1.
Madrid
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Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo. With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
2.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
3.
Community of Madrid
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The Community of Madrid is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and its capital is the city of Madrid, which is also the capital of the country. The Community of Madrid is bounded to the south and east by Castile–La Mancha and to the north and west by Castile and it was formally created in 1983, based on the limits of the province of Madrid, until then conventionally included in the historical region of New Castile. The Community of Madrid is the third most populous in Spain with 6,369,167 inhabitants mostly concentrated in the area of Madrid. It is also the most densely populated autonomous community, Madrids economy is of roughly equal size to Catalonias, which remains Spains largest. Madrid thus has the highest GDP per capita in the country, some notable discoveries of the region the bell-shaped vase of Ciempozuelos. During the Roman Empire, the region was part of the Citerior Tarraconese province, except for the south-west portion of it and it was crossed by two important Roman roads, the via xxiv-xxix (joining Astorga to laminium and via xxv, and contained some important conurbations. The city of Complutum became an important metropolis, whereas Titulcia, during the period of the Visigothic Kingdom, the region lost its importance. The population was scattered amongst several small towns, Alcalá de Henares was designated the bishopric seat in the 5th century by orders of Asturio, archbishop of Toledo, but this event was not enough to bring back the lost splendor of the city. The centre of the peninsula was one of the regions of the Al-Andalus until the 11th century when it became important. The Muslim governors created a system of fortresses and towers all across the region with which they tried to stop the advance of the Christian kingdoms of the north. The fortress of Mayrit was built somewhere between 860 and 880 AD, as a walled precinct where a military and religious community lived, and it soon became the most strategic fortress in defense of the city of Toledo above the fortresses of Talamanca de Jarama and Qal-at-Abd-Al-Salam. In 1083, king Alfonso VI of Castile conquered the city of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares fell in 1118 in a new period of Castilian annexation. The feudal and ecclesiastical lords came into constant conflict with the different councils that had granted the authority to repopulate. Specifically, Alcalá de Henares was under the hands of the archbishopric of Toledo, Castilian monarchs showed a predilection for the center of the peninsula, with abundant forests and game. El Pardo was a region visited frequently by kings since the time of Henry III, the Catholic Monarchs started the construction of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. In the 16th century, San Lorenzo de El Escorial was built, besides its growing political importance, it also became a cultural center with the foundation of the University of Alcalá de Henares in 1508. In 1561, King Philip II made Madrid the capital of the empire, the surrounding territories became economically subordinated to the town itself, even beyond the present day limits of the Community of Madrid
4.
High-tech architecture
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High-tech architecture appeared as revamped modernism, an extension of those previous ideas helped by even more technological advances. This category serves as a bridge between modernism and post-modernism, however, there remain gray areas as to one category ends. In the 1980s, high-tech architecture became more difficult to distinguish from post-modern architecture, some of its themes and ideas were later absorbed into the style of Neo-Futurism art and architectural movement. In buildings such as the Pompidou Centre, this idea of revealed structure is taken to the extreme, in this case, the use of structural steel is a stylistic or aesthetic matter. Early high-tech buildings were referred to by historian Reyner Banham as serviced sheds due to their exposure of mechanical services in addition to the structure, most of these early examples used exposed structural steel as their material of choice. As hollow structural sections had become widely available in the early 1970s. Buildings in this style were constructed mainly in North America. It is deeply connected with what is called the Second School of Chicago which emerged after World War II, the main content is that the technological kind of construction, mostly with steel and glass, is expressed in a formal independent way to gain aesthetic qualities from it. The first proper example are the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, potter, New York. —found in industrial catalogues and putting these to use in residential settings. The foreword to the book by architect Emilio Ambasz, former curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art, put the trend in historical context. As a result of the publicity and popularity of the book, the style became known as High-Tech. In 1979, the term high-tech appeared for the first time in a New Yorker magazine cartoon showing a woman berating her husband for not being enough, Youre middle-, middle-. But credit should go to a shop on 64th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York, Ad Hoc Housewares, which opened in 1977, for marketing these objects to a residential audience before anyone else. The book went on to be reprinted in England, France, and Japan, high-tech architecture was, in some ways, a response to growing disillusionment with modern architecture. The realization of Le Corbusiers urban development plans led to cities with monotonous, enthusiasm for economic building led to extremely low-quality finishes, with subsequent degradation countering a now-waning aesthetic novelty. High-tech architecture created a new aesthetic in contrast with modern architecture. In High Tech, The Industrial Style and Source Book for The Home, when discussing the high-tech aesthetic and this humour so aptly demonstrates the rebellious attitude. A prime example of this is the Centre Pompidou in Paris and this highlights one of the aims of high-tech architecture, to show the technical elements of the building by externalizing them
5.
