Judith Owen
Judith Owen is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her first North American album, Emotions on a Postcard, was released in 1996 and has been followed by several additional albums, she is co-founder of Twanky Records with Harry Shearer. Owen performed on West Virginia Public Radio's Mountain Stage on 10 September 2006 and was interviewed on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday on 17 June 2007, on which she performed several of her songs from her 2007 release Happy This Way, her cover of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" has been used as bumper music on Coast to Coast AM. In 2008 she released. On 18 September 2008, a three-song live video performance premiered on LiveDaily Sessions, featuring the songs: "Creatures", "I Promise You" and "Let's Hear It For Love". On 25 October 2008, Owen performed "Creatures of Habit" on Public Radio International's What d'Ya Know with Michael Feldman, she has recorded and toured with Richard Thompson in recent years, notably on the 1000 Years of Popular Music recording and tour.
She has appeared on his albums The Old Kit Bag and Sweet Warrior. Owen appeared as herself on The Simpsons in the thirteenth-season episode "The Blunder Years". On 10 February 2011 she appeared on BBC Breakfast alongside Ruby Wax, promoting their new show, Losing It, her 10th studio album is Flow. Released on 7 April and 6 May 2014, it features Leland Sklar on bass and Russell Kunkel on drums – both former members of The Section – and Waddy Wachtel on guitar. Ebb & Flow was her first album to be released and promoted throughout Europe and received critical acclaim from The Independent, The Sunday Times, Le Figaro, La Repubblica, CronacaTorino.it, BT, Rolling Stone with radio play from RTE Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, RTVE Radio 3, P5 and YLE Radio Suomi. In 2015 she was invited to support Bryan Ferry on his UK tour; the London Royal Albert Hall Show on 1 June was cancelled at the last minute due to Ferry having a throat infection. Several journalists were attending to review her and an impromptu decision was made to invite them all to her London home, where she performed the planned set acoustically.
The Independent ran an article the following day and highlighted it on a feature of living-room shows. She performed at the Cropredy Festival in the MadGarden Festival in Madrid. In 2016 Owen released the album Somebody's Child in the UK, Europe and Japan. In June 2016, she showcased the album in Sydney to rave reviews including Noise11.com. The same year and Harry Shearer performed together in Brisbane and at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival with a new show called "This Infernal Racket", which created massive media coverage of this as well as her album; the 2016 annual charity show "Christmas Without Tears" will return to London along with New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Touring in UK, Norway, Austria, Italy, Ireland is planned. In 2017, Somebody's Child was released while touring throughout the year. May 2018 "redisCOVERed" her first all covers album released to great reviews worldwide. Songs covered from Deep Purple "Smoke On The Water", Soundgarden"Black Hole Sun" to classics from Donna Summer "Hot Stuff" Wild Cherry "Play Ttat Funky Music" to contemporary Drake "Hotline Bling" Ed Sheeran "Shape Of You" and a couple Joni Mitchell more obscure "Cherokee Louise" and "Ladies' Man" Touring in North America and Europe in 2018 Emotions On A Postcard, Dog On The Bed Music Limited Edition, Dog On The Bed Music Twelve Arrows, Dog On The Bed Music Lost And Found, Courgette Here, Courgette Happy This Way, Courgette Mopping Up Karma, Courgette The Beautiful Damage Collection, Courgette Some Kind Of Comfort, Courgette Ebb & Flow, Twanky Records Somebody's Child, Twanky Records Rediscovered, Twanky Records Creatures Of Habit, Courgette Records White Christmas, Little Boo Records In The Summertime, Twanky Records Hot Stuff, Twanky Records Christmas In July, Century of Progress Productions Official website Judith Owen on National Public Radio in 2008 Le Show interview/performance: Shearer, Harry.
"le Show". HarryShearer.com. Archived from the original on June 22, 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-03
Oops!... I Did It Again (song)
"Oops!... I Did It Again" is a song by American singer Britney Spears, from her second album of the same name, it was released on March 2000, by Jive Records as the lead single from the album. The song was produced by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub. "Oops!... I Did It Again" is a song that lyrically speaks of a female who views love as a game, she decides to use that to her advantage by playing with her lover's emotions, its bridge features a dialogue. Upon its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" received positive reviews from music critics, who noted similarities to her debut single "... Baby One More Time", it was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance during the 2001 ceremony. Commercially, the track peaked at number nine on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100, it went to the top in at least 15 countries. An accompanying music video was directed by Nigel Dick, it depicts Spears on Mars. She is dressed in a red bodysuit, it went on to receive three nominations at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.
