Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks is an American actor and filmmaker. Hanks is known for his comedic and dramatic roles in such films as Splash, Turner & Hooch, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Apollo 13, You've Got Mail, The Green Mile, Cast Away, Road to Perdition, Cloud Atlas, Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks, Sully, he has starred in the Robert Langdon film series, voices Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story film series. He is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, is regarded as an American cultural icon. Hanks has collaborated with film director Steven Spielberg on five films to date: Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, Bridge of Spies, The Post, as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director and screenwriter. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific. Hanks' films have grossed more than $4.6 billion at U. S. and Canadian box offices and more than $9.2 billion worldwide, making him the fourth highest-grossing actor in North America.
Hanks has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for Forrest Gump. In 1995, Hanks became one of only two actors who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in consecutive years, with Spencer Tracy being the other. In 2004, he received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 2014, he received a Kennedy Center Honor, in 2016, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, as well as the French Legion of Honor. Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California on July 9, 1956, to hospital worker Janet Marylyn and itinerant cook Amos Mefford Hanks, his mother was of Portuguese descent. His parents divorced in 1960, their three oldest children, Sandra and Tom, went with their father, while the youngest, remained with their mother in Red Bluff, California.
In his childhood, Hanks' family moved often. While Hanks' family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized his teenage self as being a "Bible-toting evangelical" for several years. In school, he was unpopular with students and teachers alike telling Rolling Stone magazine, "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully shy. At the same time, I was the guy, but I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible." In 1965, his father married a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California. Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward and transferred to California State University, two years later. During a 2001 interview with Bob Costas, Hanks was asked whether he would rather have an Oscar or a Heisman Trophy, he replied. He told New York magazine in 1986, "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant.
I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat and read the program, get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams and all that."During his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the festival, his internship stretched into a three-year experience that covered most aspects of theater production, including lighting, set design, stage management, prompting Hanks to drop out of college. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain. Time magazine named Hanks one of the "Top 10 College Dropouts." In 1979, Hanks moved to New York City, where he made his film debut in the low-budget slasher film He Knows You're Alone and landed a starring role in the television movie Mazes and Monsters.
Early that year, he was cast in the lead, Callimaco, in the Riverside Shakespeare Company's production of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Mandrake, directed by Daniel Southern. The following year, Hanks landed one of the lead roles, that of character Kip Wilson, on the ABC television pilot of Bosom Buddies, he and Peter Scolari played a pair of young advertising men forced to dress as women so they could live in an inexpensive all-female hotel. Hanks had partnered with Scolari on the 1970s game show Make Me Laugh. After landing the role, Hanks moved to Los Angeles. Bosom Buddies ran for two seasons, although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks. "The first day I saw him on the set," co-producer Ian Praiser told Rolling Stone, "I thought,'Too bad he won't be in tel
Mary Wilson (singer)
Mary Wilson is an American vocalist, best known as a founding member and longest member of the Supremes. Wilson remained with the group following the departures of other original members, Florence Ballard in 1967 and Diana Ross in 1970. Following Wilson's own departure in 1977, the group disbanded. Wilson has since released three solo albums, five singles and two best-selling autobiographies, Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme, a record setter for sales in its genre, Supreme Faith: Someday We'll Be Together. Continuing a successful career as a concert performer, Wilson became a musicians' rights activist as well as a musical theater performer and organizer of various museum displays of the Supremes' famed costumes. Wilson was inducted along with Ross and Ballard into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Mary Wilson was born to Johnnie Mae Wilson in Greenville, Mississippi, she was the eldest of three children including a brother, a sister, Katherine. Wilson lived with her parents and moved to St. Louis and to Chicago before living with her aunt Ivory "I.
