1.
Lansing, Michigan
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Lansing /ˈlænsɪŋ/ is the capital of the US state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County, the 2010 Census placed the citys population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan. The population of its Metropolitan Statistical Area was 464,036, while the even larger Combined Statistical Area population and it was named the new state capital of Michigan in 1847, ten years after Michigan became a state. The Lansing Metropolitan Area, colloquially referred to as Mid-Michigan, is an important center for educational, cultural, governmental, commercial, Lansing is the only U. S. state capital that is not also a county seat. The seat of government of Ingham County is Mason, but the county maintains some offices in Lansing, the first recorded person of European descent to spot the area that is now Lansing was explorer Hugh Heward in 1790 while canoeing the Grand River. The land that was to become Lansing was surveyed as Township 4 North Range 2 West in February 1827 in what was then dense forest and it was the last of the countys townships to be surveyed, and the land was not offered for sale until October 1830. There would be no roads to this area for decades to come, in the winter of 1835 and early 1836, two brothers from New York plotted the area now known as REO Town just south of downtown Lansing and named it Biddle City. This land lay in a floodplain and was underwater during the majority of the year, nevertheless, the brothers went back to Lansing, New York, to sell plots for the town that did not exist. They told the New Yorkers this new city had an area of 65 blocks, a church,16 men bought plots in the nonexistent city, and upon reaching the area later that year found they had been scammed. Many in the group too disappointed to stay ended up settling around what is now metropolitan Lansing and those who stayed quickly renamed the area Lansing Township in honor of their home village in New York. The United States had recaptured the city in 1813, but these led to the dire need to have the center of government relocate from hostile British territory. There was also concern with Detroits strong influence over Michigan politics, during the multi-day session to determine a new location for the state capital, many cities, including Ann Arbor, Marshall, and Jackson, lobbied hard to win this designation. Unable to publicly reach a consensus because of constant political wrangling, when announced, many present openly laughed that such an insignificant settlement was now Michigans capital. Two months later, Governor William L. Greenly signed into law the act of the legislature making Lansing Township the state capital, with the announcement that Lansing Township had been made the capital, the small village quickly transformed into the seat of state government. The legislature gave the settlement the name of the Town of Michigan. In April 1848, the legislature gave the settlement the name of Lansing. It was home to the first house built in Lansing in 1843 by pioneer James Seymour, Lower Town began to develop in 1847 with the completion of the Franklin Avenue covered bridge over the Grand River. Upper Village/Town, where present-day REO Town stands at the confluence of the Grand River and it began to take off in 1847 when the Main Street Bridge was constructed over the Grand River
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
3.
Rock and roll
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While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s. For the purpose of differentiation, this deals with the first definition. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars, a double bass or string bass or an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music and it went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply rock music or rock. The term rock and roll now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s. In 1934, the song Rock and Roll by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, in 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term rock-and-roll to describe upbeat recordings such as Rock Me by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. By 1943, the Rock and Roll Inn in South Merchantville, in 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it. The origins of rock and roll have been debated by commentators. The migration of former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called race music, particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. The 1940s saw the use of blaring horns, shouted lyrics. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Rock and roll arrived at a time of technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock. Because the development of rock and roll was a process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously the first rock. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
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.
Trombone
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The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the players vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate, nearly all trombones have a telescoping slide mechanism that varies the length of the instrument to change the pitch. Many modern trombone models also utilize a rotary valve as a means to lower pitch of the instrument, variants such as the valve trombone and superbone have three valves like those on the trumpet. The word trombone derives from Italian tromba and -one, so the name means large trumpet, the trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like its valved counterpart the baritone and in contrast to its conical valved counterparts, the euphonium and the horn. The most frequently encountered trombones are the trombone and bass trombone. The most common variant, the tenor, is an instrument pitched in B♭, an octave below the B♭ trumpet. A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player, the trombone is a predominantly cylindrical tube bent into an elongated S shape. Rather than being completely cylindrical from end to end, the tube is a series of tapers with the smallest at the mouthpiece receiver. The design of these affects the intonation of the instrument. As with other instruments, sound is produced by blowing air through pursed lips producing a vibration that creates a standing wave in the instrument. The detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece is similar to that of the baritone horn and it has the venturi, a small constriction of the air column that adds resistance greatly affecting the tone of the instrument, and is inserted into the mouthpiece receiver in the slide section. The slide section consists of a leadpipe, the inner and outer tubes. Modern stays are soldered, while sackbuts were made with loose, the slide, the most distinctive feature of the trombone, allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch. To prevent friction from slowing the action of the slide, additional sleeves were developed during the Renaissance, and this part of the slide must be lubricated frequently. Additional tubing connects the slide to the bell of the instrument through a neckpipe, for example, second position A is not in exactly the same place on the slide as second position E. Many types of trombone also include one or more rotary valves used to increase the length of the instrument by directing the air flow through additional tubing. This allows the instrument to reach notes that are not possible without the valve as well as play other notes in alternate positions. Like the trumpet, the trombone is considered a cylindrical bore instrument since it has sections of tubing, principally in the slide section
6.
The Recording Academy
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The Recording Academy is a U. S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals. The Recording Academy is headquartered in Santa Monica, neil Portnow is the current president of The Academy. The Recording Academy, which began in 1957, is known for its Grammy Awards, in 1997, the Recording Academy launched The Latin Recording Academy, which produces the Latin Grammy Awards. Michael Greene was the founder and the first President of the Latin Grammys, the origin of the Academy dates back to the beginning of the 1950s Hollywood Walk of Fame project. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce asked the help of recording industry executives in compiling a list of people in the music business who should be honored by Walk of Fame stars. This was the start of the Academy and also of the Grammy Awards, the Producers and Engineers Wing is a part of the academy made up of producers, engineers, mixers, and other technically involved professionals. It is composed of almost 6,000 members, the producers and engineers wing addresses various aspects of issues facing the recording profession. They also support music and recording arts education, the P&E Wing also advocates for the use of professional usage of recording technology as well as the preservation of recordings. The members of this division make up a portion of those who vote on the Grammy Awards each year. The Grammy University Network is an organization for students who are pursuing a career in the music industry. It offers forms of networking, interactive experiences and programs, advice from music professionals. The Recording Academy supports the MusiCares Foundation, an organization which provides money. The Academy has twelve chapters in various locations in the United States, the twelve chapters are, Atlanta, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles, Memphis, Nashville, New York City, Pacific Northwest, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Texas and Washington D. C. List of music organizations in the United States The Latin Recording Academy Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences The Recording Academy Producers and Engineers Wing
7.
Count Basie
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William James Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens, dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16 years old, he played jazz piano at parties, resorts. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his career expanded, he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis. In 1929 he joined Bennie Motens band in Kansas City, in 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. William Basie was born to Harvey Lee and Lillian Basie in Red Bank and his father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his became an groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background and his father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano, in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons. She took in laundry and baked cakes for sale for a living and she paid 25 cents a lesson for piano instruction for him. Not much of a student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life and he finished junior high school but spent much of his time at the Palace Theater in Red Bank, where doing occasional chores gained him free admission to performances. He quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies, though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. Discouraged by the talents of Sonny Greer, who also lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellingtons drummer in 1919. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career, by then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardsons Kings of Syncopation. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the pool hall with other musicians. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, around 1920, Basie went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, where he lived down the block from the Alhambra Theater. Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by then the drummer for the Washingtonians, soon, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were making the scene, including Willie the Lion Smith and James P. Johnson. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, throughout his tours, Basie met many jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers and this provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career
8.
Herbie Hancock
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Herbert Jeffrey Herbie Hancock is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers, Hancocks music is often melodic and accessible, he has had many songs cross over and achieved success among pop audiences. Hancocks best-known compositions include Cantaloupe Island, Watermelon Man, Maiden Voyage, Chameleon, and his 2007 tribute album River, The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award, after Getz/Gilberto in 1965. Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Winnie Belle, a secretary, and Wayman Edward Hancock and his parents named him after the singer and actor Herb Jeffries. He attended the Hyde Park Academy, like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical music education. He studied from age seven, and his talent was recognized early, through his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher, but developed his ear and sense of harmony. He was also influenced by records of the group the Hi-Los. He reported that. by the time I actually heard the Hi-Los, I started picking that stuff out, my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and thats when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on Speak Like a Child – just being able to do that, I really got that from Clare Fischers arrangements for the Hi-Los. Clare Fischer was an influence on my harmonic concept. he and Bill Evans. You know, thats where it came from, in 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once, and begged him to accept him as a student. Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru, Hancock left Grinnell College, moved to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, during which period he also took courses at Roosevelt University. Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, the pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods. He recorded his first solo album Takin Off for Blue Note Records in 1962, Watermelon Man was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more importantly for Hancock, Takin Off caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer Tony Williams, Hancock received considerable attention when, in May 1963, he joined Daviss Second Great Quintet. Davis personally sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz, the rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist Ron Carter, 17-year-old drummer Williams, and Hancock on piano. After George Coleman and Sam Rivers each took a turn at the saxophone spot and this quintet is often regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles, and the rhythm section has been especially praised for its innovation and flexibility. The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist, not only did he find new ways to use common chords, but he also popularized chords that had not previously been used in jazz
9.