Spears has performed the track during her Oops!... I Did Dream Within a Dream Tour, The Onyx Hotel Tour and Britney: Piece of Me. After attaining huge success with her debut album... Baby One More Time and its singles "... Baby One More Time", "Sometimes", " Crazy", "Born to Make You Happy", "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", Spears recorded much of her follow-up record Oops!... I Did It Again in November 1999 at the Cheiron Studios in Sweden, its title track was written and produced by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub, while background vocals were provided by Martin and Nana Hedin. The track was released on March 27, 2000, by JIVE Records as the lead single from the record."Oops!... I Did It Again" is a song that lasts for a duration of three minutes and thirty seconds, it is composed in the key of C♯ minor and is set in time signature of common time, with a moderate tempo of 94 beats per minute. The song has a basic sequence of C♯m–A-G♯ as its chord progression, features a vocal range spanning from C♯3 to C♯5.
Lyrically, the track discusses a female who toys with her lover's emotions, who mistakes Spears' flirtatiousness with a serious romantic interest. During its bridge, Spears delivers a spoken-word dialogue that references the blockbuster film Titanic. Upon its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" received favorable reviews from music critics. Writing for Entertainment Weekly, David Browne called it "ludicrously derivative" of Spears' debut single "... Baby One More Time", commented that it "amounts to nothing so much as a jailbait manifesto". Lennat Mak of the Asian division of MTV complimented the song as "a perfect 10 on the "wow" scale, with the wacky "Jack-Rose" dialogue", referencing the Titanic spoken lyrics. A reviewer from NME compared the structure of the recording to'80s-style riffs of Michael Jackson and further described the track as a "harder, carbon copy" of "... Baby One More Time", "easily as good as her breakthrough single". Robert Christgau recognized "Oops!... I Did It Again" and Spears' rendition of " Satisfaction" as his "choice cuts" from the parent album, Writing for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield compared the track musically to Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love" and lyrically to The Smiths' "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish", complimented it for being "terrific" and displaying "a violently ambivalent sexual confusion her audience can relate to".
Andy Battaglia of Salon described the track as a "sweetly sadistic companion piece to the masochism lite lurking beneath her debut'... Baby One More Time'"."Oops!... I Did It Again" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2001 ceremony, but lost to "I Try" by Macy Gray; the track was additionally nominated for the Favorite Song at the 2001 Kids' Choice Awards broadcast on Nickelodeon, but lost to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men. In the United States, "Oops!... I Did It Again" peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, it additionally peaked at numbers 1 and 27 on the Billboard Pop Songs and Adult Pop Songs component charts. In Canada, the track topped the Canadian Hot 100 for six weeks, it topped the singles charts in both Australia and New Zealand, was certified platinum in the former country for reaching sales of 70,000 copies."Oops!... I Did It Again" enjoyed success throughout Europe, peaked atop the European Hot 100 Singles chart, it peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart, was certified Platinum for exceeding sales of 600,000 copies.
As of June 2015, the song has sold 476,000 copies in the country. The song reached number two in Austria, where it was additionally recognized with platinum certification for sales of 15,000 units, it peaked at numbers one and three on the Wallonia and Flanders charts in Belgium, respectively reached numbers one and two in Denmark and Finland."Oops!... I Did It Again" reached number four in France, number two in both Germany and Ireland. In Germany, the single additionally received a gold certification, signifying sales of 250,000 units, it additionally topped singles charts in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. The song was awarded gold certifications in the Netherlands and Switzerland marking sales of 40,000 and 15,000 copies, attained platinum certification in Sweden for reaching sales of 20,000 units. An accompanying music video for "Oops!... I Did It was filmed in Universal City, California, it was choreographed by Tina Landon. During its production, Spears began bleeding. Spears' mother Lynne (who
George Formby
George Formby, was an English actor, singer-songwriter and comedian who became known to a worldwide audience through his films of the 1930s and 1940s. On stage and record he sang light, comical songs playing the ukulele or banjolele, became the UK's highest-paid entertainer. Born in Wigan, Lancashire, he was the son of George Formby Sr, from whom he took his stage name. After an early career as a stable boy and jockey, Formby took to the music hall stage after the early death of his father in 1921, his early performances were taken from his father's act, including the same songs and characters. In 1923 he made two career-changing decisions – he purchased a ukulele, married Beryl Ingham, a fellow performer who became his manager and transformed his act, she insisted that he appear on stage formally dressed, introduced the ukulele to his performance. He started his recording career in 1926 and, from 1934, he worked in film to develop into a major star by the late 1930s and 1940s, became the UK's most popular entertainer during those decades.
