1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Elvis Presley
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Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is referred to as the King of Rock and Roll. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis and his music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was a popularizer of rockabilly. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, Presleys first RCA single, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances. In November 1956, Presley made his debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service, in 1973, Presley featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. Several years of drug abuse severely damaged his health. Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century and he won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. Presley was born on January 8,1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley, Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered stillborn 35 minutes before his own birth. Thus, as a child, Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God, where he found his musical inspiration. Although he was in conflict with the Pentecostal church in his later years, rev. Rex Humbard officiated at his funeral, as Presley had been an admirer of Humbards ministry. Presleys ancestry was primarily a Western European mix, including Scots-Irish, Scottish, German, gladyss great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was possibly a Cherokee Native American. Gladys was regarded by relatives and friends as the dominant member of the small family, Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, evincing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance, the Presleys survived the F5 tornado in the 1936 Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of kiting a check written by the landowner, Orville S. Bean and he was jailed for eight months, and Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives
3.
Christmas music
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Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music was a feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works intended for use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the written in the vernacular. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing, later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England, Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan, like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwells interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday and this attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of Father Christmas. The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the holy day in the calendar in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognised this in 1645 and its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend which continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William Sandyss Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world. Christmas festivities, including music, are celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the Santa Claus Village, in Rovaniemi. The tradition of singing Christmas carols in return for alms or charity began in England in the century after the Restoration. Also from the century, there was the English custom, predominantly involving women, of taking a wassail bowl to their neighbours to solicit gifts. The status of Christmas as an important feast within the year also means there is a long tradition of music specially composed for celebrating the season. S. This is in due to the efforts of amateur choral societies during the nineteenth century. When it was composed, it was performed during Passiontide, jakub Jan Ryba, Czech Christmas Mass Hey, Master
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.
Gospel music
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Gospel music is a music genre in Christian music. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music varies according to culture. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, Gospel music usually has dominant vocals with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century, with roots in the oral tradition. Hymns and sacred songs were repeated in a call and response fashion, most of the churches relied on hand clapping and foot stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella, the first published use of the term Gospel Song probably appeared in 1874. The original gospel songs were written and composed by such as George F. Root, Philip Bliss, Charles H. Gabriel, William Howard Doane. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music, following World War II, gospel music moved into major auditoriums, and gospel music concerts became quite elaborate. Gospel blues is a form of gospel music. Southern gospel used all male, tenor-lead-baritone-bass quartet make-up, progressive Southern gospel is an American music genre that has grown out of Southern gospel over the past couple of decades. Christian country music, sometimes referred to as gospel music, is a subgenre of gospel music with a country flair. It peaked in popularity in the mid-1990s, bluegrass gospel music is rooted in American mountain music. Celtic gospel music infuses gospel music with a Celtic flair, and is popular in countries such as Ireland. British black gospel refers to Gospel music of the African diaspora, some proponents of standard hymns generally dislike gospel music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, with distance, there is a greater acceptance of such gospel songs into official denominational hymnals. Gospel music in general is characterized by dominant vocals referencing lyrics of a Christian nature, subgenres include contemporary gospel, urban contemporary gospel, Southern gospel, and modern gospel music. Several forms of gospel music utilize choirs, use piano or Hammond organ, tambourines, drums, bass guitar and, increasingly, electric guitar. In comparison with hymns, which are generally of a statelier measure, several attempts have been made to describe the style of late 19th and early 20th century gospel songs in general
6.
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
7.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
8.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
9.
Jailhouse Rock (EP)
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Jailhouse Rock is an extended-play, seven-inch 45 RPM record released on RCA Victor, catalogue EPA4114, during November 1957. Recording sessions took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood on April 30 and May 3,1957 and it peaked at #1 on the newly inaugurated Billboard EP chart. Unlike Loving You but like Love Me Tender, a full long-playing album soundtrack was not devised for Jailhouse Rock, the title song Jailhouse Rock had already been released as a single on September 24,1957, and went to #1 on the singles chart. The writing and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller played prominent roles in the making of the soundtrack, writing four of its songs and working with Presley closely in the studio. Dont Leave Me Now had also appeared on the Loving You album, additional original music for the film was composed by producer Jeff Alexander, and the song sung by the Hunk Houghton character, One Day, was by Roy C. Bennett and Sid Tepper. The songs from the EP are available on the 1950s box set from 1992, three tracks were previously unreleased alternate takes, along with two newly mixed stereo versions of Love Me Tender and Poor Boy. Elvis Presley – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric bass Scotty Moore – electric guitar Dudley Brooks – piano Bill Black – double bass, fontana – drums The Jordanaires – background vocals
10.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s
11.
Blue Christmas (song)
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Blue Christmas is a Christmas song written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson and most famously performed by Elvis Presley. It is a tale of unrequited love during the holidays and is a staple of Christmas music. Both Morgans and Winterhalters versions featured a shorter pop edit of the original lyrics, Elvis Presley cemented the status of Blue Christmas as a rock-and-roll holiday classic by recording it for his 1957 LP Elvis Christmas Album. In addition to contributing to the tone of the song. Presleys original 1957 version was released as a commercially available single for the first time in 1964 and this single was also a hit in the United Kingdom, reaching No.11 on the British singles chart during the week of 26 December 1964. A track on The Beach Boys Christmas Album, the Beach Boys version reached No.3 on the US Christmas charts, but did not chart in the UK. Following the success of Presleys version, the song has been recorded by a host of rock and country artists,1960, The Browns version peaked at No.97 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in December 1960. 2016, The Lumineers did a cover,2016, Black Stone Cherry did a cover
12.
