1.
Maces Spring, Virginia
–
Maces Spring is a small unincorporated community in Scott County, Virginia, United States, along State Route 614. The settlement consists of a number of houses. There are no longer any stores in Maces Spring, its claim to fame is its association with the country music group. Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter also known as Doc or AP was born in Maces Spring and they are both buried in the graveyard behind Mount Vernon Methodist Church. AP, Sara and APs sister in law Maybelle Carter formed the Carter Family in 1927. Route 614 is now called the AP Carter Highway and two of AP and Saras children, Joe and Jeanette, have opened a music hall called The Carter Fold on the Clinch Mountain side of the road. In The Country of Country, A Journey to the Roots of American Music, Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books,1998
Maces Spring, Virginia
2.
Nashville, Tennessee
–
Nashville is the capital of the U. S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the central part of the state. The city is a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries and it is known as a center of the country music industry, earning it the nickname Music City, U. S. A. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government which includes six municipalities in a two-tier system. Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council, thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, five are elected at-large. Reflecting the citys position in government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Courts courthouse for Middle Tennessee. According to 2015 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the balance population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Nashville, was 654,610. The 2015 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,830,345, the 2015 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,951,644. The town of Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and it was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its location, accessibility as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 African American slaves and 14 free blacks, in 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee, by 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city. The citys significance as a port made it a desirable prize as a means of controlling important river. In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops, the state was occupied by Union troops for the duration of the war. Within a few years after the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton, meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and these healthy economic times left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, which can still be seen around the downtown area. Circa 1950 the state approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts. This change was supported because at-large voting diluted the minority populations political power in the city and they could seldom gain a majority of the population to support a candidate of their choice
Nashville, Tennessee
–
From top left: 2nd Avenue, Kirkland Hall at
Vanderbilt University, the
Parthenon, the Nashville skyline,
Nissan Stadium,
Dolly Parton performing at the
Grand Ole Opry, and
Ryman Auditorium
Nashville, Tennessee
–
Nashville riverfront shortly after the
Civil War
Nashville, Tennessee
–
A satellite image of Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
–
Downtown Nashville
3.
Country music
–
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
Country music
–
Jimmie Rodgers
Country music
–
Vernon Dalhart
Country music
–
Roy Acuff
Country music
–
Publicity photo of Roy Rogers and Gail Davis, 1948
4.
Folk music
–
Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
Folk music
–
Béla Bartók recording Slovak peasant singers in 1908
Folk music
–
Indians always distinguished between classical and folk music, though in the past even classical Indian music used to rely on the unwritten transmission of repertoire.
Folk music
–
Armenian traditional musicians
Folk music
–
Assyrians playing
zurna and
Davul, the typically used instruments for their folk music.
5.
Gospel music
–
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
Gospel music
–
Mahalia Jackson in the
Concertgebouw concert hall, The Netherlands
Gospel music
–
Exemplification of gospel music: an open Bible and a CD, which represent the gospel in written and musical forms
6.
Appalachian music
–
Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. It is derived from various European and African influences, including English ballads, Irish and Scottish traditional music, hymns, instruments typically used to perform Appalachian music include the banjo, American fiddle, fretted dulcimer, and guitar. Early recorded Appalachian musicians include Fiddlin John Carson, G. B, grayson & Henry Whitter, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the Carter Family, Clarence Ashley, Frank Proffitt, and Dock Boggs, all of whom were initially recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. Several Appalachian musicians obtained renown during the revival of the 1950s and 1960s, including Jean Ritchie, Roscoe Holcomb, Ola Belle Reed, Lily May Ledford, Hedy West. Country and bluegrass artists such as Loretta Lynn, Roy Acuff, Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs, Chet Atkins, The Stanley Brothers, artists such as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Bruce Springsteen have performed Appalachian songs or rewritten versions of Appalachian songs. Immigrants from England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland arrived in Appalachia in the 18th century and these traditions consisted primarily of English and Scottish ballads— which were essentially unaccompanied narratives— and dance music, such as Irish reels, which were accompanied by a fiddle. Several Appalachian ballads, such as Pretty Saro, Barbara Allen, The Cuckoo, Wayfaring Stranger, some fiddle songs popular in Appalachia, such as Leather Britches, Wind and Rain, and Pretty Polly, have Scottish roots. The dance tune Cumberland Gap may be derived from the tune that accompanies the Scottish ballad Bonnie George Campbell, the New World ballad tradition, consisting of ballads written in North America, was as influential as the Old World tradition to the development of Appalachian music. New World ballads were written to reflect news events of the day. New World ballads popular among Appalachian musicians included Omie Wise, Wreck of the Old 97, later, coal mining and its associated labor issues led to the development of protest songs, such as Which Side Are You On. and Coal Creek March. One of the most iconic symbols of Appalachian culture— the banjo— was brought to the region by African-American slaves in the 18th century, black banjo players were performing in Appalachia as early as 1798, when their presence was documented in Knoxville, Tennessee. The banjo is believed to have popularized among white musicians through blackface minstrelsy. Other instruments such as the guitar, mandolin, and autoharp became popular in Appalachia in the late 19th century as a result of mail order catalogs and these instruments were added to the banjo-and-fiddle outfits to form early string bands. The fretted dulcimer— often called the Appalachian or mountain dulcimer due to its popularity in the emerged in Southwest Pennsylvania. Unrelated to the hammered dulcimer, the dulcimer is essentially a modified zither. In the early 20th century, settlement schools in Kentucky taught the fretted dulcimer to students, singer Jean Ritchie was largely responsible for popularizing the instrument among folk music enthusiasts in the 1950s. Around the turn of the 20th century, a movement developed to record the rich musical heritage, particularly of folksong. This music was unwritten, songs were handed down, often within families, fieldwork to record Appalachian music was undertaken by a variety of scholars
Appalachian music
–
Bog Trotters Band (a
string band);
Galax, Va. 1937; Dr. W.P. "Doc" Davis autoharp, Uncle Alec "Eck" Dunford, Davy Crockett Ward fiddles,
Wade Ward banjo, Fields Ward guitar
Appalachian music
–
Appalachian dulcimer
Appalachian music
–
The so-called "Murder Banjo"
Appalachian music
–
Street musicians in
Maynardville, Tennessee, photographed by
Ben Shahn in 1935
7.
