was an American former teacher, who was a classical music composer, pianist, and author of the famous Christmas tune The Little Drummer Boy. Davis was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on June 25,1892 and she composed her first piece of music, Shadow March, at the age of 15. She graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1910, in 1914 she won the colleges Billings Prize. After graduation she continued at Wellesley as an assistant in the Music Department, teaching music theory, at the same time she studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Davis also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and she taught music at the Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, and at the Shady Hill School for Girls in Philadelphia. She became a member of ASCAP in 1941. and was granted a doctorate from Stetson University, in DeLand. Katherine K. Davis continued writing music until she became ill in the winter of 1979-1980 and she died on April 20,1980, at the age of 87, in Littleton, Massachusetts. These funds are used to support musical instrument instruction, many of her over 600 compositions were written for the choirs at her school. She was actively involved in The Concord Series, multiple-volume set of music, many of the musical volumes were compiled, arranged, and edited by Davis with Archibald T. Davison, and they were published by E. C. Schirmer in Boston. She wrote The Little Drummer Boy, in 1941 and it became famous when recorded by the Harry Simeone Chorale in 1958, the recording sailed to the top of the Billboard charts and Simeone insisted on a writers royalty for his arrangement of the song. Another famous hymn by Katherine Davis is the Thanksgiving hymn Let All Things Now Living which uses the melody of the traditional Welsh folk song The Ash Grove. Birchard Seasonal Anthems for junior choirs, two-part childrens chorus and keyboard,1963, B. F. Wood Music Shepherds, Awake. Mixed voices a cappella,1938, Remick Music Sing Gloria, text by John Crowley, mixed voices, SA duet, Katherine Davis, Composer, At 87, Memorial Service At Wheaton. Miss Davis composed more than 800 selections, sacred and secular and her most well-known song is the carol, The Little Drummer Boy, originally published in 1941 as The Carol of the Drum. She also composed songs, seven operas, carols, choruses, Katherine K. Davis, life and work. Ann Arbor, Michigan, Thesis, University of Missouri, reprint by University Microfilms, flanagan, A. L. Katherine K. Davis, 1892-1980, The American Organist, p.31. The Hymns of Katherine K. Davis, The Hymn,43, pp. 28–33
18.
Franz Xaver Gruber
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Franz Xaver Gruber, was an Austrian primary school teacher, church organist and composer in the village of Arnsdorf, who is best known for composing the music to Stille Nacht. Gruber was born on November 25,1787, in the village of Hochburg, Upper Austria and his given name was recorded in the baptismal record as Conrad Xavier, but this was later changed to Franz Xaver. The Hochburger schoolteacher Andreas Peterlechner gave him music lessons, Gruber worked as a weaver until the age of 18, then trained to become a schoolteacher. He completed his education studying with the church organist of Burghausen. In 1807 Gruber became schoolteacher in Arnsdorf and he also became the church caretaker and organist. In 1808 he married a widow, Maria Elisabeth Fischinger Engelsberger and they had two children, both of whom died young. After the death of his first wife in 1825, Gruber married a former student and they had ten children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In 1829 Gruber moved to Berndorf, and in 1835 to Hallein, Salzburg, Maria Gruber died in childbirth in 1841 in Hallein. The following year he married Katherine Wimmer, in 1816 he took on the additional responsibilities of organist and choirmaster at St Nicholas Church in the neighboring village of Oberndorf bei Salzburg. Together with Joseph Mohr, a Catholic priest who wrote the original German lyrics, on Christmas Eve of 1818, Mohr, an assistant pastor at St Nicholas, showed Gruber a six-stanza poem he had written in 1816. He asked Gruber to set the poem to music, the church organ had broken down so Gruber produced a melody with guitar arrangement for the poem. The two men sang Stille Nacht for the first time at Christmas Mass in St Nicholas Church while Mohr played guitar and the choir repeated the last two lines of each verse
19.
