1.
C-pop
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C-pop is an abbreviation for Chinese popular music, a loosely defined musical genre by artists originating from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Others come from countries where the Chinese language is used by a number of the population, such as Singapore. There are currently three main subgenres within C-pop, Cantopop, Mandopop and Hokkien pop, the gap between cantopop and mandopop has been narrowing in the new millennium. Hokkien pop, initially influenced by Japanese enka, has been re-integrating into C-pop. However, the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1970 had significant impact on the country’s economy, therefore, popular music in China is very different from that in western countries due to different political structures and cultural and social values. The term shidaiqu is used to all contemporary music sung in Mandarin and other Chinese dialects recorded in China From 1920 to 1952. Shanghai was the hub of the Chinese popular music recording industry. Buck Clayton is credited with bringing American jazz influence to China, a number of privately run radio stations from the late 1920s to the 1950s played C-pop. Around 1927, Li Jinhui composed The Drizzle sung by his daughter Li Minghui, and it fuses jazz and Chinese folk music - the tune is in the style of a traditional pentatonic folk melody, but the instrumentation is similar to that of an American jazz orchestra. Around the time of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the Chinese Civil War, after the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II C-pop has been marketed, produced and branded regionally. The Communist Party of China established the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, one of its first actions was to label the genre Yellow Music. The Shanghai pop music industry then took pop music to Hong Kong, the Kuomintang, relocated to Taiwan, discouraged the use of native Taiwanese Hokkien dialect from the 1950s to the late 1980s. As a result, mandopop became the dominant musical genre in Taiwan, in 2000 EolAsia. com was founded as the first online C-pop music portal in Hong Kong. The company survived the bubble and offered online legal music downloads in February 2005, backed by EMI, Warner Music. It primarily targets consumers in Hong Kong and Macau, some songs require Hong Kong Identity Cards to purchase, typhoon music made the purchase for an estimated HK$100 million. In February 2008 mainland Chinas top search engine Baidu. com was sued by local groups for providing music listening, broadcasting and downloading without approval. Piracy continues to exist in China but Google have since announced a cooperation deal offering free listening, top100. cn was founded by basketball star Yao Ming, agent Zhang Mingji and music insider Chen Ge via a 20 million yuan investment. Google mp3 became available in March 2009, the future of C-pop in mainland China is slowly emerging
2.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
3.
Nashville sound
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It was an attempt to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock n roll. They invented the form by replacing elements of the honky tonk style with smooth elements from 1950s pop music, and using slick production. The producers relied on a group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability. The Anita Kerr Quartet was the vocal backing group in the early 1960s. In 1960, Time magazine reported that Nashville had nosed out Hollywood as the second biggest record-producing center. The term Nashville Sound was first mentioned in an article about Jim Reeves in 1958 in the Music Reporter, other observers have identified several recordings that helped establish the early Nashville sound. Country historian Rich Kienzle says that Gone, a Ferlin Husky hit recorded in November 1956, regarding the Nashville sound, the record producer Owen Bradley stated, Now weve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh, countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, the Bakersfield sound, and later outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts. Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins would put his hand into his pocket, shake his loose change, and say Thats what it is. By the late 1970s and 1980s, many pop music singers picked up the style and created what is known as country pop. Classic examples of Nashville sound recordings, Four Walls by Jim Reeves Gone by Ferlin Husky A Fallen Star by Jimmy C
4.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
5.
Folk rock
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It has also been influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain and gave rise to the genre of folk punk. By the 1980s the genre was in decline in popularity. When English bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as electric folk they were making a distinction with the existing folk rock. Folk rock was what they had already been producing, American or American style singer-songwriter material played on instruments, as undertaken by Bob Dylan. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous songs, the result of this hybridisation was an exchange of specific features drawn from Traditional music and Rock music. For example, electric folk groups, while using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes. In the same year, The Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, the Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the Californian band The Byrds, who began playing folk-influenced material and Bob Dylan compositions with rock instrumentation. The Byrds recording of Dylans Mr Tambourine Man was released in April 1965 and reached #1 on the U. S. and UK singles charts, setting off the mid-1960s folk rock movement. The Beatles late 1965 album, Rubber Soul, contained a number of songs clearly influenced by the American folk rock boom, such as Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone. Folk rock became an important genre among emerging English bands, particularly those in the London club scene towards the end of the 1960s. Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, most important among their responses were the foundation of folk clubs in major towns, starting with London where MacColl began the Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often hearkened back to a rural pre-industrial past, in many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by the middle classes. This meant that there were, by the later 1960s, a group of performers with musical skill and knowledge of a variety of traditional songs. The result was an interpretation of the song A Sailors Life. The rapid expansion of electric folk that followed in the wake of Liege, five Hand Reel a band formed out of the remnants of Spencers Feat proved to be one of the more successful and influential folk rock bands. Releasing 4 albums with Topic/RCA records they were popular in Europe. He then quit that and eventually formed the Albion Country Band, later the Albion Band, a much smaller group of English bands were formed in emulation of existing electric rock bands. Fiddlers Dram were often dismissed as one hit wonders for their single Day Trip to Bangor, most of their career, from that point until they disbanded in 1979, was one of declining profile and sales
6.
Nashville, Tennessee
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Nashville is the capital of the U. S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the central part of the state. The city is a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries and it is known as a center of the country music industry, earning it the nickname Music City, U. S. A. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government which includes six municipalities in a two-tier system. Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council, thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, five are elected at-large. Reflecting the citys position in government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Courts courthouse for Middle Tennessee. According to 2015 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the balance population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Nashville, was 654,610. The 2015 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,830,345, the 2015 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,951,644. The town of Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and it was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its location, accessibility as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 African American slaves and 14 free blacks, in 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee, by 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city. The citys significance as a port made it a desirable prize as a means of controlling important river. In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops, the state was occupied by Union troops for the duration of the war. Within a few years after the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton, meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and these healthy economic times left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, which can still be seen around the downtown area. Circa 1950 the state approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts. This change was supported because at-large voting diluted the minority populations political power in the city and they could seldom gain a majority of the population to support a candidate of their choice
7.
Singing
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Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
8.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
9.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
10.
Bass guitar
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The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance
11.
Drum kit
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A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum stool or throne. The drum kit differs from instruments that can be used to produce pitched melodies or chords, even though drums are often placed musically alongside others that do, such as the piano or guitar. The drum kit is part of the rhythm section used in many types of popular and traditional music styles ranging from rock and pop to blues. Other standard instruments used in the section include the electric bass, electric guitar. Many drummers extend their kits from this pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, use small kits that omit elements from the basic setup, some drum kit players may have other roles in the band, such as providing backup vocals, or less commonly, lead vocals. Thus, in an early 1800s orchestra piece, if the called for bass drum, triangle and cymbals. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to them to play more than one instrument. In the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set, the bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and other percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Double-drumming was developed to one person to play the bass and snare with sticks. With this approach, the drum was usually played on beats one. This resulted in a swing and dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a trap set. By the 1870s, drummers were using an overhang pedal, most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05, liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist. The bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would later revolve and it was the golden age of drum building for many famous drum companies, with Ludwig introducing
12.