Carter Family
–
The Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop. They were the first vocal group to become music stars. Their recordings of such as Wabash Cannonball, Can the Circle Be Unbroken, Wildwood Flower, Keep On the Sunny Side. The original group consisted of Alvin Pleasant A. P. Delaney Carter, his wife Sara Dougherty Carter, Maybelle was married to A. P. s brother Ezra Carter, and was also Saras first cousin. All three were born and raised in southwestern Virginia, where they were immersed in the harmonies of mountain gospel music. Maybelles distinctive guitar playing became a hallmark of the group. The Carter Family made their first recordings on August 1,1927, a. P. had persuaded Sara and Maybelle the day before to make the journey from Maces Spring, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for record producer Ralph Peer. Peer was seeking new talents for the relatively embryonic recording industry, the initial sessions are part of what are now called the Bristol Sessions. The band received $50 for each song recorded, plus half a cent royalty on every copy sold of each song for which they had registered a copyright. On November 4,1927, the Victor Talking Machine Company released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the group performing Wandering Boy, on December 2,1928, Victor released The Storms Are on the Ocean / Single Girl, Married Girl, which became very popular. By the end of 1930 they had sold 300,000 records in the United States. Realizing that he would benefit financially with each new song he collected and copyrighted, A. P. traveled around the southwestern Virginia area in search of new songs, in the early 1930s, he befriended Lesley Esley Riddle, a black guitar player from Kingsport, Tennessee. Lesley accompanied A. P. on his song-collecting trips, in June 1931, the Carters did a recording session in Benton, Kentucky, along with Jimmie Rodgers. In 1933, Maybelle met the Speer family at a fair in Ceredo, West Virginia and she asked them to tour with the Carter Family. In the winter of 1938–39 the Carter Family traveled to Texas, in the fall of 1942 the Carters moved their program to WBT radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one-year contract. They occupied the slot, with the program airing between 5,15 and 6,15 a. m. By 1936 A. P. and Saras marriage had dissolved, Sara married A. P. s cousin, Coy Bayes, moved to California, and the group disbanded in 1944
Carter Family
–
A.P., Maybelle, and Sara Carter (L–R) in 1927
8.
Johnny Cash
–
Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He is widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and one of the music artists of all time. Although primarily remembered as an music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll and he traditionally began his concerts with the simple Hello, Im Johnny Cash, followed by his signature Folsom Prison Blues. Much of Cashs music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption and his signature songs include I Walk the Line, Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire, Get Rhythm, and Man in Black. During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th-century rock artists, notably Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, Cash was born on February 26,1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, one of seven children born to Ray Cash and Carrie Cloveree. He was mostly of Scottish and English ancestry, and as an adult traced his surname to 11th-century Fife, Scotland, after meeting with the then-laird of Falkland, Fife, Cash Loch and other locations in Fife bear the name of his family. At birth, Cash was named J. R. Cash, when Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force, he was not permitted to use initials as a first name, so he changed his name to John R. Cash. In 1955, when signing with Sun Records, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name, the Cash children were, Roy, Margaret Louise, Jack, J. R. Reba, Joanne, and Tommy. Tommy Cash also became a country artist. In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family settled in Dyess, Arkansas and he started working in cotton fields at age five, singing along with his family while working. The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which inspired him to write the song Five Feet High and Rising. His familys economic and personal struggles during the Great Depression inspired many of his songs, Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack. In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a head saw in the mill where he worked and was almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20,1944, Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money, on his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of Heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven, Cashs early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught guitar by his mother and a friend, Cash began playing and writing songs at the age of twelve
Johnny Cash
–
Cash in 1969
Johnny Cash
–
Publicity photo for Sun Records
Johnny Cash
–
The Tennessee Three with Cash in 1963.
Johnny Cash
–
Johnny Cash and his second wife,
June Carter
9.
Banjo
–
The banjo is a four-, five- or six-stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity as a resonator, called the head. The membrane, or head, is made of plastic, although animal skin is still occasionally but rarely used. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by Africans in America, the banjo is frequently associated with country, folk, Irish traditional and bluegrass music. Historically, the banjo occupied a place in African American traditional music. The banjo, with the fiddle, is a mainstay of American old-time music and it is also very frequently used in Traditional Jazz. The modern banjo derives from instruments that had used in the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West Africa. Written references to the banjo in North America appear in the 18th century, the etymology of the name banjo is uncertain. The word could have come from the Yoruba word Bami jo and it may derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza. A Banza, a five double string courses Portuguese viuhela with two short strings, mbanza is a string African instrument that has been built after the Portuguese Banza. Banza is quite similar to Banjo, various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin head and gourd body. Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century, 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, banza, bonjaw, banjer and banjar. Instruments similar to the banjo have been played in many countries, another likely relative of the banjo is the akonting, a spike folk lute played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Early, African-influenced banjos were built around a body and a wooden stick neck. These instruments had varying numbers of strings, though often including some form of drone, the five-string banjo was popularized by Joel Walker Sweeney, an American minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage and his version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth string. This new banjo was at first tuned dGdf♯a, though by the 1890s this had been transposed up to gcgbd, Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeneys group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls. In the Antebellum South, many black slaves played the banjo, two techniques closely associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand fingering pattern that consist of eight notes that subdivide each measure
Banjo
–
A five-string bluegrass banjo
Banjo
–
Open strings and highest note of a standard-tuned five-string bluegrass banjo.
Banjo
–
A five-string banjo.
Banjo
–
Plectrum banjo from Gold Tone
10.
Autoharp
–
The autoharp is a trademark for a string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, debate exists over the origin of the autoharp. A German immigrant in Philadelphia, Charles F. Zimmermann, was awarded US257808 in 1882 for a design for an instrument that included mechanisms for muting certain strings during play. He named his invention the autoharp, unlike later autoharps, the shape of the instrument was symmetrical, and the felt-bearing bars moved horizontally against the strings instead of vertically. It is not known if Zimmermann ever commercially produced any instruments of this early design, karl August Gütter of Markneukirchen, Germany, built a model that he called a Volkszither, which most resembles the autoharp played today. Gütter obtained a British patent for his instrument circa 1883–1884, Zimmermann, after returning from a visit to Germany, began production of the Gütter design in 1885, but with his own design patent number and catchy name. Gütters instrument design became popular, and Zimmermann has often been mistaken as the inventor. A stylized form of the term Autoharp was registered as a trademark in 1926, the word is currently claimed as a trademark by U. S. Music Corporation, whose Oscar Schmidt division manufactures Autoharps, the USPTO registration, however, covers only a Mark Drawing Code WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM and has expired. In litigation with George Orthey, it was held that Oscar Schmidt could only claim ownership of the lettering of the word Autoharp. Modern autoharps have 36 or 37 strings, although examples with as many as 47 strings. They are strung in either diatonic or chromatic scales, standard models have 15 or 21 chord bars, or buttons, available, a selection of major, minor, and dominant seventh chords. These are arranged for historical or systemic reasons, as for example, A variety of chord bar layouts exist, although the autoharp is often thought of as a rhythm instrument for playing chordal accompaniment, modern players can play melodies on the instrument. Diatonic players are able to play fiddle tunes using open-chording techniques, skilled chromatic players can perform a range of melodies. Diatonically strung single-key instruments from modern luthiers, such as Orthey, Fladmark, Hollandsworth, DAigle, Baker, Daniels and this is accomplished by doubling the strings for individual notes. Since the strings for notes not in the diatonic scale need not appear in the string bed, until the 1960s, no pickups were available to amplify the autoharp other than a rudimentary contact microphone, which had a poor-quality, tinny sound. Eventually, a bar magnetic pickup was designed by Harry DeArmond, pinkertons Assorted Colours used the instrument on their 1966 single Mirror, mirror. In the 1970s, Oscar Schmidt came out with their own magnetic pickup, shown at the right is a 1930 refinished Oscar Schmidt Inc. Model A
Autoharp
–
Modern autoharp
Autoharp
–
Autoharp (center) by C.F. Zimmermann Co. in 1896–1899; (left is
Marxophone, right is
Dolceola)
Autoharp
–
Electric Autoharp
Autoharp
–
Joe Butler playing an Oscar Schmidt Appalachian model Autoharp with
The Lovin Spoonful.
