1.
Alexandria, Virginia
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Alexandria is an independent city in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 139,966, and in 2015, located along the western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 7 miles south of downtown Washington, D. C. Like the rest of Northern Virginia, as well as Central Maryland, one of Alexandrias largest employers is the U. S. Department of Defense. Another is the Institute for Defense Analyses, in 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office moved to Alexandria. The historic center of Alexandria is known as Old Town, with its concentration of boutiques, restaurants, antique shops and theaters, it is a major draw for all who live in Alexandria as well for visitors. Like Old Town, many Alexandria neighborhoods are compact and walkable and it is the 7th largest and highest-income independent city in Virginia. In 1920, Virginias General Assembly voted to incorporate what had been Alexandria County as Arlington County to minimize confusion, on October 21,1669 a patent granted 6,000 acres to Robert Howsing for transporting 120 people to the Colony of Virginia. That tract would become the City of Alexandria. Virginias comprehensive Tobacco Inspection Law of 1730 mandated that all grown in the colony must be brought to locally designated public warehouses for inspection before sale. One of the sites designated for a warehouse on the upper Potomac River was at the mouth of Hunting Creek, however, the ground proved to be unsuitable, and the warehouse was built half a mile up-river, where the water was deep near the shore. They intended to trade into the interior of America. The best location was Hunting Creek tobacco warehouse, since the water could easily accommodate sailing ships. Many local tobacco planters, however, wanted a new town further up Hunting Creek, around 1746, Captain Philip Alexander II moved to what is south of present Duke Street in Alexandria. His estate, which consisted of 500 acres, was bounded by Hunting Creek, Hooffs Run, the Potomac River, and approximately the line which would become Cameron Street. The petition was introduced by Lawrence Washington, the representative for Fairfax County and, more importantly, the son-in-law of William Fairfax, since the river site was amidst his estate, Philip opposed the idea and strongly favored a site at the head of Hunting Creek. It has been said that in order to avoid a predicament the petitioners offered to name the new town Alexandria, as a result, Philip and his cousin Captain John Alexander gave land to assist in the development of Alexandria, and are thus listed as the founders. This John was the son of Robert Alexander II, on May 2,1749, the House of Burgesses approved the river location and ordered Mr. A Public Vendue was advertised for July, and the county surveyor laid out street lanes and town lots. The auction was conducted on July 13–14,1749, the name Belhaven was used in official lotteries to raise money for a Church and Market House, but it was never approved by the legislature and fell out of favor in the mid-1750s
Alexandria, Virginia
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Alexandria with Washington and Arlington in the distance
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, Virginia
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Map of Alexandria County (1878), including what is now
Arlington County and the City of Alexandria. Map includes the names of property owners at that time. City boundaries roughly correspond with Old Town.
Alexandria, Virginia
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Map of Alexandria showing the forts that were constructed to defend Washington during the Civil War
2.
Seguin, Texas
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Seguin is a city in and the county seat of Guadalupe County, Texas, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 25,175, by 2015, the population was estimated to be 27,864. Seguin is one of the oldest towns in Texas, founded just sixteen months after the Texas Revolution, the frontier settlement was a cradle of the Texas Rangers and home to the celebrated Captain Jack Hays, perhaps the most famous Ranger of all. Seguin was the home of Dr. John E. Park, the nearly 100 structures—the courthouse, schools, churches, homes, cisterns, walls, etc. —made up the largest concentration of early 19th-century concrete buildings in the United States. About 20 of them remain standing, the use of concrete largely ended when the railroad arrived in 1876, bringing cheap lumber and the equipment needed for brick-making. The town had five brickworks, and the buildings of downtown were completely replaced with brick by the beginning of World War I. For almost 100 years, the town was dependent on the surrounding farmland. Then an oil boom came just as the Great Depression was taking other towns. Seguin could raise tax money to match the federal grants for make-work projects. The New Deal transformed the public face with Art Deco-style City Hall, Courthouse, Jail, and fountain, as well as storm sewers, sidewalks. To preserve some of the character of the town, Seguin became one of the states first Main Street cities. Fine homes by leading architects J. Reily Gordon, Solon McAdoo, Leo M. J. Dielman, ayers, and Marvin Eickenroht dating from the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be found on many streets. However, the city does not have any officially designated historic residential districts, the post-war era saw industrial development, including a mini-mill that turned scrap metal into construction products. A plant was built by Motorola in 1972 to produce car electronics and it was bought by Continental AG in 2006. A Caterpillar diesel engine plant was opened in 2008. On the northern edge of the South Texas Plains, Seguin enjoys a mild winter, the sunny days of spring bring on spectacular shows of wildflowers March into June. Most of Texas suffers hot, dry summers from June into September, then cold fronts pushing down from the north usually trigger precipitation and make October a rainy month, bringing a second spring of wildflowers. At their worst, fall and winter have northers, fast-moving cold fronts with wind, often rain, northers give way to warm spells, right through the winter
Seguin, Texas
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Water tower in Seguin
Seguin, Texas
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The Municipal Building, a
New Deal project built in
Art Deco style in 1935, Lewis M. Wirtz and Harold Calhoun architects.
Seguin, Texas
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Guadalupe County Courthouse, 1936, in Art Deco style by Lewis Wirtz and Harold Calhoun.
Seguin, Texas
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Walnut Springs Park on Walnut Branch, a small tributary of the
Guadalupe River, was first constructed by members of the
Civilian Conservation Corps.
3.
Folk music
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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
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Béla Bartók recording Slovak peasant singers in 1908
Folk music
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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
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Armenian traditional musicians
Folk music
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Assyrians playing
zurna and
Davul, the typically used instruments for their folk music.
4.