Frank Sinatra
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Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the music artists of all time. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943 and he released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatras professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas and his career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice n Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records. It was followed by 1968s collaboration with Duke Ellington, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm and he appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he associated with playing detectives. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B, on television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, a perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976, Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him the greatest singer of the 20th century, Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12,1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the child of Italian immigrants Antonino Martino Marty Sinatra
10.
Jaco Pastorius
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John Francis Anthony Jaco Pastorius III was an American jazz musician, composer, big band leader and electric bass player. He is best known for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1981, as well as work with artists including Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny, as a musician, he developed an influential approach to bass playing that combined the use of complex harmony with virtuosic technique. His signature approach employed Latin-influenced funk, lyrical solos on fretless bass, bass chords and he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only seven bassists so honored. His grandmother was a Finn named Kaisa Eriika Isojärvi and he was of Finnish, Sami, German, Swedish, and Irish ancestry. In 1960, his family moved to Oakland Park, Florida, Pastorius went to St. Clements Catholic School in Wilton Manors, and he was an altar boy at the adjoining church. He went to Northeast High School in Oakland Park and he was talented in football, basketball, and baseball, and he picked up music at an early age. He often watched baseball with his father and his nickname was influenced by his love of sports and by umpire Jocko Conlan. He changed the spelling from Jocko to Jaco after French pianist Alex Darqui misspelled it on a note and his seemingly endless energy led his younger brother, Gregory, to call him Mowgli after the wild boy in The Jungle Book. Pastorius played drums until he injured his wrist playing football at age 13, the damage to his wrist was severe enough to warrant corrective surgery and inhibited his ability to play drums. He had been playing with a band, Las Olas Brass. By 1968–1969, at the age of 17, Pastorius had begun to appreciate jazz and had saved money to buy an upright bass. Its deep, mellow tone appealed to him, though it strained his finances and he had difficulty maintaining the instrument, which he attributed to the humidity in Florida. When he woke one day to find it had cracked, he traded it for a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass and his first break came when he became the bassist for Wayne Cochran and the C. C. He also played on various local R&B and jazz records during time, such as with Little Beaver. In 1973 at the age of 22, Pastorius was teaching bass at the University of Miami, in 1974, Pastorius began playing with Metheny. In 1975, Pastorius was introduced to Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Colomby, Pastoriuss first album, produced by Colomby, was Jaco Pastorius, a breakthrough album for the electric bass. Many consider this the finest bass album ever recorded, it was praised by critics. The album also boasted a lineup of heavyweights in the community at the time – including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, Lenny White, Hubert Laws, Don Alias
11.
Steely Dan
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Steely Dan is an American jazz rock band whose music also blends elements of crossover jazz, latin music, blue-eyed soul, R&B, boogie, and pop. Founded by core members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in 1972, Rolling Stone has called them the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies. Steely Dan reunited in 1993 and has toured ever since. Recorded with a revolving cast of musicians, Steely Dans music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies. Becker and Fagen are whimsical, often sarcastic lyricists, having written cerebral, wry and eccentric songs about drugs, love affairs, gambling. Steely Dan toured from 1972 to 1974 before retiring from live performances, after the group disbanded in 1981, Becker and Fagen were less active throughout most of the next decade, though a cult following remained devoted to the group. Since reuniting in 1993 Steely Dan has released two albums of new material, the first of which, Two Against Nature, earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. They have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock, Steely Dan was listed as one of the 100 greatest musical artists of all time according to VH1. Becker and Fagen met in 1968 at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, as Fagen passed by a café, The Red Balloon, he heard Becker practicing the electric guitar. In an interview, Fagen recounted the experience, I hear this guy practicing and it sounded like, you know, like a black person, really. He introduced himself to Becker and asked, Do you want to be in a band, discovering that they enjoyed similar music, the two began writing songs together. Becker and Fagen began playing in local groups, one such group, known as the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, the Bad Rock Group and later the Leather Canary, included future comedy star Chevy Chase on drums. They played covers of songs by the Rolling Stones, Moby Grape, terence Boylan, another Bard musician, remembered that Fagen took readily to the beatnik life while attending college, They never came out of their room, they stayed up all night. They looked like ghosts — black turtlenecks and skin so white that it looked like yogurt, absolutely no activity, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and dope. Fagen himself would later remember it as probably the time in my life that I actually had friends. After Fagen graduated in 1969, the two moved to Brooklyn and tried to peddle their tunes in the Brill Building in midtown Manhattan, Becker later said bluntly, We did it for the money. A series of demos from 1968 to 1971 are available in bootleg form and this collection features approximately 25 tracks and is notable for its sparse arrangements and lo-fi production, a contrast with Steely Dans later work. Although some of songs were re-recorded for Steely Dan albums
12.
Earth, Wind & Fire
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Earth, Wind & Fire is an American band that has spanned the musical genres of R&B, soul, funk, jazz, disco, pop, rock, Latin and African. They are one of the most successful bands of all time, rolling Stone Magazine described them as innovative, precise yet sensual, calculated yet galvanizing and declared that the band changed the sound of black pop. The band was founded in Chicago by Maurice White in 1970, other members have included Philip Bailey, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson, Larry Dunn, Al McKay and Andrew Woolfolk. The band has received 20 Grammy nominations, they won six as a group, Earth, Wind & Fire have 12 American Music Awards nominations and four awards. Five members of Earth, Wind & Fire were also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Maurice White, Philip Bailey, Verdine White, Larry Dunn and Al McKay. The music industry and fans have bestowed Lifetime Achievement honors from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, NAACP, the kalimba is played on all of the bands albums. Two Earth, Wind & Fire classic songs have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Thats the Way of the World, the band is also known as having been the first African-American act to sell out Madison Square Garden and to receive the MSG Gold Ticket Award. President Barack Obama invited Earth, Wind & Fire to perform at the White House for the first social event of the new administration. The three friends got a contract with Capitol, they called themselves The Salty Peppers and had a marginal hit in the Midwestern area called La La Time. The Salty Peppers second single, Uh Huh Yeah, did not fare as well, and Maurice moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. He then added to the band singer Sherry Scott and percussionist Yackov Ben Israel, on June 6,1970, Verdine left Chicago to join the band as their new bassist. Maurice began shopping demo tapes of the band, featuring Donny Hathaway, around to different record labels, Maurices astrological sign, Sagittarius, has a primary elemental quality of Fire and seasonal qualities of Earth and Air, according to classical triplicities. Based on this, he changed the name, to Earth. Maurice held further auditions in L. A. adding Michael Beale on guitar, Chester Washington on reeds, trombonist Alex Thomas completed the then ten-man EWF lineup. The bands self-titled debut album, Earth, Wind, & Fire, was released in February 1971 to critical acclaim, as was November 1971s The Need of Love. Both albums were produced by Joe Wissert and a single, from The Need of Love called I Think About Lovin You, with Sherry Scott on lead vocals, in 1971, the group also recorded the soundtrack of the Melvin Van Peebles film Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. The soundtrack was recorded at Paramount Recording Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard, with only Verdine left, Maurice decided to re-form the group. Warner Brothers didnt know how to promote this new combo as the only other funk band on their label was Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, the band successfully auditioned for managers Bob Cavallo and Joe Ruffalo
13.
The Beach Boys
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The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961. The groups original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. The Beach Boys began as a band managed by the Wilsons father Murry. Emerging at the vanguard of the California Sound, they performed material that reflected a southern California youth culture of surfing, cars. After 1964, they abandoned the surfing aesthetic for more personal lyrics, in 1966, the Pet Sounds album and Good Vibrations single vaulted the group to the top level of rock innovators and established the band as symbols of the nascent counterculture era. Following Smiles dissolution, Brian gradually ceded production and songwriting duties to the rest of the band, reducing his input because of mental health and substance abuse issues. The continued success of their greatest hits albums during the mid 1970s precipitated the transition into an oldies act. Since the 1980s, much-publicized legal wrangling over royalties, songwriting credits, Dennis drowned in 1983 and Carl died of lung cancer in 1998. After Carls death, many live configurations of the band fronted by Mike Love, Even though Wilson and Jardine have not performed with Love and Johnstons band since their one-off 2012 reunion tour, they remain a part of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records Inc. The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed, commercially successful, the group had over eighty songs chart worldwide, thirty-six of them US Top 40 hits, four reaching number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. They received their only Grammy Award for The Smile Sessions, the core quintet of the three Wilsons, Love and Jardine were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. At the time of his birthday on June 20,1958, Brian Wilson shared a bedroom with his brothers, Dennis and Carl – aged thirteen and eleven. He had watched his father, Murry Wilson, play piano, after dissecting songs such as Ivory Tower and Good News, Brian would teach family members how to sing the background harmonies. For his birthday that year, Brian received a tape recorder. He learned how to overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl, Brian played piano with Carl and David Marks, an eleven-year-old longtime neighbor, playing guitars they had each received as Christmas presents. Soon Brian and Carl were avidly listening to Johnny Otis KFOX radio show, inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the rhythm and blues songs he heard, Brian changed his piano-playing style and started writing songs. His enthusiasm interfered with his studies at school. Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin Mike Love, Brian taught Loves sister Maureen and a friend harmonies
14.