11.
Grammy Award
–
A Grammy Award, or Grammy, is an honor awarded by The Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the mainly English-language music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of awards that have a more popular interest. It shares recognition of the industry as that of the other performance awards such as the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards. The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4,1959, to honor, following the 2011 ceremony, The Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 59th Grammy Awards, honoring the best achievements from October 2015 to September 2016, was held on February 12,2017, the Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. The music executives decided to rectify this by creating a given by their industry similar to the Oscars. This was the beginning of the National Academy of Recording Arts, after it was decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to call it, one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of the invention of Emile Berliner, the gramophone, for the awards, the number of awards given grew and fluctuated over the years with categories added and removed, at one time reaching over 100. The second Grammy Awards, also held in 1959, was the first ceremony to be televised, the gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990 the original Grammy design was revamped, changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to damage, Billings developed a zinc alloy named grammium, which is trademarked. The trophies with the name engraved on them are not available until after the award announcements. By February 2009,7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded, the General Field are four awards which are not restricted by genre. Album of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a full album if other than the performer. Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a single song if other than the performer. Song of the Year is awarded to the writer/composer of a single song, Best New Artist is awarded to a promising breakthrough performer who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording that establishes the public identity of that artist. The only two artists to win all four of these awards are Christopher Cross, who won all four in 1980, and Adele, who won the Best New Artist award in 2009 and the other three in 2012 and 2017. Other awards are given for performance and production in specific genres, as well as for other such as artwork. Special awards are given for longer-lasting contributions to the music industry, the many other Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony earlier in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast
Grammy Award
–
Grammy Awards
Grammy Award
12.
CMT (U.S. TV channel)
–
Its name is an initialism for Country Music Television, which has since been de-emphasized. It was the first nationally available cable channel devoted to country music, programming on the channel originally focused on country music, including music videos, taped concerts and biographies of country music stars. CMTs current programming now consists of original reality programs and scripted series, off-network syndicated shows. As of February 2015, approximately 86,989,000 American households receive CMT, CMTV, an initialism of Country Music Television, was founded by Glenn D. Daniels, the owner of Video World Productions in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Daniels put together the group of Telestar Corporation and the Blinder Robinson & Company investment bank in a three-way split. Daniels also served as the director and the first president of the network. The network launched on March 5,1983, at 6,19 p. m. CT, beating its chief competitor, TNN, the first video clip to air on CMT was Faron Youngs 1971 hit Its Four in the Morning. The following summer, MTV filed an infringement lawsuit over the initials CMTV. In 1991, Opryland USA and its owner Gaylord Entertainment Company acquired CMT in a $34 million deal, the network was sold by a group led by radio station owner Robert Sillerman and record producer James Guercio. Opryland USA and owner Gaylord also owned CMTs competitor The Nashville Network, in October 1992, CMT launched its first international channel, CMT Europe, as part of the Sky Multichannels package. By 1998, Gaylord reported $10 million in losses from CMT Europe, Gaylord had planned to emulate the successful model created by E. by selling large programming blocks to other European channels, but these plans never occurred. All shows eventually were cancelled by 2001, in 1995, CMT dropped all videos by Canadian artists without U. S. record contracts in response to the network being replaced in Canada by Calgary, Alberta-based New Country Network. By March 1996, CMT had eventually returned the dropped videos to its playlist after reaching an agreement to acquire a 20% ownership of New Country Network, in 1997, both CMT and TNN were sold to Westinghouse, then-owner of CBS for a reported $1.5 billion. In 1999, Viacom acquired CBS, assuming ownership of CMT and TNN, Viacom also changed the format of CMT, modeling it after sister networks MTV and VH1 to include series and movies, in addition to music videos. Despite the decrease in music videos, CMT has experienced significant ratings gains since its acquisition by MTV Networks in 1999, by 2007, the channel was available in more than 83 million homes. As of 2009, the network now reaches 88 million homes, on April 4,2012, CMT announced its first cartoon series, Bounty Hunters, featuring the voices of Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall who also serve as executive producers. CMT also announced that it would air Trinity 911, a 10-episode workplace docu-comedy that follows the police force in a small Texas town, Trinity 911 was later renamed Big Texas Heat and removed from the schedule after airing four episodes. CMTs current programming consists of entertainment programming, movies and reality shows
CMT (U.S. TV channel)
–
CMT's headquarters are located in offices in downtown
Nashville, Tennessee.
13.
Maybelle Carter
–
Mother Maybelle Carter was an American country musician. She is best known as a member of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s and also as a member of Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters. Maybelle Carter was born Maybelle Addington on May 10,1909 in Nickelsville, Virginia, according to family lore, the Addington family of Virginia is descended from former British prime minister Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth. On March 13,1926, Maybelle married Ezra Carter and they had three daughters, Helen, Valerie June, and Anita. She was a member of the original Carter Family, which was formed in 1927 by her brother-in-law, A. P. Carter, the Carter Family was one of the first commercial rural country music groups. Perhaps the most remarkable of Maybelles many talents was her skill as a guitarist and she revolutionized the instruments role by developing a style in which she played melody lines on the bass strings with her thumb while rhythmically strumming with her fingers. Her innovative technique, to this day known as the Carter Scratch, Maybelle briefly reunited with former Carter Family member, Sara Carter, during the 1960s folk music craze, with Sara singing lead and Maybelle providing harmony as before. Maybelle Carter made occasional solo recordings during the 1960s and 1970s and her final such work, a two-record set released on Columbia Records, placed on Billboards best-selling country albums chart in 1973 when she was 64. Maybelle was also featured on The Nitty Gritty Dirt Bands 1972 recording Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Maybelle Carter died in 1978 after a few years of poor health, and was interred next to her husband, Ezra, in Hendersonville Memory Gardens, Hendersonville, Tennessee. All three of their daughters, The Carter Sisters – Helen, June, and Anita – are buried nearby in the same cemetery, Maybelle Carter was inducted as part of The Carter Family in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970. In 1993, her image appeared on a U. S. postage stamp honoring the Carter Family, in 2001 she was initiated into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. She would rank No.8 in CMTs 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002, in 2005, she was portrayed by Sandra Ellis Lafferty in the Johnny Cash biographical film Walk the Line. She was the subject of her granddaughter Carlene Carters 1990 song Me and her death was the subject of Johnny Cashs song Tears in the Holston River. In 2010, Lipscomb University in Nashville named the stage in Collins Alumni Auditorium after her, in 2007 Carter was honored as one of the Library of Virginias Virginia Women in History because of her musical career. Maybelle Carter at Find a Grave Carters biography at the Library of Virginia Wolfe, in The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Will You Miss Me When Im Gone, the Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music
Maybelle Carter
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Mother Maybelle Carter
14.