Acoustic guitar
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An acoustic guitar is a guitar that produces sound acoustically—by transmitting the vibration of the strings to the air—as opposed to relying on electronic amplification. The sound waves from the strings of an acoustic guitar resonate through the guitars body and this typically involves the use of a sound board and a sound box to strengthen the vibrations of the strings. The main source of sound in a guitar is the string. The string vibrates at a frequency and also creates many harmonics at various different frequencies. The frequencies produced can depend on string length, mass, gitterns, a small plucked guitar were the first small guitar-like instruments created during the Middle Ages with a round back like that of a lute. Modern guitar shaped instruments were not seen until the Renaissance era where the body, the earliest string instruments that related to the guitar and its structure where broadly known as the vihuelas within Spanish musical culture. Vihuelas where string instruments that were seen in the 16th century during the Renaissance. Later, Spanish writers distinguished these instruments into 2 categories of vihuelas, the vihuela de arco was an instrument that mimicked the violin, and the vihuela de penola was played with a plectrum or by hand. When it was played by hand it was known as the vihuela de mano, vihuela de mano shared extreme similarities with the Renaissance guitar as it used hand movement at the sound hole or sound chamber of the instrument to create music. The real production of guitars kicked off in France where the popularity, the production became so large that early famous creators such as Gaspard Duyffooprucgars instruments were being sold as copies by other guitar makers in Lyon. Benoist Lejeune, a maker, offered and sold guitar copies of Duyffoprucgars instruments and was later imprisoned for using his mark and work. During this time, the production was increasing tremendously but it was not until Robert and Claude Denis appeared overproducing the early Renaissance guitar in Paris, as father and son, Robert and Claude produced hundreds of guitars that increased the popularity of the instrument greatly. Because of them and the great many guitar inventors of this time, by 1790 only six-course vihuela guitars were being created and had become the main type and model of guitar used in Spain. Most of the older 5-course guitars where still in use but were also being modified to a six-coursed acoustical guitar, by the 19th century, coursed strings where evolved into 6 single-stringed instruments much like that of the guitar today. It had evolved into the modern look except for size, retaining a smaller frame, the acoustic guitars soundboard, or top, also has a strong effect on the loudness of the guitar. No amplification actually occurs in this process, because no energy is added to increase the loudness of the sound. All the energy is provided by the plucking of the string, but without a soundboard, the string would just cut through the air without actually moving it much. The soundboard increases the surface of the area in a process called mechanical impedance matching
Acoustic guitar
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A
Gibson SJ200 Steel-string acoustic guitar.
Acoustic guitar
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A
C.F. Martin 000-28EC.
Acoustic guitar
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An
Ovation Adamas, whose parabolic shape reduces feedback and increases volume.
Acoustic guitar
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Many acoustic guitars incorporate
rosettes around the
sound hole.
5.
MCA Records
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MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc. which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group, of which MCA Records was still part. MCAs country division, MCA Nashville, is an active imprint of Universal Music Group Nashville. MCA was forced to exit the talent agency business in order to complete the merger, as American Decca owned Universal Pictures, MCA assumed full ownership of Universal and made it into the top film studio in town, producing hit after hit. In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records and in 1967 purchased Kapp Records which was placed under Uni Records management. In 1937, the owner of Decca, E. R. Lewis, chose to split off the U. K. Decca company from the U. S. company, companies if the emerging hostilities of Nazi Germany should lead to war – correctly foreseeing World War II. Lewis sold the remainder of his U. S. Decca holdings when war did break out, MCAs U. S. -based Decca Records kept the rights to the Decca name in North and South America and parts of Asia including Japan. U. K. Decca owned the rights to the Decca name in the rest of the world, after the war, British Decca formed a new U. S. subsidiary, London Records. During this time U. S. Decca issued records outside North America on the Brunswick, in 1967, Brunswick and Coral were replaced by the MCA label to release U. S. Decca and Kapp label material outside North America. Initial activity as MCA Records was based in London and MCA Records UK was formally launched on February 16,1968. Among the early artists on the MCA label, around 1971, were groups Wishbone Ash, Osibisa, Stackridge and Budgie, early MCA releases were distributed by U. K. Decca but it moved to EMI in 1974. In 1979, distribution moved to CBS, while the last releases in the 1980s were self-distributed, as the U. S. division of MCA Records was not established until 1972, the earliest U. K. MCA Records material was released in the U. S. on either Kapp or Decca, Uni label material was issued on the Uni label worldwide. In 1970, MCA reorganized its Canadian record company Compo Company Ltd. into MCA Records, in April 1970, former Warner Bros. Records president Mike Maitland joined MCA and initially served as Deccas general manager. Maitland was unsuccessful in his attempt to consolidate Warner Bros. Records with co-owned Atlantic Records which led to his departure from Warner, the three labels maintained their identities for a short time but were retired in favor of the MCA label in 1973. Drift Away by Dobie Gray became the final Decca pop label release in the U. S in 1973. Beginning the same year the catalogs of Decca, Uni and Kapp were reissued in the U. S. on the MCA label under the supervision of veteran Decca producer Milt Gabler. The first MCA Records release in the U. S. was former Uni artist Elton Johns Crocodile Rock single in 1972, MCA label used a black with curved rainbow design until the late 1970s. This design was inspired by the U. S. Decca label of the 1960s
MCA Records
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MCA Music (Philippines)
MCA Records
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MCA Records
MCA Records
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First MCA Records logo, with lowercase name, used outside the United States and patterned after the 1960s American Decca logo.
MCA Records
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MCA Records logo used from 1972 through 1990.
6.
Elektra Records
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Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of folk music. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMGs Atlantic Records Group, after five years of dormancy, the label was revived as an imprint of Atlantic in 2009. The label has been run by Gregg Nadel since 2015 who officially became its president in 2017, Elektra was formed in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt in Holzmans St. Johns College dorm room. The usual spelling of the Greek mythological Pleiad Electra was changed, Holzman famously explained, I gave her the ‘K’ that I lacked. He found the C in the name too soft but liked the solid bite of the letter K. The first Elektra LP, New Songs, was a collection of Lieder and similar art songs, Holzman also recorded Josh White, who was without a record deal as a result of McCarthyite blacklisting. In 1964, Elektra launched Nonesuch Records and this classical budget label was the best-selling budget classical label of the era. In 1965, Elektra began a joint venture with Survey Music called Bounty Records which was Elektras first foray into pop music. The most notable signing for Bounty was the Paul Butterfield Band who was moved over to Elektra when Bounty folded, the labels most important signings were the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Los Angeles bands Love and The Doors, and the Detroit bands The Stooges and MC5. Included in Elektras LA signings were Tim Buckley and Bread, in 1968, the label also signed pioneering rock guitar soloist Lonnie Mack to a three-album deal. Also in 1967, Elektra launched its influential Nonesuch Explorer Series, excerpts from several Nonesuch Explorer recordings were later included on the two Voyager Golden Discs which were sent into deep space in 1977 aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes. Elektra, along with its Nonesuch Records subsidiary, was acquired by Kinney National Services in 1970, soon afterwards, Kinney consolidated their label holdings under the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic umbrella. Holzman remained in charge of Elektra until 1972, when it merged with Asylum Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records, Asylums founder, David Geffen, would head the newly combined label. Holzman, in the meantime, was appointed vice president and chief technologist for Warner — ushering the company into home video. Holzman also went on to acquire Discovery Records, in 1975, Geffen stepped down due to health problems. He would be replaced by Joe Smith, who went on to become CEO of Capitol Records. Although the company was listed as Elektra/Asylum Records on the label credits
Elektra Records
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Elektra Records logo
7.