Pedal steel guitar
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The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric steel guitar that is built on legs or a stand and is fitted with foot pedals and knee levers which change the pitch of certain strings. The word steel comes from a piece of polished steel held against the strings and moved back, like other electric guitars, the musical instrument produces sound by the vibration of its strings which are converted by magnetic pickup connected to an amplifier. Pedal steels may have one or two necks that typically have 10 strings each, but may have as many as 14, unlike most other guitars, pedal steel guitars have reference lines on the fretboard where frets would be, but no actual frets. The player changes the pitch of one or more strings by sliding a metal bar from one position to another or vibrating them with a mechanical device, Pedal steels are typically plucked with a thumb pick and fingers, or two or three fingerpicks. The distinctive feature of pedal steel guitars are the namesake pedals as well as knee levers. The pedals are mounted on a bar below the body. While there are fairly standard pedal assignments, many advanced players devise their own setups. The range of copedents that can be set up varies considerably from guitar to guitar, aftermarket modifications to make additional copedents possible are common. The pedal steel evolved from the steel guitar and lap steel guitar. Like the console steel, a pedal steel may have multiple necks, the pedal steel, with its smooth portamenti, bending chords and complex riffs, is one of the most recognizable and characteristic instruments of American country music. A pedal steel guitar is typically rectangular and has no specific resonant chamber or conventional guitar body and these are mounted on a stand and equipped with foot pedals and usually knee levers. Many models feature two necks, the nearer to the player most often using a C6 tuning and the farther away using an E9 tuning. The most common configuration is one or two necks of ten each, but eight-string and twelve-string necks are also popular. Three-neck instruments are less common than those with one or two, but are not unknown, the pedals and/or knee levers on the underside allow the performer to tighten or relax one or more strings in combination to specific tuned notes, changing the instruments tuning during performance. Several people have been credited with the innovation, the Hawaiian style of playing was very popular in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. To increase the volume of the guitar, a resonator cone was added by the Dopyera Brothers to create the resophonic guitar. By the 30s, the guitar body was abandoned for a flat slab of wood or metal and the addition of an electric pickup. It was the first electric guitar to achieve commercial success, several pioneering manufacturers of the electric guitar were first famous for their work on the then more popular electric steel guitar, among them Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby and Leo Fender
13.
Dobro
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The word Dobro is, in popular usage, the generic term for a wood-bodied, single cone resonator guitar. It is also an American brand of guitar, currently owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The Dobro was originally made by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company and their design, with a single inverted resonator, was introduced in competition to the patented Tricone and biscuit designs produced by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars, Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired the Dobro trademark in 1994. Although the name Dobro is generically associated with the single-inverted-cone design, the name originated in 1928 when the Dopyera brothers, John and Emil, formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. Dobro is both a contraction of Dopyera brothers and a word meaning goodness or goodwill in their native Slovak, an early company motto was Dobro means good in any language. The Dobro was the third resonator guitar design by John Dopyera, the inventor of the resonator guitar, unlike his earlier tricone design, the Dobro had a single resonator cone and it was inverted, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl shaped resonator, the Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce. In Dopyeras opinion, the cost of manufacture had priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players and his failure to convince his fellow directors at the National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single-cone version was part of his motivation for leaving. Since National had applied for a patent on the single cone, in the following years both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the Tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National director Adolph Rickenbacher, by 1934, the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, and they merged the companies to form the National-Dobro Corporation. From the outset, wooden bodies had been sourced from existing guitar manufacturers, Dobro had granted Regal a license to manufacture resonator instruments. By 1937, it was the manufacturer, and the license was officially made exclusive. Regal continued to manufacture and sell resonator instruments under many names, including Regal, Dobro, Old Kraftsman, however, they ceased all resonator guitar production following the United States entry into World War II in 1941. Emil Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959 under the brand name Doperas Original before selling the company, Moseley merged it with his Mosrite guitar company and manufactured Dobros for a time. Meanwhile, in 1967, Rudy and Emil Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, however, in 1970, they again acquired the Dobro name—Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation. The Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, along with the Dobro name and they renamed the company Original Acoustic Instruments and moved production to Nashville. Gibson now uses the name Dobro only for models with the design that the original Dobro Manufacturing Company used
14.
Keyboard instrument
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A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various keyboards, including synthesizers. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, today, the term keyboard often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers. Another important use of the keyboard is in historical musicology. Particularly in the 18th century, the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the piano were in competition. Hence in a phrase like Mozart excelled as a player the word keyboard is usefully noncommittal. The earliest known keyboard instrument was the Ancient Greek hydraulis, a type of pipe organ, the keys were likely balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian, who says magna levi detrudens murmura tactu. Intent, that is “let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty roarings with a light touch”, from its invention until the fourteenth century, the organ remained the only keyboard instrument. Often, the organ did not feature a keyboard at all, almost every keyboard until the fifteenth century had seven naturals to each octave. The clavichord and the harpsichord appeared during the 14th century—the clavichord probably being earlier, the harpsichord and clavichord were both common until widespread adoption of the piano in the 18th century, after which their popularity decreased. The piano was revolutionary, because a pianist could vary the volume of the sound by varying the vigor with which each key was struck. The pianos full name is gravicèmbalo con piano e forte meaning harpsichord with soft and loud but can be shortened to piano-forte, which means soft-loud in Italian. In its current form, the piano is a product of the late 19th century, in fact, the modern piano is significantly different from even the 19th-century pianos used by Liszt, Chopin, and Brahms. See Piano history and musical performance, keyboard instruments were further developed in the early twentieth century. Early electromechanical instruments, such as the Ondes Martenot, appeared early in the century and this was a very important contribution to the keyboards history. Much effort has gone into creating an instrument that sounds like the piano but lacks its size, the electric piano and electronic piano were early efforts that, while useful instruments in their own right, did not convincingly reproduce the timbre of the piano. Electric and electronic organs were developed during the same period, more recent electronic keyboard designs strive to emulate the sound of specific make and model pianos using digital samples and computer models. Concerns celebrated keyboard players and the various instruments used over the centuries
15.
Organ (music)
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In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is an old musical instrument, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria. It was played throughout the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman world, subsequently it re-emerged as a secular and recital instrument in the Classical music tradition. Pipe organs use air moving through pipes to produce sounds, since the 16th century, pipe organs have used various materials for pipes, which can vary widely in timbre and volume. The pipes are divided into ranks and controlled by the use of hand stops, although the keyboard is not expressive as on a piano and does not affect dynamics, some divisions may be enclosed in a swell box, allowing the dynamics to be controlled by shutters. Some organs are enclosed, meaning that all the divisions can be controlled by one set of shutters. Some special registers with free reed pipes are expressive and these instruments vary greatly in size, ranging from a cubic yard to a height reaching five floors, and are built in churches, synagogues, concert halls, and homes. Small organs are called positive or portative, increasingly hybrid organs are appearing in which pipes are augmented with electronic additions. Great economies of space and cost are possible especially when the lowest of the pipes can be replaced, non-piped organs include the reed organ or harmonium, which like the accordion and harmonica use air to excite free reeds. Electronic organs or digital organs, notably the Hammond organ, generate electronically produced sound through one or more loudspeakers, mechanical organs include the barrel organ, water organ, and Orchestrion. These are controlled by means such as pinned barrels or book music. Little barrel organs dispense with the hands of an organist and bigger organs are powered in most cases by a grinder or today by other means such as an electric motor. The pipe organ is the grandest musical instrument in size and scope, along with the clock, it was considered one of the most complex human-made mechanical creations before the Industrial Revolution. Pipe organs range in size from a short keyboard to huge instruments with over 10,000 pipes. A large modern organ typically has three or four keyboards with five each, and a two-and-a-half octave pedal board. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart called the organ the King of instruments, some of the biggest instruments have 64-foot pipes, and it sounds to an 8 Hz frequency fundamental tone. For instance, the Wanamaker organ, located in Philadelphia, USA, has sonic resources comparable with three simultaneous symphony orchestras, most organs in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia can be found in Christian churches. The introduction of organs is traditionally attributed to Pope Vitalian in the 7th century
16.