Joseph Mohr
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Josephus Franciscus Mohr, sometimes spelt Josef was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and writer, who wrote the words to the Christmas carol Silent Night. Mohr was born in Salzburg on December 11,1792, to an unmarried embroiderer, Anna Schoiberin, and Franz Mohr, a soldier and deserter. The ancestors on his fathers side came from the town of Mariapfarr in the mountainous Lungau region south of Salzburg, as the parents were unmarried, Joseph received the name of his godfather, according to custom. Johann Nepomuk Hiernle, vicar and leader of music at Salzburg Cathedral, enabled Mohr to have an education, as a boy, Mohr would serve simultaneously as a singer and violinist in the choirs of the University Church and at the Benedictine monastery church of St. Peter. From 1808 to 1810, Mohr studied at the Benedictine monastery of Kremsmünster in the province of Upper Austria and he then returned to Salzburg to attend the Lyceum school, and in 1811, he entered the seminary. Since he was of illegitimate birth, a dispensation was required in those days for him to attend seminary. On August 21,1815, Mohr graduated and was ordained as a priest, in the fall of 1815, Mohr was asked to provide temporary help in the village of Ramsau near Berchtesgaden. Mohr then served as assistant priest in Mariapfarr and it was during this time, in 1816, that he penned the words to Silent Night in Mariapfarr. Poor health forced him to return to Salzburg in the summer of 1817, after a short recuperation he began serving as an assistant priest at St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, where he made the acquaintance of Franz Gruber, schoolteacher in neighbouring Arnsdorf. On a cold Christmas Eve in 1818, Mohr walked the three kilometres from his home in Oberndorf bei Salzburg to visit his friend Franz Xaver Gruber in the town of Arnsdorf bei Laufen. Mohr brought with him a poem he had written two years earlier. Gruber composed the melody for Mohrs Stille Nacht in just a few hours, the song was sung at Midnight Mass in a simple arrangement for guitar and choir. Within a few years, arrangements of the carol appeared in churches in the Salzburg Archdiocese, Mohr, a generous man who donated most of his salary to charity, was moved from place to place, and remained in Oberndorf only until 1819. After Oberndorf he was sent to Kuchl, followed by stays in Golling an der Salzach, Bad Vigaun, Adnet, in 1827 he was made pastor of Hintersee, and in 1837 of the Alpine village of Wagrain. Here he created a fund to allow children from families to attend school. Mohr died of disease on December 4,1848, at the age of 55. Mohrs final resting place is in the tiny Alpine ski resort of Wagrain, the Joseph Mohr School stands as a fitting memorial, and close to the grave of the man who wrote the words heard around the world. The village school is named after him and his grave has been kept in a place of honour in the churchyard cemetery
20.
Silent Night
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Silent Night is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared a cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011. The song has been recorded by a number of singers from every music genre. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the third best-selling single of all-time, the song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before and he had written the lyrics of the song Stille Nacht in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as a co-adjutor. The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the village of Arnsdorf. Before Christmas Eve, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody, together they performed the new carol during the mass on the night of 24 December. The original manuscript has been lost, however, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohrs handwriting and dated by researchers as c. 1820. It states that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 when he was assigned to a church in Mariapfarr, Austria. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the one in Mohrs handwriting. The version of the melody that is used today is a slow, meditative lullaby or pastorale, differing slightly from Grubers original. Today, the lyrics and melody are in the public domain, the carol has been translated into about 140 languages. Max Reger quotes the tune in the Christmas section of his organ pieces Sieben Stücke, several theatrical and television films depict how the song was ostensibly written. Most of them however are based on a legend, about the organ breaking down at the church in Oberndorf. The Legend of Silent Night TV film directed by Daniel Mann Silent Night, Silent Mouse television special directed and produced by Robin Crichton and narrated by Lynn Redgrave. org Text and music, Stille-Nacht-Association, Salzburg Silent Night Chapel, origin of song
21.
