1.
Los Angeles
–
Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
2.
John Denver
–
He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best selling artists. By 1974, he was established as Americas best selling performer. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed, with total record sales of over 33 million. He recorded and performed primarily with a guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his disdain for city life, his enthusiasm for music. Denver starred in films and several television specials in the 1970s and 1980s. He continued to record in the 1990s, also focusing on issues by lending vocal support to space exploration. He lived in Aspen, Colorado for much of his life and was known for his love of Colorado which he sang about numerous times, in 1974 Denver was named poet laureate of the state. The Colorado state legislature also adopted Rocky Mountain High as one of its two songs in 2007. Denver was a pilot and died at the age of 53 in a single-fatality crash of his personal experimental aircraft. Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. was born in Roswell, New Mexico, to Lt. Col. Henry John Deutschendorf, Sr. an Air Force officer, Henry Sr. was of German ancestry, and met and married his Oklahoma Sweetheart. Denvers Irish Catholic and German maternal grandmother was the one who imbued Denver with his love of music. In his autobiography, Take Me Home, Denver described his life as the eldest son of a family shaped by a father who could not show his love for his children. He is also the nephew of singer Dave Deutschendorf of The New Christy Minstrels, because Denvers father was in the military and his family moved often, it was difficult for him to make friends and fit in with other children of his own age. Constantly being the new kid was troubling for the introverted Denver, and he grew up feeling like he should be somewhere else. While living in Tucson, Arizona, Denver was a member of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus for two years, Denver was happy living in Tucson, but his father was transferred to Montgomery, Alabama, then in the midst of the Montgomery boycotts. The family later moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where Denver graduated from Arlington Heights High School, attending high school in Fort Worth was a distressing experience for the disenfranchised Denver. In his third year of school, he borrowed his fathers car and ran away to California to visit family friends. His father flew to California in a jet plane to retrieve him
3.
Tina Turner
–
Tina Turner, is an American-born Swiss recording artist, dancer, actress, and author, whose career has spanned more than half a century, earning her widespread recognition and numerous awards. Born and raised in the Southeastern United States, Turner obtained Swiss citizenship in 2013 and she began her musical career in the mid-1950s as a featured singer with Ike Turners Kings of Rhythm, first recording in 1958 under the name Little Ann. Her introduction to the public as Tina Turner began in 1960 as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of notable hits credited to the duo, including A Fool in Love, River Deep – Mountain High, Proud Mary, and Nutbush City Limits, a song which she herself wrote. In her autobiography, I, Tina, she revealed several instances of domestic abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split. After her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career through live performances, Whats Love Got to Do with It, the lead single won three Grammy Awards including Record of the Year. Whats Love Got to Do with It was later used as the title of a loosely based biographical film adapted from her autobiography, One of the worlds best-selling artists of all time, she has also been referred to as The Queen of Rock n Roll. Turner has been termed the most successful female Rock n Roll artist, receiving eleven Grammy Awards, including eight competitive awards, Turner has also sold more concert tickets than any other solo performer in history. Her combined album and single sales total approximately 180 million copies worldwide and she is noted for her energetic stage presence, powerful vocals, and career longevity. In 2008, Turner returned from semi-retirement to embark on her Tina, Turners tour became one of the highest selling ticketed shows of 2008–09. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Turner no.63 on their list of 100 greatest artists of all time, in 1991, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Turner announced in December 2016 that she has been working on Tina, Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26,1939, in Nutbush, an unincorporated area in Haywood County, Tennessee. Her parents were Zelma Priscilla and Floyd Richard Bullock, Anna Mae was born at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180, where her father worked as an overseer of the sharecroppers. She is of African-American descent, with approximately 33% European and 1% Native American ancestry, Anna Mae had an older sister, Ruby Aillene. As young children, Anna Mae and Aillene were separated when their parents relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, after the war, the sisters reunited with their parents and moved with them to Knoxville. Two years later, the returned to Nutbush to live in the Flagg Grove community. In 1889, her uncle had sold the land on which the school was built to the school trustees. As a youngster, Anna Mae sang in the choir at Nutbushs Spring Hill Baptist Church
4.
