Arkansas
Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the United States, home to over 3 million people as of 2018. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the Quapaw Indians; the state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U. S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. Arkansas is the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States; the capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state, a hub for transportation, business and government. The northwestern corner of the state, such as the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Area and Fort Smith metropolitan area, is a population and economic center; the largest city in the state's eastern part is Jonesboro. The largest city in the state's southeastern part is Pine Bluff.
The Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15, 1836. In 1861, Arkansas withdrew from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. On returning to the Union in 1868, the state continued to suffer due to its earlier reliance on slavery and the plantation economy, causing the state to fall behind economically and socially. White rural interests continued to dominate the state's politics until the civil rights movement. Arkansas began to diversify its economy following World War II and relies on its service industry, poultry, tourism and rice; the culture of Arkansas is observable in museums, novels, television shows and athletic venues across the state. People such as politician and educational advocate William Fulbright; the name Arkansas was applied to the Arkansas River and derives from a French term, the plural term for Quapaws, a Dhegiha Siouan-speaking Native American people who settled in Arkansas around the 13th century.
This comes from an Algonquian term, /akansa/, for the Quapaws, is also the root term for Kansas. The name has been spelled in a variety of fashions. In 1881, the pronunciation of Arkansas with the final "s" being silent was made official by an act of the state legislature after a dispute arose between Arkansas's two U. S. senators as one favored the pronunciation as AR-kən-saw while the other favored ar-KAN-zəs. In 2007, the state legislature passed a non-binding resolution declaring that the possessive form of the state's name is Arkansas's, followed by the state government. Arkansas borders Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, Oklahoma to the west, Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east; the United States Census Bureau classifies Arkansas as a southern state, sub-categorized among the West South Central States. The Mississippi River forms most of Arkansas's eastern border, except in Clay and Greene, counties where the St. Francis River forms the western boundary of the Missouri Bootheel, in many places where the channel of the Mississippi has meandered from its original 1836 course.
Arkansas can be split into two halves, the highlands in the northwest half and the lowlands of the southeastern half. The highlands are part of the Southern Interior Highlands, including The Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains; the southern lowlands include the Arkansas Delta. This dual split can yield to general regions named northwest, northeast, southeast, or central Arkansas; these directionally named regions are broad and not defined along county lines. Arkansas has seven distinct natural regions: the Ozark Mountains, Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas River Valley, Gulf Coastal Plain, Crowley's Ridge, the Arkansas Delta, with Central Arkansas sometimes included as a blend of multiple regions; the southeastern part of Arkansas along the Mississippi Alluvial Plain is sometimes called the Arkansas Delta. This region is a flat landscape of rich alluvial soils formed by repeated flooding of the adjacent Mississippi. Farther away from the river, in the southeast portion of the state, the Grand Prairie consists of a more undulating landscape.
Both are fertile agricultural areas. The Delta region is bisected by a geological formation known as Crowley's Ridge. A narrow band of rolling hills, Crowley's Ridge rises from 250 to 500 feet above the surrounding alluvial plain and underlies many of the major towns of eastern Arkansas. Northwest Arkansas is part of the Ozark Plateau including the Ozark Mountains, to the south are the Ouachita Mountains, these regions are divided by the Arkansas River; these mountain ranges are part of the U. S. Interior Highlands region, the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains; the highest point in the state is Mount Magazine in the Ouachita Mountains, which rises to 2,753 feet above sea level. Arkansas has many rivers and reservoirs within or along its borders. Major tributaries of the Mississippi River include the Arkansas River, the White River, the St. Francis River; the Arkansas is fed by the Mulberry River and the Fou
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the third-largest city in Arkansas and county seat of Washington County. The city is centrally located within the county and has been home of the University of Arkansas since the institution's founding in 1871. Fayetteville is on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains, deep within the Ozarks. Known as Washington until 1829, the city was named after Fayetteville, from which many of the settlers had come, it was incorporated on November 3, 1836 and was rechartered in 1867. The four-county Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area is ranked 105th in terms of population in the United States with 463,204 in 2010 according to the United States Census Bureau; the city had a population of 73,580 at the 2010 Census. Fayetteville is home to the University of the state's largest university; when classes are in session, thousands of students on campus change the city's demographics. Thousands of Arkansas Razorbacks alumni and fans travel to Fayetteville to attend football and baseball games.