Tom Waits
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Thomas Alan Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. He has worked as a composer for movies and musicals and has acted in supporting roles in films, including Paradise Alley and he also starred in Jim Jarmuschs 1986 film Down by Law. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on One from the Heart. Waits lyrics frequently present atmospheric portraits of grotesque, often seedy characters and places and he has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more artists, Jersey Girl, performed by Bruce Springsteen, Ol 55, by the Eagles. Although Waits albums have met with mixed success in his native United States. He has been nominated for a number of music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he is also included among the 2010 list of Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Singers, as well as the 2015 list of Rolling Stones 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Waits lives in Sonoma County, California, with his wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits was born at Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, the son of schoolteachers Alma Fern McMurray and Jesse Frank Waits. After his parents divorced in 1960, he lived with his mother in Whittier, Waits, who taught himself how to play the piano on a neighbors instrument, often took trips to Mexico with his father, who taught Spanish. He would later say that he found his love of music during these trips through a Mexican ballad that was probably a Ranchera, you know, on the car radio with my dad. By 1965, while attending at Hilltop High School in Chula Vista and he later admitted that he was not a fan of the 1960s music scene, stating, I wasnt thrilled by Blue Cheer, so I found an alternative, even if it was Bing Crosby. Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego, where artists of every genre performed, when he did his first paid gig for $6. A fan of Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin Wolf, in 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L. A. and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21. From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of recordings for Zappa and Cohens Bizarre/Straight label. These early tracks were released 20 years later on The Early Years, Volume One, Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972, and after numerous abortive recording sessions, his first record—the jazzy, folk-tinged Closing Time—was released in 1973. Lee Hazlewood became one of the first major artists to cover a Tom Waits song, using the title variation Those Were Days Of Roses on his album for Capitol, Poet, Fool, or Bum. Also in 1973, Tim Buckley released the album Sefronia, which contained another version of Waits song Martha from Closing Time
15.
Carole King
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Carole King is an American composer and singer-songwriter. She is the most successful songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1952 and 2005. Kings career began in the 1960s when she, along with her then husband Gerry Goffin and she has continued writing for other artists since then. Kings success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No.1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her most recent non-compilation album was Live at the Troubadour in 2010 and her records sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and she is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored. She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree, King was born Carol Joan Klein in February 1942 in Manhattan, to a Jewish family. Her mother, Eugenia, was a teacher, and her father and they met in an elevator when they were students at Brooklyn College in 1936. He was majoring in chemistry while her mothers major was English and they married in 1937, during the heights of the Great Depression. Her mother dropped out to run the household while her father also quit college, with the economy struggling, he then took a more secure job as a firefighter in New York. After King was born, they remained in Brooklyn, eventually able to buy a small two-story duplex where they could rent the upstairs for income and her mother had learned how to play piano as a child and, after buying a piano, would sometimes practice. When Carol was four years old, her parents discovered she had developed a sense of relative pitch whereby she could name a note by just hearing it. Her father enjoyed showing off his daughters skill to visiting friends, I enjoyed making my father happy and getting the notes right. Carols mother then began giving her real music lessons when she was four years old and she would climb up on the stool and be raised as yet higher by sitting on a phone book. With her mother sitting alongside, Carol was taught music theory and elementary piano technique, including how to read notation, King wanted to learn as much as possible, My mother never forced me to practice. I wanted so much to master the popular songs that poured out of the radio, Carol began kindergarten when she was four years old, but after her first year she was promoted directly to second grade because she had an exceptional facility with words and numbers. In the 1950s she went to James Madison High School and she formed a band called the Co-Sines, changed her name to Carole King, and made demo records with her friend Paul Simon for $25 a session
16.
Donna Summer
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LaDonna Adrian Gaines, better known by her stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained prominence during the era of the late 1970s. Summer has reportedly sold over 140 million records, making her one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time and she also charted two number-one singles on the R&B charts in the U. S. and one number-one in the U. K. Summer earned a total of 32 hit singles on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top ten. She claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984, and from her first top ten hit in 1976, to the end of 1982, she had 12 top ten hits, more than any other act. She returned to the Hot 100s top five in 1983, and her most recent Hot 100 hit came in 1999 with I Will Go With You. While her fortunes on the Hot 100 waned through those decades, while influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, Summer became the lead singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she left New York and spent several years living, acting, and singing in Europe and she became known as the Queen of Disco, while her music gained a global following. Summer died on May 17,2012, at her home in Naples, in her obituary in The Times, she was described as the undisputed queen of the Seventies disco boom who reached the status of one of the worlds leading female singers. Giorgio Moroder described Summers work with him on the song I Feel Love as really the start of electronic dance music, in 2013, Summer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In December 2016, Billboard Magazine ranked her as the 6th most successful dance artist of all-time, laDonna Adrian Gaines was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Andrew and Mary Gaines, and was one of seven children. She was raised in the Boston neighborhood of Mission Hill and her father was a butcher and her mother was a schoolteacher. Summers performance debut occurred at church when she was eight years old and she later attended Bostons Jeremiah E. Burke High School where she performed in school musicals and was considered popular. In 1967, just weeks before graduation, Donna left for New York where she joined the rock band Crow. After they were passed on by a label that was only interested in the bands lead singer. Summer stayed in New York and auditioned for a role in the counterculture musical and she landed the part of Sheila, and agreed to take the role in the Munich production of the show, moving there after getting her parents reluctant approval. Summer eventually became fluent in German, singing songs in that language, and participated in the musicals Ich bin ich, Godspell. Within three years, she moved to Vienna, Austria, and joined the Vienna Volksoper and she briefly toured with an ensemble vocal group called FamilyTree, the creation of producer Günter Yogi Lauke
17.
Michigan
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Michigan /ˈmɪʃᵻɡən/ is a state in the Great Lakes and Midwestern regions of the United States. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, Michigan is the tenth most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit, Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, the two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The state has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, as a result, it is one of the leading U. S. states for recreational boating. Michigan also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds, a person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline. What is now the state of Michigan was first settled by Native American tribes before being colonized by French explorers in the 17th century, the area was organized as part of the larger Northwest Territory until 1800, when western Michigan became part of the Indiana Territory. Eventually, in 1805, the Michigan Territory was formed, which lasted until it was admitted into the Union on January 26,1837, the state of Michigan soon became an important center of industry and trade in the Great Lakes region and a popular immigrant destination. Though Michigan has come to develop an economy, it is widely known as the center of the U. S. automotive industry. When the first European explorers arrived, the most populous tribes were Algonquian peoples, which include the Anishinaabe groups of Ojibwe, Odaawaa/Odawa, the three nations co-existed peacefully as part of a loose confederation called the Council of Three Fires. The Ojibwe, whose numbers are estimated to have been between 25,000 and 35,000, were the largest, French voyageurs and coureurs des bois explored and settled in Michigan in the 17th century. The first Europeans to reach what became Michigan were those of Étienne Brûlés expedition in 1622, the first permanent European settlement was founded in 1668 on the site where Père Jacques Marquette established Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan as a base for Catholic missions, missionaries in 1671–75 founded outlying stations at Saint Ignace and Marquette. Jesuit missionaries were received by the areas Indian populations, with relatively few difficulties or hostilities. In 1679, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle built Fort Miami at present-day St. Joseph, in 1691, the French established a trading post and Fort St. Joseph along the St. Joseph River at the present day city of Niles. The hundred soldiers and workers who accompanied Cadillac built a fort enclosing one arpent, cadillacs wife, Marie Thérèse Guyon, soon moved to Detroit, becoming one of the first European women to settle in the Michigan wilderness. The town quickly became a major fur-trading and shipping post, the Église de Saint-Anne was founded the same year
18.
Hawaii
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Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States of America, having received statehood on August 21,1959. Hawaii is the only U. S. state located in Oceania and it is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean. Hawaii is the only U. S. state not located in the Americas, the state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian archipelago, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles. At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight main islands are—in order from northwest to southeast, Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi. The last is the largest island in the group, it is called the Big Island or Hawaiʻi Island to avoid confusion with the state or archipelago. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania, Hawaii has over a million permanent residents, along with many visitors and U. S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii is the 8th-smallest and the 11th-least populous, but the 13th-most densely populated of the fifty U. S. states. It is the state with an Asian plurality. The states coastline is about 750 miles long, the fourth longest in the U. S. after the coastlines of Alaska, Florida, the state of Hawaii derives its name from the name of its largest island, Hawaiʻi. A common Hawaiian explanation of the name of Hawaiʻi is that was named for Hawaiʻiloa and he is said to have discovered the islands when they were first settled. The Hawaiian language word Hawaiʻi is very similar to Proto-Polynesian *Sawaiki, cognates of Hawaiʻi are found in other Polynesian languages, including Māori, Rarotongan and Samoan. According to linguists Pukui and Elbert, lsewhere in Polynesia, Hawaiʻi or a cognate is the name of the underworld or of the home, but in Hawaii. A somewhat divisive political issue arose in 1978 when the Constitution of the State of Hawaii added Hawaiian as an official state language. The title of the constitution is The Constitution of the State of Hawaii. Article XV, Section 1 of the Constitution uses The State of Hawaii, diacritics were not used because the document, drafted in 1949, predates the use of the okina and the kahakō in modern Hawaiian orthography. The exact spelling of the name in the Hawaiian language is Hawaiʻi. In the Hawaii Admission Act that granted Hawaiian statehood, the government recognized Hawaii as the official state name. Official government publications, department and office titles, and the Seal of Hawaii use the spelling with no symbols for glottal stops or vowel length
19.