Country rock
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Country rock is subgenre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock and country. It was developed by musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late-1960s and early-1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal styles, country rock began with Bob Dylan and The Byrds, reaching its greatest popularity in the 1970s with artists such as Emmylou Harris, the Eagles, Michael Nesmith, Poco and Pure Prairie League. Country rock also influenced artists in genres, including The Band, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones. It also played a part in the development of Southern rock, john Einarson states, From a variety of perspectives and motivations, these musicians either played rock & roll attitude, or added a country feel to rock, or folk, or bluegrass, there was no formula. Dylans lead was followed by The Byrds, who were joined by Gram Parsons in 1968. Parsons had mixed country with rock, blues and folk to create what he called Cosmic American Music. Earlier in the year Parsons had released Safe at Home with the International Submarine Band, the result of Parsons brief tenure in the Byrds was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, generally considered one of the finest and most influential recordings in the genre. Country rock was a popular style in the California music scene of the late 1960s. Some folk-rockers followed the Byrds into the genre, among them the Beau Brummels, one of the few acts to successfully move from the country side towards rock were the bluegrass band The Dillards. Former members of Ronstadts backing band went on to form the Eagles, however, the principal country influence in the Eagles came from Bernie Leadon of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and little country influence was left in the band after he left in late 1975. The genre declined in popularity in the late 1970s, but some established artists, List of country rock albums List of country rock musicians
17.
Outlaw country
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Outlaw country is a subgenre of American country music, most popular during the 1970s and early-1980s, sometimes referred to as the outlaw movement or simply outlaw music. The music has its roots in earlier subgenres like honky tonk and rockabilly and is characterized by a blend of rock and folk rhythms, country instrumentation and introspective lyrics. The movement began as a reaction to the production and popular structures of the Nashville sound developed by record producers like Chet Atkins. The outlaw sound has its roots in honky tonk music of the 1940s and 1950s, rockabilly of the 1950s, early outlaws were particularly influenced by predecessors like Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly. However, an even greater transition occurred after Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson were able to secure their own recording rights, the 1960s was a decade of enormous change, and that change was also reflected in the music of the time. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and many who followed in their wake cast off the role of the recording artist. They wrote their own material, they had creative input in their albums, while Nashville continued to be the focus of mainstream country music, cities like Lubbock and Austin became the creative centers of outlaw country. Southern rock also had a influence on the outlaw country movement. The origin of the label is debated. The term is attributed to Ladies Love Outlaws, a song by Lee Clayton. Another plausible explanation is the use of the term a year later by publicist Hazel Smith of Glaser Studios to describe the music of Jennings and Tompall Glaser. Art critic Dave Hickey, who wrote a 1974 profile in Country Music magazine, in 1976, the Outlaw movement solidified the term with the release of Wanted. The Outlaws, an album featuring songs sung by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter. The Outlaws became the first country album to be platinum-certified, reaching sales of one million, as Southern rock flourished, veteran country artists incorporated rock into their music in this genre. Songwriters/ guitarists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Hank Williams, Jr. shed formulaic Nashville sound, grew long hair, fiercely independent, the outlaws abandoned lush orchestrations, stripped the music to its country core, and added a rock sensibility to the sound. Although Jennings and Nelson are regarded as the outlaws, there were several other writers and performers who provided the material that infused the movement with the outlaw spirit. Jennings, in particular, forced his record company to let him produce his own albums, in 1973 he produced Lonesome, Onry and Mean. The theme song was written by Steve Young, a songwriter and performer who never made it in the mainstream, the follow-up album for Jennings was Honky Tonk Heroes and the songwriting hero was Texan Billy Joe Shaver
18.
Countrypolitan
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It was an attempt to revive country sales, which had been devastated by the rise of rock n roll. They invented the form by replacing elements of the honky tonk style with smooth elements from 1950s pop music, and using slick production. The producers relied on a group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability. The Anita Kerr Quartet was the vocal backing group in the early 1960s. In 1960, Time magazine reported that Nashville had nosed out Hollywood as the second biggest record-producing center. The term Nashville Sound was first mentioned in an article about Jim Reeves in 1958 in the Music Reporter, other observers have identified several recordings that helped establish the early Nashville sound. Country historian Rich Kienzle says that Gone, a Ferlin Husky hit recorded in November 1956, regarding the Nashville sound, the record producer Owen Bradley stated, Now weve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and added choruses to country music. It always has to keep developing to keep fresh, countrypolitan was aimed straight at mainstream markets and it sold well throughout the later 1960s into the early 1970s. Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, the Bakersfield sound, and later outlaw country, dominated country music among aficionados while countrypolitan reigned on the pop charts. Upon being asked what the Nashville sound was, Chet Atkins would put his hand into his pocket, shake his loose change, and say Thats what it is. By the late 1970s and 1980s, many pop music singers picked up the style and created what is known as country pop. Classic examples of Nashville sound recordings, Four Walls by Jim Reeves Gone by Ferlin Husky A Fallen Star by Jimmy C
19.
Chet Atkins
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Chester Burton Chet Atkins known as Mr. He was primarily known as a guitarist and he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele. Atkins signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis, other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year and he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. Atkins was born on June 20,1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee and his parents divorced when he was six, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl and he started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, We were so poor, forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus, to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, while living in Fortson, he attended the historic Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition, Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He used the restroom in the school to practice, because it gave better acoustics and his first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased an electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet. Later in life, he gave himself the honorary degree CGP. In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell and she then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate. His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York, Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939, when he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style, whereas Traviss right hand used his index finger for the melody and thumb for bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass. Chet Atkins was a ham radio general class licensee, formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation
20.
Owen Bradley
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A native of Westmoreland, Tennessee, Bradley learned piano at an early age, and began playing in local nightclubs and roadhouses when he was a teenager. At 20, he got a job at WSM-AM radio, where he worked as an arranger and that same year he co-wrote Roy Acuff’s hit “Night Train to Memphis. He kept the band up until 1964, although in the intervening decades, in 1947, Bradley took a position as a music arranger and songwriter at Decca Records. He worked for Paul Cohen on recordings by some of the biggest talents of the day, including Ernest Tubb, Burl Ives, Red Foley, learning from Cohen, he eventually began to produce records on his own. When his mentor left the label in 1958, Bradley became vice president of Deccas Nashville division, Country music had long been looked on as unsophisticated and folksy, and was largely confined to listeners in the less affluent small towns of the American South and Appalachia. In the late 1950s, Bradleys home base of Nashville was positioning itself to be a center of the recording industry, in fact, the Nashville sound began in a Quonset hut attached to a house Bradley owned with his brother Harold at 804 16th Avenue South in Nashville. The Quonset Hut is commonly recognized as the birthplace of a commercial country music that often crossed over into pop. This distinct genre of American music was developed primarily by Owen Bradleys crew of hand picked musicians, Grady Martin, Bob Moore, Hank Garland, the success of Bradleys Quonset Hut Studio spurred RCA Victor to build its famous RCA Studio B. A handful of other labels soon followed setting up shop on what would become known as Music Row. Bradley and his contemporaries infused hokey melodies with more refined lyrics and blended them with a pop music sensibility to create the Nashville sound. Light, easy listening piano replaced the clinky honky-tonk piano, lush string sections took the place of the mountain fiddle sound, steel guitars and smooth backing vocals rounded out the mix. Regarding the Nashville sound, Bradley stated, Now weve cut out the fiddle and steel guitar and it always has to keep developing to keep fresh. The singers Bradley produced made unprecedented headway into radio, and artists such as Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Lenny Dee, pop singers like Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent also recorded with Bradley in his Nashville studio. Also, he produced Bill Monroe in both bluegrass and decidedly non-bluegrass settings, many older artists recognized they needed to change as they saw former pure honky tonk singer Jim Reeves blend his own style with the newer styles with great success. However, not everyone was as successful as Reeves or Patsy Cline in these transformations, in addition to his production, Bradley released a handful of instrumentals under his own name, including the minor 1958 hit Big Guitar. In the late 1950s, Bradley produced a radio and TV series with his brother Harold, Country Style, USA, for distribution to local radio and TV stations as a recruiting tool for the US Army. Bradley sold The Quonset Hut to Columbia and bought a farm outside of Nashville in 1961, within a few years, the new Bradleys Barn became a legendary recording venue in country music circles. The Beau Brummels paid tribute to the studio, through titling their 1968 album Bradleys Barn, the studio burned to the ground in 1980, but Bradley rebuilt it within a few years in the same location
21.