Joy to the World
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Joy to the World is a popular Christmas carol. The words are by English hymn writer Isaac Watts, based on the half of Psalm 98 in the Bible. The song was first published in 1719 in Watts collection, The Psalms of David, Imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship. Watts wrote the words of Joy to the World as a hymn glorifying Christs triumphant return at the end of the age, the nations are called to celebrate because Gods faithfulness to the house of Israel has brought salvation to the world. As of the late 20th century, Joy to the World was the most-published Christmas hymn in North America, the name Antioch is generally used for the tune. Likewise, the first four notes seem to match the beginning of the choruses Lift up your heads, other hymnals credit the tune to Lowell Mason, who introduced it to America in 1836 as arranged from Handel. But, in 1986, John Wilson showed that Joy to the World was first published in two English collections, one firmly dated 1833. Being three years earlier, this is thought to exclude Lowell Mason from being the composer, verse 1 Joy to the world. The Lord is come, Let earth receive her King, Let every heart prepare him room, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven and nature sing, And heaven, and heaven, verse 2 Joy to the earth. The savior reigns, Let men their songs employ, While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat the sounding joy, Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. Verse 3 No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground, He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found. Verse 4 He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of his righteousness, And wonders of his love, And wonders of his love, And wonders, wonders, of his love. In the Latter-day Saint hymnal, the refrain in the first verse is And Saints, modern recordings, including those aimed at children such as VeggieTales and Disney Sing-Along versions, often omit the third verse. Mariah Careys version was first released as a promo only in November 1994, the song was re-recorded, taken from her fourth studio album Merry Christmas. It combines the chorus of the Hoyt Axton song Joy to the World with the traditional Christmas song, a year later, it was released as a commercial single in Australia. There were several club mixes made of the song remixed by David Morales, the video features the songs Celebration edit. First recorded in 1954 on his Music of Christmas LP, it was re-recorded in stereo in 1959 as Columbia 8176, in 1965, The Supremes recorded the song for their album Merry Christmas. Andy Williams recorded the tune in a ballad style in his 1974 Christmas Present LP
22.
George Frideric Handel
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George Frideric Handel was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712 and he was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera, musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that Handel was not only a great composer, he was a dramatic genius of the first order. As Alexanders Feast was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works, after his success with Messiah he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759 and his funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Handel was born in 1685 in Halle-on-Saal, Duchy of Magdeburg, to Georg Händel and his father,63 when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Georg Händel was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching and they were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Hapsburg possession as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War. Halle was a prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry. Even the smaller churches all had able organists and fair choirs, and humanities, the Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. But since the middle of the war the city was under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, the arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata, which did not describe Handels family. Handel was the child of this marriage, the first son died still born. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric, Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687 and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690. Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the gymnasium in Halle, Mainwaring is the source for almost all information of Handels childhood, and much of that information came from J. C. Smith, Jr. Handels confidant and copyist. Whether they came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation and it is from Mainwaring that the portrait of Handels father as implacably opposed to any musical education comes. This did nothing to dampen young Handels inclination, in fact, Mainwaring tells the story of Handels secret attic spinnet, Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately conveyd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep, but Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training. Somehow Handel made his way to the organ, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction, Handels father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel
23.
Lowell Mason
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Lowell Mason was a leading figure in American church music, the composer of over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His most well-known tunes include his arrangement of Joy to the World and Bethany, his setting of the hymn, Nearer, My God, to Thee. He was largely responsible for introducing music into American public schools and he is also widely criticized for his role in helping to largely eliminate the robust tradition of participatory sacred music that flourished in America before his time. Mason was born and grew up in Medfield, Massachusetts, where he became the Music Director of First Parish Church at age 17 and his birthplace residence was saved from development in 2011. It was relocated to a park on Green Street. The Lowell Mason House foundation is an effort to create a Lowell Mason museum and he spent the first part of his adulthood in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked first in a dry-goods store, then in a bank. He had very strong musical interests, and studied music with the German teacher Frederick L. Abel. He also became a leader in the music of the Independent Presbyterian Church, under his initiative, his church created the first Sunday school for black children in America at the now Historic First Bryan Baptist Church in Savannah, GA. Following an earlier British model, Mason embarked on producing a hymnal whose tunes would be drawn from the work of European classical composers, such as Haydn, Mason had great difficulty in finding a publisher for this work. Ultimately, it was published by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston and he first had published it anonymously, as he felt that his main career was as a banker, and he hoped not to damage his career prospects. In 1827, Mason moved to Boston, where he continued his career for some time. Mason served as choirmaster and organist at Park Street Church from 1829 to 1831 and he eventually became a music director for three churches, in a six-month rotation, including the Hanover Street church, whose pastor was the prominent abolitionist Lyman Beecher. In 1838 he was appointed superintendent for the Boston school system. In the 1830s, Mason set to music the nursery rhyme, in 1845 political machinations in the Boston school committee led to the termination of his services. In 1851, at the age of 59, Mason retired from Boston musical activity and moved to New York City where his sons, Daniel and Lowell, on December 20,1851 he set sail to Europe. Following his return to New York City, Mason accepted the position as director in 1853 for the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. It had just completed construction of a new building on Nineteenth Street. He immediately disbanded its choir and orchestra, and installed an organ with his son, William, during his tenure, which lasted until 1860, he developed congregational singing to the point where the church was known as having the finest congregational singing in the city
24.