V." and uncle John L. Pippin in Detroit. Wilson reunited with her mother and siblings at the age of 9. To make ends meet, Wilson's mother worked as a domestic worker. Before reaching her teenage years and her family had settled at Detroit's upstart housing project, the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects. Mary Wilson first met Florence Ballard at an elementary school in Detroit; the duo became friends. In 1959, Ballard asked Wilson to audition for Milton Jenkins, forming a sister group to his male vocal trio, the Primes. Wilson was soon accepted in the group known with Diana Ross and Betty McGlown. Wilson graduated from Detroit's Northeastern High School in January 1962. Despite her mother's insistence she go to college, Wilson instead focused on her music career; the Primettes signed to Motown Records in 1961. In between that period, McGlown was replaced by Barbara Martin. In 1962, the group was reduced to a trio after Martin's departure; the Supremes scored their first hit in 1963 with the song, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes", reached No. 1 on the pop charts for the first time with the hit, "Where Did Our Love Go", becoming their first of 12 No. 1 singles..
By 1964, the group had become international superstars. In 1967, Motown president Berry Gordy changed the name of the group to Diana Ross & The Supremes and, after a period of tension, Florence Ballard was removed from the Supremes that July. Cindy Birdsong was chosen to take her place; the new lineup continued to record hit singles, although several stalled outside the top 20 chart range. Ross left the group in early 1970, at her farewell performance Jean Terrell was introduced as the replacement for Ross. According to Wilson in her memoirs, Berry Gordy told Wilson that he thought of having Syreeta Wright join the group in a last-minute change, after Terrell had been introduced as lead singer, to which Wilson refused. With Terrell, the Supremes recorded seven top-40 hit singles in a three-year period. One River Deep/Mountain High was a collaboration with the Four Tops. Others included "Up the Ladder to the Roof", "Stoned Love", "Nathan Jones" and "Floy Joy". Of these releases, only Stoned Love reached a No. 1 status.
Unlike the latter years with Ross, all but one of the hits, "Automatically Sunshine", succeeded in reaching the top 20 charts, with two breaking into the top 10. During this period, Wilson contributed lead or co-lead vocals to several Supremes songs, including the hits "Floy Joy" and "Automatically Sunshine", the title track of the 1971 album Touch. In 1972, Cindy Birdsong left the group following marriage and pregnancy and was replaced by Lynda Lawrence; the group's popularity and place on record charts dropped significantly. For the first time in a decade, two singles in a row failed to break into the top 40, including the Stevie Wonder penned-and-produced "Bad Weather". Discouraged, Jean Terrell and Lynda Lawrence both departed in late 1973. Scherrie Payne was recruited from a group called The Glass House, they were signed to the Invictus label, owned by the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting-production team. Cindy Birdsong returned. Beginning with this lineup change, Wilson began doing half of the group's lead vocal duties, as she was considered the group's main attraction and reason for continuing.
In 1976, the group scored its final hit single with "I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking", written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland Group and included on the H-D-H produced album High Energy. Birdsong again departed, just before the album's release, was replaced by the group's final official member, Susaye Greene, whose voice was dubbed over two songs. High Energy produced a flurry of positive reviews and sales, but a follow-up H-D-H effort in 1977 failed to ignite much interest. In late 1977, Wilson left The Supremes, following a performance at London's Drury Lane Theatre. After Payne and Greene unsuccessfully lobbied to get a replacement for Wilson, the Supremes disbanded. Wilson got involved in a protracted legal battle with Motown over management of the Supremes. After an out-of-court settlement, Wilson signed with Motown for solo work, releasing a disco-heavy self-titled album in 1979. A single from the album, "Red Hot", had a modest sh
Soul music
Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community in the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying". Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and an tense vocal sound; the style occasionally uses improvisational additions and auxiliary sounds. Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture.
The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black. Soul music dominated the U. S. R&B chart in the 1960s, many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U. S. Britain and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter; some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul; the United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music; the key subgenres of soul include a rhythmic music influenced by gospel. Soul music has its roots in traditional African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues and as the hybridization of their respective religious and secular styles – in both lyrical content and instrumentation – that began in the 1950s.