Jim Reeves
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James Travis Jim Reeves was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound. Known as Gentleman Jim, his songs continued to chart for years after his death, Reeves died in the crash of his private airplane. He is a member of both the Country Music and Texas Country Music Halls of Fame, Reeves was born at home in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. He was the youngest of 8 children born to Mary Beulah Adams Reeves and he was known as Travis during his childhood years. Winning an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, he enrolled to study speech and drama, soon he resumed baseball, playing in the semi-professional leagues before contracting with the St. Louis Cardinals farm team during 1944 as a right-handed pitcher. He played for the leagues for three years before severing his sciatic nerve while pitching, which ended his athletic career. Reeves initial efforts to pursue a career were sporadic, possibly due to his uncertainty as to whether he would be drafted into the military as World War II enveloped the United States. On 9 March 1943 he reported to the Army Induction Center in Tyler for his physical examination. However, he failed the exam, and on 4 August 1943 an official letter declared his 4-F draft status, Reeves began to work as a radio announcer, and sang live between songs. During the late 1940s, he was contracted with a couple of small Texas-based recording companies and he eventually obtained a job as an announcer for KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana, then the home of the popular radio program the Louisiana Hayride. Jim Reeves was a country singer who had success early on in his career with hits such as I Love You, Mexican Joe. In addition to early hits, Reeves recorded many other songs for Fabor Records. In 1954, Abbott Records released a 45 single with Bimbo on side-A which hit #1, Jim Reeves and Little Joe Hunt met at the Louisiana Hayride which was Louisianas equivalent to Nashvilles Grand Ole Opry. After performing at the Hayride in Shreveport, Louisiana, Reeves and Hunt traveled & performed together for years in the dance halls and clubs of east Texas. Reeves became the headliner with Hunt as the backup performer, due to his growing popularity, Reeves went on to release his first album in November 1955, Jim Reeves Sings, which proved to be one of Abbott Records couple album releases. Reeves star was on the rise because he had already signed to a 10-year recording contract with RCA Victor by Steve Sholes. Sholes went on to some of Reeves first recordings at RCA Victor
22.
Eddy Arnold
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Richard Edward Eddy Arnold was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a so-called Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s and he sold more than 85 million records. A member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Arnold was born on May 15,1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tennessee. His father, a sharecropper, played the fiddle, while his mother played guitar, Arnolds father died when he was just 11, forcing him to leave school and begin helping on the family farm. This led to him later gaining his nickname—the Tennessee Plowboy, one of his brothers, PFC John Hendrix Arnold, fought in World War II and died in the Normandy landings. Arnold attended Pinson High School in Pinson, Tennessee, where he played guitar for school functions and he quit before graduation to help with the farm work, but continued performing, often arriving on a mule with his guitar hung on his back. Arnold also worked part-time as an assistant at a mortuary, in 1934, at age 16, Arnold debuted musically on WTJS-AM in Jackson, Tennessee, and obtained a job there during 1937. He performed at nightclubs and was a permanent performer for the station. During 1938, he was hired by WMPS-AM in Memphis, Tennessee and he soon quit for KWK-AM in St. Louis, Missouri, followed by a brief stint at WHAS-AM in Louisville, Kentucky. He performed for WSM on the Grand Ole Opry during 1943 as a solo artist, in 1944, Arnold signed a contract with RCA Victor, with manager Colonel Tom Parker, who later managed Elvis Presley. Arnolds first single was noticed, but the next, Each Minute Seems a Million Years. Its success began a decade of unprecedented chart performance, Arnolds next 57 singles all ranked in the top 10, in 1946, Arnold scored his first major success with Thats How Much I Love You. In 1948, he had five songs on the charts simultaneously. That year, he had nine songs in the top 10, five of these were number one, with Parkers management, Arnold continued to dominate, with 13 of the 20 best-scoring country music songs of 1947–1948. He became the host of Mutual Radios Purina-sponsored segment of the Opry and of Mutuals Checkerboard Jamboree, recorded radio programs increased Arnolds popularity, as did the CBS Radio series Hometown Reunion with the Duke of Paducah. Arnold quit the Opry during 1948, and his Hometown Reunion briefly broadcast in competition with the Opry on Saturday nights, in 1949 and 1950, he performed in the Columbia movies Feudin’ Rhythm and Hoedown. Arnold began working for television in the early 1950s, hosting The Eddy Arnold Show, the summer program was broadcast successively by all three television networks, replacing the Perry Como and Dinah Shore programs. He also performed as a guest and a guest host on the ABC-TV show Ozark Jubilee from 1955–60, Arnold featured in the syndicated Eddy Arnold Time from 1955 to 1957
23.
Elvis Presley
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Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is referred to as the King of Rock and Roll. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis and his music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was a popularizer of rockabilly. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, Presleys first RCA single, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances. In November 1956, Presley made his debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service, in 1973, Presley featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. Several years of drug abuse severely damaged his health. Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century and he won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. Presley was born on January 8,1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley, Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered stillborn 35 minutes before his own birth. Thus, as a child, Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God, where he found his musical inspiration. Although he was in conflict with the Pentecostal church in his later years, rev. Rex Humbard officiated at his funeral, as Presley had been an admirer of Humbards ministry. Presleys ancestry was primarily a Western European mix, including Scots-Irish, Scottish, German, gladyss great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was possibly a Cherokee Native American. Gladys was regarded by relatives and friends as the dominant member of the small family, Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, evincing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance, the Presleys survived the F5 tornado in the 1936 Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of kiting a check written by the landowner, Orville S. Bean and he was jailed for eight months, and Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives
24.
Country gospel
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Christian country music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music. Christian country music is a form of Christian music and a subgenre of both Gospel music and Country music, like other forms of music the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of Christian country music varies according to culture and social context. It is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes with a positive message. However, a theme as with most Christian music is praise. Christian country music has been around for generations and it originated as a blend of early mountain music, cowboy music and the music from the plantations of the Deep South. It was out of this blend of music that Southern Gospel music was birthed and was primarily in the southern states. Today, Christian country music has blended with a new brand of music called Positive Christian Country music, the music tends to deal with lifes problems and Gods answers to those problems, and it doesnt sound like the religious music of years past. It has attracted extraordinary talent and quality in production, thereby making it palatable to the ears of the unchurched who like the sounds of country music. Its becoming a tool for all over the world and through it many churches have sprung up around the country with country gospel as their main musical format. Many Christian country organizations have been around for a number of years. The oldest of all of these organizations is the International Country Gospel Music Association which was founded in 1957 and these organizations were founded to further artists careers much in the same manner as the GMA, NARAS or CMA. Many of these organizations have yearly conventions which hosts music showcases, one should note that the CCMA was sued by the CMA for award name right infringement. The CCMA renamed their awards show after a judge ruled that they could no longer use the name. The new name is the ICM Music Awards which stands for Inspirational Country Music, Radio personality Bob Wilson was one of the first radio personalities to see the potential of the genre. His weekly show Gospel Country Round-up aired for many years playing southern, many Christian country stations today are going the way of Internet stations. That is a move for this genre, however, because there are few terrestrial radio stations that play a strictly Christian country format. Many mainstream country stations only have a weekly Sunday Country Gospel show, Christian country has several syndicated programs. The Country Gospel Countdown has broadcast since 1984 and syndicated since 1988, The Country Parson radio program, todays Cross Country with Marty Smith, broadcast since 1995, syndicated since 1996
25.