WBT (AM)
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WBT is a radio station in Charlotte, North Carolina, broadcasting on the AM dial at 1110 kHz. A50, 000-watt clear-channel station, it can be heard across most of the half of North America at night. It simulcasts on WBT-FM, at 99.3 MHz in Chester, the stations studios are located at One Julian Price Place on West Morehead Street, just west of uptown Charlotte, while its transmitter is located in the southern part of the city. WBT and WBT-FM are licensed to broadcast in the HD Radio format, the station relies mostly on locally produced talk shows and offers podcasts of its local shows on its official website. It airs news, weather, and traffic reports each half-hour, syndicated programing includes Rush Limbaugh, Dave Ramsey and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. From 2009 until March 31,2011, Pete Kaliner hosted a program in the 9-midnight slot. On June 22,2011, former WSOC-TV lead anchor Vince Coakley, Coakley left after a little over a year and was replaced on July 2,2012 by Brad Krantz and Britt Whitmire, formerly of WZTK. In December 2012, morning co-host Stacey Simms left Charlottes Morning News to spend time with her family. The show would be replaced by the nationally syndicated America Now with Andy Dean in May 2013, following Entercoms takeover of WBT via LMA on October 31,2016, Keith Larson, the stations longtime 9am-noon host, was fired. The station ran a rotation of fill-in hosts while searching for his replacement before hiring former WLW fill-in, since 2005, WBT has been the flagship station of the Carolina Panthers. It also was the Panthers radio flagship from the teams 1995 inception until 1999 and it was also the Charlotte home of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels from 1977 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 2006. During the Hornets early years, whenever the Tar Heels played on the night as the Hornets. From 1991 to 1995, it was the Charlotte-area home of the Duke Blue Devils, the UNC Tar Heels returned to WBT in 2012. Past hosts include Hello Henry Bogan, Ty Boyd, Grady Cole, Mike Collins, Rockin Ray Gooding, Bob Lacey, Jason Lewis, don Russell is the stations longest-tenured personality, having worked at the station on six separate occasions since the 1970s. He currently hosts the weekend version of Charlottes Morning News, the station dates to December 1920, when Fred Laxton, Earle Gluck and Frank Bunker set up an amateur radio station in Laxtons home. Four months later, the received an experimental license as 4XD. The trio decided to go commercial in 1922, and incorporated as the Southern Radio Corporation, on April 10, the station signed on as the first fully licensed radio station south of Washington, D. C. WSB in Atlanta was the first station in the Southeast to actually broadcast, however, the Commerce Department only authorized WSB to broadcast weather reports until it received its license a few months after WBT
WBT (AM)
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1989 - WBT's transmitter towers just after Hurricane Hugo
WBT (AM)
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WBT/WBT-FM
WBT (AM)
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2007 - WBT's transmitter just south of Uptown Charlotte, NC
15.
Anita Carter
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The trio joined the Grand Ole Opry radio show in 1950, opened shows for Elvis Presley, and joined The Johnny Cash Show in 1971. As a solo artist, and with her family, Carter recorded for a number of labels including RCA Victor, Cadence, Columbia, Audiograph, United Artists, Liberty and Capitol. Born in Maces Spring, Virginia, she scored two Top Ten hits in 1951 with Down The Trail of Achin Hearts with Hank Snow at No.2 and she reached the Top Ten again in 1968 with I Got You with Waylon Jennings at No.4. Other solo releases charted as well, Carter recorded two folk albums in the 1960s. In 1962, she recorded a song co-written by her sister June, after the song failed to make the charts, Cash recorded it as Ring Of Fire in March 1963 with the horns and the Carter Sisters. The revised song went on to wide international popularity and became one of the biggest hits of his career. She appears in a clip, currently on YouTube, in a duet with Hank Williams. Carter married fiddler Dale Potter in 1950, session musician Don Davis in 1953 and she had two children, Lorrie Frances and Jay Davis. Carter suffered from arthritis for many years, and the drugs used to treat it severely damaged her pancreas, kidneys. She died on July 29,1999, at the age of 66 and she was under hospice care at the home of Johnny and June Carter Cash in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Her interment was in Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee
Anita Carter
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Anita Carter
16.
WRNL
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WRNL is a Sports formatted radio station licensed to Richmond, Virginia, serving Metro Richmond and broadcasting on 910 kHz on the AM dial. WRNL is owned and operated by iHeartMedia and features programming from the Fox Sports Radio Network, WRNL is licensed by the FCC to broadcast in the HD Radio format. WRNL began operations in 1937 with a frequency of 880 kHz and 500 watts of power and its studios were at 323 East Grace Street in Richmond, and the transmitter was in Henrico County, Virginia. The station had been in Petersburg, Virginia, with the call letters WPHR, before it was moved to Richmond and renamed by its owner, on September 1,1940, The Richmond News Leader merged with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, owner of station WRTD in Richmond. As part of the merger, WRTD voluntarily surrendered its license to the Federal Communications Commission effective midnight August 31,1940, at the same time, WRNL became the NBC Blue Network affiliate in Richmond. WRNL simultaneously went to 100 watts of power, in the late 1940s, the 111 Building was built for WRNL. WRNL provided one of the first broadcasting opportunities on a U. S. radio station for the group the Carter Family. Beginning June 1,1943, Maybelle Carter and her daughters, in addition to being a journalist and historian, Douglas Southall Freeman was part-owner of WRNL. The editor of The Richmond News Leader, he extended his activities to broadcasting with twice-daily newscasts at 8 a. m. Among those interviewed by Freeman was poet Robert Frost, in what Frost said was his first time to appear on radio. Biographer Charles Johnson wrote about Freemans first broadcast of each day, He steps up to the microphone at 8,00, and thousands of Virginians mark the beginning of their day. They might just be beginning their day, but he has been observing the world for more than five hours, described as the areas top quartet, the group would have Sunday breakfast with Richmond for nearly two decades, sponsored by Peoples Furniture. Mudd joined the staff of the News-Leader in 1953, then shifted to broadcast journalism with WRNL, schreiner came to WRNL in 1950. Among other duties, he had a program, The Mailbag, schreiner also served as program director and covered farm news, winning a Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters award for his work in 1959. A large portion of Richmond’s baby-boom generation grew up with Mr. Soden’s distinctive descriptions of baseball, basketball and football games percolating in the background on radio station WRNL. Soden was general manager and executive vice president at WRNL, organist Eddie Weaver, who played at a movie theater in Richmond, was also heard in many homes via WRNL. His weekday morning program, Eddie Weavers Open House, featured music, the program began in September 1949 and was still going strong a decade later. Fox Sports 910 Online Query the FCCs AM station database for WRNL Radio-Locator Information on WRNL Query Nielsen Audios AM station database for WRNL
WRNL
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WRNL
17.