AllMusic
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AllMusic is an online music guide service website. It was launched in 1991 by All Media Guide which later became All Media Network, AllMusic was launched in 1991 by Michael Erlewine of All Media Guide. The aim was to discographic information on every artist whos made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost and its first reference book was published the following year. When first released onto the Internet, AMG predated the World Wide Web and was first available as a Gopher site, the AMG consumer web properties AllMusic. com, AllMovie. com and AllGame. com were sold by Rovi in July 2013 to All Media Network, LLC. All Media Network, LLC. was formed by the founders of SideReel. com. The following are contributors to AllMusic, as of this date, All Media Network also produced the AllMusic guide series that includes the AllMusic Guide to Rock, the All Music Guide to Jazz and the All Music Guide to the Blues. Vladimir Bogdanov is the president of the series, in August 2007, PC Magazine included AllMusic in its Top 100 Classic Websites list. All Media Network AllGame AllMovie SideReel All Music Guide to the Blues All Music Guide to Jazz Stephen Thomas Erlewine Official website
13.
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
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The Rolling Stone Album Guide, previously known as The Rolling Stone Record Guide, is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from Rolling Stone magazine. Its first edition was published in 1979 and its last in 2004, the guide can be seen at Rate Your Music, while a list of albums given a five star rating by the guide can be seen at Rocklist. net. The Rolling Stone Record Guide was the first edition of what would later become The Rolling Stone Album Guide and it was edited by Dave Marsh and John Swenson, and included contributions from 34 other music critics. It is divided into sections by musical genre and then lists artists alphabetically within their respective genres, Albums are also listed alphabetically by artist although some of the artists have their careers divided into chronological periods. Dave Marsh, in his Introduction, cites as precedents Leonard Maltins book TV Movies and he gives Phonolog and Schwanns Records & Tape Guide as raw sources of information. The first edition included black and white photographs of many of the covers of albums which received five star reviews and these titles are listed together in the Five-Star Records section, which is coincidentally five pages in length. The edition also included reviews for many artists including Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, Bill Cosby, The Firesign Theatre, Spike Jones. Comedy artists were listed in the catch-all section Rock, Soul, Country and Pop, which included the genres of folk, bluegrass, funk, traditional pop performers were not included, with the notable exceptions of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Included too were some artists who might now be considered as world music. Big band jazz was handled selectively, with certain band leaders omitted, many other styles of jazz did appear in the Jazz section. The book was notable for the time in the provocative, in your style of many of its reviews. For example, writing about Neil Youngs song, Down by the River and his colleague, Dave Marsh, in reviewing the three albums of the jazz fusion group Chase, gave a one-word review, Flee. Good, a record of average worth, but one that might possess considerable appeal for fans of a particular style, mediocre, a record that is artistically insubstantial, though not truly wretched. Poor, a record where even technical competence is at question or it was remarkably ill-conceived, worthless, a record that need never have been created. Reserved for the most bathetic bathwater, Dave Marsh John Swenson Billy Altman Bob Blumenthal Georgia Christgau Jean-Charles Costa Chet Flippo Russell Gersten Mikal Gilmore Alan E. Like the first edition, it was edited by Dave Marsh and it included contributions from 52 music critics and featured chronological album listings under the name of each artist. In many cases, updates from the first edition consist of short, the only difference is that in addition to a rating, the second edition employs the pilcrow mark to indicate a title that was out of print at the time the guide was published. Many records had their ratings lowered as the book now offered a revisionist slant to rocks history and it included contributions from 16 music critics and featured alphabetical album listings under the name of each artist
14.
Christmas album
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Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music was a feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works intended for use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the written in the vernacular. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing, later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England, Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan, like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwells interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday and this attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of Father Christmas. The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the holy day in the calendar in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognised this in 1645 and its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend which continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William Sandyss Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world. Christmas festivities, including music, are celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the Santa Claus Village, in Rovaniemi. The tradition of singing Christmas carols in return for alms or charity began in England in the century after the Restoration. Also from the century, there was the English custom, predominantly involving women, of taking a wassail bowl to their neighbours to solicit gifts. The status of Christmas as an important feast within the year also means there is a long tradition of music specially composed for celebrating the season. S. This is in due to the efforts of amateur choral societies during the nineteenth century. When it was composed, it was performed during Passiontide, jakub Jan Ryba, Czech Christmas Mass Hey, Master
15.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
16.
Billboard 200
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The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists, often, a recording act will be remembered by its number ones, those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart is based mostly on sales of albums in the United States, the weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, tracking week begins on Friday and ends on Thursday. A new chart is published the following Tuesday with an issue post-dated to the Saturday of the following week, the charts streaming schedule is also tracked from Friday to Thursday. Example, Friday January 1 – sales tracking week begins Thursday January 7 – sales tracking week ends Tuesday January 12 – new chart published, New product is released to the American market on Fridays. Digital downloads of albums are included in Billboard 200 tabulation. Albums that are not licensed for sale in the United States are not eligible to chart. As of the issue dated April 15,2017, the album on the Billboard 200 is More Life by Drake. Billboard began an album chart in 1945, initially only five positions long, the album chart was not published on a weekly basis, sometimes three to seven weeks passing before it was updated. A biweekly, 15-position Best-Selling Popular Albums chart appeared in 1955, the position count varied anywhere from 10 to 30 albums. The first number-one album on the new weekly list was Belafonte by Harry Belafonte, the chart was renamed to Best-Selling Pop Albums later in 1956, and then to Best-Selling Pop LPs in 1957. Beginning on May 25,1959, Billboard split the ranking into two charts Best-Selling Stereophonic LPs for stereo albums and Best-Selling Monophonic LPs for mono albums and these were renamed to Stereo Action Charts and Mono Action Charts in 1960. In January 1961, they became Action Albums—Stereophonic and Action Albums—Monophonic, three months later, they became Top LPs—Stereo and Top LPs—Monaural. On August 17,1963 the stereo and mono charts were combined into a 150-position chart called Top LPs, on April 1,1967, the chart was expanded to 175 positions, then finally to 200 positions on May 13,1967. In 1960, Billboard began concurrently publishing album charts which ranked sales of older or mid-priced titles and these Essential Inventory charts were divided by stereo and mono albums, and featured titles that had already appeared on the main stereo and mono album charts. In January 1961, the Action Charts became Action Albums—Monophonic, Albums appeared on either chart for up to nine weeks, then were moved to an Essential Inventory list of approximately 200 titles, with no numerical ranking. This list continued to be published until the consolidated Top LPs chart debuted in 1963, in 1982, Billboard began publishing a Midline Albums chart which ranked older or mid-priced titles. The chart held 50 positions and was published on a bi-weekly basis, on May 25,1991, Billboard premiered the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart
17.