Patsy Cline
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Patsy Cline was an American country music singer. Part of the late 1950s/early 1960s Nashville sound, Cline successfully crossed over to pop music and was one of the most influential, successful and she died at the age of 30 in a multiple-fatality crash of the private plane of her manager, Randy Hughes. Cline was known for her tone, emotionally expressive and bold contralto voice. Along with Kitty Wells, she helped pave the way for women as performers in the genre. Books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays document her life, millions of her records have sold since her death. She won awards and accolades, causing many to view her as an icon at the level of Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, in 1973, ten years after her death, she became the first female solo artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was voted number 11 on VH1s special, The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll, by members, according to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity. She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8,1932, in Winchester, Virginia and she was the eldest child of seamstress Hilda Virginia and blacksmith Samuel Lawrence Hensley. She soon had a brother and sister, Samuel Jr. They were known in the family as Ginny, John, the family moved often before finally settling in Winchester, Virginia, when Patsy was eight. Sam Hensley deserted his family in 1947, but the home was reportedly happy nonetheless. Cline was introduced to music at an age, singing in church with her mother. She liked stars such as Kay Starr, Jo Stafford, Hank Williams, Judy Garland, self-taught, she could not read music. When Patsy was thirteen, she was hospitalized with a throat infection, the fever affected my throat and when I recovered I had this booming voice like Kate Smith. After watching performers through the window at the radio station, she asked WINC disc jockey. Her performance in 1947 was well received, and she was asked back and this led to appearances at local nightclubs, wearing fringed Western outfits her mother made from Patsys designs. Cline performed in variety and talent shows in the Winchester and Tri-State areas, along with this and increasing local radio appearances on local radio, she gained a large following. In 1954 Jimmy Dean, already a young star, heard of her
26.
Lynn Anderson
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Lynn Rene Anderson was an American country music singer known for a string of hits throughout the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, most notably her 1970 worldwide hit Rose Garden. Andersons crossover appeal and regular exposure on national television helped her to one of the most popular. 1,18 Top 10, and more than 50 Top 40 hit singles and she was the #13 artist of the 1970s according to Joel Whitburns Billboard Hot Country Singles book and the highest ranking artist of the list not yet in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Anderson was the first female country artist to win the American Music Award, as well as the first to headline, Anderson debuted in 1966, at the age of 19, and had her first hit with Ride, Ride, Ride. After a series of Top 10 hit singles on the charts during the late 1960s. Under Columbia, she had her most successful string of hits and her signature song, Rose Garden, remains one of the biggest selling country crossover hits of all time. In addition to topping the U. S. country charts for five weeks and it also topped the charts in several countries around the globe, an unprecedented achievement at the time. CMT ranks Rose Garden at No.83 on its list of the 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music History, Anderson continued to record and remained a popular concert attraction until her death, regularly headlining major casino showrooms, performing arts centers and theaters. She was later raised in Fair Oaks, California and she was the daughter of country music songwriters Casey and Liz Anderson. Lynn Andersons great-grandfather was born in Aremark, Norway, in later life, Anderson met her Norwegian relatives through the Norwegian TV series Tore på sporet. Anderson became interested in singing at age six and she had her first success in the horse show arena in and around California, where she would eventually win a total of 700 trophies, including the California Horse Show Queen title in 1966. In her teens, she performed regularly on the television program Country Caravan. Her mother signed with RCA Victor as a music recording artist that year. While accompanying her mother to Nashville, Anderson participated in an informal sing-along in a room with country stars Merle Haggard. One of the present at the sing-along, Slim Williamson, owned Chart Records. Williamson recognized Lynn Andersons talent and invited her to record for his label and she began recording for Chart in 1966. In 1966, Lynn Anderson released her single, For Better or for Worse. Her first charting single and her release on the Chart Label, Ride, Ride, Ride
27.
Crystal Gayle
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Crystal Gayle is an American country music singer. Gayle became the first female artist in music history to reach platinum sales. Also noted for her nearly floor-length hair, she was voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1983 and she is the younger sister of the country singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn and the singer Peggy Sue and a distant cousin of singer Patty Loveless. Gayle has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, near Lynns star, Crystal Gayle was born Brenda Gail Webb on January 9,1951, in Paintsville, Kentucky, to Clara Marie Clary and Melvin Theodore Ted Webb, a coal miner. She was the youngest in the coal mining family of ten. She was also the one of the eight children to be born in a hospital. Her older siblings are, Melvin Webb Loretta Lynn Herman Webb Jay Lee Donald Ray Webb Peggy Sue Wright Betty Ruth Webb Webbs family moved north to Wabash, Indiana, four years later, her father died of black lung disease. Though a shy child, Brenda would sing along with country and pop songs on the radio, inspired by the success of her sister Loretta Lynn, she learned to play the guitar and sing backup in her brothers folk band. While still in school, she began to tour with her sister for a few weeks each summer. After graduating from Wabash High School in 1970, Brenda signed with Decca Records, however, since there was already a singer named Brenda Lee with Decca Records, she was asked to change her first name. Loretta Lynn suggested the name Crystal after seeing a sign for the Krystal hamburger restaurant chain, Brenda Gail Webb thus became Crystal Gayle. In 1971 she married Bill Gatzimos, her sweetheart, they have two children and a grandson. Gayles debut single, Ive Cried, was released in 1970, written by Loretta Lynn, it was performed in a style similar to that of her sister. Decca asked for more records like Lynns, who wrote more of her early singles and this approach failed to establish Gayle, despite regular appearances on Blake Emmonss television show The Country Place. She did not reappear in the country Top 40 until the 1974 release of Restless, the first album, Crystal Gayle, was released in 1974 and produced her first top-ten country hit, Wrong Road Again. By 1976, she had the first of her 20 number one singles with Ill Get Over You. The following year, she had two more top-2 country hits, You Never Miss a Real Good Thing and Ill Do It All Over Again, before achieving her greatest success. Gayle recalled what her sister Loretta Lynn had said, You record what I couldnt record — you do MOR, middle of the road, I dont think I ever would have made it if I went down the road and did the music my sister did
28.
Shania Twain
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Shania Twain, OC is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Twain has sold over 85 million records, making her the female artist in the history of country music. Her success garnered her several titles including the Queen of Country Pop. Twains second album, 1995s The Woman in Me, brought her widespread success selling 20 million copies worldwide, spawning hits such as Any Man of Mine and earning her a Grammy Award. Twains third album, Come On Over, became the studio album of all time by a female act in any genre. Come On Over produced several singles, including Youre Still the One, From This Moment On, I Feel Like a Woman. and earned Twain four Grammy Awards. Twain has received five Grammy Awards,27 BMI Songwriter awards, stars on Canadas Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and she is the only female artist in history to have three consecutive albums certified Diamond by the RIAA. Altogether, Twain is ranked as the 10th best-selling artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, in 2004, Twain retired from performing and retreated to her home in Switzerland. In her 2011 autobiography, she cited a weakening singing voice as the reason for not performing publicly, when both her singing and speaking were affected, Twain consulted the Vanderbilt Dayani Center in Nashville. Specialists discovered lesions on her vocal cords and diagnosed her with dysphonia, in 2012, Twain returned to the concert stage in her critically acclaimed show Still the One, exclusively at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. In 2015, Twain returned to the road for what she has billed as her farewell tour, Twain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario on August 28,1965, to Sharon and Clarence Edwards. Her parents divorced when she was two and her mother moved to Timmins, Ontario with Eilleen and her sisters Jill. Sharon married Jerry Twain, an Ojibwa from the nearby Mattagami First Nation, Jerry adopted the girls, legally changing their last name to Twain. When Mark was still a toddler, the Twains adopted Jerrys baby nephew, Darryl and she also has Irish, French, and English ancestry. Through a maternal great-grandmother, she is a descendant of Zacharie Cloutier and her maternal grandmother, Eileen Pearce, emigrated from Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland. Twain had a childhood in Timmins. Her parents earned little money and food was scarce in their household. Twain did not confide her situation to school authorities, fearing they might break up the family, in the remote, rugged community, she learned to hunt and to chop wood
29.