Grammy Award for Best New Artist
–
The Grammy Award for Best New Artist has been awarded since 1959. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were handed out, the award was not presented in 1967. The official guidelines are as follows, For a new artist who releases, during the Eligibility Year, note that this is not necessarily the first album released by an artist. It is sometimes asserted, with varying degrees of sincerity, that winning the award is a curse, as several award winners were never able to duplicate the success they experienced in their debut year. This viewpoint was expressed by former Starland Vocal Band member Taffy Danoff in a 2002 interview for VH1s 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders, so that was basically the kiss of death and I feel sorry for everyone whos gotten it since. The category is also notable for being the one of its kind in which a Grammy Award was vacated. This occurred in 1990 after it was revealed winners Milli Vanilli did not contribute their own vocals on their debut album, the award was revoked, but was not handed out to another artist. Of the 54 awards presented in the category since its inception, the honor has been presented to 25 solo female artists,18 duos or groups, between 1997 and 2003, all the winners were solo female artists. Also, from 1993 to 2005, no winner was a male artist. In 2006, John Legend broke this trend, which started with Marc Cohn in 1992. Only four artists have won both Best New Artist and Album of the Year in the year, Bob Newhart in 1961, Christopher Cross in 1981, Lauryn Hill in 1999. Of all the winners, only three have been country artists, in 1997, LeAnn Rimes became the first country artist to win the award. She was followed by Carrie Underwood in 2007 and Zac Brown Band in 2010, additionally,2017 marked the first time that two country artists were nominated in this category in the same year. 1984 marked the first time all of the nominees were from outside of the United States. Over the years, the eligibility rules for this category have changed several times, in 2010, Lady Gagas exclusion from the Best New Artist category caused the Recording Academy to change eligibility requirements for the next ceremony. She was ineligible for the nomination because her hit Just Dance had been nominated in 2008, the new rule stated that an artist can be nominated as long as that artist has not previously released an entire album and has subsequently not won a Grammy. To be eligible in the category of Best New Artist, the artist, duo, or group, Must have released a minimum of five singles/tracks or one album, but no more than 30 singles/tracks or three albums. May not have entered into this more than three times, including as a performing member of an established group
5.
Stevie Ray Vaughan
–
Stephen Stevie Ray Vaughan was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. AllMusic describes him as a powerhouse of a guitarist who gave blues a burst of momentum in the 80s. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Vaughan began playing guitar at the age of seven, in 1971 he dropped out of high school, and moved to Austin the following year. He played gigs with bands, earning a spot in Marc Bennos band, the Nightcrawlers. He then formed his own group, Triple Threat Revue, before renaming the band Double Trouble after hiring drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon. He gained fame after his performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982, the ten-song album was a commercially successful release that sold over half a million copies. After achieving sobriety in late 1986, he headlined concert tours with Jeff Beck in 1989 and Joe Cocker in 1990 before his death in a crash on August 27,1990. Vaughan was inspired musically by American and British blues rock and he favored clean amplifiers with high volume and contributed to the popularity of vintage musical equipment. He often combined several different amplifiers together and used minimal effects pedals, however, Vaughan occasionally used pedals to augment his sound, mainly to boost the signal, although he occasionally employed a rotating speaker cabinet and wah pedals for added textural flair. Vaughan received several awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1983, readers of Guitar Player voted him Best New Talent, in 1984, the Blues Foundation named him Entertainer of the Year and Blues Instrumentalist of the Year, and in 1987, Performance Magazine honored him with Rhythm and Blues Act of the Year. Earning six Grammy Awards and ten Austin Music Awards, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2000, Rolling Stone ranked Vaughan as the twelfth greatest guitarist of all time. In 2015, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Vaughans ancestry has been traced back to his great-grandfather, Robert Hodgen LaRue. Robert LaRue had a daughter named Laura Belle, Vaughans paternal grandmother and she married Thomas Lee Vaughan and moved to Rockwall County, Texas, where they lived by sharecropping. On September 6,1921, they had a son named Jimmie Lee Vaughan, steves father Jim Vaughan, also known as Big Jim, dropped out of school at age sixteen, and enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. After his discharge, he married Martha Cook on January 13,1950, Stephen Ray Vaughan was born on October 3,1954, in Dallas, Texas, he was three-and-a-half years younger than his brother Jimmie. Big Jim secured a job as a worker, an occupation that involved rigorous manual effort. The family moved frequently, living in states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi
6.