The term "soul" had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African-American in the United States. According to musicologist Barry Hansen,Though this hybrid produced a clutch of hits in the R&B market in the early 1950s, only the most adventurous white fans felt its impact at the time. According to AllMusic, "oul music was the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the'60s." The phrase "soul music" itself, referring to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, was first attested in 1961. The term "soul" in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American culture. Gospel groups in the 1940s and'50s used the term as part of their names; the jazz style that originated from gospel became known as soul jazz. As singers and arrangers began using techniques from both gospel and soul jazz in African-American popular music during the 1960s, soul music functioned as an umbrella term for the African-American popular music at the time.
Important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music included Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, Etta James. Ray Charles is cited as popularizing the soul music genre with his series of hits, starting with 1954's "I Got a Woman". Singer Bobby Womack said, "Ray was the genius, he turned the world onto soul music." Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style. Little Richard, who inspired Otis Redding, James Brown both were influential. Brown was nicknamed the "Godfather of Soul Music", Richard proclaimed himself as the "King of Rockin' and Rollin', Rhythm and Blues Soulin'", because his music embodied elements of all three, since he inspired artists in all three genres. Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson are acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the lead singer of the gospel group The Soul Stirrers, before controversially moving into secular music, his recording of "You Send Me" in 1957 launched a successful pop music career.
Furthermore, his 1962 recording of "Bring It On Home To Me" has been described as "perhaps the first record to define the soul experience". Jackie Wilson, a contemporary of both Cooke and James Brown achieved crossover success with his 1957 hit "Reet Petite", he was influential for his dramatic delivery and performances. Writer Peter Guralnick is among those to identify Solomon Burke as a key figure in the emergence of soul music, Atlantic Records as the key record label. Burke's early 1960s songs, including "Cry to Me", "Just Out of Reach" and "Down in the Valley" are considered classics of the genre. Guralnick wrote: "Soul started, in a sense, with the 1961 success of Solomon Burke's "Just Out Of Reach". Ray Charles, of course, had enjoyed enormous success, as had James Brown and Sam Cooke — in a pop vein. E
Detroit
Detroit is the largest and most populous city in the U. S. state of Michigan, the largest United States city on the United States–Canada border, the seat of Wayne County. The municipality of Detroit had a 2017 estimated population of 673,104, making it the 23rd-most populous city in the United States; the metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music and as a repository for art and design. Detroit is a major port located on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway; the Detroit Metropolitan Airport is among the most important hubs in the United States. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in the Midwest, behind Chicago and ahead of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 13th-largest in the United States. Detroit and its neighboring Canadian city Windsor are connected through a tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest international crossing in North America.
Detroit is best known as the center of the U. S. automobile industry, the "Big Three" auto manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler are all headquartered in Metro Detroit. In 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the future city of Detroit. During the 19th century, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the Great Lakes region. With expansion of the auto industry in the early 20th century, the city and its suburbs experienced rapid growth, by the 1940s, the city had become the fourth-largest in the country. However, due to industrial restructuring, the loss of jobs in the auto industry, rapid suburbanization, Detroit lost considerable population from the late 20th century to the present. Since reaching a peak of 1.85 million at the 1950 census, Detroit's population has declined by more than 60 percent. In 2013, Detroit became the largest U. S. city to file for bankruptcy, which it exited in December 2014, when the city government regained control of Detroit's finances.
Detroit's diverse culture has had both local and international influence in music, with the city giving rise to the genres of Motown and techno, playing an important role in the development of jazz, hip-hop and punk music. The erstwhile rapid growth of Detroit left a globally unique stock of architectural monuments and historic places, since the 2000s conservation efforts managed to save many architectural pieces and allowed several large-scale revitalizations, including the restoration of several historic theatres and entertainment venues, high-rise renovations, new sports stadiums, a riverfront revitalization project. More the population of Downtown Detroit, Midtown Detroit, various other neighborhoods has increased. An popular tourist destination, Detroit receives 19 million visitors per year. In 2015, Detroit was named a "City of Design" by UNESCO, the first U. S. city to receive that designation. Paleo-Indian people inhabited areas near Detroit as early as 11,000 years ago including the culture referred to as the Mound-builders.