Richmond, Virginia
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Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond Region and it was incorporated in 1742, and has been an independent city since 1871. As of the 2010 census, the population was 204,214, in 2015, the population was estimated to be 220,289, the Richmond Metropolitan Area has a population of 1,260,029, the third-most populous metro in the state. Richmond is located at the line of the James River,44 miles west of Williamsburg,66 miles east of Charlottesville. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is located at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64, Major suburbs include Midlothian to the southwest, Glen Allen to the north and west, Short Pump to the west and Mechanicsville to the northeast. The site of Richmond had been an important village of the Powhatan Confederacy, and was settled by English colonists from Jamestown in 1609. The present city of Richmond was founded in 1737 and it became the capital of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1780. During the American Civil War, Richmond served as the capital of the Confederate States of America, the city entered the 20th century with one of the worlds first successful electric streetcar systems. The Jackson Ward neighborhood is a hub of African-American commerce. Richmonds economy is driven by law, finance, and government, with federal, state. Dominion Resources and MeadWestvaco, Fortune 500 companies, are headquartered in the city, in 1737, planter William Byrd II commissioned Major William Mayo to lay out the original town grid. The settlement was laid out in April 1737, and was incorporated as a town in 1742, Richmond recovered quickly from the war, and by 1782 was once again a thriving city. A permanent home for the new government, the Virginia State Capitol building, was designed by Thomas Jefferson with the assistance of Charles-Louis Clérisseau, after the American Revolutionary War, Richmond emerged as an important industrial center. The legacy of the canal boatmen is represented by the figure in the center of the city flag, on April 17,1861, five days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the legislature voted to secede from the United States and joined the Confederacy. Official action came in May, after the Confederacy promised to move its capital to Richmond. It became the target of Union armies, especially in the campaigns of 1862. The Seven Days Battles followed in late June and early July 1862, during which Union General McClellan threatened to take Richmond, three years later, as March 1865 ended, the Confederate capitol became indefensible. On March 25, Confederate General John B, gordons desperate attack on Fort Stedman east of Petersburg failed
Richmond, Virginia
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Top: Skyline above the falls of the
James River Middle:
St. John's Episcopal Church,
Jackson Ward,
Monument Avenue. Bottom:
Virginia State Capitol,
Main Street Station
Richmond, Virginia
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Patrick Henry delivered his "Liberty or Death" speech at
St. John's Church in Richmond, helping to ignite the American Revolution.
Richmond, Virginia
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Retreating Confederates burned one-fourth of Richmond in April 1865
Richmond, Virginia
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By the early 20th century, Richmond had an extensive network of electric streetcars, as shown here crossing the Mayo Bridge across the James River, ca. 1917.
18.
Thalhimers
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Thalhimers was a department store in the Southern United States. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the chain at its peak operated dozens of stores in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina. Thalhimers traditions were most notable during the season with visits from the sticker-distributing Snow Bear and, in later years. William Thalhimer immigrated to the Richmond area from Germany in the early 19th century, in 1842 he opened a dry good store which his grandson, William B. Thalhimer, transformed into Richmonds first department store, in 1978, the company, by then developed into a regional department store chain, was acquired by California-based Carter Hawley Hale Stores. It was at time that the apostrophe was dropped from the companys logo. At one time, Carter Hawley Hale owned several notable department stores, including upscale Neiman-Marcus, louis-based May Company for US$325 million. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina store, housed in the Sosnik-Morris-Early Commercial Block, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the Lynnhaven store became a second Hechts location in November of that year. An addition to Thalhimers massive six-story flagship store at Seventh and Broad Streets was built in 1939 and its luxurious restaurant, the Richmond Room, was the source of many recipes still published today. The Richmond Room also had a fast food spin-off, the chicken chain Golden Skillet. For many years it and its rival, Miller & Rhoads, were the fashionable retail anchors for downtown Richmond. On February 22,1960, a group of students from Virginia Union University, called the Richmond 34, some 34 were arrested, the citys first mass arrests of the Civil Rights Movement. Randolph, Jr. v. Commonwealth of Virginia would test whether trespassing laws constituted a violation of free speech, along with several other Thalhimers locations, the downtown flagship closed on January 22,1992 after purchase by the May Company. It had been the last major department store in the retail corridor. The building remained vacant until demolished on June 12,2004 to make way for an arts center. The department stores history, along with the history of the Thalhimer family, has been chroncled in a book titled Finding Thalhimers by Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt, Smartt is the great-great-great-granddaughter of founder William Thalhimer. The book was published in 2010 by Dementi Milestone Publishing, Inc. out of Manakin-Sabot, list of defunct department stores of the United States Thalhimer Smartt, Elizabeth. Thalhimers Department store, story, history, theory, thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University,2005 RichmondCityWatch
Thalhimers
19.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
Maryland
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Western Maryland: known for its heavily forested mountains. A panoramic view of
Deep Creek Lake and the surrounding
Appalachian Mountains in
Garrett County.
Maryland
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Flag
Maryland
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Dramatic example of Maryland's
fall line, a change in rock type and elevation that creates waterfalls in many areas along the Southwest to Northeast geological boundary that crosses the state.
Great Falls, cliffs and rapids.
Maryland
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Typical freshwater river above the tidal zone. The
Patapsco River includes the famous
Thomas Viaduct and is part of the
Patapsco Valley State Park. Later, the river forms the
Inner Harbor as it empties into the
Chesapeake Bay.
20.
Delaware
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Delaware is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic and/or Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, to the northeast by New Jersey, the state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginias first colonial governor. Delaware occupies the portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest, the sixth least populous. Delaware is divided into three counties, the lowest number of counties of any state, from north to south, the three counties are New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. While the southern two counties have historically been agricultural, New Castle County has been more industrialized. Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Delaware was inhabited by groups of Native Americans, including the Lenape in the north. It was initially colonized by Dutch traders at Zwaanendael, near the present town of Lewes, Delaware was one of the 13 colonies participating in the American Revolution. On December 7,1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, the Delaware Indians, a name used by Europeans for Lenape people indigenous to the Delaware Valley, also derive their name from the same source. The surname de La Warr comes from Sussex and is of Anglo-Norman origin and it came probably from a Norman lieu-dit La Guerre. This toponymic could derive from the Latin word ager, from the Breton gwern or from the Late Latin varectum, the toponyms Gara, Gare, Gaire also appear in old texts cited by Lucien Musset, where the word gara means gore. It could also be linked with a patronymic from the Old Norse verr, Delaware is 96 miles long and ranges from 9 miles to 35 miles across, totaling 1,954 square miles, making it the second-smallest state in the United States after Rhode Island. Delaware is bounded to the north by Pennsylvania, to the east by the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean, small portions of Delaware are also situated on the eastern side of the Delaware River sharing land boundaries with New Jersey. The state of Delaware, together with the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the definition of the northern boundary of the state is unusual. Most of the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania was originally defined by an arc extending 12 miles from the cupola of the courthouse in the city of New Castle and this boundary is often referred to as the Twelve-Mile Circle. This is the only nominally circular state boundary in the United States, to the west, a portion of the arc extends past the easternmost edge of Maryland. The remaining western border runs slightly east of due south from its intersection with the arc, the Wedge of land between the northwest part of the arc and the Maryland border was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921, when Delawares claim was confirmed. Delaware is on a plain, with the lowest mean elevation of any state in the nation. Its highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, near Concord High School, the northernmost part of the state is part of the Piedmont Plateau with hills and rolling surfaces
Delaware
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The Blackbird Pond on the Blackbird State Forest Meadows Tract in New Castle County, Delaware
Delaware
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Flag
Delaware
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A field north of Fox Den Rd., along the Lenape Trail in
Middle Run Valley Natural Area.