Elvis sings The Wonderful World of Christmas
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Elvis sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas is a 1971 album by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, and Elvis second and final Christmas album. The album was released in October 1971, followed by the single from the album Merry Christmas Baby / O Come All Ye Faithful released in November 1971. This album was a top seller and topped the Billboard Holiday Albums Chart and it did not have the commercial appeal of Elvis’ first Christmas album. Over the years, it has become a perennial favorite and it was certified Gold on November 4,1977, Platinum on December 1,1977, 2x Platinum on May 20,1988 and 3x Platinum on July 15,1999 by the RIAA. Presley is accompanied on most of the songs by The Imperials Quartet, on later pressings, the song Blue Christmas, which was recorded on June 27,1968, was added to the track listing. The song had previously released on the 1968 album, Elvis. Elvis sings The Wonderful World of Christmas at Discogs
18.
Recording Industry Association of America
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The Recording Industry Association of America is a continental North and South American trade organization that represents the recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors, which the RIAA says create, the RIAA headquarters is in Washington, D. C. The RIAA was formed in 1952 and its original mission was to administer recording copyright fees and problems, work with trade unions, and do research relating to the record industry and government regulations. Early RIAA standards included the RIAA equalization curve, the format of the record groove and the dimensions of 33 1/3 rpm,45 rpm. Since 2001, the RIAA has spent $2 to $6 million each year on lobbying in the United States, the RIAA also participates in the collective rights management of sound recordings, and it is responsible for certifying Gold and Platinum albums and singles in the United States. Cary Sherman has been the RIAAs chairman and CEO since 2011, Sherman joined the RIAA as its general counsel in 1997 and became president of the board of directors in 2001, serving in that position until being made chairman and CEO. Mitch Glazier has been the RIAAs senior executive vice president since 2011 and he served as executive vice president for public policy and industry relations from 2000 to 2011. The past RIAA chairman and CEO is Mitch Bainwol, who served from 2003 to 2011 and he left in 2011 to become president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The board of directors consists of 26 members of the board, the RIAA operates an award program for albums that sell a large number of copies. The program originally began in 1958, with a Gold Award for singles, the criterion was changed in 1975 to the number of copies sold, with albums selling 500,000 copies awarded the Gold Award. In 1976, a Platinum Award was added for one million sales, the awards are open to both RIAA members and non-members. Since 2000, the RIAA also operates a program for Latin music sales. Currently, a Disco De Oro is awarded for 30,000 units, the RIAA defines Latin music as a type of release with 51% or more of its content recorded in Spanish. In 2006, digital ringtones were added to branch of certification. In the same year, the RIAA introduced the Latin Digital Award for digital recordings in Spanish and this release format includes DVD and VHS releases, and certain live albums and compilation albums. The certification criteria is different from other styles. Gold,50,000 Platinum,100,000 Multi-Platinum,200,000 copies The RIAA opposes unauthorized sharing of its music, studies conducted since the association began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to moderate. The association has commenced high-profile lawsuits against file sharing service providers and it has also commenced a series of lawsuits against individuals suspected of file sharing, notably college students and parents of file sharing children
19.
Extended play
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An extended play is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP. EPs generally do not contain as many tracks as albums, and are considered less expensive, an EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well. Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, EPs—originally extended-play single releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk, in the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of length or four tracks. EPs were released in various sizes in different eras, the earliest multi-track records, issued around 1919 by Grey Gull Records, were vertically cut 78 rpm discs known as 2-in-1 records. These had finer than usual grooves, like Edison Disc Records, by 1949, when the 45 rpm single and 33 1⁄3 rpm LP were competing formats, seven-inch 45 rpm singles had a maximum playing time of only about four minutes per side. Partly as an attempt to compete with the LP introduced in 1948 by rival Columbia, RCA Victor introduced Extended Play 45s during 1952. Their narrower grooves, achieved by lowering the levels and sound compression optionally. These were usually 10-inch LPs split onto two seven-inch EPs or 12-inch LPs split onto three seven-inch EPs, either separately or together in gatefold covers. This practice became less common with the advent of triple-speed-available phonographs. Some classical music albums released at the beginning of the LP era were distributed as EP albums—notably the seven operas that Arturo Toscanini conducted on radio between 1944 and 1954. These opera EPs, originally broadcast on the NBC Radio network and manufactured by RCA, in the 1990s, they began appearing on compact discs. During the 1950s, RCA published several EP albums of Walt Disney movies and these usually featured the original casts of actors and actresses. Each album contained two seven-inch records, plus an illustrated booklet containing the text of the recording, so that children could follow along by reading. Some of the titles included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and what was then a recent release, because of the popularity of 7 and other formats, SP records became less popular and the production of SPs in Japan was suspended in 1963. In the 1950s and 1960s, EPs were usually compilations of singles or album samplers and were played at 45 rpm on seven-inch discs. Record Retailer printed the first EP chart in 1960, the New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Disc and Music Echo and the Record Mirror continued to list EPs on their respective singles charts. The Beatles Twist and Shout outsold most singles for some weeks in 1963, when the BBC and Record Retailer commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to compile a chart it was restricted to singles and EPs disappeared from the listings. In the Philippines, seven-inch EPs marketed as mini-LPs were introduced in 1970, with tracks selected from an album and this mini-LP format also became popular in America in the early 1970s for promotional releases, and also for use in jukeboxes
20.