The media historian Brian McFarlane writes that on film, Formby portrayed gormless Lancastrian innocents who would win through against some form of villainy, gaining the affection of an attractive middle-class girl in the process. During the Second World War Formby worked extensively for the Entertainments National Service Association, entertained civilians and troops, by 1946 it was estimated that he had performed in front of three million service personnel. After the war his career declined, although he toured the Commonwealth, continued to appear in variety and pantomime, his last television appearance was in December two weeks before the death of Beryl. He surprised people by announcing his engagement to a school teacher seven weeks after Beryl's funeral, but died in Preston three weeks at the age of 56. Formby's biographer, Jeffrey Richards, considers that the actor "had been able to embody Lancashire, the working classes, the people, the nation." Formby was considered Britain's first properly home-grown screen comedian.
He was an influence on future comedians—particularly Charlie Drake and Norman Wisdom—and, culturally, on entertainers such as the Beatles, who referred to him in their music. Since his death Formby has been the subject of five biographies, two television specials and two works of public sculpture. George Formby was born George Hoy Booth at 3 Westminster Street, Lancashire, on 26 May 1904, he was the eldest of seven surviving children born to James Lawler Booth and his wife Eliza, née Hoy, although this marriage was bigamous because Formby Sr was still married to his first wife, Martha Maria Salter, a twenty-year-old music hall performer. Booth was a successful music hall singer who performed under the name George Formby. Formby Sr suffered from a chest ailment, identified variously as bronchitis, asthma or tuberculosis, would use the cough as part of the humour in his act, saying to the audience, "Bronchitis, I'm a bit tight tonight", or "coughing better tonight". One of his main characters was that of John Willie, an "archetypal Lancashire lad".
In 1906 Formby Sr was earning £35 a week at the music halls, which rose to £325 a week by 1920, Formby grew up in an affluent home. Formby Sr was so popular that Marie Lloyd, the influential music hall singer and actress, would only watch two acts: his and that of Dan Leno. Formby was born blind owing to an obstructive caul, although his sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old. After attending school—at which he did not prosper, did not learn to read or write—Formby was removed from formal education at the age of seven and sent to become a stable boy in Wiltshire and in Middleham, Yorkshire. Formby Sr sent his son away to work on stage. After a year working at Middleham, he was apprenticed to Thomas Scholfield at Epsom, where he ran his first professional races at the age of 10, when he weighed less than 4 stone. In 1915 Formby Sr allowed his son to appear on screen, taking the lead in By the Shortest of Heads, a thriller directed by Bert Haldane in which Formby played a stable boy who outwits a gang of villains and wins a £10,000 prize when he comes first in a horse race.
The film is now considered lost, with the last-known copy having been destroyed in 1940. In 1915, with the closure of the English racing season because of the First World War, Formby moved to Ireland where he continued as a jockey until November 1918; that month he returned to England and raced for Lord Derby at his Newmarket stables. Formby continued as a jockey until 1921. On 8 February 1921 Formby Sr succumbed to his bronchial condition and died, at the age of 45. After his father's funeral Eliza took the young Formby to London to help him cope with his grief. While there, they visited the Victoria Palace Theatre—where Formby Sr had been so successful—and saw a performance by the Tyneside comedian Tommy Dixon. Dixon was performing a copy of Formby Sr's act, using the same songs, jokes and mannerisms, billed himself as "The New George Formby", a name which angered Eliza and Formby more; the performance prompted Formby to follow in his father's profession, a decision, supported by Eliza. As he had never seen his father perform live, Formby found the imitation difficult
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist, a major figure in popular culture for six decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement, his lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social and literary influences, defied pop-music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year; the album featured "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". For many of these songs he adapted the tunes and sometimes phraseology of older folk songs, he went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964.
In 1965 and 1966, Dylan encountered controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. The six-minute single. In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after being injured in a motorcycle accident. During this period he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had backed him on tour; these recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes, in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, New Morning. In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s; the major works of his career include Time Out of Mind, "Love and Theft", Tempest.