Rounder Records
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Rounder Records is an American record label specializing in folk, bluegrass, blues, and other forms of American roots music. Its roster includes Alison Krauss and Union Station, Béla Fleck, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, Rounders musicians have won over 40 Grammy Awards since the labels inception in 1970. The company also maintains book and video divisions, Rounder was founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, three college friends in Massachusetts who shared an interest in folk, old country, and bluegrass music. They gave the label its name for reasons, the shape of a vinyl record, the nickname for a hobo. In Rounders first three years, it released 19 records, starting in 1970 with an album by George Pegram, Rounders earliest success was George Thorogood and The Destroyers, a blues-rock band that sold half a millions copes of their 1978 album Move It On Over. Headquarters were moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, over the years, Rounder expanded its roster to include other genres such as reggae, and zydeco. The labels first Grammy was won by blues guitarist Clarence Gatemouth Brown in 1983 for the album Alright Again, Rounders most successful act is bluegrass singer and fiddler Alison Krauss. In 1991, at the age of 19, she won a Grammy Award for her second album, the album spawned singles, videos, and national TV exposure. Krauss has sold over 12 million albums and won 27 Grammy Awards, in 2012, Rounder was sold to Concord Music Group. Two years later, Rounder moved its headquarters to Nashville, list of record labels Official site The Never-Ending Revival, Rounder Records and the Folk Alliance by Michael F. Scully Radio Interview with founders Marian Leighton Levy and Ken Irwin
Rounder Records
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Rounder Records
8.
The Crickets
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The Crickets were an American rock and roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer-songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. Their first hit record, Thatll Be the Day, released in 1957, was a hit single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on September 23. The Crickets helped set the template for subsequent rock bands, such as the Beatles, with their guitar-bass-drums lineup, after Hollys death in 1959 the band continued to tour and record with other band members into the 21st century. Holly had been making demo recordings with local musician friends since 1954, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Larry Welborn participated in these sessions. Holly had already recorded for another label under his own name, as the Crickets recalled in John Goldrosens book The Buddy Holly Story, they were inspired by other groups named after birds. They were then considering insect-centered names, apparently unaware of the Bronx R&B vocal group the Crickets and they almost chose the name Beetles, years later, the Beatles chose their name partly in homage to the Crickets. The Crickets were lead guitarist and vocalist Buddy Holly, drummer Jerry Allison, Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. Sullivan dropped out after a more than one year to resume his education. The Crickets, now a trio, continued to stage and TV appearances and recorded more songs. In 1957 Norman Petty arranged for the Crickets recordings to be marketed under two separate names, the solo vocals were released as being by Buddy Holly, and the songs with dubbed backing vocals were issued as being by the Crickets. Petty reasoned correctly that disc jockeys might be reluctant to program a single artist too heavily, some disc jockeys referred to the band as Buddy Holly and the Crickets, but record labels never used this wording until after Hollys death. In 1958, Holly broke with producer Petty and moved to New York to be involved with the publishing and recording businesses. Allison and Mauldin chose not to move and returned to Lubbock, Holly now recorded under his own name with the studio musicians Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch. Waylon Jennings toured with him shortly after the Crickets folded, Allison and Mauldin looked forward to rejoining Holly after he returned from a winter tour through the northern Midwest. In the meantime, Mauldin, Allison, and Sonny Curtis began recording new songs as the Crickets, while they were recording, it was announced that Holly had died in a plane crash while on tour. The Crickets, now with vocalist Earl Sinks, went on performing after Hollys death, Curtis was not in the band at the time, as he was completing military service. Box, who had left the group in 1960, died in a plane crash on October 23,1964. In April 1960 the Crickets backed the Everly Brothers on their first UK concert tour but were not billed as their backing group, by 1962, the Crickets consisted of Curtis, Allison, Glen D. Hardin and Jerry Naylor
The Crickets
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The Crickets in 1957 (top to bottom):
Jerry Allison,
Buddy Holly, and
Joe B. Mauldin
The Crickets
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Norman Petty Recording Studios.
The Crickets
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Trading card photo of the Crickets in 1957: Buddy Holly, Jerry Alison, Niki Sullivan, and at front Joe Mauldin. Topps gum cards issued a series of movie stars, television stars and recording stars. They were part of their recording stars cards.
The Crickets
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The Crickets in 1962.
Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison,
Glen D. Hardin,
Jerry Naylor
9.
Darius Rucker
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Darius Carlos Hootie Rucker is an American singer and songwriter. The band has released five albums with him as a member. Rucker co-wrote the majority of the songs with the other three members. He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then, in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings, six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, Dont Think I Dont Think About It and it was followed by two more number one singles, It Wont Be Like This for Long and Alright and the number three, History in the Making. In 2009, he became the first African American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, a second album, Charleston, SC1966, was released on October 12,2010. The album includes the number one singles, Come Back Song, Darius Carlos Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where his family history goes back generations. He lives in Charleston with his wife and three children and his single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays and his father was in a gospel band called The Rolling Stones. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern, African-American upbringing and his family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories and his sister, LCorine, recalled that singing was always his dream. Rucker has been the singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow members, Mark Bryan, Jim Soni Sonefeld. Bryan heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R. E. M and they later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote, as the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply Hootie in the media, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, Rucker said they flipped the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being black enough, saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhans Million Man March. He also received threats for singing the Hootie song Drowning
Darius Rucker
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Darius Rucker in 2004 at Yokota Air Base in Japan
Darius Rucker
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Rucker sings to a crowd during an Operation Pacific Greetings tour concert.
10.