British Invasion
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Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, Hermans Hermits, and the Animals were at the forefront of the invasion. The rebellious tone and image of US rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s, some observers have noted that US teenagers were growing tired of singles-oriented pop acts like Fabian. The Mods and Rockers, two gangs in mid-1960s Britain, also had an impact in British Invasion music. Bands with a Mod aesthetic became the most popular, but bands able to both were also successful. In October 1963, the first newspaper articles about the frenzy in England surrounding the group the Beatles appeared nationally in the US. The Beatles November 4 Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother sparked music industry, during November a number of major American print outlets and two network television evening programs published and broadcast stories on the phenomenon that became known as Beatlemania. On December 17 James had Miss Albert introduce I Want to Hold Your Hand live on the air, wWDCs phones lit up, and Washington, D. C. area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock. James sent the record to disc jockeys around the country sparking similar reaction. On December 26 Capitol Records released the three weeks ahead of schedule. The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation helped spread Beatlemania in the US, on December 29 The Baltimore Sun, reflecting the dismissive view of most adults, editorialized, America had better take thought as to how it will deal with the invasion. Indeed a restrained Beatles go home might be just the thing, in the next year alone, the Beatles would have 30 different listings on the Hot 100. On January 3,1964, The Jack Paar Program ran Beatles concert footage licensed from the BBC as a joke, while this piece was largely forgotten, Beatles producer George Martin has said it aroused the kids curiosity. I Want to Hold Your Hand ascended to one on the January 25,1964, edition of Cash Box magazine. Two days later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of US television viewers that night saw their appearance, according to Michael Ross, It is somewhat ironic that the biggest moment in the history of popular music was first experienced in the US as a television event. The Ed Sullivan Show had for some time been a comfortable hearth-and-slippers experience, not many of the 73 million viewers watching in February 1964 would fully understand what impact the band they were watching would have. The Beatles soon incited contrasting reactions and, in the process, generated more novelty records than anyone - at least 200 during their 1964-1965 takeover and many more later. Among the many reactions, favoring the hysteria, British girl group The Carefrees We Love You Beatles and, on Tuff Records, disapproving the pandemonium, American group the Four Preps A Letter to the Beatles and American comedian Allan Shermans Pop Hates the Beatles
30.
Ray Price (musician)
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Noble Ray Price was an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His wide ranging baritone has often praised as among the best male voices of country music. Some of his recordings include Release Me, Crazy Arms, Heartaches by the Number, For the Good Times, Night Life. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, Price continued to record and tour well into his mid-eighties. Ray Price was born on a farm near the small, now gone, community of Peach, near Perryville in Wood County, Texas He was the son of Walter Clifton Price and his grandfather James M. M. Price was an early settler of the area. Price was three years old when his parents divorced and his moved to Dallas, Texas. For the rest of his childhood he split time between Dallas and on the farm, where his father had remained. Prices mother and step-father were successful fashion designers and wanted him to take up that line of work, Ray Price began singing and playing guitar as a teenager but at first chose a career in veterinary medicine. He was attending North Texas Agricultural College in preparation for that career when his studies were interrupted by Americas entry into World War II, Price was drafted in 1944 and served in the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater. He returned to the college after the war, and many years later was honored as a distinguished alumnus, after the war and college, Price rethought his decision to continue schooling to be a veterinarian. For one thing he was considered too small to work with cattle and horses. While helping around his fathers ranch he began singing at various functions around the Abilene. This eventually led him to singing on the radio program Hillbilly Circus broadcast on Abilenes KRBC in 1948. It was around this time Ray Price became friends with Lefty Frizzell, the two first met at Beck Recording Studio in Dallas, and Price ended up writing the song Give Me More, More, More Of Your Kisses for Frizzells use. A few demos recorded by Price at Becks caught the attention of Bullet Records in Nashville, Tennessee, however, his first single released on Bullet, Jealous Lies failed to become a chart hit. He relocated to Nashville in the early 1950s, rooming for a time with Hank Williams. When Williams died, Price managed his band, the Drifting Cowboys and he was the first artist to have a success with the song Release Me, a top five popular music hit for Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967. In 1953, Price formed his band, the Cherokee Cowboys, miller wrote one of Ray Prices classics in 1958, Invitation to the Blues, and sang harmony on the recording
31.
Charlie Rich
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Charles Allan Charlie Rich was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. His eclectic style of music was difficult to classify in a single genre, encompassing the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, soul. In the later part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname the Silver Fox and he is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, Behind Closed Doors and The Most Beautiful Girl. The Most Beautiful Girl topped the U. S. country singles charts, as well as the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles charts, Rich was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas, to cotton farmers. He graduated from Consolidated High School in Forrest City, where he played saxophone in the band. He was strongly influenced by his parents, members of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Forrest City, as his mother, Helen Rich, played piano, a black sharecropper on the family land named C. J. Allen taught Rich blues piano. He enrolled at Arkansas State College on a scholarship and then transferred to the University of Arkansas as a music major after a football injury. He left after one semester to join the United States Air Force in 1953, while stationed in Enid Oklahoma, he formed the Velvetones, playing jazz and blues and featuring his wife, Margaret Ann, on vocals. He and Margaret Ann Greene had married in 1952, upon leaving the military in 1956, they returned to the West Memphis area to farm 500 acres. He also began performing in clubs around the Memphis area, playing jazz and R&B. During these times, he began writing his own material, in a September 6,2010, NPR airing of a 1992 interview with Fresh Air host Terry Gross, Charlie Rich tells the story, himself, of Bill Justis telling Richs wife those words. In 1958, Rich became a session musician for Sun Records, playing on a variety of records by Lewis, Johnny Cash, Bill Justis, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Mann. He also wrote songs for Lewis, Cash, and others. His third single for the Sun subsidiary, Phillips International Records, was the 1960 Top 30 hit, Lonely Weekends and it sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America. These songs were recorded by others to varying degrees of success. Richs career then stalled and he left the struggling Sun label in 1963, signing with a subsidiary of RCA Victor and his first single for Groove, Big Boss Man, was a minor hit, but again, his Chet Atkins-produced follow-ups all stiffed. Rich moved to Smash Records early in 1965, the first single for Smash was Mohair Sam, an R&B-inflected novelty-rock number written by Dallas Frazier, and it became a top 30 pop hit
32.
Jessi Colter
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Jessi Colter was one of the few female artists to emerge from the mid-1970s outlaw movement. After meeting her husband, Colter pursued a career in country music, releasing her first studio LP in 1970. Five years later, Colter signed with Capitol Records and released her first solo single, Im Not Lisa, which topped the country charts and reached the top 5 on the pop charts. In 1976 she was featured on the collaboration LP Wanted, The Outlaws, which became an RIAA-certified Platinum album, Miriam Johnson was born in 1943 in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in a strict Pentecostal home. Her mother was a Pentecostal preacher and her father was a race-car driver, at age 11, Colter became the pianist at her church. After graduating from Mesa High, Ariz. in 1961, she began singing in clubs in Phoenix. After marrying guitarist Duane Eddy in 1961, and still using her name of Miriam Johnson. The first, Lonesome Road, received scattered airplay in several US markets, after a second single failed to even get regional airplay, Johnson did not record again for nearly a decade. She continued to tour with Eddy until divorcing in 1968, the following year, she met country artist Waylon Jennings who helped her secure a recording contract with RCA Victor. Johnson, now billing herself as Jessi Colter, resumed her career in 1970. That year, Waylon Jennings and Colter sang duet on two top 40 country chart hits, on March 25,1970 she played keyboard for her husband during his appearance on The Johnny Cash Show. She released her album, A Country Star is Born, on RCA, with Jennings and Chet Atkins co-producing The album was not successful. It was Colters only album for RCA, and she left the label soon after, however, her face appears on several Jennings record covers from this period. In 1975, Colter was signed with Capitol Records, on the label, she released her debut single, Im Not Lisa. The song was Colters breakthrough single, reaching No.1 on the Billboard Country Chart and also peaked at No.4 on the Billboard Pop Chart, becoming a crossover hit in 1975. Her second album, titled Im Jessi Colter was also released that year and debuted at No.1 on the Top Country Albums chart and No.50 on the Billboard 200. The follow-up single from her album Whats Happened to Blue Eyes was also successful, peaking at No.5 on the Billboard Country Chart. The singles B-side, You Aint Never Been Loved, charted among the Top Pop 100 also in 1975, Colter couldnt follow-up her success on the Pop Charts, she was not able to chart among the Pop Top 40
33.