In the 17th century, the region was inhabited by Huron, Odawa and Iroquois peoples. The first Europeans did not penetrate into the region and reach the straits of Detroit until French missionaries and traders worked their way around the League of the Iroquois, with whom they were at war, other Iroquoian tribes in the 1630s; the north side of Lake Erie was held by the Huron and Neutral peoples until the 1650s, when the Iroquois pushed both and the Erie people away from the lake and its beaver-rich feeder streams in the Beaver Wars of 1649–1655. By the 1670s, the war-weakened Iroquois laid claim to as far south as the Ohio River valley in northern Kentucky as hunting grounds, had absorbed many other Iroquoian peoples after defeating them in war. For the next hundred years no British, colonist, or French action was contemplated without consultation with, or consideration of the Iroquois' response; when the French and Indian War evicted the Kingdom of France from Canada, it removed one barrier to British colonists migrating west.
British negotiations with the Iroquois would both prove critical and lead to a Crown policy limiting the west of the Alleghenies settlements below the Great Lakes, which gave many American would-be migrants a casus belli for supporting the American Revolution. The 1778 raids and resultant 1779 decisive Sullivan Expedition reopened the Ohio Country to westward emigration, which began immediately, by 1800 white settlers were pouring westwards; the city was named by French colonists, referring to the Detroit River, linking Lake Huron and Lake Erie. On July 24, 1701, the French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, along with more than a hundred other settlers began constructing a small fort on the north bank of the Detroit River. Cadillac would name the settlement Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, after Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine under Louis XIV. France offered free land to colonists to attract families to Detroit. By 1773, the population of Detroit was 1,400. By 1778, its population was up to 2,144 and it was the third-largest city in the Province of Quebec.
The region's economy was based on the lucrative fur trade, in which nume
Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy III is an American record executive, record producer, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, the highest-earning African-American business for decades. Berry Gordy III was born on November 28, 1929 in Detroit, to the middle-class family of Berry Gordy II, who had relocated to Detroit from Oconee in Washington County, Georgia, in 1922; the first Berry Gordy was the son of a white plantation owner, James Gordy, in Georgia and his female slave. His half-brother, was the grandfather of President Jimmy Carter. Berry Gordy II was lured to Detroit by the job opportunities for black people offered by the booming automotive businesses. Gordy Jr. developed his interest in music by writing songs and opening the 3-D Record Mart, a record store featuring jazz music and 3-D glasses. The store was unsuccessful, Gordy sought work at the Lincoln-Mercury plant, but his family connections put him in touch with Al Green, owner of the Flame Show Bar Talent Club, where he met the singer Jackie Wilson.
In 1957 Wilson recorded "Reet Petite", a song Gordy had co-written with his sister Gwen and writer-producer Billy Davis. It became a modest hit, but had more success internationally in the UK, where it reached the Top 10 and later topped the chart on re-issue in 1986. Wilson recorded six more songs co-written by Gordy over the next two years, including "Lonely Teardrops", which topped the R&B charts and got to number 7 in the pop chart; the Gordy siblings and Davis wrote "All I Could Do Was Cry" for Etta James at Chess Records. Gordy reinvested the profits from his songwriting success into producing. In 1957, he began building a portfolio of successful artists. In 1959, with the encouragement of Miracles leader Smokey Robinson, Gordy borrowed $800 from his family to create an R&B record company. Gordy wanted to name the new label Tammy Records, after the song recorded by Debbie Reynolds. However, that name was taken, he chose the name Tamla Records; the company began operating on January 12, 1959.
"Come to Me" by Marv Johnson was issued as Tamla 101. United Artists Records picked up "Come to Me" for national distribution, as well as Johnson's more successful follow-up records such as "You Got What It Takes", co-produced by Gordy, who received a co-writer credit, though the song was written and recorded by guitarist Bobby Parker for Vee Jay records a year and a half earlier. Gordy's next release was the only 45 issued on his Rayber label, featuring Wade Jones with an unnamed female backup group; the record is now one of the rarest issues from the Motown stable. Berry's third release was "Bad Girl" by the first release on the Motown record label. "Bad Girl" was a solid hit in 1959. Barrett Strong's "Money" appeared on Tamla and charted on Gordy's sister's label, Anna Records, in February 1960, it was The Miracles who gave the label its first million-selling hit single, with the 1960 Grammy Hall of Fame smash, "Shop Around" and this song, its follow up hits,"You've Really Got a Hold on Me", "Mickey's Monkey","What's So Good About Goodbye", "I'll Try Something New", made The Miracles the label's first stars.