Los Angeles City College
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Los Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard, the college also offers a program known as The Theater Academy, a block program for students pursuing acting, technical side of theater, or costume design. LACC occupies the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. One of nine separate college campuses of the Los Angeles Community College District, when the Pacific Electric Interurban Railroad connected downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood in 1909, the area began to develop rapidly. In 1914, the LA Board of Education moved the teachers Normal School to the site, the Italian Romanesque campus became what is now the University of California, Los Angeles in 1919. In need of space, UCLA moved to its present location in 1929. On September 9,1929, Los Angeles Junior College opened its doors for the first time with over 1,300 students and 54 teachers and it later changed its name to Los Angeles City College. California Community Colleges System Community, an NBC comedy series which shoots on the LACC campus Official website LACC Filipino Club
20.
United States Armed Forces School of Music
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The Navy School of Music is a United States Navy school located at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek–Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The schools mission is to provide specialized training to musicians of the Navy. The school does not provide training for musicians of the Air Force or Coast Guard, the school no longer provides training to Army musicians, although the Army school is co-located with the Navy school and they share facilities. The U. S. Navy School of Music was founded at the Washington Navy Yard by order of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation on 26 June 1935. The Marine Corps was given an allocation for 15 students in 1946, the school was renamed U. S. Naval School of Music to reflect the fact that the school now trained not only Navy personnel but all personnel of the naval service. In 1950 the Army reached an agreement with the Navy to begin training Army musicians at the Naval School of Music, the first class of 150 Army students began training in January 1951. On 13 April 1961 the United States Secretary of the Navy announced plans for the U. S. Naval School of Music to be relocated to Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. The USS Caddo Parish and the USS Monmouth County proceeded to Little Creek, loaded with musical instruments and Army, each ship had a band aboard to play honors as it passed George Washingtons tomb in Mount Vernon, Virginia. This was the first time an Army band performed honors on a Navy ship for president George Washington, the ships landed at the base on the morning of 13 August 1964. Armed Forces School of Music concurrent with the move, the earliest formal training for U. S. Army musicians was at the School of Practice for U. S. A. Field Musicians at Fort Jay, a recruiting post on Governors Island in New York Harbor. A second, lesser known school was established at the western infantry recruiting post at Newport Barracks in Kentucky, Musical training was first held at this location in 1809, but training was not formalized at Governors Island until the mid-1830s. Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 20th century, training was often sporadic and not standardized. In 1911, Frank Damrosch, director of the Institute of Musical Art, and Arthur A. Clappe, by 1914, the school had added a course of basic musical training to the program of instruction. The school grew rapidly, along with Army bands as a whole, in February 1920, the Army Music School at Fort Jay was designated a Special Services School of the Army. In September 1921 the school was moved to the Army War College, Washington, the school was closed by the Army in 1928. It was originally located in the United States Army Band Barracks, Army War College and subsequently moved to Fort Myer, Virginia. Students were selected from enlisted men who had the following general qualifications, one was located at the Signal Corps Replacement Training Center, Fort Crowder, Missouri, and the other at the Quartermaster Replacement Training Center, Fort Lee, Virginia
21.
Anacostia River
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The Anacostia River /ænəˈkɒstiə/ is a river in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince Georges County in Maryland into Washington, D. C. where it joins with the Washington Channel to empty into the Potomac River at Buzzard Point and it is approximately 8.7 miles long. The name Anacostia derives from the early history as Nacotchtank. Heavy pollution in the Anacostia and weak investment and development along its banks have led to it becoming what many have called D. C. s forgotten river, in recent years, however, private organizations, local businesses, and the D. C. Maryland and federal governments have made joint efforts to reduce its pollution levels in order to protect the ecologically valuable Anacostia watershed, the mainstem of the Anacostia is formed by the confluence of the Northwest Branch and the Northeast Branch just north of Bladensburg, Maryland. Tributaries of these sources include Sligo Creek, Paint Branch, Little Paint Branch, Indian Creek, Upper Beaverdam Creek, Dueling Branch, tributaries of the mainstem Anacostia include Watts Branch, Lower Beaverdam Creek and Hickory Run. The watershed of the river roughly covers 176 sq mi in eastern Montgomery County and northern Prince Georges County, as well as parts of Washington, on earlier maps, the river was known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac River until it received its current, official name. The Washington City Canal operated from 1815 until the mid-1850s, initially connecting the Anacostia to Tiber Creek and the Potomac River, the city canal fell into disuse in the late 19th century, and the city government covered over or filled in various sections. One of the biggest problems facing the Anacostia River is raw sewage that enters the river, the sewage creates a public health threat because of fecal coliform bacteria and other pathogens, it also impairs water quality and can create hypoxic conditions that lead to large fish kills. The Anacostia Watershed Society sued the Washington, D. C, water and Sewer Authority in 1999 for allowing more than 2,000,000,000 US gallons of combined sewage and urban runoff to flow into the river via its antiquated combined sewer overflow system. In settling the lawsuit, WASA agreed to invest $140 million on pump station rehabilitation, pipe cleaning and maintenance, the governments of Montgomery County and Prince Georges County also operate stormwater management programs in their respective jurisdictions. In late 2004, AWS and other organizations announced plans to sue the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission over similar problems with contamination from the Maryland suburbs. According to WSSC, more than 4,000,000 US gallons of raw sewage were released into Anacostia tributaries between January 2001 and June 2004. Another large source of pollution is the Washington Navy Yard. In May 2009, a Bandalong Litter Trap floating litter-control system was placed in the Watts Branch tributary of the Anacostia River as part of Mayor Adrian Fentys Green DC Agenda. In its first year of operation, it removed more than 500 pounds of litter per month from the river. The Bladensburg Waterfront Park, part of the Prince Georges County Department of Parks and Recreation, the Port Towns Community Boathouse at the park is home to the rowing crews of the University of Maryland, The Catholic University of America, and several local high schools. 11th Street Bridges Anacostia Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge John Philip Sousa Bridge List of rivers of Washington, D. C
22.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
23.
United States Navy Band
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The United States Navy Band, based at the historic Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D. C. has served the nation as the official musical organization of the United States Navy since 1925. The band performs all styles of music — from ceremonial pieces such as ruffles and flourishes to classical, rock, jazz, since its official designation in 1925, the United States Navy Band has grown into a diverse organization of multiple performing units. There are also chamber music groups. The multiple ensembles help to meet the demand for different types of music as well as the needs of Navy recruiting. The United States Navy Band is composed of 172 enlisted musicians and four officers, the Concert Band is the Navys premier wind ensemble. This band, along with the Ceremonial Band, was part of the original Navy Band in 1925, the group plays concerts in the Washington, D. C. area, and performs a month-long national tour each year. The Ceremonial Band performs ceremonies in and around the Washington, D. C. area and their main mission is performing for funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Additionally, the Ceremonial Band performs change of commands, retirements, patriotic openers, wreath-layings and arrivals. In 1956, Lt. Harold Fultz, then the assistant leader, organized a group from the Navy School of Music to sing chanteys. In 1980, the group added women to their ranks and expanded their repertoire to include everything from Brahms to Broadway, since their founding in 1969, the Commodores have become one of the most acclaimed jazz ensembles in the country. The seven-member group was formed in 1973 and quickly established itself in all aspects of country, the group is under the direction of banjoist Senior Chief Musician Keith M. Arneson. As the Navys premier contemporary entertainment ensemble, the Cruisers, feature eight of the Navys most dynamic performers, the group was formed in 1999. The earliest music of the United States Navy was the Shantymans Song and these melodies of the sea helped soften the rigors of shipboard life. Next came trumpeters, drummers and fifers who were carried on the frigates to sound calls, give general orders. Military bands became a section of the crew on many Navy vessels. The development of shore-based bands in the 19th century led to the creation of the Naval Academy Band, other band units afloat and ashore played a major role in promoting the morale of sailors and civilians alike. At the start of World War I many outstanding musicians left their famous orchestras and joined the United States Navy, in 1916, a 16-piece band from the battleship USS Kansas was ordered to the Washington Navy Yard to augment a 17-piece band aboard the Presidential Yacht Mayflower. The new unit known as the Washington Navy Yard Band and was given rehearsal space near the power plants coal pile
24.