Shel Silverstein
–
Sheldon Allan Shel Silverstein was an American poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of childrens books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in some works, translated into more than 30 languages, his books have sold over 20 million copies. He was the recipient of two Grammy Awards, as well as a Golden Globe and Academy Award nominee. Born into a Jewish family, Silverstein grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, attended Roosevelt High School and, later and he then enrolled in Chicago Academy of Fine Arts where he was attending when he was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Japan and Korea and he had one daughter, Shoshanna Jordan Hastings, born June 30,1970, with Susan Taylor Hastings of Sausalito, California. Susan died on June 29,1975, one day before Shoshannas fifth birthday, and Shoshanna died April 24,1982, at age 11, of a cerebral aneurysm. He also had a son named Matthew, born November 10,1984, with Sarah Spencer of Key West, Florida, Sarah drove the conch train, on May 10,1999, Silverstein died at age 68 of a heart attack in Key West, Florida. He is buried in Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois, Silverstein began drawing at age seven by tracing the works of Al Capp. He told Publishers Weekly, When I was a kid—12 to 14, Id much rather have been a baseball player or a hit with the girls. Luckily, the didnt want me. Not much I could do about that, so I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didnt have anybody to copy, I had developed my own style, I was creating before I knew there was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work til I was around 30, by the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldnt rather make love, but the work has become a habit and he was first published in the Roosevelt Torch, a student newspaper at Roosevelt University, where he studied English after leaving the Art Institute. During his time in the military, his cartoons were published in Pacific Stars and Stripes and his first book, Take Ten, a compilation of his military Take Ten cartoon series, was published by Pacific Stars and Stripes in 1955. He later said his time in college was a waste and would have been spent traveling around the world meeting people. After returning to Chicago, Silverstein began submitting cartoons to magazines while also selling hot dogs at Chicago ballparks and his cartoons began appearing in Look, Sports Illustrated and This Week. Mass-market paperback readers across America were introduced to Silverstein in 1956 when Take Ten was reprinted by Ballantine Books as Grab Your Socks, the edition included a foreword by Bill Mauldin
7.
Sergei Prokofiev
–
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist and conductor. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. Prokofievs greatest interest, however, was opera, and he composed works in that genre, including The Gambler. Prokofievs one operatic success during his lifetime was The Love for Three Oranges, composed for the Chicago Opera and subsequently performed over the decade in Europe. During that time he married a Spanish singer, Carolina Codina, in the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofievs ballets and operas to be staged in America and western Europe. He enjoyed some success there – notably with Lieutenant Kijé, Peter and the Wolf, Romeo and Juliet, the Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred him to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoys War and Peace. Prokofiev was born in 1891 in Sontsovka, a rural estate in the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. His father, Sergei Alexeyevich Prokofiev, was an agronomist, Prokofievs mother, Maria, came from a family of former serfs who had been owned by the Sheremetev family, under whose patronage serf-children were taught theatre and arts from an early age. She was described by Reinhold Glière as a woman with beautiful. Who knew how to create an atmosphere of warmth and simplicity about her, after their wedding in the summer of 1877, the Prokofievs had moved to a small estate in the Smolensk governorate. Eventually Sergei Alexeyevich found employment as a engineer, employed by one of his former fellow-students, Dmitri Sontsov. By seven, he had learned to play chess. At the age of nine, he was composing his first opera, The Giant, as well as an overture, unable to arrange that, Tanayev instead arranged for composer and pianist Reinhold Glière to spend the summer of 1902 in Sontsovka teaching Prokofiev. The first series of lessons culminated, at the 11-year-old Prokofievs insistence, the following summer, Glière revisited Sontsovka to give further tuition. By 1904, his mother had decided instead on Saint Petersburg, glazunov was so impressed that he urged Prokofievs mother to have her son apply for admission to the Conservatory. He passed the tests and enrolled that year. Several years younger than most of his class, Prokofiev was viewed as eccentric and arrogant and he also shared classes with the composers Boris Asafyev and Nikolai Myaskovsky, the latter becoming a relatively close and lifelong friend. As a member of the Saint Petersburg music scene, Prokofiev developed a reputation as a rebel, while getting praise for his original compositions
8.