I'm Not Lisa
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Im Not Lisa is a country music song written and recorded by American country artist Jessi Colter. It was released as a single on January 16,1975 by Capitol Records, Im Not Lisa would become Colters first major hit as a solo artist. Im Not Lisa was written by Colter and describes the pain that comes with dating someone who has not gotten over a previous lover, specifically, the song is about a woman named Julie who laments the fact that her boyfriend keeps mentioning his previous girlfriend, named Lisa. While singing on the recording of the version of the song. The song was produced by Ken Mansfield and Colters husband, Waylon Jennings, both men would also produce Colters 1975 album, as well as her further releases for Capitol records. Im Not Lisa was released on Capitol Records on January 16,1975, the song became Colters commercial breakthrough as a solo artist, peaking at #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It also was a major crossover Pop hit, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, in addition, the song also reached #16 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, and was released on Colters debut Capitol album, Im Jessi Colter. The song earned Colter a Grammy award nomination in the category of Best Female Country Vocal Performance, Colters follow-up single Whats Happened to Blue Eyes became a Top 10 country hit. However, none of her subsequent releases for Capitol in the 1970s came close to the success of Im Not Lisa, the song has since been covered by many artists, including Rosemary Clooney, Marianne Faithfull, Tanya Tucker, Faith Hill and Nana Mouskouri in a French version. Elizabeth Cook recorded a version for her 2002 album Hey, Yall, in 2005, Erika Jo recorded a version for her self-titled debut album, and also released it as single to country radio, but it failed to chart. Deana Carter performed a cover of the song with Colter for her 2007 album, the rock band Killdozer also covered Im Not Lisa on their 1986 release Burl. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
34.
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
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Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue is a song written by Richard Leigh, and recorded by American country music singer Crystal Gayle. It was released in March 1977 as the first single from Gayles album We Must Believe in Magic, despite the title, Gayle herself has blue eyes. Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue composer Richard Leigh had been responsible for all three of Crystal Gayles previous Top Ten C&W hits, the third of which Ill Get Over You had reached number 1, at Theorets suggestion, Reynolds visited Leigh to cheer him up. Reynolds explained, we were sittin on the floor. singing songs to one another, mentioned a song that his publisher was gonna get to Shirley Bassey. Sang it for me, Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue, I said, Shirley Bassey my ass, I want that song. Reynolds recalls that when he played Dont It Make My Brown Eyes Blue for Gayle she was just as excited as I was, the track was recorded at Jacks Tracks in Nashville on October 27,1976. Reynolds noted it was just one of those charmed sessions and we presented the song to the musicians. it was about the third time running that song that we ran tape. It came so fast that she wasnt sure that she had done her best job, I had to let her try to sing it again on two or three different occasions until she was comfortable with the original, and thats what we went with. Everything on that recording was the take as it went down. In a 2004 Country Music Television interview, Gayle stated that Leigh wrote the song because his dog had one brown eye, the song became a worldwide hit single. The album received Platinum status, the first by a country singer. The song became Gayles signature piece throughout her career, in 1978, the song won Gayle a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. In 1999, the song was recognized by ASCAP as one of the ten most-performed songs of the 20th century, the song has a jazzy feel to it when compared to many other country songs of that era. The song has been covered by Lorrae Desmond, Laura Fygi, Anita Meyer, song review from AllMusic Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
35.
Kris Kristofferson
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Kristoffer Kris Kristofferson is an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He wrote and recorded the songs Me and Bobby McGee, For the Good Times, Sunday Mornin Comin Down, Kristofferson composed his own songs and collaborated with Nashville songwriters such as Shel Silverstein. In 1985, Kristofferson joined fellow country artists Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, in 2004, Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He is also known for his roles in Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore and A Star Is Born. Kristoffer Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann and Lars Henry Kristofferson and his paternal grandparents emigrated from Sweden, while his mother had English, Scottish-Irish, German, Swiss-German and Dutch ancestry. Kristoffersons paternal grandfather was an officer in the Swedish Army, when Kristofferson was a child, his father pushed him towards a military career. At the age of 17, Kristofferson took a job with a dredging contractor on Wake Island. He called it the hardest job I ever had, like most military brats, Kristofferson moved around frequently as a youth, finally settling down in San Mateo, California, where he graduated from San Mateo High School. An aspiring writer, Kristofferson enrolled in Pomona College in 1954 and he experienced his first dose of fame when he appeared in Sports Illustrateds Faces in the Crowd for his achievements in collegiate rugby union, football, and track and field. He and his classmates revived the Claremont Colleges Rugby Club in 1958, Kristofferson became a member of Delta Kappa fraternity at Pomona College, graduating in 1958 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in literature. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year, in a 2004 interview with Pomona College Magazine, Kristofferson mentioned philosophy professor Frederick Sontag as an important influence in his life. Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied at Merton College, while at Oxford, he was awarded his Blue for boxing, played rugby for his college, and began writing songs. At Oxford, he was acquainted with fellow Rhodes scholar, art critic. With the help of his manager, Larry Parnes, Kristofferson recorded for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson and this early phase of his music career was unsuccessful. In 1960, Kristofferson graduated with a B. Phil in English literature, the following year he married his long-time girlfriend, Frances Mavia Beer. Kristofferson, under pressure from his family, ultimately joined the U. S. Army and he became a helicopter pilot after receiving flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. During the early 1960s, he was stationed in West Germany as a member of the 8th Infantry Division, during this time, he resumed his music career and formed a band. In 1965, when his tour of duty ended, Kristofferson was given an assignment to teach English literature at West Point, instead, he decided to leave the Army and pursue songwriting
36.
Glen Campbell
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Glen Travis Campbell is an American rock and country music singer, musician, songwriter, television host and actor. During his 50 years in business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums. He has sold 45 million records and accumulated 12 RIAA Gold albums, four Platinum albums, Campbell made history in 1967 by winning four Grammys total, in the country and pop categories. For Gentle on My Mind, he received two awards in country and western, By the Time I Get to Phoenix did the same in pop. Three of his early hits later won Grammy Hall of Fame Awards and he owns trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, and took the CMAs top award as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. John Wayne picked Campbell to play him in the film True Grit. Campbell sang the song which was nominated for an Academy Award. Glen Travis Campbell was born in Billstown, a community near Delight in Pike County, Arkansas, to John Wesley. He is the son of 12 children. His father was a sharecropper of Scottish ancestry and he started playing guitar as a youth and credits his uncle Boo for teaching him the guitar. In 1954, Campbell moved to Albuquerque to join his uncles band known as Dick Bills and he also appeared there on his uncles radio show and on K Circle B Time, the local childrens program on KOB television. In 1958, Campbell formed his own band, the Western Wranglers, in 1960, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. In October 1960 he joined The Champs, by January 1961, Campbell had found a daytime job at publishing company American Music, writing songs and recording demos. Because of these demos Campbell soon was in demand as a session musician and became part of a group of studio musicians later known as The Wrecking Crew. Campbell played on recordings by Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Phil Spector. In May 1961, he left The Champs and was signed by Crest Records. His first solo release, Turn Around, Look at Me, was a moderate success, Campbell also formed The Gee Cees with former bandmembers from The Champs, performing at The Crossbow Inn in Van Nuys. The Gee Cees, too, released a single on Crest, the instrumental Buzz Saw, in 1962, Campbell signed with Capitol Records
37.
John Denver
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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
38.