Washington Navy Yard
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The Washington Navy Yard is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D. C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U. S. Navy, the Yard currently serves as a ceremonial and administrative center for the U. S. S. Navy Judge Advocate Generals Corps, Marine Corps Institute, the United States Navy Band, in 1998, the yard was listed as a Superfund site due to environmental contamination. The history of the yard can be divided into its history and cultural. The land was purchased under an Act of Congress on July 23,1799, the Washington Navy Yard was established on October 2,1799, the date the property was transferred to the Navy. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U. S. Navy, the original boundaries that were established in 1800, along 9th and M Street SE, are still marked by a white brick wall that surrounds the Yard on the north and east sides. The next year, two lots were purchased. The north wall of the Yard was built in 1809 along with a guardhouse, after the Burning of Washington in 1814, Tingey recommended that the height of the eastern wall be increased to ten feet because of the fire and subsequent looting. The southern boundary of the Yard was formed by the Anacostia River, the west side was undeveloped marsh. The land located along the Anacostia was added to by landfill over the years as it became necessary to increase the size of the Yard, the USS Constitution came to the Yard in 1812 to refit and prepare for combat action. For the first thirty years of the century, the Navy Yard was the Districts principal employer of enslaved African Americans. Their numbers rose rapidly and by 1808, the muster lists, the number of enslaved workers gradually declined during the next thirty years. While the total number of enslaved workers declined, free African Americans remained a presence on the shipyard. Sailors of Navy Yard were part of the hastily assembled American army, the Navy Yard sailors, and Marines of nearby Marine Barracks, Washington, D. C. were in the third and last line of defense at Bladensburg. Together, they fought hand to hand with cutlasses and pikes against the British regulars before being overwhelmed, as the British marched into Washington, holding the Yard became impossible. Tingey, seeing the smoke from the burning Capitol, ordered the Yard burned to prevent its capture by the enemy, both structures are now individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Following the War of 1812, the Washington Navy Yard never regained its prominence as a shipbuilding facility, the waters of the Anacostia River were too shallow to accommodate larger vessels, and the Yard was deemed too inaccessible to the open sea. Thus came a shift to what was to be the character of the Yard for more than a century, ordnance, the Yard possessed one of the earliest steam engines in the United States
25.
Swing music
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Swing music, or simply swing, is a form of American music that dominated in the 1930s and 1940s. The name swing came from the swing feel where the emphasis is on the off–beat or weaker pulse in the music, Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, the verb to swing is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Notable musicians of the era include Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Woody Herman. Swing has roots in the late 1920s as larger ensembles began using written arrangements, a typical song played in swing style would feature a strong, anchoring rhythm section in support of more loosely tied wind and brass. The most common style consisted of having a soloist take center stage, Swing music began to decline in popularity during World War II because of several factors. By the late 1940s, swing had morphed into traditional pop music, or evolved into new styles such as jump blues, Swing music saw a revival in the late 1950s and 1960s with pop vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. Swing blended with other genres to create new styles, in country music, artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and Bob Wills introduced many elements of swing along with blues to create a genre called western swing. Gypsy swing is an outgrowth of Venuti and Langs jazz violin swing, in the 1970s, and 1980s, fans of big band music attended swing music performances at supper clubs. In the late-1980s a trendier, more urban-styled swing-beat emerged called new jack swing, in the late 1990s and into the 2000s there was a swing revival, led by Squirrel Nut Zippers, Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Lavay Smith. In Canada, some of the early 2000s records by The JW-Jones Blues Band included swing revival elements, the 1920s saw parallel trends in jazz and popular music that would later converge into the swing style. New Orleans style jazz was based on a meter and contrapuntal improvisation led by a trumpet or cornet, typically followed by a clarinet. The rhythm section consisted of a tuba and drums, and sometimes a banjo, by the early 1920s guitars and pianos sometimes substituted for the banjo and a string bass sometimes substituted for the tuba. Further innovations in small ensemble playing led to development of the Chicago style identified with Louis Armstrong, a stint with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra familiarized him with arranged ensemble playing that differed from the New Orleans style, in which saxophones became the dominant sound among the reeds. Armstrong brought those back to his smaller ensembles, the soloist played over an ensemble relegated to a supporting role in the background. The string bass also lent itself to playing in a 4/4 rhythm rather than the 2/4 rhythm dictated by the tuba. The new format gave the soloist the opportunity to play with more rhythmic freedom, but playing with swing remained the province of the soloist, not the ensemble. The late 1920s saw increasingly sophisticated arrangements used by bigger ensembles, some arrangements used call-response between horn sections to build the melody
26.
Ann Richards
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Dorothy Ann Willis Richards was an American politician and the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. A Democrat, she first came to attention as the state treasurer of Texas. Richards served as the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and was defeated for re-election in 1994 by George W. Bush, Richards was the second female governor of Texas, and was frequently noted in the media for her outspoken feminism and her one-liners. Ann Richards was born Dorothy Ann Willis in Lakeview, in McLennan County, Texas and she grew up in Waco, participated in Girls State, and graduated from Waco High School in 1950. She attended Baylor University on a Debate team scholarship, and earned a bachelors degree, after marrying high school sweetheart David Dave Richards, she moved to Austin, where she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas. David and Ann Richards had four children Cecile, Daniel, Clark, Richards taught social studies and history at Fulmore Junior High School in Austin from 1955–1956. She campaigned for Texas liberals and progressives such as Henry B, gonzalez, Ralph Yarborough, and future U. S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes. She supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U. S, during this time, her marriage ended, in part because of the strain of politics on the relationship. Richards drinking became more pronounced, and she sought and completed treatment for alcoholism in 1980, after the incumbent Texas State Treasurer, Warren G. Harding, became mired in legal troubles in 1982, Richards won the Democratic nomination for that post. Winning election against a Republican opponent in November that year, Richards became the first woman elected to office in more than fifty years. In 1986, she was re-elected treasurer without opposition, Richards was a popular and proactive treasurer who worked to maximize the return of Texas state investments. Richards said that when she took office, the Treasury Department was run something like a 1930s country bank, Richards keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention put her in the national spotlight. The speech was highly critical of the Reagan Administration and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush and he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, …two women in 160 years is about par for the course. But if you give us a chance, we can perform, after all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels, and When we pay billions for planes that wont fly, billions for tanks that wont fire, and billions for systems that wont work, that old dog wont hunt. And you dont have to be from Waco to know that when the Pentagon makes crooks rich and doesnt make America strong, Richards convention address has been cited by rhetorical experts as a historically significant speech. The speech set the tone for her political future, in 1989, with co-author Peter Knobler, she wrote her autobiography, Straight from the Heart, My Life in Politics and Other Places. In 1990, Texas Republican governor, Bill Clements, decided not to run for re-election to a third nonconsecutive term, Richards painted herself as a sensible progressive, and won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Attorney General Jim Mattox of Dallas and former Governor Mark White of Houston
27.
Stan Kenton
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Stanley Newcomb Stan Kenton was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial progressive jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator, Stan Kenton was born on December 15,1911 in Wichita, Kansas, and was raised first in Colorado, then in California. He graduated from Bell High School, in Bell, California, Kenton learned piano as a child, and while still a teenager toured as a member of several bands. He played in the 1930s in the bands of Vido Musso and Gus Arnheim. In June 1941 he formed his first orchestra, which later was named after his theme song Artistry in Rhythm, a competent pianist, influenced by Earl Hines, Kenton worked in the early days much more as an arranger than later, and as inspiration for his loyal sidemen. Although there were no musicians in his first band, Kenton spent the summer of 1941 playing regularly before an audience at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach. Influenced by Jimmie Lunceford, the Stan Kenton Orchestra struggled for a time after its initial success and its Decca recordings were not big sellers and a stint as Bob Hopes backup radio band during the 1943–44 season was an unhappy experience, Les Brown permanently took Kentons place. Kentons first appearance in New York was in February 1942 at the Roseland Ballroom and its soloists during the war years included Art Pepper, briefly Stan Getz, altoist Boots Mussulli, and singer Anita ODay. By 1945, the band had evolved, the songwriter Joe Greene provided the lyrics for hit songs like And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine and Dont Let the Sun Catch You Cryin. A popular recording of Laura was made, the song from the film Laura. In the mid-1940s, Kentons band and style known as the wall of sound or wall of brass. Calling his music progressive jazz, Kenton sought to lead an orchestra as opposed to a dance band at a time when most big bands were beginning to wind up. Kenton had succeeded in forming a radical and very original band that gained its own audience, in 1949, Kenton took a year off. In 1950 he put together his most advanced band, the 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra that included 16 strings, a woodwind section and its music ranged from the unique and very dense modern classical charts of Bob Graettinger to works that somehow swung despite the weight. Kenton managed two tours during 1950–1951 but soon reverted to his usual 19-piece lineup, then quite unexpectedly, Kenton went through a swinging period. The charts of such arrangers as Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Richards, the music was never predictable and could get quite bombastic, but it managed to swing while still keeping the Kenton sound. In 1956, when the band returned from its European trip, the Kenton band was playing in Ontario, Canada, at the time, and Kenton dispatched a telegram which lamented a new minority, white jazz musicians, and stated his disgust literary geniuses of jazz. Jazz critic Leonard Feather, responded in the October 3,1956, Feather implied that Kentons failure to win the Critics Poll was probably the real reason for the complaint, and wondered if racial prejudice was involved
28.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
29.