Peace in the Valley (EP)
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Peace in the Valley is an extended play single by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono, catalogue number EPA4054, in April 1957. The recordings included were taken from sessions on January 12,13 and it reached number three on the short-lived Billboard EP chart, and number three on the album chart, and number 39 on the singles chart. By the 1950s, Presleys hometown of Memphis, Tennessee had become a center for music in the United States. Presley grew up listening to music, and maintained an abiding love for gospel singing his entire life. This EP initiated Presleys commercial presentation of this interest, Presley would go on to make many more recordings of spiritual music, including the issue of the gospel albums His Hand In Mine, How Great Thou Art, and He Touched Me. All four selections are gospel classics, including two by Thomas A. Dorsey the father of black gospel, the four songs are all reverential in spirit, rather than celebratory, uptempo gospel songs. Six months after the appearance of this EP, the four songs issued here would be added to eight recordings of Christmas songs for his first holiday album, J. Fontana – drums Neal Matthews - Jordanaires group member Hugh Jarrett - Jordanaires group member
21.
Billboard Hot 100
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The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales, radio play and online streaming, the weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday, when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming data, is available on a real-time basis. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays, as of the issue for the week ending on April 15,2017, the Hot 100 has had 1,061 different number one hits. The current number one song is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, prior to 1955, Billboard did not have a unified, all-encompassing popularity chart, instead measuring songs by individual metrics. At the start of the era in 1955, three such charts existed, Best Sellers in Stores was the first Billboard chart, established in 1936. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country, Most Played by Jockeys was Billboards original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio disc jockeys, Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes across the United States. On the week ending November 12,1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time, the Top 100 combined all aspects of a singles performance, based on a point system that typically gave sales more weight than radio airplay. The Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart. The week ending July 28,1958 was the publication of the Most Played By Jockeys and Top 100 charts. On August 4,1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart, the Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13,1958. The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a songs popularity is measured in the United States, the Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan and streaming activity provided by online music sources. There are several component charts that contribute to the calculation of the Hot 100. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with Arbitron listener data. Hot Singles Sales, the top selling singles compiled from a sample of retail store, mass merchant and internet sales reports collected, compiled. The chart is released weekly and measures sales of commercial singles. With the decline in sales of singles in the US
22.
Christmas carol
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A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas, and which is traditionally sung on Christmas itself or during the surrounding holiday season. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the category of Christmas music. The first known Christmas hymns may be traced to 4th century Rome, Latin hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium, written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. Corde natus ex Parentis by the Spanish poet Prudentius is still sung in churches today. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas Sequence or Prose was introduced in Northern European monasteries, in the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol. In the 13th century, in France, Germany, and particularly, Italy, the songs we know specifically as carols were originally communal songs sung during celebrations like harvest tide as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols begun to be sung in church, many carols which have gained popularity today were printed in Piae Cantiones, a collection of late medieval Latin songs which was first published in 1582. Early, Latin forms of such as Christ was born on Christmas Day, Good Christian Men, Rejoice. Adeste Fideles appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, the origin of the tune is disputed. Carols gained in popularity after the Reformation in the countries where Protestant churches gained prominence and this was a consequence of the fact that the Lutheran reformation warmly welcomed music. The publication of Christmas music books in the 19th century helped to widen the appeal of carols. The first appearance in print of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships, the Herald Angels Sing was in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern by William Sandys. The publication in 1871 of Christmas Carols, New and Old by Henry Ramsden Bramley, in 1916, Charles Lewis Hutchins published Carols Old and Carols New, a scholarly collection which suffered from a short print run and is consequently rarely available today. The singing of carols was further popularised in the 20th century when OUP published one of the most popular books in the English-speaking world. First published in 1961 and edited by David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, today carols are regularly sung at Christian religious services. Some compositions have words that are not of a religious theme. For example, the 16th century song A Bone, God Wot. appears to be a wassailing song, as recently as 1865, Christmas-related lyrics were adopted for the traditional English folk song Greensleeves, becoming the internationally popular Christmas carol “What Child is This. ”. It is not clear whether the word derives from the French carole or the Latin carula meaning a circular dance
23.
Spiritual (music)
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Spirituals are generally Christian songs that were created by African slaves in the United States. Spirituals were originally a tradition that imparted Christian values while also describing the hardships of slavery. Although spirituals were originally unaccompanied monophonic songs, they are best known today in harmonized choral arrangements and this historic group of uniquely American songs is now recognized as a distinct genre of music. Slave Songs of the United States, the first major collection of Negro spirituals, was published in 1867 and they are a result of the interaction of music and religion from Africa with music and religion of European origin. Further, this occurred only in the United States. Africans who converted to Christianity in other parts of the world, even in the Caribbean and Latin America, Negro spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith. Some may also have served as socio-political protests veiled as assimilation to white American culture and they originated among enslaved Africans in the United States. Slavery was introduced to the British colonies in the early 17th century, in the United States, these people would remain in bondage for the entire 18th century and much of the 19th century. Most were not fully emancipated until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, Slaves were forbidden from speaking their native languages, and were generally converted to Christianity. With narrow vocabularies, slaves would use the words they did know to translate biblical information, while some slave owners believed that Christian slaves would be more docile, others came to feel that stories of Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage were counterproductive. Forced conversion only worked to a point since church attendance might be required, some slaves became Christians voluntarily, either because it helped them endure hardships or because membership may have offered other benefits. Many of the Slaves turned towards the Baptist or Methodist churches, in some places enslaved Africans were permitted, or even encouraged, to hold their own prayer meetings. During these meetings, worshipers would sing, chant, dance, along with spirituals, shouts also emerged in the Praise Houses. Shouts begin slowly with the shuffling of feet and clapping of hands, drums were used as they had been in Africa, for communication. When the connection between drumming, communication, and resistance was eventually made drums were forbidden. Slaves introduced a number of new instruments to America, the bones, body percussion, and an instrument variously called the bania, banju, or banjar and they drew on native rhythms and their African heritage. They brought with them from Africa long-standing religious traditions that highlighted the importance of storytelling, Music was an essential element in communicating identity, shared social mores, traditional customs, and ethnic history. The primary function of the spirituals was as communal songs sung in a religious gathering, Negro spirituals may also have served as socio-political protests veiled as assimilation to the white American culture
24.