The Tamla and Motown labels were merged into a new company, Motown Record Corporation, incorporated on April 14, 1960. In 1960, Gordy signed an unknown singer, Mary Wells, who became the fledgling label's second star, with Smokey Robinson penning her hits "You Beat Me to the Punch", "Two Lovers", "My Guy"; the Miracles' hit "Shop Around" peaked at No. 1 on the national R&B charts in late 1960 and at No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts on January 16, 1961, which established Motown as an independent company worthy of notice. In 1961, the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" made it to the top of both charts. Gordy's gift for identifying and bringing together musical talent, along with the careful management of his artists' public image, made Motown a major national and international success. Over the next decade, he signed such artists as the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Jimmy Ruffin, the Contours, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the Commodores, the Velvelettes and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5.
Though he signed various white acts on the label, he promoted African-American artists but controlled their public image, dress and choreography for across-the-board appeal. In 1972, Gordy relocated to Los Angeles, where he produced the commercially successful biographical drama film on Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross, Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams; the studio, over Gordy's objections, rejected Williams after several screen tests. However, known for his tenacity prevailed, the film established Williams as a major movie star. Berry Gordy soon after produced and directed Mahogany starring Ross and Williams. In 1985, he produced the cult martial arts film The Last Dragon, which starred martial artist Taimak and one of Prince's proteges, Vanity. Although Motown continued to produce major hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s by artists including the Jacksons, Rick James, Lionel Richie and long-term signings S
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, opinion, reviews and style, is known for its music charts, including the Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular songs and albums in different genres, it hosts events, owns a publishing firm, operates several TV shows. Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson acquired Hennegen's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses and burlesque shows, created a mail service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox and radio became commonplace. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment, so that it could focus on music.
After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegan's children, until it was sold to private investors in 1985, has since been owned by various parties. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio by William Donaldson and James Hennegan on November 1, 1894, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry, was known as Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the primary means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production. The first issues were just eight pages long; the paper had columns like "The Bill Room Gossip" and "The Indefatigable and Tireless Industry of the Bill Poster". A department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896; the title was changed to The Billboard in 1897. After a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegan's interest in the business in 1900 for $500 to save it from bankruptcy.
That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a weekly paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, San Francisco and Paris, re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment such as fairs, circuses and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of outdoor events in 1901. Billboard covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism and new shows, it had a "stage gossip" column covering the private lives of entertainers, a "tent show" section covering traveling shows, a sub-section called "Freaks to order". According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson published news articles "attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting'good taste' and fighting yellow journalism"; as railroads became more developed, Billboard set up a mail forwarding system for traveling entertainers. The location of an entertainer was tracked in the paper's Routes Ahead column Billboard would receive mail on the star's behalf and publish a notice in its "Letter-Box" column that it has mail for them.
This service was first introduced in 1904, became one of Billboard's largest sources of profit and celebrity connections. By 1914, there were 42,000 people using the service, it was used as the official address of traveling entertainers for draft letters during World War I. In the 1960s, when it was discontinued, Billboard was still processing 1,500 letters per week. In 1920, Donaldson made a controversial move by hiring African-American journalist James Albert Jackson to write a weekly column devoted to African-American performers. According to The Business of Culture: Strategic Perspectives on Entertainment and Media, the column identified discrimination against black performers and helped validate their careers. Jackson was the first black critic at a national magazine with a predominantly white audience. According to his grandson, Donaldson established a policy against identifying performers by their race. Donaldson died in 1925. Billboard's editorial changed focus as technology in recording and playback developed, covering "marvels of modern technology" such as the phonograph, record players, wireless radios.