Woody Herman
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Woodrow Charles Woody Herman was an American jazz clarinetist, alto saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called The Herd, Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and 1940s bandleaders and his bands often played music that was experimental for its time. He was a halftime performer for Super Bowl VII. Herman was born Woodrow Charles Thomas Herman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His parents were Otto and Myrtle Herman and his father had a deep love for show business and this influenced Woody Herman at an early age. As a child he worked as a singer and tap-dancer in Vaudeville, then started to play the clarinet, in 1931, he met Charlotte Neste, an aspiring actress, they married on September 27,1936. Woody Herman joined the Tom Gerun band and his first recorded vocals were Lonesome Me, Herman also performed with the Harry Sosnick orchestra, Gus Arnheim and Isham Jones. Isham Jones wrote many songs, including It Had to Be You. Jones wanted to live off the residuals of his songs, Woody Herman saw the chance to lead his former band, Woody Hermans first band became known for its orchestrations of the blues, and was sometimes billed as The Band That Plays The Blues. This band recorded for the Decca label, at first serving as a cover band, the first song recorded was Wintertime Dreams on November 6,1936. After two and a half years on the label, the band had its first hit, Woodchoppers Ball recorded in 1939, Woody Herman remembered that Woodchoppers Ball started out slowly at first. But Decca kept re-releasing it, and over a period of three or four years it became a hit, eventually it sold more than five million copies—the biggest hit I ever had. Other hits for the band include The Golden Wedding and Blue Prelude, musicians and arrangers that stand out include Cappy Lewis on trumpet and Dean Kincaide, a big band arranger. In jazz, swing was gradually being replaced by bebop, Dizzy Gillespie, a trumpeter and one of the originators of bop, wrote three arrangements for Woody Herman, Woodyn You, Swing Shift and Down Under. Woodyn You was not used at the time, down Under was recorded November 8,1943. The fact that Herman commissioned Gillespie to write arrangements for the band, in February 1945, the band started a contract with Columbia Records. Herman liked what drew many artists to Columbia, Liederkranz Hall, the first side Herman recorded was Laura, the theme song of the 1944 movie of the same name. Hermans version was so successful that it made Columbia hold from release the arrangement that Harry James had recorded days earlier, the Columbia contract coincided with a change in the bands repertoire. The 1944 group, which he called the First Herd, was famous for its progressive jazz, the First Herds music was heavily influenced by Duke Ellington and Count Basie
30.
Harry James
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Harry Haag James was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a period in 1947. He was also an actor in a number of pictures that usually featured his bands in some way. Harry James was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of Myrtle Maybelle, an acrobat and horseback rider, and Everett Robert James, a bandleader in a traveling circus, the Mighty Haag Circus. By the age of 10 he was taking lessons from his father. Each day, James was given one page to learn from the Arbans book and was not allowed to any other pastime until he had learned that particular page. In 1931, his family settled in Beaumont, Texas and it was here, at 15 years of age, that James began playing in local dance bands. James played regularly with Herman Waldmans band, and at one performance was noticed by nationally popular Ben Pollack, in 1935 he joined Pollacks band, but at the start of 1937 left to join Benny Goodmans orchestra, where he stayed through 1938. He was nicknamed The Hawk early in his career for his ability to sight-read, a common joke was that if a fly landed on his written music, Harry James would play it. His low range had an associated with the cornet and even the flugelhorn. With financial backing from Goodman, in January 1939 James debuted his own big band in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and this big band became known as Harry James and His Music Makers. His hit You Made Me Love You was in the Top 10 during the week of December 7,1941 and he and his band were featured in three films, Private Buckaroo, Two Girls and a Sailor and Springtime in the Rockies. He toured with the band into the 1980s, and to day the Harry James Orchestra still exists. His was the first name band to employ vocalist Frank Sinatra, in 1939, James signed Sinatra to a one-year contract, of which Sinatra worked seven months before leaving to sing for Tommy Dorsey He wanted to change Sinatras name to Frankie Satin but Sinatra refused. His later band included drummer Buddy Rich and his featured vocalist was Helen Forrest. Johnny MacAfee was featured on the sax and vocals and Corky Corcoran was a youthful sax prodigy and his orchestra succeeded Glenn Millers on a program sponsored by Chesterfield Cigarettes in 1942, when Miller disbanded his orchestra to enter the Army. In 1945, James and his orchestra had a replacement program for Danny Kayes program on CBS. He also led the orchestra for Call for Music, which was broadcast on CBS February 13,1948 - April 16,1948 and he played trumpet in the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn, dubbing Kirk Douglas
31.
Roger Wagner
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Roger Wagner, KCSG was an American choral musician, administrator and educator. Wagner was born in Le Puy, France on January 16,1914 and his younger brother was actor and voiceover artist Jack Wagner. Roger Wagner was immersed in music from his youngest years and his father was an organist of the cathedral in Dijon, France and subsequently in Los Angeles, after emigrating to the United States in 1921. At the age of 12, Roger assumed his first musical position in his own right, Wagner returned to France in 1931 to complete his musical studies, earning his degree from the College of Montmorency while studying with Marcel Dupré. He then served in the French army, during which time he qualified as a member of the French decathlon team for the 1936 Summer Olympics. In 1945, Roger Wagner became the supervisor of young choruses for the City of Los Angeles and it was from a madrigal group of twelve of these singers that the Roger Wagner Chorale was born in 1946. The Virtuoso recording won a Grammy Award in 1959, and the popular carol recording Joy to the World was a Gold Record Album, selling more than a half million copies. The Chorale toured all over the world and included such outstanding singers as Marilyn Horne, Marni Nixon, Claudine Carlson, Harve Presnell, Salli Terri, Earl Wrightson, Wagner served as the Chorales Music Director for 22 years until he was named Music Director Laureate. Roger Wagner also made a significant contribution to education and church music serving 32 years on the faculty of UCLA where he continued as Professor Emeritus until his death and he was also Distinguished Professor of Choral Music at Pepperdine University. Wagner founded the Roger Wagner Center for Choral Studies at California State University, norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. The 1990 Western Division American Choral Directors Association Convention in Fresno and his vocal arrangements are published by Lawson-Gould and released by Warner Bros. A large, painted portrait of Wagner hangs in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Roger Wagner also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on the north side of the 7000 block of Hollywood Boulevard. Following one of our performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and why did you form the Chorale. The first question is indeed flattering, however, just the opposite is true, singers hypnotize me, especially when they are good. The second question can best be answered, I think, by telling something about the Chorale, every Monday evening 200 singers converge on the Chorale studios to do one thing. sing. They sing choral masterworks, large and small, and find the experience good, each has had some musical training, can read music and loves to sing. To them the Chorale is an ideal, as it is to me, several have changed or even left jobs that continually interfered with rehearsals. This sort of thing naturally calls for whatever best I have to offer and it would be presumptuous of me to assume that these intelligent people make such sacrifices out of deference to me alone
32.
Henry Mancini
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Enrico Nicola Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, who is best remembered for his film and television scores. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. His best known include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series, his Moon River to Breakfast at Tiffanys. The Peter Gunn theme won the first Grammy Award for Album of the Year, Mancini also had a long collaboration on film scores with the film director Blake Edwards. Mancini was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, and was raised near Pittsburgh, in the town of West Aliquippa. His parents immigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy, Mancinis father, Quinto was a steelworker, who made his only child begin piccolo lessons at the age of eight. When Mancini was 12 years old, he began piano lessons, Quinto and Henry played flute together in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, Sons of Italy. After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini attended the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York, in 1943, after roughly one year at Juilliard, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. He initially served in the infantry, later transferring to an Army band, in 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. Newly discharged, Mancini entered the music industry, entering 1946, he became a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra, led by Everyman Tex Beneke. After World War II, Mancini broadened his skills in composition, counterpoint, harmony and orchestration during studies opening with the composers Ernst Krenek, in 1952, Mancini joined the Universal Pictures music department. During this time, he wrote some popular songs. His first hit was a single by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians titled I Wont Let You Out of My Heart, Mancini left Universal-International to work as an independent composer/arranger in 1958. Soon afterward, he scored the television series Peter Gunn for writer/producer Blake Edwards and this was the genesis of a relationship in which Edwards and Mancini collaborated on 30 films over 35 years. Mancinis scores for Blake Edwards included Breakfast at Tiffanys and Days of Wine and Roses, as well as Experiment in Terror, The Pink Panther, The Great Race, The Party,10, another director with whom Mancini had a longstanding partnership was Stanley Donen. Mancini also composed for Howard Hawks, Martin Ritt, Vittorio de Sica, Norman Jewison, Paul Newman, Stanley Kramer, George Roy Hill, Arthur Hiller, Ted Kotcheff, and others. Mancinis score for the Alfred Hitchcock film Frenzy in Bachian organ andante, for organ, Mancini scored many TV movies, including The Moneychangers, The Thorn Birds and The Shadow Box. He wrote many television themes, including Mr. Lucky, NBC Mystery Movie, tic Tac Dough and Once Is Not Enough
33.