Delaware
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Sunset in Woodbrook, New Castle County, Delaware
21.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
Pennsylvania
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World's End State Park, Sullivan County
Pennsylvania
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Flag
Pennsylvania
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Autumn in North Branch Township,
Wyoming County, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
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Penn's Treaty with the Indians, by
Edward Hicks
22.
Chet Atkins
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Chester Burton Chet Atkins known as Mr. He was primarily known as a guitarist and he also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele. Atkins signature picking style was inspired by Merle Travis, other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and, later, Jerry Reed. His distinctive picking style and musicianship brought him admirers inside and outside the country scene, among many honors, Atkins received 14 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received nine Country Music Association awards for Instrumentalist of the Year and he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. Atkins was born on June 20,1924, in Luttrell, Tennessee and his parents divorced when he was six, after which he was raised by his mother. He was the youngest of three boys and a girl and he started out on the ukulele, later moving on to the fiddle, but traded his brother Lowell an old pistol and some chores for a guitar when he was nine. He stated in his 1974 autobiography, We were so poor, forced to relocate to Fortson, Georgia, outside of Columbus, to live with his father because of a critical asthma condition, Atkins was a sensitive youth who made music his obsession. Because of his illness, he was forced to sleep in a chair to breathe comfortably. On those nights, he played his guitar until he fell asleep holding it, while living in Fortson, he attended the historic Mountain Hill School. He returned in the 1990s to play a series of charity concerts to save the school from demolition, Atkins became an accomplished guitarist while he was in high school. He used the restroom in the school to practice, because it gave better acoustics and his first guitar had a nail for a nut and was so bowed that only the first few frets could be used. He later purchased an electric guitar and amp, but he had to travel many miles to find an electrical outlet. Later in life, he gave himself the honorary degree CGP. In 2011, his daughter Merle Atkins Russell bestowed the CGP degree on his longtime sideman Paul Yandell and she then declared no more CGPs would be allowed by the Atkins estate. His half-brother Jim was a successful guitarist who worked with the Les Paul Trio in New York, Atkins did not have a strong style of his own until 1939, when he heard Merle Travis picking over WLW radio. This early influence dramatically shaped his unique playing style, whereas Traviss right hand used his index finger for the melody and thumb for bass notes, Atkins expanded his right-hand style to include picking with his first three fingers, with the thumb on bass. Chet Atkins was a ham radio general class licensee, formerly using the call sign WA4CZD, he obtained the vanity call sign W4CGP in 1998 to include the CGP designation
Chet Atkins
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Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins
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Atkins's
Gretsch Country Gentleman, model G6122-1962
Chet Atkins
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Atkins listening as
Bill Porter adjusts a mix in RCA's Nashville studio
23.
Springfield, Missouri
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Springfield is the third largest city in the state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. According to the 2010 census data, the population was 159,498, as of 2015, the population is 166,810. Springfields nickname is the Queen City of the Ozarks and is known as the Birthplace of Route 66 and it is also home of several universities including Missouri State University, Drury University, and Evangel University. The territory known as Missouri was included in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, soon after, the Delaware Native Americans received treaty land where Springfields Sequiota Park and the antique stores of its Galloway Village stand today. To the west,500 Kickapoo Native Americans built wickiups on the prairie that still bears their name, Missouri became a state on August 10,1821, and in 1833 the legislature designated most of the southern portion as Greene County. Officially, Springfield was founded in 1830, and was incorporated in 1838, the origin of the name, Springfield is unclear, but the most common view is that the city was named for Springfield, Massachusetts. One account holds that James Wilson, who lived in the unnamed city, offered free whiskey to anyone who would vote for the name Springfield, after his home town of Springfield. In 1883, the historian R. I, but such is not a correct version. That same year, Cherokee Native Americans were forcibly removed by the U. S. government from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia to the Indian Territory. Their route became known as the Trail of Tears due to the thousands of Cherokee deaths on the journey, the Trail of Tears passed through the Springfield area via what is known today as the Old Wire Road. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail auto tour route is along Interstate 44 westward to US160, the Old Wire Road, then known as the Military Road, served until the mid-1840s as a connection between Springfield and the garrison at Fort Smith, Arkansas. By 1858, the Butterfield Overland Stage began utilizing the road offering passage to California, two years later, the regions first telegraph line was strung along the road, and it was dubbed the Telegraph or Wire Road. The road proved vital during the Civil War, and its most historic connection is to the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, while portions of the road exist today, the most easily accessible is within Wilsons Creek National Battlefield. The 1849 charter of the Pacific Railroad, established to construct a line from St. Louis westward across central Missouri, was expanded in 1852 to include a Southwest Branch. However, after defaulting on its obligations, the state seized this branch and sold it, thus creating a new company, commercial and industrial diversification came with the railroads, and strengthened the City of Springfield and North Springfield when the two towns merged 17 years later in 1887. Today visitors can enjoy the view from the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge, with the American Civil War imminent and Missouri a border state, Springfield was divided in its sentiments. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon was killed, the first Union general to die in combat, Union troops fell back to Lebanon, then Rolla, and regrouped. When they returned to Springfield, the Confederates had withdrawn, the First Battle of Springfield, or Zagonyis Charge, occurred on October 25,1861
Springfield, Missouri
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Park Central Square in Downtown Springfield
Springfield, Missouri
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Satellite view of Springfield
Springfield, Missouri
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Lightning over downtown Springfield
Springfield, Missouri
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Jordan Valley Park
24.