It began covering coin-operated entertainment machines in 1899, created a dedicated section for them called "Amusement Machines" in March 1932. Billboard began covering the motion picture industry in 1907, but ended up focusing on music due to competition from Variety, it created a radio broadcasting station in the 1920s. The jukebox industry continued to grow through the Great Depression, was advertised in Billboard, which led to more editorial focus on music; the proliferation of the phonograph and radio contributed to its growing music emphasis. Billboard published the first music hit parade on January 4, 1936, introduced a "Record Buying Guide" in January 1939. In 1940, it introduced "Chart Line", which tracked the best-selling records, was followed by a chart for jukebox records in 1944 called Music Box Machine charts. By the 1940s, Billboard was more of a music industry specialist publication; the number of charts it published grew after World War II, due to a growing variety of music interests and genres.
It had eight charts by 1987, covering different genres and formats, 28 charts by 1994. By 1943, Billboard had about 100 employees; the magazine's offices moved to Brighton, Ohio in 1946 to New York City in 1948. A five-column tabloid format was adopted in November 1950 and coated paper was first used in Billboard's print issues in January 1963, allowing for photojournalis
CBS
CBS is an American English language commercial broadcast television and radio network, a flagship property of CBS Corporation. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City and Los Angeles. CBS is sometimes referred to as the Eye Network, in reference to the company's iconic symbol, in use since 1951, it has been called the "Tiffany Network", alluding to the perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of William S. Paley, it can refer to some of CBS's first demonstrations of color television, which were held in a former Tiffany & Co. building in New York City in 1950. The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters Inc. a collection of 16 radio stations, purchased by Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become one of the largest radio networks in the United States, one of the Big Three American broadcast television networks.
In 1974, CBS dropped its former full name and became known as CBS, Inc. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the network in 1995, renamed its corporate entity to the current CBS Broadcasting, Inc. in 1997, adopted the name of the company it had acquired to become CBS Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of Viacom, formed as a spin-off of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies and re-established CBS Corporation – through the spin-off of its broadcast television and select cable television and non-broadcasting assets – with the CBS television network at its core. CBS Corporation is controlled by Sumner Redstone through National Amusements, which controls the current Viacom. CBS operated the CBS Radio network until 2017, when it merged its radio division with Entercom. Prior to CBS Radio provided news and features content for its portfolio owned-and-operated radio stations in large and mid-sized markets, affiliated radio stations in various other markets.
While CBS Corporation owns a 72% stake in Entercom, it no longer owns or operates any radio stations directly, though CBS still provides radio news broadcasts to its radio affiliates and the new owners of its former radio stations. The television network has more than 240 owned-and-operated and affiliated television stations throughout the United States; the company ranked 197th on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. The origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network in Chicago by New York City talent-agent Arthur Judson; the fledgling network soon needed additional investors though, the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers of Columbia Records, rescued it in April 1927. Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard L. Barlow Orchestra from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, fifteen affiliates. Operational costs were steep the payments to AT&T for use of its land lines, by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.
In early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliate WCAU, their partner Jerome Louchheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-old William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System", he believed in the power of radio advertising since his family's "La Palina" cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio. By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchhheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business. During Louchheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 to A. H. Grebe's Atlantic Broadcasting Company for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was upgraded, the signal relocated to 860 kHz.
The physical plant was relocated – to Steinway Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan, where much of CBS's programming would originate. By the turn of 1929, the network could boast to sponsors of having 47 affiliates. Paley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks with Adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures, who planned to move into radio in response to RCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies; the deal came to fruition in September 1929: Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time. The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back by March 1, 1932 for a flat $5 million, provided CBS had earned $2 million during 1931 and 1932. For a brief time there was talk that the network might be renamed "Paramount Radio", but it only lasted a month – the 1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling, it galvanized Paley and his troops, who "had no alternative but to turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years....
This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born." The near-bankrupt movie studio sold its CBS shares back to CBS in 1932. In the first year of Paley's wa