James McMurtry
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James McMurtry is an American rock and folk rock/americana singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, and occasional actor. He performs with veteran bandmates Daren Hess, Cornbread, and Tim Holt and his father, novelist Larry McMurtry, gave him his first guitar at age seven. His mother, an English professor, taught him how to play it, I learned everything by ear or by watching people. McMurtry spent the first seven years of his boyhood in Ft, worth but was raised mostly in Leesburg, Virginia. He attended the Woodberry Forest School, Orange, Virginia and he began performing in his teens, writing bits and pieces. He started performing his own songs at a beer garden while studying English and Spanish at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After traveling to Alaska and playing a few gigs, he returned to Texas, after a time, he left for San Antonio, where he worked as a house painter, actor, bartender, and sometimes singer, performing at writers nights and open mics. In 1987 McMurtrys career entered an upswing, a friend in San Antonio suggested McMurtry enter the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk songwriter contest, he became one of six winners that year. Also around this time John Mellencamp was starring in a film based on a script by McMurtrys father, Mellencamp subsequently served as co-producer on McMurtrys 1989 debut album, Too Long in the Wasteland. McMurtry also appeared on the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, working with Mellencamp, John Prine, Joe Ely, McMurtry released follow-up albums Candyland and Whered You Hide the Body. Walk Between the Raindrops followed in 1998 and 2002 brought St. Mary of the Woods, in April 2004, McMurtry released a tour album called Live In Aught-Three. Choctaw Bingo, one of McMurtrys most popular songs, is featured on both St. Mary of the Woods and Live in Aught-Three, in 2005, McMurtry released his first studio album in three years. Childish Things again received critical praise, winning the song and album of the year at the 5th Annual Americana Music Awards in Nashville. The album was perhaps McMurtry at his most political, as his working-class anthem We Cant Make It Here included direct criticism of George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the music critic Robert Christgau ranked We Cant Make It Here as the best song of the 2000s. McMurtry released his album to Childish Things in April 2008. Just Us Kids continued with the albums political themes and included the song Cheneys Toy. Like We Cant Make It Here from the album, Cheneys Toy was made available as a free Internet download. In November 2014, McMurtry announced that his new album Complicated Game will be available on February 24,2015, on an L. A. record label, also named Complicated Game
James McMurtry
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American singer/songwriter James McMurtry wields his capoed cobbled-together butterscotch Fender Telecaster during a late-night performance with his backing band, The Heartless Bastards, in 2005 at Dan's Silverleaf in
Denton, Texas.
11.
Austin, Texas
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Austin is the capital of the U. S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. It is the 11th-most populous city in the U. S. and it is the fastest growing large city in the United States and the second most populous capital city after Phoenix, Arizona. As of the U. S. Census Bureaus July 1,2015 estimate and it is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 2,056,405 as of July 1,2016. In the 1830s, pioneers began to settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River, in 1839, the site was officially chosen to replace Houston as the new capital of the Republic of Texas and was incorporated under the name Waterloo. Shortly thereafter, the name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the Father of Texas and the republics first secretary of state. The city subsequently grew throughout the 19th century and became a center for government and education with the construction of the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin. After a lull in growth from the Great Depression, Austin resumed its development into a city and, by the 1980s, it emerged as a center for technology. A number of Fortune 500 companies have headquarters or regional offices in Austin, including Amazon. com, cisco, eBay, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle Corporation, Texas Instruments, 3M, and Whole Foods Market. Dells worldwide headquarters is located in nearby Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, residents of Austin are known as Austinites. They include a mix of government employees, college students, musicians, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers. The city also adopted Silicon Hills as a nickname in the 1990s due to an influx of technology. In the late 1800s, Austin was known as the City of the Violet Crown because of the glow of light across the hills just after sunset. Even today, many Austin businesses use the term Violet Crown in their name, Austin is known as a clean-air city for its stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places and buildings, including restaurants and bars. The FBI ranked Austin as the second-safest major city in the U. S. for the year 2012, U. S. News & World Report named Austin the best place to live in the U. S. in 2017. Austin, Travis County and Williamson County have been the site of habitation since at least 9200 BC. When settlers arrived from Europe, the Tonkawa tribe inhabited the area, the Comanches and Lipan Apaches were also known to travel through the area. Spanish colonists, including the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition, traveled through the area for centuries, in 1730, three missions from East Texas were combined and reestablished as one mission on the south side of the Colorado River, in what is now Zilker Park, in Austin. The mission was in area for only about seven months
Austin, Texas
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Downtown skyline as seen from
Lady Bird Lake
Austin, Texas
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An 1873 illustration of Edwin Waller's layout for Austin
Austin, Texas
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Statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the
Texas State Capitol Grounds prior to installation on top of the rotunda
Austin, Texas
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Bob Bullock Texas History Museum in Austin. Its mission is to "tell The Story of Texas".
12.
Nashville, Tennessee
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Nashville is the capital of the U. S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in the central part of the state. The city is a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries and it is known as a center of the country music industry, earning it the nickname Music City, U. S. A. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government which includes six municipalities in a two-tier system. Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council, thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, five are elected at-large. Reflecting the citys position in government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Courts courthouse for Middle Tennessee. According to 2015 estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau, the balance population, which excludes semi-independent municipalities within Nashville, was 654,610. The 2015 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,830,345, the 2015 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,951,644. The town of Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and it was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its location, accessibility as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 African American slaves and 14 free blacks, in 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee, by 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city. The citys significance as a port made it a desirable prize as a means of controlling important river. In February 1862, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops, the state was occupied by Union troops for the duration of the war. Within a few years after the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton, meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and these healthy economic times left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, which can still be seen around the downtown area. Circa 1950 the state approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts. This change was supported because at-large voting diluted the minority populations political power in the city and they could seldom gain a majority of the population to support a candidate of their choice
Nashville, Tennessee
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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
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Nashville riverfront shortly after the
Civil War
Nashville, Tennessee
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A satellite image of Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
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Downtown Nashville
13.