Olivia Newton-John
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Olivia Newton-John, AO, OBE is a British-Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five number-one and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles, eleven of her singles and fourteen of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA. She has sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time and she starred in Grease, which featured one of the most successful soundtracks in Hollywood history. Newton-John has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues, since surviving breast cancer in 1992, she has been an advocate for health awareness becoming involved with various charities, health products and fundraising efforts. Her business interests have included launching several product lines for Koala Blue and she is the mother of one daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi, with her first husband, actor Matt Lattanzi. Her second husband is John Easterling, Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, to Irene Helene, the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born and Welsh father, Brinley Bryn Newton-John. Her mothers family had left Germany before World War II to avoid the Nazi regime and she is a third cousin of comedian Ben Elton. Her maternal great-grandfather was jurist Victor Ehrenberg and her matrilineal great-grandmothers father was jurist Rudolf von Jhering. Newton-John is the youngest of three children, following brother Hugh, a doctor, and sister Rona, an actress who was married to Grease co-star Jeff Conaway from 1980 until their divorce in 1985. Newton-Johns father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during the Second World War. In 1954, when she was six, Newton-Johns family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia and she attended Christ Church Grammar School, and then University High School, adjacent to Ormond College. At fourteen, Newton-John formed a short-lived all-girl group, Sol Four and she became a regular on local Australian radio and television shows including HSV-7s The Happy Show where she performed as Lovely Livvy. She also appeared on the Go Show where she met future partner, Pat Carroll. Newton-John was initially reluctant to use the prize she had won, a trip to Britain, Newton-John recorded her first single, Till You Say Youll Be Mine Forever, in Britain for Decca Records in 1966. While in Britain, Newton-John missed her then-boyfriend, Ian Turpie, with whom she had co-starred in the Australian telefilm, Newton-John repeatedly booked trips back to Australia that her mother subsequently cancelled. Newton-Johns outlook changed when Pat Carroll also moved to the UK, the two formed a duo called Pat and Olivia and toured nightclubs in Europe. After Carrolls visa expired forcing her to return to Australia, Newton-John remained in Britain to pursue solo work until 1975 and she became engaged to The Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch, but they never married. Newton-John was recruited for the group Toomorrow formed by American producer Don Kirshner, in 1970, the group starred in a science fiction musical film and recorded an accompanying soundtrack album both named after the group
39.
Anne Murray
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Morna Anne Murray CC ONS, known professionally as Anne Murray, is a Canadian singer in pop, country, and adult contemporary music whose albums have sold over 55 million copies worldwide. Murray was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach No.1 on the U. S. charts and she is often cited as the one who paved the way for other international Canadian success stories such as k. d. lang, Céline Dion and Shania Twain. She is also the first woman and the first Canadian to win Album of the Year at the 1984 Country Music Association Awards for her Gold-plus 1983 album A Little Good News. Murray has received four Grammys, a record 24 Junos, three American Music Awards, three Country Music Association Awards, and three Canadian Country Music Association Awards. She has been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Juno Hall of Fame, and The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame Walkway of Stars in Nashville, in 2011, Billboard ranked her 10th on their list of the 50 Biggest Adult Contemporary Artists Ever. Morna Anne Murray was born in the town of Springhill. Her father, James Carson Murray, was the town doctor and her mother, Marion Margaret Murray, was a registered nurse who focused her life on raising her family and community charity work. Murrays father died in 1980 at the age of 72 from complications from leukemia and her mother died April 10,2006, at the age of 92 after suffering a series of strokes during heart surgery. After expressing an early interest in music, she studied piano for six years, by 15 she was taking voice lessons. Every Saturday morning, she took a bus ride from Springhill to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, One of her earliest performances was of the song Ave Maria at her high school graduation in 1962. Following high school, Murray attended Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax for one year and she later studied Physical Education at University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. After receiving her degree in 1966 she taught physical education at a school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. In 1965, Murray appeared on the University of New Brunswick student project record The Groove and she sang two songs on the record – Unchained Melody and Little Bit of Soap. On the label her name was misspelled Anne Murry, while there, she was encouraged to audition for the 1960s CBC musical variety television show Singalong Jubilee, but was not offered a singing position. Two years later she received a call from Singalong Jubilee co-host and associate producer, Bill Langstroth, following that second audition, Murray was cast for the show. After a summer of singing in venues across the Maritimes, Murray began teaching physical education at the high school in Summerside. After one year of teaching, she was offered a spot on the television show Lets Go, and returned to Singalong Jubilee
40.
Rhinestone Cowboy
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Rhinestone Cowboy is a song written by Larry Weiss and most famously recorded by American country music singer Glen Campbell with instrumental backing by the Wrecking Crew, L. A. session musicians. The song enjoyed immense popularity with both country and pop audiences when it was released in 1975, Weiss wrote and recorded Rhinestone Cowboy in 1974, and it appeared on his 20th Century Records album Black and Blue Suite. It did not, however, have much of an impact as a single. In late 1974, Campbell heard the song on the radio, soon after his return to the United States, Campbell went to Al Courys office at Capitol Records, where he was approached about a great new song — Rhinestone Cowboy. Several music writers noted that Campbell identified with the matter of Rhinestone Cowboy — survival and making it. As Steven Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic put it, the song is about a veteran artist whos aware that hes more than paid his dues during his career, but is still surviving, and someday, hell shine just like a rhinestone cowboy. Released in May 1975, Rhinestone Cowboy immediately caught on both country and pop audiences. Billboard ranked it as the number-two for 1975 and this was the first time a song had accomplished the feat since November 1961, when Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean did so. Rhinestone Cowboy was one of six songs released in 1975 that topped both the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Singles charts, Glen Campbell recorded a new version of the song in 2013 on his final studio album titled, See You There. Rhinestone Cowboy was certified gold for sales of 1 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America, the song became one of Glen Campbells signature songs and won numerous awards from the Country Music Association, Academy of Country Music, and American Music Awards. It also obtained nominations for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song as well as for Record of the Year, Rhinestone Cowboy served as the basis for the 1984 movie Rhinestone, starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton. A few lines of the song were sung by the vicar in an episode of Keeping up Appearances who was in good spirits because he had not been hassled by Hyacinth Bucket for a week. Belgian singer Claire recorded the song in 1975 as Vreemde Vogels and had a hit with her version in Flanders. She charted in July already, Glen Campbell just in October, slim Whitman covered the song in 1976 on his Red River Valley album. After his performance, Carson announced that songwriter Larry Weiss was in the audience, renée Martel, a singer from Quebec, has made a French cover Cowgirl Dorée, as did French singer Michèle Torr. John Barrowman has made a version that he has sung during his UK concert tour. Guns N Roses performed the live at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on December,19,2009. Filipino singer/songwriter Fred Panopio recorded a Filipino novelty version titled Kawawang Cowboy, Tony Clifton prominently featured the song in his national tour of The Return of Tony Clifton, backed by his Katrina Kiss My Ass Orchestra
41.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
42.
Grammy Award
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A Grammy Award, or Grammy, is an honor awarded by The Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the mainly English-language music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of awards that have a more popular interest. It shares recognition of the industry as that of the other performance awards such as the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards. The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4,1959, to honor, following the 2011 ceremony, The Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 59th Grammy Awards, honoring the best achievements from October 2015 to September 2016, was held on February 12,2017, the Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. The music executives decided to rectify this by creating a given by their industry similar to the Oscars. This was the beginning of the National Academy of Recording Arts, after it was decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to call it, one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of the invention of Emile Berliner, the gramophone, for the awards, the number of awards given grew and fluctuated over the years with categories added and removed, at one time reaching over 100. The second Grammy Awards, also held in 1959, was the first ceremony to be televised, the gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990 the original Grammy design was revamped, changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to damage, Billings developed a zinc alloy named grammium, which is trademarked. The trophies with the name engraved on them are not available until after the award announcements. By February 2009,7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded, the General Field are four awards which are not restricted by genre. Album of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a full album if other than the performer. Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a single song if other than the performer. Song of the Year is awarded to the writer/composer of a single song, Best New Artist is awarded to a promising breakthrough performer who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording that establishes the public identity of that artist. The only two artists to win all four of these awards are Christopher Cross, who won all four in 1980, and Adele, who won the Best New Artist award in 2009 and the other three in 2012 and 2017. Other awards are given for performance and production in specific genres, as well as for other such as artwork. Special awards are given for longer-lasting contributions to the music industry, the many other Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony earlier in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast
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