1.
Pell City, Alabama
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Pell City is a city in St. Clair County, Alabama, United States. The city is the county seat of St. Clair County along with Ashville, at the 2000 census the population was 9,565. At the 2010 census, the population jumped to 12,695. Pell City was founded in 1890 by railroad investors and named after Jonathan H. Pell of the Pell City Iron and Land Company, the city was incorporated on May 6,1891, but nearly failed during the Panic of 1893. The mill was the economic and social center of the town during its development, besides the textile mill, other economic endeavors included agriculture and mercantile establishments. Large cotton, soybean, and cattle farms were located in the area, Pell City increased its size in 1956 when the nearby towns of Eden and Oak Ridge were merged with the city. The first mayor was Green Evans, the residences of Sumter Cogswell and Green Evans are two of the earliest structures, dating from the late nineteenth century. The majority of the structures date from 1902 to 1905. Ashville, Alabama, in the part of St. Clair County, was the only county seat from 1821 to 1907. A constitutional amendment in 1907 established Pell City as the county seat. For many years, St. Clair County was the county in the country with two full-service county seats. Both county seats remain operational to this day although Pell City has far outstripped Ashville in growth thanks in no part to the convergence of both I-20 and Logan Martin Lake. The construction of the Logan Martin Dam in 1964 changed the geography of the town by creating a large lake and this also created a large recreational area which brought new businesses, temporary summer residents and tourists and hundreds of new permanent residents building new homes along the new lake. On April 8,1998, an F2 tornado struck north of the city limits after the F5 tornado expired in western Jefferson County and this windstorm killed two people in a mobile home. It remained for 14 mi, partially damaging a church, twenty-six homes and mobile homes, ninety other homes and mobile homes suffered minor to major destruction. An additional twelve people were injured, the twister damaged a funeral home and twenty-five homes. The Bethel Baptist Church in Odenville was destroyed a few minutes after its members left an Easter pageant rehearsal that had cancelled because of the storm. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the city has an area of 27.2 square miles
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
4.
Country pop
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Country pop is a subgenre of country music and pop music that was developed by members of the Country genre out of a desire to reach a larger, mainstream audience. It is a continuation of efforts that began in the late 1950s originally known as Nashville sound. By the mid-1970s, many artists were transitioning to the pop-country sound which led to some records charting high on mainstream top 40 as well as country Billboard charts. According to Bill Ivey, this genre originated in Nashville, Tennessee. He believes that the Nashville Sound often produced records that sounded more pop than country, after the removal of the fiddle, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Eddy Arnold were among the most popular artists during this time. This was intended to have country singers gain more success in pop music, the first male artists to come out of this new genre were Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold, who both grew to have widespread acceptance among both country and pop music listeners. Both Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold had major influence on their RCA labelmate Elvis Presley, apparent not only in secular songs, the first female country singer to emerge from this new genre was Patsy Cline in the early 1960s. The example she created was followed by female country artists, such as Lynn Anderson, Crystal Gayle and Shania Twain. Country pop found its first widespread acceptance during the 1970s and it started when pop music singers, like Glen Campbell, John Denver, Olivia Newton-John and Anne Murray, began having hits on the country charts. Songs like Campbells Rhinestone Cowboy were among the biggest crossover hits in country music history and these pop-oriented singers thought that they could gain higher record sales and a larger audience if they crossed over into the country world. One of the artists who did this was Olivia Newton-John, who emerged from Australia in the mid-1970s, a group of artists, troubled by this trend, formed the Association of Country Entertainers in 1974. The debate raged into 1975, and reached its apex at that years Country Music Association Awards when reigning Entertainer of the Year Charlie Rich presented the award to his successor, as he read Denvers name, Rich set fire to the envelope with a cigarette lighter. The action was taken in some quarters as a protest against the pop style in country music. However, the ACE would only last two years, its two biggest backers, firm traditionalists George Jones and Tammy Wynette, faced a bitter divorce. In 1979 Barbara Mandrell had her highest crossover hit with her number 1 song I Dont Want to Be Right It charted number 31 on the Billboard Top 40, several of her other hits charted well on the adult contemporary charts and the Bubbling under 100 charts. Mandrell also did countrypolitan style music on her Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters show and she had R & B artists, pop artists and country artists featured every week. It was the last successful musical variety show on TV and she is also known for her Blue-Eyed Soul sound. She was given the nickname The Princess of Steel, for her ability at the steel guitar and she was one of country musics most successful crossover artists during the 1970s and 1980s
5.