PBS
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The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcaster and television program distributor headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is funded by member dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, government agencies, corporations, foundations. All proposed funding is subjected to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source, since the mid 2000s, Roper polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as the most-trusted national institution in the United States. This arbitrary distinction is a frequent source of viewer confusion and it also operates National Datacast, a subsidiary which offers datacasting services via member stations, and provides additional revenue for PBS and its member stations. Founded by Hartford N. Gunn Jr, in 1973, it merged with Educational Television Stations. Each station is charged with the responsibility of programming content for their individual market or state that supplements content provided by PBS. By contrast, PBS member stations pay fees for the acquired and distributed by the national organization. Under this relationship, PBS member stations have greater latitude in local scheduling than their commercial broadcasting counterparts, scheduling of PBS-distributed series may vary greatly depending on the market. This can be a source of tension as stations seek to preserve their localism, however, PBS has a policy of common carriage, which requires most stations to clear the national prime time programs on a common programming schedule to market them nationally more effectively. Management at former Los Angeles member KCET cited unresolvable financial and programming disputes among its reasons for leaving PBS after over 40 years in January 2011. Most PBS stations timeshift some distributed programs, once PBS accepts a program offered for distribution, PBS, rather than the originating member station, retains exclusive rebroadcasting rights during an agreed period. Suppliers retain the right to sell the program in non-broadcast media such as DVDs, books, in 1991, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting resumed production for most PBS shows that debuted prior to 1977, with the exceptions of Washington Week in Review and Wall Street Week. In 1994, The Chronicle of Philanthropy released the results of the largest study on the popularity and credibility of charitable, the strategy began that fall, with the intent to expand the in-program breaks to the remainder of the schedule if successful. In 2011, PBS released apps for iOS and Android to allow viewing of videos on mobile devices. An update in 2015 added Chromecast support, PBS initially struggled to compete with online media such as YouTube for market share. In a 2012 speech to 850 top executives from PBS stations, in the speech, later described as a “seminal moment” for public television, he laid out his vision for a new style of PBS digital video production. Station leadership rallied around his vision and Seiken formed PBS Digital Studios, which began producing educational but edgy videos, something Seiken called “PBS-quality with a YouTube sensibility. ”The studio’s first hit, in 2012, PBS began organizing much of its prime time programming around a genre-based schedule. PBS broadcasts childrens programming as part of the morning and afternoon schedule
PBS
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PBS
14.
Austin City Limits
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The show helped Austin to become widely known as the Live Music Capital of the World, and is the only television show to receive the National Medal of Arts, which it was awarded in 2003. It also won a rare institutional Peabody Award in 2011 for its more than three decades of presenting and preserving eclectic American musical genres, for the first 12 seasons, Austin City Limits was produced by the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council. Beginning in Season 13, Austin City Limits moved to its current production home at Austins PBS affiliate KLRU, the pilot was shot on October 14,1974, and starred Willie Nelson. The show’s success as a fundraiser was enough for Arhos to get ACL green-lighted as a series, the show inspired the creation of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, an annual live music festival at Zilker Park in Austin. In 1982, Bill Arhos returned to Austin City Limits as the executive producer starting in Season 7, in 2015, Arhos died at the age of 80. In 2014, he was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, some of the performances from Austin City Limits have been released as CDs and DVDs in the Live from Austin, TX series. Full episodes can also be viewed online at the official website. There is an Austin City Limits store at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, MTV Live acquired rerun rights to the series in 2016. In 2002, older episodes are carried by CMT, as part of their Best of Austin City Limits series. The executive producer of Austin City Limits is Terry Lickona, who joined the program in 1979 during Season 4, the studio had a seating capacity of approximately 800, but due to limited access to fire exits the audience size was limited to 300. In 2010, the show and its original studio were inducted into the Rock, a plaque near the entrance to Communications Building B commemorating the occasion proclaims Austin City Limits as the longest running music show in the history of American television. On February 26,2011, Austin City Limits held its first taping in its new purpose-built Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater, the additional seating capacity is used for an estimated 100 concerts and 100 private events per year at the venue. On December 2,2014, in celebration of Austin City Limits 40th season, Austin City Limits is the longest-running music series in American television history. In Season 1 of Austin City Limits in 1976, each begins with the soundcheck that is run by producer Paul Bosner. He then used it as the audio to accompany each episodes 2 minute opening title sequence, beginning with Season 2 in 1977, the soundcheck was replaced by Gary P. Nunns London Homesick Blues, which was introduced as the shows theme song. The song was written by Gary P. Nunn, and performed by The Lost Gonzo Band, so director Bruce Scafe used the song from the last episode of Season 1 in 1976 entitled The Lost Gonzo Band followed by Jerry Jeff Walker. He then used it as the audio to accompany those landscape, London Homesick Blues will remain in use as the shows theme song until Season 29. From Season 7 in 1982 to Season 8 in 1983, the theme music was composed by Austin musician John Mills
Austin City Limits
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Terry Lickona - Producer of Austin City Limits (2013)
Austin City Limits
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Logo
Austin City Limits
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Austin City Limits sign at ACL Live - Moody Theater in Austin, TX (2012)
15.
Channel Four
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Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, before Channel 4 and S4C, Britain had three terrestrial television services, BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. The Broadcasting Act 1980 began the process of adding a fourth, after some months of test broadcasts, it began scheduled transmissions on 2 November 1982. Indeed, television sets throughout the 1970s and early 1980s had a spare channel called ITV/IBA2. It was most likely politics which had the biggest impact in leading to a delay of almost three decades before the commercial channel became a reality. The campaign was taken so seriously by Gwynfor Evans, former president of Plaid Cymru, the result was that Channel 4 as seen by the rest of the United Kingdom would be replaced in Wales by Sianel Pedwar Cymru. Operated by a specially created authority, S4C would air programmes in Welsh made by HTV, since then, carriage on digital cable, satellite and digital terrestrial has introduced Channel 4 to Welsh homes where it is now universally available. The first programme to air on the channel was the game show Countdown. The first person to be seen on Channel 4 was Richard Whiteley with Ted Moult being the second, the first woman on the channel, contrary to popular belief, was not Carol Vorderman and was a lexicographer only ever identified as Mary. Whiteley opened the show with the words, On its first day, Channel 4 also broadcast controversial soap opera Brookside, which ran until 2003. On its launch, Channel 4 committed itself to providing an alternative to the existing channels, Channel 4 co-commissioned Robert Ashleys ground-breaking television opera Perfect Lives, which it premiered over several episodes in 1984. The channel often did not receive mass audiences for much of period, however. Channel 4 for many years had a poorer quality signal compared to other channels, Channel 4 also began the funding of independent films, such as the Merchant-Ivory docudrama The Courtesans of Bombay, during this time. In 1992, Channel 4 also faced its first libel case by Jani Allan, a South African journalist, who objected to her representation in the documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Drivers Wife. After control of the station passed from the Channel Four Television Company to the Channel Four Television Corporation in 1993, instead of aiming for the fringes of society, it began to focus on the edges of the mainstream, and the centre of the mass market itself. It began to show many US programmes in peak viewing time and it gave such shows as Friends and ER their UK premières. In the early 2000s, Channel 4 began broadcasting reality formats such as Big Brother and obtained the rights to broadcast mass appeal sporting events like cricket and this new direction increased ratings and revenues. In addition, the corporation launched a number of new channels through its new 4Ventures offshoot, including Film4, At the Races, E4
Channel Four
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Channel 4
16.