Thomas A. Dorsey
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Thomas Andrew Dorsey was known as the father of black gospel music and was at one time so closely associated with the field that songs written in the new style were sometimes known as dorseys. Earlier in his life he was a blues pianist known as Georgia Tom. As formulated by Dorsey, gospel music combines Christian praise with the rhythms of jazz, Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, Georgia. He was the director at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois. His best-known composition, Take My Hand, Precious Lord, was performed by Mahalia Jackson and was a favorite of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Another composition, Peace in the Valley, was a hit for Red Foley in 1951 and has performed by dozens of other artists, including Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley. Dorsey died in Chicago, aged 93, the Library of Congress added his album Precious Lord, New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey to the United States National Recording Registry in 2002. Dorseys father was a minister and his mother a piano teacher and he learned to play blues piano as a young man. After studying music formally in Chicago, he became an agent for Paramount Records, in 1924, he put together a band for Ma Rainey called the Wild Cats Jazz Band. He started out playing at rent parties under the names Barrelhouse Tom and Texas Tommy, for a short time around 1926, he accompanied the Pace Jubilee Singers. As Georgia Tom, he teamed up with Tampa Red, with whom he recorded the raunchy 1928 hit record Its Tight Like That, in all, he is credited with more than 400 blues and jazz songs. Dorsey began recording gospel music alongside blues in the mid-1920s and these recordings led to his performance at the National Baptist Convention in 1930, and he became the bandleader of two churches in the early 1930s. His first wife, Nettie, who had been Raineys wardrobe mistress, two days later the child, a son, also died. In his grief, he wrote his most famous song, one of the most famous of all songs, Precious Lord. Unhappy with the treatment received at the hands of established publishers, Dorsey founded the first black gospel music publishing company and he also founded a gospel choir and was a founder and the first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. He influenced not only African-American music but also music by white artists, Precious Lord was recorded by Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, B. B. King, Clara Ward, Dorothy Norwood, Jim Reeves, Roy Rogers, Tennessee Ernie Ford and it was a favorite gospel song of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was sung at the rally held at the Imani Temple the night before his assassination. By his request, it was sung at his funeral by Mahalia Jackson and it was a favorite of President Lyndon B
25.
A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra
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A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra is a Christmas album by American singer Frank Sinatra, originally released by Capitol Records in 1957. This was Sinatras first full-length Christmas album and it features the Ralph Brewster Singers along with an orchestra conducted by Gordon Jenkins. Capitol reissued the album in 1963 with different cover art and a new title, The Sinatra Christmas Album, the original title and cover were eventually restored for subsequent CD pressings in 1990 and 1999. In 2001, the art was altered from its 1957 version. The CD bonus tracks were issued on a 1954 Capitol 45 rpm single. In 2007 the album was reissued yet again, with a 50th Anniversary banner placed atop the 2001 cover art, in 2010, the album was reissued on vinyl for the first time since the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissue, #1-135, c. 1986, exclusively to independent record stores
26.
Christmas
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In several countries, celebrating Christmas Eve on December 24 has the main focus rather than December 25, with gift-giving and sharing a traditional meal with the family. Although the month and date of Jesus birth are unknown, by the fourth century the Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25. Today, most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar and this is not a disagreement over the date of Christmas as such, but rather a preference of which calendar should be used to determine the day that is December 25. Although it is not known why December 25 became a date of celebration, December 25 was the date the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the shortest, and therefore darkest day of the year. Jesus was identified with the Sun based on an Old Testament verse, the date is exactly nine months following Annunciation, when the conception of Jesus is celebrated. Finally, the Romans had a series of pagan festivals near the end of the year, so Christmas may have been scheduled at this time to appropriate, or compete with, one or more of these festivals. The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, the economic impact of Christmas has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world. Christmas is a form of Christs mass. It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, crīst is from Greek Khrīstos, a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ, Messiah, meaning anointed, and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist. The form Christenmas was also used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal, it derives from Middle English Cristenmasse. In addition to Christmas, the holiday has been known by other names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as midwinter, or, more rarely, Nativity, meaning birth, is from Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola referred to the corresponding to December and January. Noel entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis, the canonical gospels of Luke and Matthew both describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem in Judea, to a virgin mother. In the Gospel of Luke account, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census and it says that angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him. In the Matthew account, magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later settles in Nazareth. The Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke are prominent in the gospels, the first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome in 336. Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century, the feast regained prominence after 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day
27.