Grand Ole Opry
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The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country-music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, which was founded on November 28,1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio barn dance on WSM, currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment, it is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history, albeit not the longest-running one on a radio network. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of radio, the Oprys current primary slogan is The Show that Made Country Music Famous. Other slogans include Home of American Music and Country’s Most Famous Stage, in the 1930s the show began hiring professionals and expanded to four hours, and WSM, broadcasting by then with 50,000 watts, made the program a Saturday night musical tradition in nearly 30 states. In 1939, it debuted nationally on NBC Radio, the Opry moved to a permanent home, the Ryman Auditorium, in 1943. As it developed in importance, so did the city of Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry holds such significance in Nashville that its name is included on the city/county line signs on all major roadways. The signs read Music City|Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County|Home of the Grand Ole Opry, membership in the Opry remains one of country musics crowning achievements. Such country music legends as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Marty Robbins, Roy Acuff, since 1974, the show has been broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry House east of downtown Nashville, with an annual three-month winter foray back to the Ryman since 1999. Performances have been televised in addition to the radio programs. The Grand Ole Opry started as the WSM Barn Dance in the new radio studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company in downtown Nashville on November 28,1925. On October 18,1925, management began a program featuring Dr. Humphrey Bate, on November 2, WSM hired long-time announcer and program director George D. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with 77-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson on November 28,1925, judge Hay, however, liked the Fruit Jar Drinkers and asked them to appear last on each show because he wanted to always close each segment with red hot fiddle playing. They were the band accepted on Barn Dance, with the Crook Brothers being the first. When the Opry began having square dancers on the show, the Fruit Jar Drinkers always played for them, in 1926, Uncle Dave Macon, a Tennessee banjo player who had recorded several songs and toured the vaudeville circuit, became its first real star. The phrase Grand Ole Opry was first uttered on the air on December 10,1927, at the time, Barn Dance followed the NBC Red Networks Music Appreciation Hour, a program of classical music and selections from grand opera presented by classical conductor Walter Damrosch. On that particular night, Damrosch had remarked that there is no place in the classics for realism, in response, Opry presenter George Hay said, Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch told us there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the three hours, we will present nothing but realism
Grand Ole Opry
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Decorative brickwork at Opryland Hotel depicting Ryman Auditorium with Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff
Grand Ole Opry
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Logo since May 29, 2015
Grand Ole Opry
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Signs welcoming motorists to Nashville on all major roadways include the phrase "Home Of The Grand Ole Opry"
Grand Ole Opry
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Roy Acuff
25.
Hank Williams
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Hiram King Hank Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Born in Mount Olive, Butler County, Alabama, Williams moved to Georgiana, where he met Rufus Payne, Payne had a major influence on Williams later musical style, along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank and he moved to Montgomery, where he began his music career in 1937, when producers at radio station WSFA hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, Williams eventually married Audrey Sheppard, who was his manager for nearly a decade. After recording Never Again and Honky Tonkin with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records, in 1947 he released Move It on Over, which became a hit, and also joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. One year later, he released a cover of Lovesick Blues, after an initial rejection, Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. He was unable to read or notate music to any significant degree, among the hits he wrote were Your Cheatin Heart, Hey, Good Lookin, and Im So Lonesome I Could Cry. Several years of pain, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse severely damaged Williams health. He divorced Sheppard and was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his unreliability, Williams died on New Years Day of 1953 at the age of 29, from heart failure exacerbated by pills and alcohol. Despite his short life, Williams had a influence on 20th-century popular music. The songs he wrote and recorded have been covered by artists and have been hits in various genres. He has been inducted into multiple halls of fame, such as the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Williams was born in Butler County, Alabama, the son of Jessie Lillybelle Lillie and his parents married on November 12,1916. Hank Williams was of English ancestry, Elonzo Williams worked as an engineer for the railroads of the W. T. Smith lumber company. He was drafted during World War I, serving from July 1918 until June 1919 and he was severely injured after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone and suffering a severe blow to the head. After his return, the familys first child, Irene, was born on August 8,1922, another son of theirs died shortly after birth. Their third child, Hiram, was born on September 17,1923, in Mount Olive. Since Elonzo Williams was a Mason, and his wife was a member of Order of the Eastern Star the child was named after Hiram I of Tyre, as a child, he was nicknamed Harm by his family and Herky or Poots by his friends
Hank Williams
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Williams in a WSM Radio publicity photo, 1951
Hank Williams
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Williams' family house in
Georgiana, Alabama
Hank Williams
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Hank Williams playing guitar in Montgomery, Alabama in 1938
Hank Williams
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Hank Williams, Audrey Sheppard Williams and the Drifting Cowboys band
26.
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
Elvis Presley
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Presley in a publicity photograph for the 1957 film
Jailhouse Rock
Elvis Presley
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Presley's birthplace in
Tupelo, Mississippi
Elvis Presley
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Presley in a
Sun Records promotional photograph, 1954
Elvis Presley
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The "iconic cover" of
Presley's 1956 debut album featuring a photo taken July 31, 1955, in Tampa, Florida
27.
Faron Young
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Faron Young was an American country music singer and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s and one of its most successful and colorful stars. Known as the Hillbilly Heartthrob, and following a movie role, Young is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana one day before Johnny Cash, Young was the youngest of six children of Harlan and he grew up on a dairy farm that his family operated outside the city. He graduated from Fair Park High School, Young began singing at an early age, he originally wanted to be a pop singer. However, after he joined some friends watching Hank Williams perform with nine encores on the Louisiana Hayride and he performed at the local Optimist Club and was discovered by Webb Pierce, who brought him to star on Louisiana Hayride on KWKH-AM in 1951. He graduated from Fair Park High School that year and attended Centenary College of Louisiana, Young recorded in Shreveport, but his first releases were on Philadelphia’s Gotham Records. By February 1952, he was signed to Capitol Records, where he recorded for the ten years. His first Capitol single appeared that spring, Young moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and recorded his first chart hit, Goin’ Steady, in October 1952, but his career was sidetracked when he was drafted into the US Army the following month. The song hit the Billboard country charts while Young was in basic training,2, and the US Army Band took the young singer to replace Eddie Fisher on tours—its first country music singer—just as If You Ain’t Lovin’ was hitting the charts. He was discharged in November 1954, from 1954 to 1962, Young recorded many honky-tonk classics for Capitol, including the first hit version of Don Gibson’s Sweet Dreams. Most famous was Hello Walls, a 1961 crossover hit for Young written by Willie Nelson and it sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. During the mid-1950s, Young starred in four movies, Hidden Guns, Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer, Raiders of Old California. He appeared as himself in cameo roles and performances in country music movies and was a frequent guest on television shows throughout his career. His band, the Country Deputies, was one of musics top bands. He invested in real estate along Nashvilles Music Row in the 1960s and, in 1963, co-founded, with Preston Temple, the trade magazine, Music City News. The same year, Young switched to Mercury Records and drifted musically, in the mid-70s, Young was the spokesman for BC Powder. Faron Young briefly dated Billie Jean Jones before her marriages to Hank Williams and it was through Young that Billie Jean was first introduced to Hank Williams. After their relationship ended Billie Jean married Williams in October 1952, in 1952 Faron Young met his future wife Hilda Macon, the daughter of an Army Master Sergeant and the great granddaughter of Uncle Dave Macon, while Young was stationed at Fort McPherson
Faron Young
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Faron Young in
Raiders of Old California (1957)
Faron Young
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Faron Young in 1964
Faron Young
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Capitol Records promotional photo
28.