John Prine
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John Prine is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a composer, recording artist, born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at the age of 14. Subsequently, serving in West Germany with the U. S. armed forces, by the late 1960s he had moved to Chicago, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs as a hobby. Becoming a part of the folk revival, he was discovered by Kris Kristofferson. After receiving critical acclaim, Prine focused on his musical career and he then signed to Asylum Records, where he recorded an additional three albums. In 1984 he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent record label with which he would release most of his subsequent albums, after his battle with squamous cell cancer in 1998, Prines vocals deepened into a gravel-voice, resulting in the award-winning album Fair & Square. Prine is the son of William Prine and Verna Hamm and he started playing guitar at age 14, taught by his brother, David. Prine attended Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois and he was a mailman for five years and served in the Army during the Vietnam War era, serving in Germany, before beginning his musical career in Chicago. In the late 1960s, while Prine was delivering mail, he began to sing at open mic evenings at the Fifth Peg on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. Prine was initially a spectator, reluctant to perform, but eventually did so in response to a You think you can do better, comment made to him by another performer. Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert heard him there and wrote the first review Prine ever received and he became a central figure in the Chicago folk revival, which also included such singer-songwriters as Steve Goodman, Bonnie Koloc, Jim Post and Fred Holstein. In 1971 Prines self-titled debut album was released and he and friend Steve Goodman had each been active in the Chicago folk scene before being discovered by Kris Kristofferson. The album included his signature songs Illegal Smile, Sam Stone, the album received many positive reviews, and some hailed Prine as the next Dylan. Bob Dylan himself appeared unannounced at one of Prines first New York City club appearances, highlights include the allegorical The Great Compromise, which includes a recitation and addresses the Vietnam War, and the ballad Souvenirs, which Prine later recorded with Goodman. The latter album was Prines first to be charted in the US Top 100 by Billboard and it was produced by Steve Cropper. Many veteran Prine fans view the release of 1978s Bruised Orange as a creative highpoint, the Steve Goodman-produced album gave listeners songs such as The Hobo Song, Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone, and the title track. In 1974, singer David Allan Coe achieved considerable success on the charts with You Never Even Called Me By My Name, co-written by Prine. The song good-naturedly spoofs stereotypical country music lyrics, Prine refused to take a songwriters credit and the tune went to Goodman, although Goodman bought Prine a jukebox as a gift from his publishing royalties
John Prine
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Prine at MerleFest, Wilkesboro N.C. (2006)
17.
Barry Burton
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This is a list of Resident Evil characters, which includes playable and recurring characters that were introduced in Resident Evil, a series of survival horror video games. P - Playable character P* - Playable character The Umbrella Corporation is a pharmaceutical company in the Resident Evil universe. Founded in the late 1960s by prominent British royal descendants Ozwell E and their legitimate status is only a front for their secret research of bio-organic weapons, developed through the use of a unique virus discovered by the company founders shortly after World War II. The company is presented as having a more public face, producing cosmetics, consumer products. Umbrella established multiple secret research facilities to develop various bio-weapons. The virus leaked and contaminated most of the Arklay Facility and its surrounding area, following the destruction of Raccoon City, all of Umbrellas assets were frozen by the U. S. Government and its trading rights were revoked, effectively terminating its operations. However, it did not stop the rise of several bioterrorist organizations around the world, some of making use of its research. In Resident Evil 7, Biohazard, it is revealed that Umbrella has been reinstated, Voiced by, Adam D. Clark Motion capture, Adam D. Clark Ozwell E. Spencer is one of Resident Evils most mysterious characters, in the series, he is the owner and co-founder of the Umbrella Corporation, a pharmaceutical drug company that secretly manufactures bio-organic weapons. His colleagues, James Marcus and Edward Ashford, join his company, eventually, Edward Ashford dies, and Spencer seizes control of the company and its research by sending his subordinates, Albert Wesker and William Birkin, to assassinate Marcus. Spencer conducts some of his company’s research in the Arklay Research Facility and he hires George Trevor, a famous architect, to construct a mansion to conceal the facility. Spencers plans progress smoothly, until Marcus returns from the dead, Marcus destroys one of Spencer’s luxury trains, and causes a viral outbreak in the Arklay Research Facility. The outbreak spreads throughout the region, sparking the events of Resident Evil Zero, after the citys destruction, Spencer attempts to disguise the incident as a government conspiracy by hiring top lawyers and false witnesses. His actions prolong the proceedings, and allow the Umbrella Corporation to stay afloat for five more years. Ultimately, Wesker betrays Spencer by handing over documents to the U. S. government. Umbrellas business license is suspended, and the U. S. government works swiftly to dismantle the remains of the organization. After Umbrellas public fall from grace, Spencer retreats to his mansion in Europe and he is eventually located by Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine prior to the events of Resident Evil 5, but is swiftly killed by Wesker before the two can reach him. His first name is romanized as Oswell in the Japanese version, the corporation also uses its top-secret special forces group to secure and protect its assets and high-profile employees
Barry Burton
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Umbrella Corporation symbol
18.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
Country music
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Jimmie Rodgers
Country music
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Vernon Dalhart
Country music
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Roy Acuff
Country music
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Publicity photo of Roy Rogers and Gail Davis, 1948
19.