White Christmas (song)
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White Christmas is a 1942 Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the single of all time. Other versions of the song, along with Crosbys, have sold over 150 million copies, accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. He often stayed up all night writing—he told his secretary, Grab your pen, I just wrote the best song Ive ever written—heck, I just wrote the best song that anybodys ever written. At first, Crosby did not see anything special about the song and he just said I dont think we have any problems with that one, Irving. The song initially performed poorly and was overshadowed by Holiday Inns first hit song, Be Careful, by the end of October 1942, White Christmas topped the Your Hit Parade chart. It remained in position until well into the new year. A few weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Crosby introduced “White Christmas” on a Christmas Day broadcast, the Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for the song. The recording is noted for Crosbys whistling during the second chorus, in 1942 alone, Crosbys recording spent eleven weeks on top of the Billboard charts. The original version hit number one on the Harlem Hit Parade for three weeks, Crosbys first-ever appearance on the black-oriented chart. Re-released by Decca, the returned to the No.1 spot during the holiday seasons of 1945 and 1946. The recording became a perennial, reappearing annually on the pop chart twenty separate times before Billboard magazine created a distinct Christmas chart for seasonal releases. In Holiday Inn, the won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1942. In the film, Crosby sings White Christmas as a duet with actress Marjorie Reynolds and this now-familiar scene was not the moviemakers initial plan. In the script as originally conceived, Reynolds, not Crosby, the song would feature in another Crosby film, the 1954 musical White Christmas, which became the highest-grossing film of 1954. The version most often heard today on radio during the Christmas season is the 1947 re-recording, the 1942 master was damaged due to frequent use. Crosby re-recorded the track on March 19,1947, accompanied again by the Trotter Orchestra, the re-recording is recognizable by the addition of flutes and celesta in the beginning. Although Crosby dismissed his role in the success, saying later that a jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully
28.
Silent Night
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Silent Night is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared a cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011. The song has been recorded by a number of singers from every music genre. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the third best-selling single of all-time, the song was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village in the Austrian Empire on the Salzach river in present-day Austria. A young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, had come to Oberndorf the year before and he had written the lyrics of the song Stille Nacht in 1816 at Mariapfarr, the hometown of his father in the Salzburg Lungau region, where Joseph had worked as a co-adjutor. The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, schoolmaster and organist in the village of Arnsdorf. Before Christmas Eve, Mohr brought the words to Gruber and asked him to compose a melody, together they performed the new carol during the mass on the night of 24 December. The original manuscript has been lost, however, a manuscript was discovered in 1995 in Mohrs handwriting and dated by researchers as c. 1820. It states that Mohr wrote the words in 1816 when he was assigned to a church in Mariapfarr, Austria. This is the earliest manuscript that exists and the one in Mohrs handwriting. The version of the melody that is used today is a slow, meditative lullaby or pastorale, differing slightly from Grubers original. Today, the lyrics and melody are in the public domain, the carol has been translated into about 140 languages. Max Reger quotes the tune in the Christmas section of his organ pieces Sieben Stücke, several theatrical and television films depict how the song was ostensibly written. Most of them however are based on a legend, about the organ breaking down at the church in Oberndorf. The Legend of Silent Night TV film directed by Daniel Mann Silent Night, Silent Mouse television special directed and produced by Robin Crichton and narrated by Lynn Redgrave. org Text and music, Stille-Nacht-Association, Salzburg Silent Night Chapel, origin of song
29.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
30.
Santa Claus Is Back in Town
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The song has become a rock and roll Christmas standard. Santa Claus Is Back in Town was paired with Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me and was issued as a UK single concurrently with the release in 1957. The single reached #7 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1957, RCA rereleased the song as a 45 vinyl 7 single in 1985, PB-14237B, paired with Merry Christmas, Baby. In 1980, the song reached no.41 on the UK singles chart in December in a chart run. Santa Claus Is Back in Town backed with Blue Christmas was released by RCA Victor as a 45 single in 1965 in the US, the Blue Christmas/Santa Claus is Back in Town single was certified Platinum by the RIAA in 1999. The song was featured on the 2008 Presley album Christmas Duets in a duet with Wynonna Judd, “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” was recorded on September 7,1957 at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California. Many musical artists have covered the song, notably, Dwight Yoakam featured the song on his 1997 Christmas album Come On Christmas and released it as a single. The single reached no.60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, the Elvis Presley recording was a Top Ten chart hit on the UK singles chart and a Top Five hit on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart. The single was certified Platinum by the RIAA, Elvis Presley recording 1980 Elvis Presley re-release Dwight Yoakam recording Iron Man 3 Fred Claus Miracle on 34th Street C. R. A. Z. Y. The Long Kiss Goodnight Guralnick, Peter, the King of Rock n Roll, The Complete 50s Masters, insert booklet. From Nashville to Memphis, The Essential 60s Masters, insert booklet, last Train to Memphis, The Rise of Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley, If Every Day Was Like Christmas, liner notes, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,20 Essential Rock and Roll Holiday Songs. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
31.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
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Lyricist Jerome Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found initial successes as the writers of such hit songs as Hound Dog. Leiber and Stoller wrote hits for Elvis Presley including Love Me, Jailhouse Rock, Loving You, Dont and they were sometimes credited under the pseudonym Elmo Glick. In 1964, they launched Red Bird Records with George Goldner and, focusing on the group sound. In all, Leiber and Stoller wrote or co-wrote over 70 chart hits and they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. After school, Stoller played piano, and Leiber worked in Nortys, a store on Fairfax Avenue. In 1950, Jimmy Witherspoon recorded and performed their first commercial song, Stollers name at birth was Michael Stoller, but he later changed it legally to Mike. Their first hit composition was Hard Times, recorded by Charles Brown, Kansas City, first recorded in 1952 by rhythm & blues singer Little Willie Littlefield, became a No.1 pop hit in 1959 for Wilbert Harrison. In 1952, the partners wrote Hound Dog for blues singer Big Mama Thornton, the 1956 Elvis Presley rock version, which was a takeoff of the adaptation that Presley picked up from Freddie Bells lounge act in Las Vegas, was a much bigger hit. Allen pronounced Presley a good sport, and the Leiber-Stoller song would be linked to Presley. Leiber and Stollers later songs often had more appropriate for pop music, and their