His most recent recordings have comprised versions of traditional American standards songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed "the Never Ending Tour". Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, his work has been exhibited in major art galleries, he has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has received numerous awards including ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame; the Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Range west of Lake Superior, he has David. Dylan's paternal grandparents and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa, in the Russian Empire, to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1905, his maternal grandparents and Florence Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kirghiz and her family originated from the Kağızman district of Kars Province in northeastern Turkey. Dylan's father, Abram Zimmerman – an electric-appliance shop owner – and mother, Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community, they lived in Duluth until Dylan was six, when his father had polio and the family returned to his mother's hometown, where they lived for the rest of Dylan's childhood. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport and when he was a teenager, to rock and roll.
Dylan formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Elvis Presley, their performance of Danny & the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. On January 31, 1959, three days before his death, Buddy Holly performed at the Duluth Armory. Zimmerman, 17, was in the audience. Something I didn't know what, and it gave me the chills."In 1959, Dylan's high school yearbook carried the caption "Robert Zimmerman: to join'Little Richard'." That year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, clapping. In September 1959, Zimmerman enrolled at the University of Minnesota, his focus on rock and roll gave way to American folk music. In 1985, he said: The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect li
Janet Jackson
Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American singer, songwriter and dancer. A prominent figure in popular culture, she is known for sonically innovative conscious and sexually provocative records, elaborate stage shows; the youngest child of the Jackson family, she began her career with the variety television series The Jacksons in 1976 and went on to appear in other television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times and Fame. After signing a recording contract with A&M Records in 1982, she became a pop icon following the release of her third and fourth studio albums Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, her collaborations with record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis incorporated elements of rhythm and blues, disco and industrial beats, which led to crossover success in popular music. In 1991 Jackson signed the first of two record-breaking multimillion-dollar contracts with Virgin Records, establishing her as one of the highest-paid artists in the industry, her fifth album Janet saw her develop a public image as a sex symbol as she began to explore sexuality in her music.
That same year, she appeared in her first starring film role in Poetic Justice. Jackson released her sixth studio album The Velvet Rope, distinguished for its innovative production and dark lyrical content. By the end of the 1990s, she was named by Billboard magazine as the second most successful recording artist of the decade after Mariah Carey, her seventh album All for You coincided with a celebration of her impact on the recording industry as the inaugural MTV Icon. After parting ways with Virgin Records, she released her tenth album Discipline, her first and only album with Island Records. In 2015, she partnered with BMG Rights Management to launch her own record label, Rhythm Nation, released her eleventh album Unbreakable the same year. Jackson is one of the world's best-selling music artists, selling over 180 million albums, she has amassed an extensive catalog, with singles such as "Nasty", "Rhythm Nation", "That's the Way Love Goes", "Together Again" and "All for You". In 2008, Billboard placed her number seven on its list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, in 2010 ranked her fifth among the "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years".
In December 2016, the magazine named her the second most successful dance club artist of all-time after Madonna. She has been cited as an inspiration among numerous performers. Jackson was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. Janet Jackson was born on May 16, 1966 in Gary, the youngest of ten children, to Katherine Esther and Joseph Walter Jackson; the Jacksons were lower-middle class and devout Jehovah's Witnesses, although Jackson would refrain from organized religion. At a young age, her brothers began performing as the Jackson 5 in the Chicago-Gary area. In March 1969, the group signed a record deal with Motown, soon had their first number-one hit; the family moved to the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles. Jackson had desired to become a horse racing jockey or entertainment lawyer, with plans to support herself through acting. Despite this, she was anticipated to pursue a career in entertainment, considered the idea after recording herself in the studio. At age seven, Jackson performed at the MGM Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
A biography revealed her father, Joseph Jackson, was withdrawn, told her to address him by his first name as a child. She began acting in the variety show The Jacksons in 1976. In 1977, she was selected to have a starring role as Penny Gordon Woods in the sitcom Good Times, she starred in A New Kind of Family and got a recurring role on Diff'rent Strokes, portraying Charlene Duprey from seasons three to six. Jackson played the role of Cleo Hewitt during the fourth season of Fame, but expressed indifference towards the series due to the emotional stress of her secret marriage to R&B singer, James DeBarge. Jackson elaborated on her time on the show in an interview with Anderson Cooper, revealing that the cast would play pranks on her, but she spoke fondly of them; when Jackson was sixteen, her father and manager Joseph Jackson, arranged a contract for her with A&M Records. Her debut album, Janet Jackson, was released in 1982, it was produced by Angela Winbush, René Moore, Bobby Watson of Rufus and Leon Sylvers III, overseen by her father Joseph.