From a Distance
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From a Distance is a song written in 1987 by American singer-songwriter Julie Gold. Gold was working as a secretary at the time for Home Box Office, Golds friend, Christine Lavin, introduced the song to Nanci Griffith who first recorded it for her 1987 album, Lone Star State of Mind. It quickly became a favorite of Griffiths fans around the world, the song also became subject of many interpretations with the most famous being the Bette Midler version. Julie Gold has stated that she believes in an immanent and beneficent God and she has stated that the song is about the difference between how things appear to be and how they really are. Nanci Griffith recorded it first in her 1987 album Lone Star State of Mind, Griffith had answered that she loved it so much the moment she heard it and that she really wanted to hear it performed personally by Gold herself. Thus was established a relationship between the two with Griffith being the first to record From a Distance in her Lone Star State of Mind album. Although the Griffith version became popular, the song failed to chart until Bette Midler covered it. Judy Collins sang it live in 1989, being first recorded in her live album Sanity and Grace, the Byrds recorded the song as one of 4 newly recorded studio tracks for their box set The Byrds released in 1990. The song became a commercial success after it was recorded in 1990 by Bette Midler for the album Some Peoples Lives. From a Distance went to one on the Adult Contemporary chart. The song went on to win a Grammy for Song of the Year in 1991, the song also won a 3 Million Airs Award from Broadcast Music Incorporated. Midler re-recorded a Christmas version for her 2006 Christmas album, Cool Yule, additional recordings of the original have been performed by Gold, Griffith, Simon Nicol and many others. Much of the songs popularity coincided with the first Persian Gulf War, the songs parent album, Some Peoples Lives, peaked at number 6 in the Billboard 200. and ranked at number 14 on the now defunct Blender Magazines list of The 50 Worst Songs Ever. Criticisms focus on the lyrical content and the production of Midlers version. The song was released by Cliff Richard in October 1990 from a similarly titled album From a Distance, The Event reaching number 11 in the UK Singles Charts. In 1999, on his 40th Anniversary Tour as a recording artist, the track was produced by John Reynolds and Tim Oliver and mastered at Soundmastwers, London. Tesco Ireland, Beaumex Ireland and Believe Digital distributed the single online, the proceeds would go to build an Irish national monument for the Magdalene women. Elaine Paige recorded a version during the sessions for her 1991 album Love Can Do That, fairport Convention on the Wormwood Years album and subsequently on other albums including the 2002 release From Cropready to Portmerion
From a Distance
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"From a Distance"
From a Distance
From a Distance
20.
Julie Gold
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Julie Gold is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her musical composition From a Distance and that song has since received close to four million airplays. It has been recited into the Congressional Record and it has been recorded internationally and translated into many languages. It has been illustrated as a book and mass-produced in music boxes. It has been quoted in books, calendars, and greeting cards and it was used as the wake-up call for astronauts in the Mir space station the first time Americans worked with Russians in space. A wide range of recording artists has covered it, including Jewel, Elaine Paige, Cliff Richard, the African Childrens Choir, Judy Collins, the Byrds, Fairport Convention and Donna Summer. Nanci Griffith, the first to record From a Distance, has also recorded Golds songs Heaven, Southbound Train, Good Night New York, other artists who have covered Julie Gold songs include Patti LaBelle, Patti LuPone, Lea Salonga, and Andrea Marcovicci. Her song Thanks to You was featured in the 1993 film Andre, Julie Gold is originally from Havertown, Pennsylvania and later moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1974. From 1990 to 1994, she was a member of Four Bitchin Babes, along with Christine Lavin, Megon McDonough and her maternal grandparents and their children, including Julies mother, were Jewish immigrants from Russia in the 1930s. Julies Jewish paternal grandparents were immigrants from Romania and her Orthodox mother and her Conservative father were a founding family of Philadelphias Reform Temple Beth Elohim. Julies Jewish background has influenced her songs
Julie Gold
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Julie Gold performs at the M'korstock event at
Congregation M'Kor Shalom synagogue in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 2009
21.
Bette Midler
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Bette Midler is an American singer, songwriter, actress, comedian, and film producer. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Midler began her career in several Off-Off-Broadway plays, prior to her engagements in Fiddler on the Roof. She came to prominence in 1970 when she began singing in the Continental Baths, since 1970, Midler has released 14 studio albums as a solo artist. In 2008, she signed a contract with Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to perform a series of shows titled Bette Midler, The Showgirl Must Go On, Midler made her motion picture debut in 1979 with The Rose, which earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress. In the following years, she starred in a string of hit films, including, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Outrageous Fortune, Beaches, The First Wives Club, and The Stepford Wives. She starred in For the Boys and Gypsy, and won two additional Golden Globe awards for these films, in a career spanning almost half a century, Midler has won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 35 million records worldwide, and has received four Gold, Midler is currently appearing on Broadway in a revival of Hello, Dolly. which began preview performances on March 15,2017, and will premiere at the Shubert Theatre on April 20th. It is her first leading role in a Broadway musical, Midler was born in Honolulu, where her family was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother, Ruth, was a seamstress and housewife, and her father, Fred Midler, worked at a Navy base in Hawaii as a painter, and was also a housepainter. She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, and Midler uses one, /ˈbɛt/ and she was raised in Aiea and attended Radford High School, in Honolulu. She was voted Most Talkative in the 1961 school Hoss Election, Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and was a sister of Delta Phi Epsilon international sorority, but left after three semesters. She earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra, Midler married artist Martin von Haselberg on December 16,1984, about six weeks after their first meeting. Their daughter, Sophie von Haselberg, who is also an actress, was born on November 14,1986, Midler relocated to New York City in the summer of 1965, using money from her work in the film Hawaii. She landed her first professional role in Tom Eyens Off-Off-Broadway plays in 1965, Miss Nefertiti Regrets and Cinderella Revisited, a childrens play by day. From 1966 to 1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, after Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969. She began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel, during this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, who produced her first album in 1972, The Divine Miss M. It was during her time at the Continental Baths that she built up a core following. In the late 1990s, during the release of her album Bathhouse Betty, Midler commented on her time performing there, Despite the way turned out
Bette Midler
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Midler backstage at the Grammy Awards, February 1990
Bette Midler
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Midler with
Dustin Hoffman on Bette Midler TV Special (1977)
Bette Midler
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Midler in Los Angeles, 1990.
22.