combination of rhythm and blues with pop lyrics revolutionized pop, rock and roll. They formed Spark Records in 1953 with their mentor, Lester Sill and their songs from this period include Smokey Joes Cafe and Riot in Cell Block #9, both recorded by The Robins. The label was bought by Atlantic Records, which hired Leiber and Stoller in an innovative deal that allowed them to produce for other labels. This, in effect, made them the first independent record producers, at Atlantic, they revitalized the careers of The Drifters and wrote a number of hits for The Coasters, a spin-off of the Robins. Their songs from this period include Charlie Brown, Searchin, Yakety Yak, Stand By Me, for the Coasters alone, they wrote twenty-four songs that appeared in the US charts. In 1955, Leiber and Stoller produced a recording of their song Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots with a vocal group. Soon after, the song was recorded by Édith Piaf in a French translation titled, the European royalties from another Cheers record, Bazoom, funded a 1956 trip to Europe for Stoller and his first wife, Meryl, on which they met Piaf. Their return to New York was aboard the ill-fated SS Andrea Doria, the Stollers had to finish the journey to New York aboard another ship, the Cape Ann
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Rhythm and blues
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated as R&B or RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, the term rhythm and blues has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s it was applied to blues records. This tangent of RnB is now known as British rhythm and blues, by the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a style of R&B developed, becoming known as Contemporary R&B. It combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop, popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term rhythm and blues as a term in the United States in 1948. It replaced the term race music, which came from within the black community. The term rhythm and blues was used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, before the Rhythm and Blues name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term race music with sepia series. In 2010 LaMont Robinson founded the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Museum, writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans. He has used the term R&B as a synonym for jump blues, however, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of its stronger, gospel-esque backbeat. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm, according to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use to music made by black musicians. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, while singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, an associated with the modern popular music that rhythm. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords, there was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone
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The Coasters
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The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group who had a string of hits in the late 1950s. Beginning with Searchin and Young Blood, their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller. Although the Coasters originated outside of mainstream doo-wop, their records were so frequently imitated that they became an important part of the legacy through the 1960s. The Coasters were formed in October 1955 as a spin-off of the Robins, the original Coasters were Gardner, Nunn, Billy Guy, Leon Hughes, and the guitarist Adolph Jacobs. Jacobs left the group in 1959, the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller started Spark Records and in 1955 produced Smokey Joes Cafe for the Robins. The record was enough for Atlantic Records to offer Leiber and Stoller an independent production contract to produce the Robins for Atlantic. Only two of the Robins—Gardner and Nunn—were willing to make the move to Atlantic, recording their first songs in the studio as the Robins had done. In late 1957, the moved to New York and replaced Nunn and Hughes with Cornell Gunter. The new quartet was then on stationed in New York. The Coasters association with Leiber and Stoller was an immediate success, together they created a string of good-humored storytelling hits that are some of the most entertaining from the original era of rock and roll. According to Leiber and Stoller, getting the humor to come through on the records often required more recording takes than for a musical number. Their first single, Down In Mexico, was an R&B hit in 1956, the following year, the Coasters crossed over to the pop chart in a big way with the double-sided Young Blood/Searchin. Searchin was the groups first U. S, Top 10 hit and topped the R&B chart for 13 weeks, becoming the biggest R&B single of 1957. Yakety Yak, featuring King Curtis on tenor saxophone, included the famous lineup of Gardner, Guy, Jones, and Gunter, the next single, Charlie Brown, reached number 2 on both charts. It was followed by Along Came Jones, Poison Ivy, changing popular tastes and a changes in the groups lineup contributed to a lack of hits in the 1960s. During this time, Billy Guy was also working on solo projects, later members included Earl Speedo Carroll, Ronnie Bright, Jimmy Norman, and guitarist Thomas Curley Palmer. The Coasters signed with Columbia Records Date label in 1966, reuniting with Leiber and Stoller, but never regained their former fame. In 1971, the Coasters had a chart entry with Love Potion Number Nine
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Hound Dog (song)
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Hound Dog is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Thorntons recording of Hound Dog is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fames 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll, Hound Dog has been recorded more than 250 times. Presleys version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and an emblem of the rock n roll revolution. It was simultaneously No.1 on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presleys 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, on August 12,1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton. Thornton had been signed by Diamond Don Robeys Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, after hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass. In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said, She was a blues singer. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style influenced the writing of Hound Dog. Leiber recalled, We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold and she looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a bear, as they used to call em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these all over her face conveying words which could not be sung. But how to do it without saying it. And how to do it telling a story, I couldnt just have a song full of expletives. In 1999, Leiber said, I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase Dirty Mother Furya. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldnt find it, because everything I went for was too coarse, R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre of 1950s rhythm and blues. Said Leiber, Hound Dog took like twelve minutes, thats not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult, also the metric structure of the music was not easy. According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stollers 1937 Plymouth and we got to Johnny Otiss house and Mike went right to the piano…didnt even bother to sit down
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Big Mama Thornton