Honky-tonk
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A honky-tonk is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwest United States, many eminent country music artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and Merle Haggard, began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks. The modern-day, honk-tonk atmosphere has continued, with likes of Dwight Yoakam, the origin of the term honky-tonk is disputed, originally referring to bawdy variety shows in areas of the old West and to the actual theaters showing them. This honky-tonk music was an important influence on the piano style. Before World War II, the industry began to refer to hillbilly music being played from Texas. In the 1950s, honky-tonk entered its age, with the popularity of Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Faron Young, George Jones. The origin of the term honky-tonk is unknown, the Tonk brothers, William and Max, established the Tonk Bros. An early source purporting to explain the derivation of the term was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun, the article, however, reads more like a humorous urban legend or fable, so its veracity is questionable. Some honky-tonks offered dancing to music played by pianists or small bands, katrina Hazzard-Gordon wrote that the honky-tonk was the first urban manifestation of the jook, and that the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance, as Chris Smith and Charles McCarron wrote in their 1916 hit song Down in Honky Tonk Town, Its underneath the ground, where all the fun is found. Although the derivation of the term is unknown, honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West, the earliest mention of them in print refers to them as variety theaters and describe the entertainment as variety shows. The theaters often had a gambling house and always a bar. In recollections long after the closed, writers such as Wyatt Earp. Abbott referred to honky-tonks in the cowtowns of Kansas, Nebraska and their recollections contain lurid accounts of the women and violence accompanying the shows. As late as 1913, Col. Edwin Emerson, a former Rough Rider commander, the Rough Riders were recruited from the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, so the term was still in popular use during the Spanish–American War. The honky-tonk sound has a rhythm section playing a two-beat rhythm with a crisp backbeat. Steel guitar and fiddle are the dominant instruments, honky-tonk music influenced the boogie-woogie piano style, as indicated by Jelly Roll Mortons 1938 record Honky Tonk Music and Meade Lux Lewiss hit Honky Tonk Train Blues
6.
Singing
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Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist, Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists, Singers may perform as soloists, or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised and it may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice, if practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific genre, such as classical or rock. They typically take voice training provided by teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers. Though these four mechanisms function independently, they are coordinated in the establishment of a vocal technique and are made to interact upon one another. During passive breathing, air is inhaled with the diaphragm while exhalation occurs without any effort, exhalation may be aided by the abdominal, internal intercostal and lower pelvis/pelvic muscles. Inhalation is aided by use of external intercostals, scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles, the pitch is altered with the vocal cords. With the lips closed, this is called humming, humans have vocal folds which can loosen, tighten, or change their thickness, and over which breath can be transferred at varying pressures. The shape of the chest and neck, the position of the tongue, any one of these actions results in a change in pitch, volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced. Sound also resonates within different parts of the body and an individuals size, Singers can also learn to project sound in certain ways so that it resonates better within their vocal tract. This is known as vocal resonation, another major influence on vocal sound and production is the function of the larynx which people can manipulate in different ways to produce different sounds. These different kinds of function are described as different kinds of vocal registers. The primary method for singers to accomplish this is through the use of the Singers Formant and it has also been shown that a more powerful voice may be achieved with a fatter and fluid-like vocal fold mucosa. The more pliable the mucosa, the more efficient the transfer of energy from the airflow to the vocal folds, Vocal registration refers to the system of vocal registers within the voice. A register in the voice is a series of tones, produced in the same vibratory pattern of the vocal folds
7.
Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song
8.
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
9.