Isaac Watts
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Isaac Watts was an English Christian minister, hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular writer, his work was part of evangelization. He was recognized as the Father of English Hymnody, credited with some 750 hymns, many of his hymns remain in use today and have been translated into numerous languages. Born in Southampton, England, in 1674, Watts was brought up in the home of a committed religious Nonconformist, his father, at King Edward VI School, Watts had a classical education, learning Latin, Greek and Hebrew. From an early age, Watts displayed a propensity for rhyme and he went to the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690. Much of the remainder of his life centred around that village, following his education, Watts was called as pastor of a large independent chapel in London, where he helped train preachers, despite his poor health. Taking work as a tutor, Watts lived with the Nonconformist Hartopp family at Fleetwood House. Through them he became acquainted with their neighbours, Sir Thomas Abney. Invited for a week to Hertfordshire, Watts eventually lived for a total of 36 years in the Abney household, most of the time at Abney House, their second residence. On the death of Sir Thomas Abney in 1722, the widow Lady Mary and her last unmarried daughter, Elizabeth and she invited Watts to continue with their household. He lived at Abney Hall until his death in 1748, Watts particularly enjoyed the grounds at Abney Park, which Lady Mary planted with two elm walks leading down to an island heronry in the Hackney Brook. Watts often sought inspiration there for the books and hymns he wrote. Watts died in Stoke Newington in 1748, and was buried in Bunhill Fields and he left an extensive legacy of hymns, treatises, educational works and essays. His work was influential amongst Nonconformist independents and religious revivalists of the 18th century, such as Philip Doddridge, Sacred music scholar Stephen Marini describes the ways in which Watts contributed to English hymnody. Notably, Watts led by including new poetry for original songs of Christian experience to be used in worship, the older tradition was based on the poetry of the Bible, notably the Psalms. Watts introduction of extra-Biblical poetry opened up a new era of Protestant hymnody as other poets followed in his path, Watts also introduced a new way of rendering the Psalms in verse for church services. The Psalms were originally written in Biblical Hebrew within Judaism, in early Christendom, they were affirmed in the Biblical canon as part of the Old Testament. Watts proposed that the translations of the Psalms as sung by Protestant Christians should give them a specifically Christian perspective
25.
Adolphe Adam
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Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer and music critic. Later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as O Holy Night, Adam was a noted teacher, who taught Delibes and other influential composers. Adolphe Adam was born in Paris, to Jean-Louis Adam, who was a prominent Alsatian composer and his mother was the daughter of a physician. As a child, Adolphe Adam preferred to improvise music on his own rather than study music seriously and occasionally truanted with writer Eugène Sue who was something of a dunce in early years. Jean-Louis Adam was a pianist and teacher but was set against the idea of his son following in his footsteps. Adam was determined, however, and studied and composed secretly under the tutelage of his older friend Ferdinand Hérold, a popular composer of the day. When Adam was 17, his father relented, and he was permitted to study at the Paris Conservatoire—but only after he promised that he would learn music only as an amusement, not as a career. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1821, where he studied organ and harmonium under the celebrated opera composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. Adam also played the timpani in the orchestra of the Conservatoire, however, he did not win the Prix de Rome and his father did not encourage him to pursue a music career, as he won second prize. By age 20, he was writing songs for Paris vaudeville houses and playing in the orchestra at the Gymnasie Dramatique, like many other French composers, he made a living largely by playing the organ. In 1825, he helped Boieldieu prepare parts for his opera La dame blanche, Adam was able to travel through Europe with the money he made, and he met Eugène Scribe, with whom he later collaborated, in Geneva. By 1830, he had completed twenty-eight works for the theatre, Adam is probably best remembered for the ballet Giselle. He wrote several ballets and 39 operas, including Le postillon de Lonjumeau. After quarreling with the director of the Opéra, Adam invested his money and borrowed heavily to open a fourth house in Paris. It opened in 1847, but closed because of the Revolution of 1848 and his efforts to extricate himself from these debts include a brief turn to journalism. From 1849 to his death in Paris, he taught composition at the Paris Conservatoire. His Christmas carol Cantique de Noël, translated to English as O Holy Night, is an international favorite, Cantique de Noel is based on a poem written by M. Cappeau de Roquemaure. Adam is buried in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris, List of operas by Adam List of ballets by Adolphe Adam
26.