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Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. However, her success was overshadowed three years later, when Elvis Presley recorded his more popular rendition of Hound Dog, similarly, Thorntons Ball n Chain had a bigger impact when performed and recorded by Janis Joplin from 1967. Thorntons performances were characterized by her deep, powerful voice and strong sense of self and she was given her nickname, Big Mama, by Frank Schiffman, the manager of Harlems Apollo Theater, because of her strong voice, size, and personality. Thornton stated that she was louder than any microphone and didn’t want a microphone to ever be as loud as she was, alice Echols, author of a biography of Janis Joplin, said that Thornton could sing in a pretty voice but did not want to. Thornton said, My singing comes from my experience. …My own experience, I never had no one teach me nothin’. I never went to school for music or nothin’, I taught myself to sing and to blow harmonica and even to play drums by watchin’ other people. I cant read music, but I know what Im singing, I dont sing like nobody but myself. Her style was influenced by gospel music, which she grew up listening to at the home of a preacher. Thornton was quoted in a 1980 article in the New York Times, thats why when I do a song by Jimmy Reed or somebody, I have my own way of singing it. Because I dont want to be Jimmy Reed, I want to be me, I like to put myself into whatever Im doin so I can feel it. Thornton was famous for her transgressive gender expression and she often dressed as a man in her performances, wearing work shirts and slacks. She did not care about the opinions of others and was openly gay, improvisation was a notable part of her performance. She often entered call-and-response exchanges with her band, inserting confident and her play with gender and sexuality set the stage for later rock-and-roll artists plays with sexuality. Scholars such as Maureen Mahon have praised Thornton for subverting traditional roles of African-American women and she added a female voice to a field that was dominated by white males, and her strong personality transgressed stereotypes of what an African-American woman should be. This transgression was a part of her performance and stage persona. Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin admired her unique style of singing and her vocal sound and style of delivery are key parts of her style and are recognizable in Presleys and Joplins work. She was introduced to music in a Baptist church, where her father was a minister and her mother a singer and she and her six siblings began to sing at early ages. Her mother died young, and Willlie Mae left school and got a job washing and cleaning spittoons in a local tavern
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Jailhouse Rock (song)
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Jailhouse Rock is a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that first became a hit for Elvis Presley. The song was released as an RCA Victor 45rpm single on September 24,1957, to coincide with the release of Presleys motion picture, Jailhouse Rock. The song as recorded by Presley is #67 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was named one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fames 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, it finished at #21 on AFIs 100 Years.100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema, on 27 November 2016, the Grammy Hall of Fame announced its induction, along with that of another 24 songs. The film version differs from the version of the song, featuring backing instrumentation. Some of the named in the song are real people. Shifty Henry was a well-known LA musician, not a criminal, the Purple Gang was a real mob. Sad Sack was a U. S. Army nickname in World War II for a loser, according to Rolling Stone, Leiber and Stollers theme song for Presleys third movie was decidedly silly, the kind of tongue-in-cheek goof they had come up with for The Coasters. The King, however, sang it as straight rock & roll, overlooking the jokes in the lyrics and then introducing Scotty Moores guitar solo with a cry so intense that the take almost collapses. Gender studies scholars cite the song for its famous reference to homoerotics behind bars, while music critic Garry Mulholland writes, Jailhouse Rock was always a queer lyric, douglas Brode writes of the filmed production number that its amazing that the sequence passed by the censors. The single, with its B-side Treat Me Nice was a US #1 hit for seven weeks in the fall of 1957, and it was the first record to enter the UK charts at No.1. In addition, Jailhouse Rock spent one week at the top of the US country charts, and reached the No.2 position on the R&B chart. Also in 1957, Jailhouse Rock was the song in an EP, together with other songs from the film, namely Young and Beautiful, I Want to be Free, Dont Leave Me Now. It topped the Billboard EP charts, eventually selling two million copies and earning a double-platinum RIAA certification. In 2005, the song was re-released in the UK and reached No.1 for a week, when it became the lowest-selling number 1 in UK history. The Beatles regularly performed Jailhouse Rock starting in 1958 and continuing all the way through 1960 with John Lennon on lead vocal, quarryman Len Garry states that the group actually started performing the song in 1957. It is the last song in the motion picture The Blues Brothers, the song is featured in the 1995 film Casper and the 2006 animated television film Leroy & Stitch. American Idol Season 5 contestant Taylor Hicks performed it on May 9,2006, in an episode of Full House, Jesse and Becky sing this song at their wedding reception
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Don't (Elvis Presley song)
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Dont is a song performed by Elvis Presley, which was released in 1958. Written and produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, it was Presleys eleventh number-one hit in the United States, dont also peaked at number four on the R&B charts. Billboard ranked it as the No.3 song for 1958, the song was included in the musical revue Smokey Joes Cafe, as a medley with Love Me. Elvis Presley – lead vocals Scotty Moore – electric guitar Bill Black – double bass D. J
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Ernest Tubb
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Ernest Dale Tubb, nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, Walking the Floor Over You, in 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of Blue Christmas, a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was Waltz Across Texas, which one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Tubb was born on a farm near Crisp, in Ellis County. His father was a sharecropper, so Tubb spent his working on farms throughout the state. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his time learning to sing, yodel. At age 19, he took a job as a singer on San Antonio radio station KONO-AM, the pay was low so Tubb also dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and then clerked at a drug store. In 1939 he moved to San Angelo, Texas and was hired to do a 15-minute afternoon live show on radio station KGKL-AM. He drove a delivery truck in order to support himself during this time. In 1936, Tubb contacted Jimmie Rodgers’s widow to ask for an autographed photo, a friendship developed and she was instrumental in getting Tubb a recording contract with RCA. His first two records were unsuccessful, a tonsillectomy in 1939 affected his singing style so he turned to songwriting. In 1940 he switched to Decca records to try singing again and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc in 1965 by the RIAA. Tubb joined the Grand Ole Opry in February 1943 and put together his band, Tubbs first band members were from Gadsden, Alabama. They were, Vernon Toby Reese, Chester Studdard, and Ray Kemo Head and he remained a regular on the radio show for four decades, and hosted his own Midnite Jamboree radio show each Saturday night after the Opry. Tubb headlined the first Grand Ole Opry show presented in Carnegie Hall in New York City in September 1947, Tubb always surrounded himself with some of Nashvilles best musicians. Jimmy Short, his first guitarist in the Troubadours, is credited with the Tubb sound of single-string guitar picking, from about 1943 to 1948, Short featured clean, clear riffs throughout Tubbs songs. Actually a jazz musician, Byrd—no relation to Jerry—remained with Tubb until 1959, another Tubb musician was actually his producer, Owen Bradley
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