Bill Conti
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He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for Gonna Fly Now from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He has served as director at the Academy Awards a record nineteen times. Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island and he graduated from North Miami High School in 1959. He is a past winner of the Silver Knight Award presented by the Miami Herald and he is a graduate of Louisiana State University, and also studied at the Juilliard School of Music. His big break into celebrity came in 1976, when he was hired to compose the music for a small United Artists film called Rocky. Contis training montage tune, Gonna Fly Now, topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977, the film won three Oscars at the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The same ceremony was also the first time Conti served as director for the Academy Awards. Conti also composed music for the sequels Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky V, Conti also worked for some other films and, eventually, for television series. In 1983, he composed the score for HBOs first film, Conti composed music for the films Bad Boys and Mass Appeal. Then in 1984, he received an Academy Award for composing the score to 1983s The Right Stuff followed by composing music for the TV series North and South in 1985. He also composed the score for The Karate Kid as well as the Masters of the Universe live action movie, another Conti score was the 1987 film Happy New Year. In 1991, he composed the score for Necessary Roughness, a football movie starring Scott Bakula, Sinbad. In 1993, he composed and wrote the music for The Adventures of Huck Finn starring Elijah Wood and he also composed the classic themes to televisions Dynasty, The Colbys, Falcon Crest and its pilot score, and Cagney & Lacey. In addition he composed the score to the studio altered American version of Luc Bessons The Big Blue, two of Contis previously composed works were re-used for the show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. These were the love theme Come With Me Now from the soundtrack for Five Days From Home, Conti has been nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one in the Best Original Score category for The Right Stuff. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for Gonna Fly Now from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He has received three Golden Globe nominations, two for Best Original Score for Rocky and An Unmarried Woman, and one for Best Original Song for the song of For Your Eyes Only. Conti has also received thirteen Emmy nominations, all but one of which are for his role as director at the Academy Awards
34.
Freddie Hubbard
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Frederick Dewayne Freddie Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards and his unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop. Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his band at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis. In his teens Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery and worked with bassist Larry Ridley, six days later he returned the favor to Brooks, and recorded with him on True Blue. In December 1960, Hubbard was invited to play on Ornette Colemans Free Jazz after Coleman had heard him performing with Don Cherry, then in May 1961, Hubbard played on Olé Coltrane, John Coltranes final recording session for Atlantic Records. Together with Eric Dolphy, Hubbard was the only sideman who appeared on both Olé and Africa/Brass, Coltranes first album with Impulse, later, in August 1961, Hubbard recorded Ready for Freddie, which was also his first collaboration with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Hubbard joined Shorter later in 1961 when he replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers and he played on several Blakey recordings, including Caravan, Ugetsu, Mosaic, and Free For All. In all, during the 1960s, he recorded eight albums as a bandleader for Blue Note. Hubbard was described as the most brilliant trumpeter of a generation of musicians who stand with one foot in tonal jazz and the other in the atonal camp. Hubbard achieved his greatest popular success in the 1970s with a series of albums for Creed Taylor and his record label CTI Records, overshadowing Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, and George Benson. In 1994, Hubbard, collaborating with Chicago jazz vocalist/co-writer Catherine Whitney, had set to the music of First Light. In 1977 Hubbard joined with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Wayne Shorter, members of the mid-sixties Miles Davis Quintet, for a series of performances. Several live recordings of group were released as VSOP, VSOP, The Quintet, VSOP, Tempest in the Colosseum and VSOP. Hubbards trumpet playing was featured on the track Zanzibar, on the 1978 Billy Joel album 52nd Street, the track ends with a fade during Hubbards performance. An unfaded version was released on the 2004 Billy Joel box set My Lives, Hubbard played at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1980 and in 1989. He played with Woody Shaw, recording with him in 1985, in 1988 he teamed up once more with Blakey at an engagement in the Netherlands, from which came Feel the Wind. In 1988, Hubbard played with Elton John, contributing trumpet and flugelhorn and trumpet solos on the track Mona Lisas and he also performed at the Warsaw Jazz Festival, at which Live at the Warsaw Jazz Festival was recorded. His best records ranked with the finest in his field, in 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts accorded Hubbard its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award
35.
Thelma Houston
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Thelma Houston is an American singer and actress. She scored a hit in 1977 with her cover version of the song Dont Leave Me This Way. Houston was born in Leland, Mississippi and she is the daughter of a cotton picking mother. She and her three sisters grew up primarily in Long Beach, California, after marrying and having two children, she joined the Art Reynolds Singers gospel group and was subsequently signed as a recording artist with Dunhill Records. She is not related to Whitney Houston, in 1969, Houston released her debut album, entitled Sunshower, produced, arranged and composed by Jimmy Webb except for one track. In 1971 she signed with Motown Records but her recordings with them were largely unsuccessful. Her most notable single during that period was Youve Been Doing Wrong for So Long which peaked at #64 on the U. S. Billboard R&B chart in 1974, however Houstons vocal prowess on that track secured her a nomination for a Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. In April 1974 Houston joined the cast of The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, the show was canceled in August and for the next several years her work was limited to demo recordings and performing at small venues. Houston took acting classes and received her first role in the 1975 made-for-television film Death Scream. In that same year Sheffield Lab released Ive Got the Music in Me a Direct to disc recording by Thelma Houston, the following year she recorded songs for the soundtrack of the film The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings starring Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones. That year Houstons version of Do You Know Where Youre Going To was being set for release when it was pulled. In 1976 Houston sang backing vocals for Motown labelmate Jermaine Jackson on his album My Name Is Jermaine, Houston released her third album Any Way You Like It in 1976. The first single released was her version of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes 1975 song Dont Leave Me This Way. In February 1977 the track hit Number 1 in the U. S. on the R&B and Club Play Singles charts, Dont Leave Me This Way won Houston the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the Grammys for 1977. Also in 1977 Houston teamed up with Jerry Butler to record the album Thelma & Jerry and that November 1977 she co-starred in the film Game Show Models. The impact of If Its the Last Thing I Do was far less than that of Dont Leave Me This Way, as the former fell short of both the R&B Top Ten and the Pop Top 40. With the lead single from her 1978 album The Devil in Me, Im Here Again, the albums second single, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, gradually accrued airplay entering the national charts in March 1979 and ascending as high as #34 that June. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning was issued on a new album by Houston, Ride to the Rainbow, the constant ranking of her 1980s releases as moderate or minor R&B hits led Houston to concentrate on alternate exposure
36.
Cannonball Adderley
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Julian Edwin Cannonball Adderley was a jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is remembered for his 1966 single Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, a hit on the pop charts. He was the brother of jazz cornetist Nat Adderley, a member of his band. Originally from Tampa, Florida, Adderley moved to New York in 1955 and his nickname derived from cannibal, a title imposed on him by high school colleagues as a tribute to his voracious appetite. Cannonball moved to Tallahassee, when his parents obtained teaching positions at Florida A&M University, both Cannonball and brother Nat played with Ray Charles when Charles lived in Tallahassee during the early 1940s. Cannonball was a legend in Southeast Florida until he moved to New York City in 1955. One of his known addresses in New York was in the neighborhood of Corona and he left Florida originally to seek graduate studies at New York conservatories, but one night in 1955 he brought his saxophone with him to the Café Bohemia. Adderley formed his own group with his brother Nat after signing onto the Savoy jazz label in 1957 and he was noticed by Miles Davis, and it was because of his blues-rooted alto saxophone that Davis asked him to play with his group. He joined the Davis band in October 1957, three months prior to the return of John Coltrane to the group, some of Daviss finest trumpet work can be found on Adderleys first solo album Somethin Else, which was recorded shortly after the two giants met. Adderley then played on the seminal Davis records Milestones and Kind of Blue and this period also overlapped with pianist Bill Evans time with the sextet, an association that led to recording Portrait of Cannonball and Know What I Mean. His interest as an educator carried over to his recordings, in 1961, Cannonball narrated The Childs Introduction to Jazz, released on Riverside Records. The Cannonball Adderley Quintet featured Cannonball on alto sax and his brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Cannonballs first quintet was not very successful, however, after leaving Davis group, he formed another, again with his brother, which enjoyed more success. By the end of the 1960s, Adderleys playing began to reflect the influence of the jazz, avant-garde. On his albums from this period, such as Accent on Africa and The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free, he began doubling on soprano saxophone, showing the influence of Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. In 1975 he also appeared in a role alongside José Feliciano. Songs made famous by Adderley and his bands include This Here, The Jive Samba, Work Song, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, a cover version of Pops Staples Why. also entered the charts. His instrumental Sack o Woe was covered by Manfred Mann on their debut album and he had a cerebral hemorrhage and four weeks later, on August 8,1975, he died at St. Mary Methodist Hospital in Gary, Indiana. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee, later that year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
37.