EuroBasket 2007
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It was held in Spain between 3 September and 16 September 2007. Sixteen national teams entered the event under the auspices of FIBA Europe, the cities of Alicante, Granada, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca and Seville hosted the tournament. Russia won its first FIBA European title since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by defeating hosts Spain with a 60–59 score in the final, russias Andrei Kirilenko was voted the tournaments MVP. Of the sixteen teams participated in EuroBasket 2005, hosts Spain plus the eight European teams that participated in the 2006 FIBA World Championship qualified directly. The other seven teams earned their berths via a qualifying tournament, the draw for FIBA EuroBasket 2007 was held in Madrid,19 October 2006. The top three teams each group advance to the qualifying round, in which they are separated into two groups. Results and standings among teams within the group are carried over. The top four teams at the round advance to the knockout quarterfinals. The winners in the semifinals advance to the Final, where both are guaranteed of berths in the 2008 Olympics. The losers figure in a third-place playoff, before the tournament, the semifinal losers and the teams participating in the 5th-place playoff were assured of berths to the FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2008. Spain, which lost in the final to Russia, had qualified for the Olympics as reigning world champions
6.
EuroLeague
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Introduced in 2000, the competition replaced the FIBA EuroLeague, which had been run by FIBA since 1958. For Euroleague Basketball records purposes, the FIBA European Champions Cup and EuroLeague are considered to be the same competition, with the change of name being simply a re-branding. EuroLeague is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world, with an average attendance of 8,184. The EuroLeague title has been won by 20 different clubs,13 of which have won the more than once. The FIBA European Champions Cup was originally established by FIBA and it operated under its umbrella from 1958 until the summer of 2000 and that was when Euroleague Basketball was created. FIBA had never trademarked the EuroLeague name, even though it had used that name for the competition since 1996. Euroleague Basketball simply appropriated the name, and since FIBA had no recourse to do anything about it, it was forced to find a new name for its championship series. Thus, the following 2000–2001 season started with 2 separate top European professional club competitions, the FIBA SuproLeague. The rift in European professional club basketball initially showed no signs of letting up, in May 2001, Europe had two continental champions, Maccabi of the FIBA SuproLeague and Kinder Bologna of the Euroleague. The leaders of both organizations realized the need to come up with a unified competition, although only a year old, Euroleague Basketball negotiated from a position of strength and dictated proceedings. FIBA essentially had no choice but to agree to Euroleague Basketballs terms, as a result, European club competition was fully integrated under Euroleague Basketballs umbrella and teams that competed in the FIBA SuproLeague during the 2000–01 season joined it as well. In essence, the authority in European professional basketball was divided over club-country lines, FIBA stayed in charge of national team competitions, while Euroleague Basketball took over the European professional club competitions. From that point on, FIBAs Korać Cup and Saporta Cup competitions lasted only one season before folding. In November 2015, Euroleague Basketball and IMG agreed on 10-year joint venture, both Euroleague Basketball and IMG will manage the commercial operation, and the management of all global rights covering both media and marketing. The deal was worth €630 million euros guaranteed, with projected revenues reaching €900 million euros, FIBA era, FIBA European Champions Cup, FIBA European League, FIBA EuroLeague, FIBA SuproLeague, Euroleague Basketball era, Euroleague. *There were two separate competitions during the 2000–01 season, the SuproLeague, which was organized by FIBA, and the Euroleague, which was organized by Euroleague Basketball. On 26 July 2010, Turkish Airlines and Euroleague Basketball announced a €15 million strategic agreement to sponsor the top European basketball competition across the globe, according to the agreement, starting with the 2010–11 season, the top European competition would be named Turkish Airlines Euroleague Basketball. Similarly, the EuroLeague Final Four would be named the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four and this title partnership was set to run for five seasons, with the option of extending it to an additional five
7.