John Sullivan Dwight
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John Sullivan Dwight was a Unitarian minister, transcendentalist, and Americas first influential classical music critic. Dwight was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of John Dwight, M. D. and he was thought to be a member of the New England Dwight family through his paternal grandfather, John Dwight, Jr. He graduated from Harvard College in 1832 and then prepared for the Unitarian ministry at Harvard Divinity School, Dwight was ordained a minister in 1840, but ministry proved not to be his vocation. Instead he developed a deep interest in music, in particular that of Ludwig van Beethoven, Dwight served as director of the school at the Brook Farm commune, where he also taught music and organised musical and theatrical events. About this time he began writing a column on music. Brook Farm collapsed financially in 1847, but Dwight set up a house in Boston. He married singer Mary Bullard on February 11,1851, in 1852, he founded Dwights Journal of Music, which became one of the most respected and influential such periodicals in the country in the mid-19th century. Among the early writers was Alexander Wheelock Thayer, who would one of the first major music historians in the country. Other contributors included John Knowles Paine, William F. Apthorp, in 1855, Dwight translated the carol O Holy Night from the French. In his criticism of the contemporary American pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, at a concert, Gottschalk claimed a Beethoven work as his own and identified one of his own as a Beethoven. When a hostile Dwight praised the piece, the composer sent a note apologizing for the printer’s error in the program. His wife died September 6,1860, they had no children and he died on September 5,1893, and is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston. John Sullivan Dwight, Brook-Farmer, Editor, and Critic of Music, classical Music in America, A History of Its Rise and Fall. H. W. Wilson Works by or about John Sullivan Dwight at Internet Archive Works by John Sullivan Dwight at LibriVox Robinson, dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography
27.
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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The Cincinnati Enquirer is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. The Enquirer has the highest circulation of any print publication in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, a daily local edition for Northern Kentucky is published as The Kentucky Enquirer. The Enquirer is available online at the Cincinnati. com website, the Enquirer is regarded as a conservative, Republican-leaning newspaper, in contrast to The Cincinnati Post, a former competing daily. From 1920 to 2012, the board endorsed every Republican candidate for United States president. By contrast, the current editorial board claims to take a pragmatic editorial stance, according to editor Peter Bhatia, It is made up of pragmatic, solution-driven members who, frankly, don’t have much use for extreme ideologies from the right or the left. The board’s mantra in our editorials has been about problem-solving and improving the quality of life for everyone in greater Cincinnati, on September 24,2016, the Enquirer endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, the first endorsement of a Democrat for president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The Kentucky Enquirer consists of an additional section wrapped around the Cincinnati Enquirer, the front page is remade from the Ohio edition, although it may contain similar elements. Since September 2015, the Enquirer and local Fox affiliate WXIX-TV have partnered on news gathering and have shared news coverage and video among the paper, broadcasts, the Enquirers predecessor was the Phoenix, edited by Moses Dawson as early as 1828. It later became the Commercial Advertiser and in 1838 the Cincinnati Advertiser, by the time John and Charles Brough purchased it and renamed it the Daily Cincinnati Enquirer, it was considered a newspaper of record for the city. The Enquirers first issue, on April 10,1841, consisted of just four pages of squint-inducing text that was, at times and it declared its staunch support for the Democratic Party, in contrast to the three Whig papers and two ostensibly independent papers then in circulation. A weekly digest edition for regional farmers, the Weekly Cincinnati Enquirer, began publishing on April 14 and would continue until November 25,1843, in November 1843, the Enquirer