Tom Scott (musician)
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Thomas Wright Tom Scott is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, conductor and bandleader of the west coast jazz/jazz fusion ensemble the L. A. Express. Scott was born in Los Angeles, California,1 hit single Listen to What the Man Said for Wings. In 1976 he played the theme I Still Cant Sleep in Taxi Driver, in 1982, Scott collaborated with Johnny Mathis to write and record two versions – lyrical and instrumental – of Without Us, the theme to the 80s sitcom Family Ties. His version of Today was sampled in the Pete Rock & CL Smooth 1992 hit They Reminisce Over You. In the Philippines, his best known hit is Keep This Love Alive, which is a cut from his 1991 album of the same title, scotts professional career began as a teenager, as leader of a jazz ensemble Neoteric Trio, and then as a first-call session musician. He has dozens of recordings for which he collected thirteen Grammy nominations. He produced two albums for tenor vocalist Daniel Rodriguez, formerly ‘The Singing Policeman’, the first of which, Scott is also a member of the Les Deux Love Orchestra and has conducted over thirty symphony orchestras around the U. S. as music director for Rodriguez. Scott was a member of the Blues Brothers Band, despite his absence in the two films, The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000. According to Bob Woodwards account in John Belushis biography, Wired, however, he reunited with Dan Aykroyd and the Blues Brothers Band in 1988 to record a few tracks for The Great Outdoors. Guitarist Robben Ford credits Scott and Roger Kellaway, whom he met while playing for Joni Mitchell, as a major influence on his musical development. A
38.
Rita Coolidge
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Rita Coolidge is an American recording artist and songwriter. Coolidge was born in Lafayette, Tennessee, Coolidge attended Nashvilles Maplewood High School. She graduated from Andrew Jackson Senior High in Jacksonville, Florida and she is a member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. She is of Scottish and self-identified Cherokee ancestry and she graduated from Florida State University in 1967. Coolidge is a graduate of Florida State University and she sang for Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills. She was featured in Joe Cockers Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and album, singing Russells and she became known as The Delta Lady and inspired Russell to write a song of the same name for her. In November 1970, she met Kris Kristofferson at the Los Angeles airport when they were catching the same flight to Tennessee. He got off in Memphis with her, rather than continue to his destination in Nashville. Coolidge also was among the first hosts on VH1, a U. S. cable network, in 2006, she recorded a standards album, And So Is Love. Clapton, impressed by the piece, convinced Gordon to allow it to be used as part of the song in the coda section. Though only Gordon has been credited with this part, the bands keyboardist Bobby Whitlock claims, Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend. I know because in the Delaney & Bonnie days, I lived in John Garfields old house in the Hollywood Hills, Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called Time. Her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with her husband, Booker T. Jones, Jim took the melody from Ritas song and didnt give her credit for writing it. Time ended up on the 1973 album Chronicles by Booker T. Coolidge is the daughter of Dick and Charlotte Coolidge, a minister and schoolteacher, with sisters Linda and Priscilla, and brother Raymond. Coolidge was married to Kris Kristofferson from 1973 to 1980 and she was also involved with Leon Russell and Joe Cocker during their Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. Ritas sister Priscilla Coolidge was also a singer & recording artist, Priscilla married Booker T. Jones of the popular 60s R&B band Booker T & The MGs in 1969, followed by TV journalist/broadcaster/reporter Ed Bradley in 1981. Seibert and Priscilla were found dead in their home in October 2014, Coolidge now lives in Fallbrook, California. She is currently a painter and has exhibited her work, Coolidge is also a sister of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority
39.
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
40.
Neil Diamond
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Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor. One of the worlds best-selling artists of all time, he has sold over 120 million records worldwide since the start of his career in the 1960s. With 38 songs in the Top 10, he is the second most successful artist in the history of the Billboard Adult Contemporary Top 10 charts and his songs have been covered internationally by many performers from a variety of musical genres. Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock, additionally, he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and in 2011 was an honoree at Kennedy Center. On the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, he has had eleven No, Sweet Caroline is played frequently at sporting events, and has become an anthem for the Boston Red Sox. Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family descended from Russian and his parents were Rose and Akeeba Kieve Diamond, a dry-goods merchant. He grew up in homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In Brooklyn he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and they were not close friends at the time, Diamond recalls, We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes, after his family moved he then attended Abraham Lincoln High School, and was a member of the fencing team. For his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar, and the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs, he said. He adds that his attraction to songwriting was the first real interest he had growing up, Diamond also used his newly-developing skill at writing lyrics to write poetry. By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school and his male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them which they would sing and use with equal success. He spent the following his graduation as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would, years later, Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship. His skill at fencing made him a member of the 1960 NCAA mens championship team, however, he was often bored in classes, and found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley where he tried to get some of his songs heard by music publishers. By his senior year, and just 10 units short of graduation, Sunbeam Music Publishing offered him a 16-week job writing songs for $50 a week, and he dropped out of college to accept it. After his 16 weeks at Sunbeam Music were up, he was not rehired, I never really chose songwriting, he says
41.
The Pointer Sisters
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The Pointer Sisters are an American R&B singing group from Oakland, California, that achieved mainstream success during the 1970s and 1980s. Spanning over four decades, their repertoire has included such genres as pop, disco, jazz, electronic music, bebop, blues, soul, funk, dance, country. The Pointer Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, the group had 13 US top 20 hits between 1973 and 1985. The group had its origins when sisters June and Bonnie Pointer began performing in clubs in 1969 as Pointers, the line-up grew to a trio when sister Anita Pointer joined them. They scored a deal with Atlantic Records and released several unsuccessful singles. The trio grew to a quartet when sister Ruth joined in December 1972 and they then signed with Blue Thumb Records, recorded their debut album, and began seeing more success, winning a Grammy Award in 1975 for Best Country Vocal Performance for Fairytale. Bonnie left the group in 1978 to commence a career with only modest success. The group achieved its greatest commercial success as a trio during the 1980s consisting of the line-up of June, Ruth, and Anita, winning two more Grammys for the top 10 hits Jump and Automatic. The groups other U. S. top 10 hits are Fire, Hes So Shy, Slow Hand, the remixed version of Im So Excited and Neutron Dance. June Pointer, the youngest sister, struggled with addiction for much of her career, leaving the group in April 2004 and dying from extensive cancer in April 2006. She was replaced by Ruths daughter Issa Pointer and this trio had a number two hit in Belgium in 2005, covering Sisters Are Doin It for Themselves with Belgian singer Natalia. Since 2009, the group has consisted of Anita, Ruth, Issa, while all four women remain in the group, they most often perform as a trio rotating the lineup as needed. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked them as the 80th most successful artists of all-time. As children in West Oakland, the Pointer sisters and brothers were encouraged to listen to and sing music by their parents Reverend Elton Pointer. However, they were rock and roll and the blues were the devils music. They regularly sang at a local Church of God in Christ congregation in West Oakland, the sisters graduated from Oakland Technical High School, Ruth in 1963, Anita in 1965, and Bonnie in 1968. After leaving school Ruth, the oldest sister, was married with two children Faun and Malik, Anita, the second oldest sister, also was married with a child Jada. Bonnie, the third oldest sister, and June sought a business career and they formed a duo, Pointers
42.
Helen Reddy
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Helen Maxine Lamond Reddy is an Australian singer, actress, and activist. In the 1970s, she enjoyed success, especially in the United States. Six made the Top 10 and three reached No,1, including her signature hit I Am Woman. She is often referred to as the Queen of 70s Pop, Reddy placed 25 songs on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart,15 made the Top 10 and eight reached No. In 1974, at the inaugural American Music Awards, she became the first artist to win the award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and she was the first Australian to have three No.1 hits in the same year. In television, she was the first Australian to host her own weekly primetime variety show on an American network. Reddy retired from performance in 2002, returned to university in Australia and earned her degree. In 2011, after singing Breezin Along with the Breeze with her sister, Toni Lamond, for Tonis birthday and her song I Am Woman played a large role in popular culture and became an anthem for second-wave feminism. She came to be known as a feminist poster girl or a feminist icon, in 2011, Billboard named her the No.28 adult contemporary artist of all time. Helen Reddy was born into a well-known Australian show business family in Melbourne and her mother, Stella Campbell, was an actress, and her father, Maxwell David Max Reddy, was a writer, producer, and actor. Her half-sister, Toni Lamond, and her nephew, Tony Sheldon, are actor-singers and she has Irish, Scottish and English ancestry. Her great grandfather, Scotsman Thomas Lamond, was a mayor of Waterloo, New South Wales, whose patron was Hercules Robinson. Her maternal grandmother, Stella Lamond, sang and danced in small parts at the Majestic Theatre in Sydney, patsy Reddy, New Zealands Governor-General, is a distant cousin. Reddy was born during World War II, six weeks before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and her father was a sergeant in the Australian Army with a unit of entertainers, he served alongside one of his actor friends, Peter Finch. They were serving together in New Guinea at the time of Helens birth and her father returned to service during the Korean War. At age four, she joined her parents on the Australian vaudeville circuit, singing and dancing, she recalled, It was instilled in me, so between the ages of 12 and 17, I got rebellious and decided this was not for me. I was going to be a housewife and mother, despite possessing only $200 and a return ticket to Australia, she elected to remain in the United States with 3-year-old Traci and pursue a singing career. Reddy recalled her 1966 appearance at the Three Rivers Inn in Syracuse, Wald recalled that he and Reddy married three days after meeting and, along with daughter Traci, the couple took up residence at the Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village
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