2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup
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The 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup was the 17th edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the tournament previously known as the FIBA World Championship. Hosted by Spain, it was the last tournament to be held on the then-current four-year cycle, the next FIBA World Cup will be held five years later, in 2019, to reset the four-year-cycle on a different year than the FIFA World Cup. FIBA opened the process on 10 January 2008 and all the letters of intent were submitted on 30 April 2008. Nine countries showed interest in hosting the event, as in order, they were Spain, France, Denmark, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Italy, Greece, and China. On 23 May 2009, after voting by the FIBA Central Board in Geneva in which the Chinese and Spanish representatives abstained, in the final round, Arvydas Sabonis and Saša Djordjević announced that Spain won the hosting rights with eleven votes as opposed to Italys eight. The Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid was the venue, hosting the final. Amongst venues used in FIBA EuroBasket 2007, the arenas in Granada, Seville, one arena, the Gran Canaria Arena, was the only new venue, being built after the tournament was awarded to Spain. The other cities hosted a group, on 17 April 2010, Barcelona was added to the list of cities to hold games, bringing the total venues to six. This was Barcelonas first time being part of an international event in basketball since the 1997 EuroBasket. Barcelona will host half of the games in the knockout stage, below is a list of the confirmed venues which were used to host games during the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. Connor Floor was the supplier of the basketball courts for each of the six sites. There were 24 teams taking part in the 2014 World Cup of Basketball, after the 2012 Olympics, the continental allocation for FIBA Americas was reduced by one when the United States won the Olympic tournament, automatically qualifying them for the 2014 World Cup. But later the FIBA Central Board decided not to trim the list of wild card applicants on their Buenos Aires meeting, making all 15 teams eligible to be selected on the February meeting at Barcelona. On 1 February 2014, FIBA announced that it had allocated the wild cards to Brazil, Finland, Greece and Turkey. The Senegalese federation was suspended due to age fabrication in the 2013 FIBA Under-19 World Championship for Men and for Women. This was the first time the new expanded free throw lane, the restricted arc, the final round was held in two arenas, in the Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid and Palau Sant Jordi, as opposed to a singular arena in 2010. Also, the arrangement of the round of 16 match-ups in the bracket were changed, in 2010, a team from Group A or B can meet a team from Group C or D as early in the quarterfinals, and cannot meet their groupmates until the semifinals. In 2010, the round of 16 games were held in a span of four days, or two matches per day, in 2014, there would be four games per day, finally, the classification round for 5th place was also eliminated
8.
Las Ventas
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Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas is a famous bullring located in Madrid, Spain. Situated in the Guindalera quarter of the district of Salamanca, it was inaugurated on June 17,1931 and it has a seating capacity of 25,000. This bullring was designed by the architect José Espeliú in the Neo-Mudéjar style with ceramic incrustations, the seats are situated in ten tendidos. The price of the seats depends upon how close they are to the arena, the bullfighting season starts in March and ends in October, bullfights are held every day during the San Isidro Fiesta, and every Sunday or holiday during the season. Bullfights start at 6 or 7pm and last for two to three hours, Las Ventas is located in the east of Madrid. From 1913 to 1920, the national passion gained such an important status that Madrids former main bullring in Carretera de Aragón was not big enough. It was José Gómez Ortega Joselito who declared that a new monumental bullring had to be built, to open this part of Spains heritage and his friend the architect José Espeliú began to work on the project. A family called Jardón donated the land to the Madrid Provincial Council, the deputation accepted the proposal on November 12,1920. On March 19,1922, in the center of the prospective arena. The construction of the bullring would cost 12 million pesetas, Las Ventas was finished in 1929 and two years later, June 17,1931, a charity bullfight was held with a full-capacity crowd to inaugurate it. Bullfighting stopped during the Spanish Civil War and did not resume until May 1939, there is a Pasodoble called Plaza de las Ventas and the composer Maestro Manuel Lillo dedicated to this arena. Las Ventas is divided into a ring or arena, and a group of zones called patios and its architecture is Neo-Mudéjar, with ceramic representations of the heraldic crests of the different Spanish provinces. The arena has a diameter of 60 meters, the seating capacity is divided into 10 tendidos, some of them in the shade and the rest in the sun. The president of the corrida sits in the 10th Tendido, the Royal Box is of outstanding design, with its Mudéjar architecture, a complete bathroom and a lift. Opposite to the Royal Box, in the grandstand roof, is the clock. The bullring has five gates, plus three more called toriles, from where the bulls enter the arena, the gate of the cuadrillas, between tendidos 3 and 4, has access to the horse yard. Inside this door, the starts and the picadores come out from here to the arena. The dragging gate, that leads to the room, is between tendidos 1 and 2
9.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
10.
Sting (musician)
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Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE, better known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He was the songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for the new wave rock band The Police from 1977 to 1984. He has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age and he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Police in 2003. In 2000, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording, in 2003, Sting received a CBE from Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for services to music, and was made a Kennedy Center Honoree at the White House in 2014. He was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2017, with The Police, Sting became one of the worlds best-selling music artists. Solo and with The Police combined, he has sold over 100 million records, in 2006, Paste ranked him 62nd of the 100 best living songwriters. He was 63rd of VH1s 100 greatest artists of rock, and he grew up near Wallsends shipyards, which made an impression on him. At eight or ten years old, he was inspired by the Queen Mother waving at him from a Rolls-Royce to divert from the shipyard prospect towards a more glamorous life. He helped his father deliver milk and by ten was obsessed with an old Spanish guitar left by a friend of his father. He attended St Cuthberts Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne and he visited nightclubs such as Club AGogo to see Cream and Manfred Mann, who influenced his music. After being a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education from 1971 to 1974 and he taught at St Pauls First School in Cramlington for two years. Sting performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and he played with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname after his habit of wearing a black, bandleader Gordon Solomon thought he looked like a bee, which prompted the name Sting. In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night a journalist called him Gordon, to which he replied, My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, in Time in 2011 he said, I was never called Gordon. You could shout Gordon in the street and I would just move out of your way, in January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London and joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani to form The Police. From 1978 to 1983 they had five UK chart-topping albums, won six Grammy Awards and their initial sound was punk-inspired, but they switched to reggae rock and minimalist pop. Their final album, Synchronicity, was nominated for five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and it included their most successful song, Every Breath You Take, written by Sting, in 1983. While never formally breaking up, after Synchronicity the group agreed to concentrate on solo projects, as the years went by, the band members, particularly Sting, dismissed the possibility of reforming
11.