Webb Pierce
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His biggest hit was In the Jailhouse Now, which charted for 37 weeks in 1955,21 of them at number one. For many, Pierce, with his flamboyant Nudie suits and twin silver dollar-lined convertibles, became the most recognizable face of music of the era. Pierce was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. A tribute album in his honor was released in 2001 entitled Caught In The Webb - A Tribute To Country Legend Webb Pierce. He began to play guitar before he was a teenager and at 15 was given his own weekly 15-minute show, Songs by Webb Pierce and he enlisted in the US Army, and in 1942 he married Betty Jane Lewis. After he was discharged, the moved to Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1947, the couple appeared on KTBS-AMs morning show as Webb Pierce with Betty Jane, Pierce also performed at local engagements, developing his unique style that was once described as a wailing whiskey-voiced tenor that wrang out every drop of emotion. In 1949, California-based 4 Star Records signed the Webbs under separate contracts, with his wife signed for duets with her husband under the name Betty Jane, however, success only came for Pierce, and in the summer of 1950, the couple divorced. He moved to KWKH-AM and joined Louisiana Hayride during its first year, before the show, he bought tickets for several young girls in line and asked them to sit in the first row, and after each of his songs to scream and beg for more. It worked, their spread throughout the audience. Pierce assembled and performed with a band of local Shreveport musicians, including pianist Floyd Cramer, guitarist-vocalist Faron Young, bassist Tillman Franks and vocalists Teddy and Doyle Wilburn. He also founded a label, Pacemaker, and Ark-La-Tex Music, a publishing company, with Horace Logan. On Pacemaker, Pierce made several records between 1950 and 1951 designed to attract radio play around Louisiana, in 1951, Pierce got out of his 4 Star contract and was quickly signed by Decca Records. His second single, Wondering, became his hit, climbing to No.1 early in 1952. Pierce moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he met and married his second wife, in June 1952, he had his second No.1 single with That Heart Belongs to Me. In September 1952, the Grand Ole Opry needed to fill the left by the firing of Hank Williams. After Williams death, he became the most popular singer in music, for the next four years, every single he released hit the top ten. 1, including There Stands the Glass, Slowly, More and More and his singles spent 113 weeks at No.1 during the 1950s, when he charted 48 singles
Webb Pierce
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Webb Pierce, c. 1957
Webb Pierce
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Webb Pierce (East Coast Tour - w/ Jerry Galloway) back stage at the Cedarwood Log Cabin - Southern New Jersey... probably Fall 1974
29.
Elia Kazan
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Elia Kazan was a Greek-American director, producer, writer and actor, described by The New York Times as one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history. He was born in Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents, after attending Williams College and then the Yale School of Drama, he acted professionally for eight years, later joining the Group Theater in 1932, and co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947. With Robert Lewis and Cheryl Crawford, his actors studio introduced Method Acting under the direction of Lee Strasberg, Kazan acted in a few films, including City for Conquest. Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations and he directed a string of successful films, including A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden. During his career, he won two Oscars as Best Director and received an Honorary Oscar, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globes and his films were concerned with personal or social issues of special concern to him. Kazan writes, I dont move unless I have some empathy with the basic theme and his first such issue film was Gentlemans Agreement, with Gregory Peck, which dealt with anti-Semitism in America. It received 8 Oscar nominations and 3 wins, including Kazans first for Best Director and it was followed by Pinky, one of the first films in mainstream Hollywood to address racial prejudice against black people. In 1954, he directed On the Waterfront, a film about corruption on the New York harbor waterfront. A Streetcar Named Desire, an adaptation of the play which he had also directed, received 12 Oscar nominations, winning 4. In 1955, he directed John Steinbecks East of Eden, which introduced James Dean to movie audiences and his testimony helped end the careers of former acting colleagues Morris Carnovsky and Art Smith, along with ending the work of playwright Clifford Odets. Kazan later justified his act by saying he took only the more tolerable of two alternatives that were either way painful and wrong, nearly a half-century later, his anti-Communist testimony continued to cause controversy. When Kazan was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999, dozens of actors not to applaud as 250 demonstrators picketed the event. Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 60s with his provocative, Director Stanley Kubrick called him, without question, the best director we have in America, capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses. Film author Ian Freer concludes that if his achievements are tainted by political controversy, in 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film A Letter to Elia as a personal tribute to Kazan. Elia Kazan was born in the Fener district of Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia and his parents, George and Athena Kazantzoglou, emigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He was named after his grandfather, Elia Kazantzoglou. His maternal grandfather was Isaak Shishmanoglou, elias brother, Avraam, was born in Berlin and later became a psychiatrist. As a young boy, he was remembered as being shy, much of his early life was portrayed in his autobiographical book, America America, which he made into a film in 1963
Elia Kazan
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Elia Kazan, c. 1960
Elia Kazan
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In the play "Paradise Lost" (1937)
Elia Kazan
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Kazan as a young man
Elia Kazan
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Brando and Vivien Leigh in a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
30.
Lee Strasberg
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Lee Strasberg was a Polish-born American actor, director, and theatre practitioner. He was born in a part of Galicia, Austrian Poland and he co founded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as Americas first true theatrical collective. The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute has its own sets of entrance criteria required for admission into their program. Former student Elia Kazan directed James Dean in East of Eden, as a student, Dean wrote that Actors Studio was the greatest school of the theater the best thing that can happen to an actor. Playwright Tennessee Williams, writer of A Streetcar Named Desire, said of Strasbergs actors and they communicate emotions they really feel. They give you a sense of life, directors such as Sidney Lumet, a former student, have intentionally used actors skilled in Strasbergs method. Kazan, in his autobiography, wrote, He carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a doctor, a psychoanalyst. Was the force held the thirty-odd members of the theatre together. Today, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel lead this nonprofit studio dedicated to the development of actors, playwrights and he also appeared in. And Justice for All. Strasbergs personal papers, including photos, are archived at the Library of Congress, Lee Strasberg was born Israel Strassberg in Budzanów in Austrian Poland, to Jewish parents, Baruch Meyer Strassberg and his wife, Ida, née Diner, and was the youngest of three sons. His father emigrated to New York while his family remained in their village with an uncle. His father, who worked as a presser in the garment industry, sent first for his eldest son, finally, enough money was saved to bring over his wife and his two remaining sons. In 1909, the family was reunited on Manhattans Lower East Side, a relative introduced him to the theater by giving him a small part in a Yiddish-language production being performed by the Progressive Drama Club. He later joined the Chrystie Street Settlement Houses drama club, when he was 23 years old, he enrolled in the Clare Tree Major School of the Theater. He became a naturalized United States citizen on January 16,1939, had his life-shaping revelation when Stanislavski brought his Moscow Art Theatre to the United States in 1923. He had seen good acting before, of course, but never an ensemble like this with actors completely surrendering their egos to the work. E observed, first of all, that all the actors, whether they were playing leads or small parts, worked with the same commitment, no actors idled about posing and preening. More important, every actor seemed to some sort of unspoken, yet palpable
Lee Strasberg
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Strasberg in 1976
Lee Strasberg
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Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio
Lee Strasberg
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Strasberg acting with
Al Pacino in
Godfather II
Lee Strasberg
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Strasberg in 1978