merged with the Daily Morning Message to become the Enquirer and Message. In January 1845, the dropped the Message name, becoming The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer. Finally, in May 1849, the paper became The Cincinnati Enquirer, on April 20,1848, the Enquirer became one of the first newspapers in the United States to publish a Sunday edition. In 1844, James J. Faran took an interest in the Enquirer, in 1848, Washington McLean and his brother S. B. Wiley McLean acquired an interest in the Enquirer. On March 22,1866, a gas leak caused Pikes Opera House to explode, a competitor, the Cincinnati Daily Times, allowed the Enquirer to print on its presses in the wake of the disaster. As a result, the Enquirer missed only one day of publication, however, archives of the papers first 25 years were lost. Washington McLean was a leading Copperhead whose editorial policies led to the suppression of the paper by the United States government during the Civil War, after the war, McLean pursued an anti-Republican stance. One of his star writers was Lafcadio Hearn, who wrote for the paper from 1872 to 1875, James W. Faulkner served as the papers political correspondent, covering the Ohio State Legislature and Statehouse, from 1887 until his death in 1923
28.
New York Daily News
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The New York Daily News, officially titled Daily News, is an American newspaper based in New York City. It is the fourth-most widely circulated newspaper in the United States. It was founded in 1919, and was the first U. S. daily printed in tabloid format and it is owned by Mortimer Zuckerman, and is headquartered at 4 New York Plaza in Lower Manhattan. The Daily News was founded by Joseph Medill Patterson in 1919, Patterson and his cousin, Robert R. McCormick were co-publishers of the Chicago Tribune and grandsons of Tribune founder Joseph Medill. On his way back, Patterson met with Alfred Harmsworth, who was the Viscount Northcliffe and publisher of the Daily Mirror, impressed with the advantages of a tabloid, Patterson launched the Daily News on June 26,1919. The Daily News was not a success, and by August 1919. Still, New Yorks many subway commuters found the tabloid format easier to handle, by the time of the papers first anniversary in June 1920, circulation was over 100,000 and by 1925, over a million. Circulation reached its peak in 1947, at 2.4 million daily and 4.7 million on Sunday. The Daily News carried the slogan New Yorks Picture Newspaper from 1920 to 1991, for its emphasis on photographs, and a camera has been part of the newspapers logo from day one. The papers later slogan, developed from a 1985 ad campaign, is New Yorks Hometown Newspaper, while another has been The Eyes, the Ears, the Honest Voice of New York. News-gathering operations were, for a time, organized using two-way radios, prominent sports cartoonists have included Bill Gallo, Bruce Stark and Ed Murawinski. Editorial cartoonists have included C. D. Batchelor, editions were published as extras in 1991 during the brief tenure of Robert Maxwell as publisher. In 1982, and again in the early 1990s during a newspaper strike, in the 1982 instance, the parent Tribune offered the tabloid up for sale. In 1991, millionaire Robert Maxwell offered financial assistance to The News to help it stay in business, when Maxwell died shortly thereafter, The News seceded from his publishing empire, which eventually splintered under questions about whether Maxwell had the financial backing to sustain it. After Maxwells death in 1991, the paper was held together in bankruptcy by existing management, led by editor James Willse, mort Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993. From its founding until 1991, the Daily News was owned by the Tribune Company, in 1948 The News established WPIX, whose call letters were based on The News nickname of New Yorks Picture Newspaper, and later bought what became WPIX-FM, which is now known as WFAN-FM. The News also maintains local bureaux in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, at City Hall, within One Police Plaza, in January 2012, former News of the World and New York Post editor Colin Myler was appointed editor-in-chief of the Daily News. Myler was replaced by his deputy Jim Rich in September 2015, ather than portraying New York through the partisan divide between liberals and conservatives, The News has played up the more mythic rift between the city’s fiends and heroes
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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