Iron Maiden
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Iron Maiden are a British heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. The bands discography has grown to thirty-eight albums, including sixteen studio albums, eleven albums, four EPs. Pioneers of the new wave of British heavy metal, Iron Maiden achieved initial success during the early 1980s,1 in 28 countries and receiving widespread critical acclaim. Their sixteenth studio album, The Book of Souls, was released on 4 September 2015 to similar success, the band won the Ivor Novello Award for international achievement in 2002. As of October 2013, the band have played over 2000 live shows throughout their career. For the past 35 years, the band have been supported by their famous mascot, Eddie, Iron Maiden were formed on Christmas Day in 1975 by bassist Steve Harris shortly after he left his previous group, Smiler. Harris attributes the name to a film adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask from the novel by Alexandre Dumas. After months of rehearsal, Iron Maiden made their debut at St. Nicks Hall in Poplar on 1 May 1976, before taking up a semi-residency at the Cart and Horses Pub in Maryland Point, Stratford. The original line-up did not last very long, however, with vocalist Paul Day being the first casualty as, according to Harris and he was replaced by Dennis Wilcock, a Kiss fan who used make-up and fake blood during live performances. Wilcocks friend Dave Murray was invited to join, to the dismay of the bands guitarists Dave Sullivan and their frustration led Harris to temporarily disband Iron Maiden in 1976, though the group reformed soon after with Murray as the sole guitarist. Steve Harris and Dave Murray remain the bands longest-standing members and have performed on all of their releases, Iron Maiden recruited yet another guitarist in 1977, Bob Sawyer, who was sacked for embarrassing the band on stage by pretending to play guitar with his teeth. Tension ensued again, causing a rift between Murray and Wilcock, who convinced Harris to fire Murray, as well as original drummer Ron Matthews. A new line-up was put together, including future Cutting Crew member Tony Moore on keyboards, Terry Wapram on guitar, and drummer Barry Purkis. A bad performance at the Bridgehouse, a pub located in Canning Town, in November 1977 was the line-ups first and only concert, at the same time, Moore was asked to leave as Harris decided that keyboards did not suit the bands sound. A few months later, Dennis Wilcock decided that he had had enough with the group and left to form his own band, V1, as he preferred to be the bands sole guitarist, Wapram disapproved of Murrays return and was also dismissed. Steve Harris, Dave Murray and Doug Sampson spent the summer, a chance meeting at the Red Lion pub in Leytonstone in November 1978 evolved into a successful audition for vocalist Paul DiAnno. Steve Harris has stated, Theres sort of a quality in Pauls voice, a raspiness in his voice, or whatever you want to call it, that just gave it this great edge. At this time, Murray would typically act as their sole guitarist, with Harris commenting, the plan was always to get a second guitarist in, but finding one that could match Davey was really difficult
12.
Paul McCartney
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Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained fame with the rock band the Beatles, largely considered the most popular. His songwriting partnership with Lennon is the most celebrated of the post-war era, after the bands break-up, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine. McCartney has been recognised as one of the most successful composers and performers of all time, More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song Yesterday, more than any other copyrighted song in history. Wings 1977 release Mull of Kintyre is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr all received The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1965, McCartney has released an extensive catalogue of songs as a solo artist and has composed classical and electronic music. He has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty. He has married three times and is the father of five children, James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 in Walton Hospital, Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary Patricia, had qualified to practise as a nurse. His father, James McCartney, was absent from his sons birth due to his work as a firefighter during World War II. Paul has one brother, Michael. Though the children were baptised in their mothers Catholic faith, their father was a former Protestant turned agnostic, McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton. In 1953, with three others out of ninety examinees, he passed the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his home in Speke. The two quickly became friends, McCartney later admitted, I tended to talk down to him because he was a year younger. McCartneys mother Mary was a midwife and the primary wage earner, her earnings enabled them to move into 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. She rode a bicycle to her patients, McCartney described an early memory of her leaving at about three in the morning streets, on 31 October 1956, when McCartney was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism. McCartneys loss later became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, McCartneys father was a trumpet player and pianist, who had led Jim Macs Jazz Band in the 1920s. He kept a piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised Paul to take piano lessons