It peaked at No. 63 on the Billboard 200, No. 6 on the publication's R&B albums chart, receiving little promotion. The album appeared on the Billboard Top Black Albums of 1983, while Jackson herself was the highest-ranking female vocalist on the Billboard Year-End Black Album Artists. Jackson's second album, Dream Street, was released two years later. Dream Street reached No. 147 on the Billboard 200, No. 19 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single. Both albums consisted of bubblegum pop music. After her second album, Jackson terminated business affairs with her family, commenting "I just wanted to get out of the house, get out from under my father, one of the most difficult things that I had to do." Attempting a third album, Jackson teamed with producers Jimmy Terry Lewis. They set out to achieve crossover pop appeal, while creating a strong foundation within the urban market. Within six weeks and the duo crafted her third studio album, released in February 1986; the album shot to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, was certified f
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work has since achieved wider recognition. Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20, while a student at the University of Cambridge, released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. Neither sold more than 5,000 copies on initial release, his reluctance to perform live or give interviews contributed to his lack of commercial success. No footage of the adult Drake has been released, only still photographs. Drake is believed to have suffered from depression, reflected in his lyrics. After making Pink Moon, he withdrew from performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. At the age of 26, Drake died from an overdose of 30 amitriptyline pills, a prescribed antidepressant, his cause of death was determined as suicide. The 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree triggered a reassessment of Drake's music.
By the mid-1980s, he was credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian, Peter Buck. In 1985, the Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press; the first Drake biography was published in 1997, followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Among Us. In 1999, his song "Pink Moon" was used in a Volkswagen commercial, resulting in an increase in his U. S. album sales. By 2014, more than 2.4 million Nick Drake albums had been sold in the UK and the US. Drake’s father, Rodney Shuttleworth Drake, moved to Rangoon, Burma, in the early 1930s to work as an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation. In 1934, Rodney met the daughter of a senior member of Mary Lloyd. Rodney Drake proposed in 1936, though they had to wait a year until she turned 21 before her family allowed them to marry. In 1950 they returned to England to live in Warwickshire at their home, Far Leys, in Tanworth-in-Arden, south of Birmingham, the city where Rodney Drake worked from 1952 as the Chairman and Managing Director of Wolseley Engineering.
Nick's older sister, became a successful screen actress. Both parents were musically inclined and each wrote music. Recordings of Molly's songs, which have come to light since her death, are similar in tone and outlook to the work of her son. Encouraged by his mother, Drake learned to play piano at an early age and began to compose songs which he recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder she kept in the family drawing room. In 1957, Drake was sent to Eagle House School, a preparatory boarding school near Sandhurst, Berkshire. Five years he went to Marlborough College, a public school in Wiltshire attended by his father and great-grandfather, he developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished sprinter over 100 and 200 yards, representing the school's Open Team in 1966. He was appointed a House Captain in his last two terms. School friends recall Drake as having been confident aloof, "quietly authoritative", his father Rodney remembered: "In one of his reports said that none of us seemed to know him well.
All the way through with Nick. People didn't know him much."Drake played piano in the school orchestra, learned clarinet and saxophone. He formed a band, the Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, the group performed Pye International R&B covers and jazz standards, as well as Yardbirds and Manfred Mann songs. Chris de Burgh asked to join the band, but was rejected as his taste was "too poppy". Drake's academic performance deteriorated and, while he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough he began to neglect his studies in favour of music. In 1963 he attained seven GCE O-Levels, fewer than his teachers had been expecting, failing "Physics with Chemistry", a fallback for students who struggled with science. In 1965, Drake paid £13 for his first acoustic guitar, a Levin, was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques. In 1966, Drake enrolled at a tutorial college in Five Ways, where he won a scholarship to study at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, beginning in February 1967, where he began to practise guitar in earnest. To earn money, he would busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, he travelled with friends to Morocco, he most began using LSD while in Aix, lyrics written during this period—in particular for "Clothes of Sand"— suggest an interest in hallucinogens. On returning to England, Drake moved into his sister's flat in Hampstead, before enrolling at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University that October to study English Literature, his tutors found him unwilling to apply himself. His biographer, Trevor Dann, notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow students, that matriculation photographs from this time portray a sullen young man. Cambridge placed emphasis on its rugby and cricket teams, yet by this time Drake had lost interest in sport, preferring to stay in his college room smoking cannabis, li
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