Decca Records
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Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U. S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis along with American Deccas first president Jack Kapp and later American Decca president Milton Rackmil. In 1937, as a result of anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, the British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi, the US Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG. The name Decca was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word Mecca with the initial D of their logo Dulcet or their trademark Dulcephone, Samuel, a linguist, chose Decca as a brand name as it was easy to pronounce in most languages. The name dates back to a gramophone called the Decca Dulcephone patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel. That company was renamed the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. Within years, Decca Records Ltd. was the second largest record label in the world, Decca bought the UK branch of Brunswick Records and continued to run it under that name. In the 1950s the American Decca studios were located in the Pythian Temple in New York City, in classical music, Decca had a long way to go from its modest beginnings to catch up with the established HMV and Columbia labels. The pre-war classical repertoire on Decca was not extensive, but was select, heinrich Schlusnus made important pre-war lieder recordings for Decca. John Culshaw, who joined Decca in 1946 in a junior post and he revolutionised recording – of opera, in particular. Hitherto, the practice had been to put microphones in front of the performers, Culshaw was determined to make recordings that would be a theatre of the mind, making the listeners experience at home not second best to being in the opera house, but a wholly different experience. To that end he got the singers to move about in the studio as they would onstage, used sound effects and different acoustics. His skill, coupled with Decca engineering, took Decca into the first flight of recording companies and his pioneering recording of Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Georg Solti was a huge artistic and commercial success. In the wake of Deccas lead, artists such as Herbert von Karajan, Joan Sutherland, however, Culshaw was, strictly speaking, not the first to do this. Far from being a mere rendering of the score, the 3-LP album set used sound effects to recreate the production as if the listener were watching a stage performance of the work. Until 1947, American Decca issued British Decca classical music recordings, afterwards, British Decca took over distribution through its new American subsidiary London Records. American Decca actively re-entered the classical music field in 1950 with distribution deals from Deutsche Grammophon, American Decca began issuing its own classical music recordings in 1956 when Israel Horowitz joined Decca to head its classical music operations
10.
Mercury Records
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Mercury Records is an American-based record label owned by Universal Music Group. In the United States, it operates through Island Records, in the UK, Mercury Record Corporation was formed in the American city of Chicago in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams, Ray Greenberg and Arthur Talmadge. They were a force in jazz and blues, classical music, rock and roll. Early in the history, Mercury opened two pressing plants, one in Chicago and the other in St. Louis, Missouri. With the use of presses and providing 24-hour turnaround, they went into direct competition with major recording labels such as Columbia, Decca, Capitol. By hiring two promoters, Tiny Hill and Jimmy Hilliard, they penetrated the pop market with such as Frankie Laine, Vic Damone, Tony Fontane. Rather than rely on radio airplay, Mercury initially relied on jukeboxes to promote their music, some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo. In 1947 Jack Rael, a musician and publicist/manager, persuaded Mercury to let Patti Page record a song that had planned to be done by Vic Damone. The budget was too small for them to hire a second singer to provide the parts to Page. The company released a number of recordings under the Mercury label as well as its subsidiaries. In addition, they leased and purchased material by independent labels, under their own label, Mercury released a variety of recording styles from classical music to psychedelic rock. However, its subsidiaries focused on their own specialized categories of music, Mercurys jazz division had two distinct and important fathers. John Hammond brought his expertise and connections when Mercury bought Keynote Records in the late 1940s, and Mercury was the issuing company and distributor for Norman Granzs pre-Norgran/Verve recordings. Although both Hammond and Granz had departed Mercury by the mid-1950s, they established the company in the jazz world, by the early 1960s, Mercury was releasing jazz under the flagship label and was an early leader in the new stereo sound releases. Highlights of the early and mid-1960s included albums by Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach, in the early 1950s, Norman Granz started his own record company, Norgran, which later became Verve. In an ironic twist, both Mercury and Verve are now owned by Universal Music Group and Mercurys jazz library falls under the Verve division. Since the early 1990s, Verve has reissued many Mercury jazz titles on CD, often taking care to use original master tapes, in 1962, Mercury began marketing a line of phonographs made by Philips bearing the Mercury brand name. In July 1967, Mercury Records became the first U. S. record company to release cassette music tapes, in 1969, Mercury changed its corporate name to Mercury Record Productions Inc. while its parent Conelco became North American Philips Corp after Philips brought control of the company