Pierre Boulez
–
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez CBE was a French composer, conductor, writer and organiser of institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of the classical music world. Born in Montbrison in the Loire district of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Olivier Messiaen and he began his professional career in the late 1940s as Music Director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company in Paris. As a young composer in the 1950s he quickly became a figure in avant-garde music, playing an important role in the development of integral serialism. From the 1970s onwards he pioneered the transformation of instrumental music in real time. In parallel with his activities as a composer Boulez became one of the most prominent conductors of his generation and he made frequent guest appearances with many of the worlds other great orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. His recorded legacy is extensive and he received 26 Grammy Awards, Pierre Boulez died at his home in Baden-Baden on 5 January 2016, aged 90. Pierre Boulez was born on 26 March 1925, in Montbrison and he was the third of four children, an older sister, Jeanne and younger brother, Roger were preceded by a first child, also called Pierre, who died in infancy. By the age of fifteen he was sceptical about religion, what struck me most was that it was so mechanical, as a child he took piano lessons, played chamber music with local amateurs and sang in the school choir. After completing the first part of his baccalaureate a year early he spent the year of 1940–41 at the Pensionnat St. Louis. The following year he took courses in advanced mathematics at the University of Lyon which his father hoped would prepare him for a career in engineering and he was in Lyon when the Vichy government fell and the Germans took over. It was not a time, and nothing to eat. It was in Lyon that he first heard an orchestra, saw his first operas and met the well-known soprano Ninon Vallin, impressed by his ability, she persuaded Léon to allow his son to apply to the Conservatoire in Lyon, but the selection board rejected him. Boulez was determined to pursue a career in music, the following year, with his sisters support in the face of opposition from his father, he studied the piano and harmony privately with Lionel de Pachmann. Our parents were strong, but finally we were stronger than they, in fact, when he moved to Paris in the autumn of 1943, Léon accompanied him, helped him to find a room and subsidised him until he could earn a living. In late 1943 he entered the preparatory class of Georges Dandelot at the Paris Conservatoire. There he was introduced to Andrée Vaurabourg, wife of the composer Arthur Honegger and he greatly enjoyed working with her and she remembered him as an exceptional student, using his exercises as models in advanced counterpoint until the end of her teaching career. He also studied the piano privately in the hope of entering Jean Doyens class, but he was unsuccessful
9.
BBC Symphony Orchestra
–
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, the BBC SO is the principal orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, after Boults retirement from the BBC in 1950, the orchestra went through a fallow period. Boults successor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, was popular with the public but had poor rapport with his players, as a result of initiatives begun in the 1960s by the BBC controller of music William Glock, performing standards gradually began to rise. Under Andrew Davis in the 1990s and Jiří Bělohlávek in the 2000s the orchestra prospered, by the second decade of the 21st century the BBC SO was once again regarded by critics as of first-class status. Almost from its beginning in November 1922 the BBC had started broadcasting from its 2LO transmitter with its own musical ensembles. The first such groups were the 2LO Dance Band, the 2LO Military Band, the 2LO Light Orchestra, and the 2LO Octette, all of which began broadcasting in 1923. No concert promoter would co-operate with the BBC, regarding it as a dangerous competitor, John Reith, the General Manager of the BBC, invited the opera companys musical director, Percy Pitt, to become the BBCs part-time musical adviser from May 1923. Later in the same year Pitt conducted the BBCs first broadcast symphony concert, Pitt expanded the regular eight-piece studio ensemble to form The Wireless Orchestra of 18 players, augmented to 37 for important broadcasts. There was no thought at this stage that the BBC would maintain a full-scale symphonic orchestra of up to 100 players, with Reiths approval, Pitt engaged various orchestras for a BBC concert series in 1924 at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster. In 1924 the Wireless Orchestra, by then comprising 22 players, was contracted for six concerts a week, in 1927 the BBC and Covent Garden collaborated in a series of public concerts with an orchestra of 150 players under conductors including Richard Strauss and Siegfried Wagner. Although the orchestra was large, it was not good, the BBC attempted to stop its contracted players sending deputies to rehearsals and even to concerts, but was unsuccessful. In January 1928 The Musical Times protested, The B. B. C, … This year at Queens Hall they have assembled an orchestra which sounds as if it were composed in great part of substitutes. In 1927 the BBC took over the responsibility for the Promenade Concerts, at first Henry Wood, the founding conductor, persuaded the corporation to engage his Queens Hall Orchestra for each Prom season, from 1930 onwards, the BBC provided the orchestra. The inadequacy of the BBCs players, and also of the established London orchestras, was shown up by the Berlin Philharmonic, under Wilhelm Furtwängler, in two concerts in 1927. These, and later concerts by the orchestra, gained plaudits from the public and music critics at the expense of the London orchestras. The chief music critic of The Times, Frank Howes, later commented, was electrified when it heard the disciplined precision of the Berlin Philharmonic. This apparently was how an orchestra could, and, therefore, among those determined that London should have a permanent orchestra of similar excellence were Reith and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham
10.
Maurice Ravel
–
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, in the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as Frances greatest living composer. After leaving the conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with form, as in his best-known work, Boléro. He made some arrangements of other composers music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, many of his works exist in two versions, a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his music, such as Gaspard de la nuit, is exceptionally difficult to play. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public, from the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works, others were made under his supervision. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France and his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart, was Basque but had grown up in Madrid, in 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Both Ravels parents were Roman Catholics, Marie was also something of a free-thinker, a trait inherited by her elder son and he was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born and he was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession. Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother, her Basque-Spanish heritage was an influence on his life. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him, the household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, in later life, Ravel recalled, Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste. There is no record that Ravel received any formal schooling in his early years