Kathy Mattea
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Kathleen Alice Kathy Mattea is an American country music and bluegrass performer who often brings folk, Celtic, and traditional country sounds to her music. Active since 1983 as a recording artist, she has recorded seventeen albums and has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. This total includes the number one hits Goin Gone, Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses, Come From the Heart, and Burnin Old Memories, as well as twelve additional Top Ten singles. Mattea was born in South Charleston, West Virginia because it had the nearest hospital to her parents home in Cross Lanes and she discovered her love of singing at Girl Scout camp. In 1976, while attending West Virginia University, she joined the bluegrass band Pennsboro, and two years later dropped out of school to move to Nashville. Matteas third album, Walk the Way the Wind Blows, proved to be her critical and commercial breakthrough, Her cover of Nanci Griffiths Love at the Five and Dime was her first major hit, reaching No. 3, and the produced three other top ten songs, Walk the Way the Wind Blows, Youre the Power. Love at the Five and Dime also drew attention because well-known country singer Don Williams sang harmony vocals on the track, further hit songs include her first No. Mattea is a winner of the County Music Associations Female Vocalist of the Year, which she won on the success of Eighteen Wheels. She won another Grammy in 1993 for her gospel-oriented Christmas album and her first single from the album, Mary, Did You Know. went on to be covered by Kenny Rogers with Wynonna Judd, as well as Reba McEntire. Also on that album, Mattea teamed up with Jackson Browne to contribute Rock Me on the Water, through the 1990s, she often collaborated with Scottish folksinger songwriter Dougie MacLean. In 2000, released the ballad-heavy The Innocent Years, a tribute to her ailing father. Wanting to explore her taste for Celtic folk, Mattea changed labels to Narada and her 2008 release, Coal, combined her social activism with songs about coal-mining. It debuted at #64 on the albums chart, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Traditional Folk category. Kathy Mattea was honored as a member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame 2011 class of inductees and she is the recipient of the Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award, as well as the Harvard AIDS Institute Leadership Award. She performed with Mary Chapin Carpenter on VH1s very first Save The Music concert, in 1991, Mattea took part in Voices That Care, a multi-artist project that featured other top names in music for a one-off single to raise money for the allied troops in the Gulf War. The project included Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, in The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Kathy Matteas Official Website Kathy Mattea at the Internet Movie Database Kathy Mattea interviewed on Conversations from Penn State
Kathy Mattea
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Kathy Mattea
23.
Suzy Bogguss
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Susan Kay Suzy Bogguss is an American country music singer and songwriter. Bogguss began her career in the early 1980s as a solo singer, although she last appeared on the Billboard Hot Country Singles Chart in 2001, Bogguss continues to record and tour extensively. Susan Kay Bogguss was born in Aledo, Illinois, the youngest of four born to Barbara B. J. and Charles Bud Bogguss. Charles was an Army officer who served in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II, B. J. was a secretary-auditor for a Midwest grocery chain. Her grandmothers played piano at theaters, at age 5, she began singing in the Angel Choir of the College Avenue Presbyterian Church in her hometown. With her parents encouragement, she took lessons in piano and drums, in her youth, Bogguss would visit Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at their home in Apple Valley, California, as they attended the same church as her grandparents. She starred in musicals at Aledo High School, where she was crowned homecoming queen during her fourth year. After graduating in 1975, she enrolled at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington and she graduated from ISU in 1980 with a bachelors degree in metalsmithing. She would later use these skills to design her own jewelry, Bogguss later recalled of her interest in music, Being from a small town, I didn’t realize that somebody had to make this stuff. I also knew about Elton John and other big performers, having sung and played guitar and drums in local coffeehouses during her college years, Bogguss embarked on a nationwide tour as a folk troubadour after graduating from ISU. At the time, she was drawn to other such as Emmylou Harris, James Taylor. During this time, she produced her first independent album for Old Shack Recording, the LP was available for purchase at her shows and is now a rare collectors item. In 1984, while touring at the Huntley Lodge resort in Montana and she also realized that she had no health insurance, very little car insurance, and low chances of performing further, and there were no talent scouts. After moving to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1985, Bogguss began working at the local Tony Romas restaurant on her first day there, while there, she performed a three-day audition for entertainer Dolly Parton at Silver Dollar City, a theme park which would eventually become Dollywood. The following year, she became the first featured performer at the park, playing four solo shows at the parks train station. On performing at the station, Bogguss later recalled that I kept thinking. These performances prompted her to make a demo recording at a studio owned by folk singer Wendy Waldman. Bogguss made several copies and sold them while performing in Dollywood, at the time, she recorded a demo of Hopeless Romantic, a song written by Doug Crider that would become part of her debut studio album
Suzy Bogguss
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Bogguss performing at the Aledo Rhubarb Festival Concert in 2009
24.
Tom Russell
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Thomas George Tom Russell is an American singer-songwriter. Although most strongly identified with the Americana music tradition, his music incorporates elements of folk, rock. In addition to his music, Russell is also a painter and he has published a book of songwriting quotes, a detective novel, and a book of letters with Charles Bukowski. His recent works include two books from Bangtail Press,120 Songs of Tom Russell, and Blue Horse/Red Desert - The Art of Tom Russell, in 2016 a new book of Tom Russell essays was published, Ceremonies of the Horsemen. The essays, originally published in Ranch & Reata Magazine, are centered on the American West, Russell was born in Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in sociology of law. In 1969, he spent a year teaching in Ibadan, Nigeria and he has also lived in Spain and Norway - and played music at a circus in Puerto Rico. He began his career in the early 1970s in Vancouver, British Columbia playing strip bars along Skid Row, then later relocated to Texas. In 1977, the duo moved to San Francisco, performing regularly in clubs there as Hardin & Russell and they eventually split in 1979, at which point Russell drifted out of the music industry for a year. It was during this hiatus that Russell wrote his classic song Gallo Del Cielo, both Hardin & Russell albums received high critical acclaim, and the first was reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine by Chet Flippo. During this period Russell was also the winner of the first Woody Guthrie - William Oliver Award for songwriting, Russell moved to New York City in 1980, and while working as a taxi driver in Queens, he met guitarist Andrew Hardin. After hearing his songs, Hardin convinced him that they should form a new band, Hunter encouraged Russell to make a full-fledged return to the music business, and Russell later opened for Hunter at the Lone Star Cafe. Hunter sang Russells Gallo Del Cielo at The Glastonbury Festival in the UK. Andrew Hardin remained Russells full-time sideman until April,2006. Gallo del Cielo became one of Russells most fabled songs and has been recorded by Ian Tyson, Joe Ely, Brian Burns, the song has been cited as a favorite by Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen (as noted in Clarence Clemons book Big Man. These albums blended elements of folk, country, and rock music, and often featured songs inspired by the American Southwest, blue-collar American life, and events from Russells own life. Russells storytelling approach was also prominent in such as Haleys Comet. Haleys Comet imaginatively recalls the last, tragic days in the life of rock and these early Tom Russell albums are now considered pioneering recordings of the genre which would come to be known as Americana. Russell was next signed to HighTone Records in California and he released five albums for Hightone before the label was acquired by Shout
Tom Russell
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Russell performing at
Club Passim in 2008.