The University's men's track and field program has won 41 national championships to date. Fayetteville was named the third best place to live in the United States in the 2016 U. S. News Best Places To Live Rankings, one of the best places to retire in the South. Forbes ranked Fayetteville as the 24th-best city for business and careers in 2016. Lonely Planet named Fayetteville among its top 20 places to visit in the South in 2016; the city hosts the Walmart Shareholders Meetings each year at the Bud Walton Arena. In 1828, George McGarrah settled at Big Spring with his family on the modern day corner of Spring and Willow, founding the town of Washington, starting work on the courthouse. On October 17, Washington County was established, Washington chosen as the county seat; the Washington Courthouse was finished in 1829, contained the post office. In the year Postmaster Larkin Newton changed the name to the Fayetteville Courthouse, to avoid confusing with Washington, Hempstead County. Two councilmen selected to name the city were from Fayetteville, itself named for Fayetteville, North Carolina.
That original Fayetteville was named for General Lafayette, a French general who helped the colonies gain independence in the American Revolutionary War. The first store in Fayetteville was opened by John Nye in a small building constructed by James Holmsley. In 1832 David Walker, Chief Justice of the Arkansas supreme court, built a double log cabin on what is now Center Street. In 1822 Archibald Yell, the second Governor of Arkansas, built a house and called it "Waxhaw" after his home in North Carolina; this was on the outskirts of town but now is a street named after him that connects College and School streets. The first hotels were the Onstott House. Fayetteville was incorporated as a town on November 3, 1836. In 1859, a city charter was obtained from the Legislature. During the Civil War the municipal government was suspended and was not reinstated until 1867. P. V. Rhea was the president of the town trustees in 1836. W. Walker was the first mayor under the charter of 1859, M. L. Harrison was the first mayor when the government was reorganized in 1867.
The telegraph came to Fayetteville in 1860, strung along the Military Road from St. Louis, Missouri to Little Rock. During the American Civil War, the Union General Samuel Ryan Curtis occupied Fayetteville on February 18, 1862 and the following week, the Battle of Pea Ridge took place northeast of Fayetteville; the city housed wounded soldiers from the Battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862, housed injured troops on Dickson Street. Confederate troops besieged Union soldiers in Fayetteville on April 18, 1863 at the present-day intersection of College Avenue and Dickson Street, at their headquarters. Union soldiers held the city against cannon fire and cavalry attacks, although their headquarters sustained damage; the building was restored and is operated as the Headquarters House, a museum of the Washington County Historical Society. Fayetteville was occupied from December 1862 until May 1865 by the First Arkansas Union Cavalry, a regiment of Union men from Northwest Arkansas. Union forces repelled a Confederate attack in October 1864.
After the war, the United States government established the Fayetteville National Cemetery in 1867. A cemetery for Confederate dead was founded in 1873. Newspapers were established early; the Fayetteville Weekly Democrat began publishing in 1868. It developed as the Northwest Arkansas Times, is still in print today; the Fayetteville Schools District was founded on March 20, 1871 as the first independent school district in Arkansas. The public school system was established by the Reconstruction era legislature. Arkansas had struggled with a state banking crisis, resulting in the illegality of banking until 1868. Following the reinstatement, the Stark Bank became the first bank in the state in 1872, becoming the William McIlroy Bank four years later; this institution remains today as Arvest Bank. In 1954, a few days after Charleston, Fayetteville was the second school district in the southern United States to implement school integration in response to Brown v. Board of Education. Fayetteville is located in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks which run through Northwest Arkansas, southern Missouri, Eastern Oklahoma.
The rocks of the Boston Mountains were formed when sandstones and shales were deposited on top of the Springfield Plateau during the Pennsylvanian Period. In the Fayettevill
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm was an American musician and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and one of the vocalists for the Band. Helm was known for his soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band's recordings, such as "The Weight", "Up on Cripple Creek", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". Helm had a successful career as a film actor, appearing as Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter, as Chuck Yeager's friend and colleague Captain Jack Ridley in The Right Stuff, as a Tennessee firearms expert in Shooter. In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer. After treatment, his cancer went into remission, he regained the use of his voice, his 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008, in November of that year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 91 in its list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2010, Electric Dirt, his 2009 follow-up to Dirt Farmer, won the first Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, a category inaugurated in 2010.
In 2011, his live album Ramble at the Ryman won the Grammy in the same category. On April 17, 2012, his wife and daughter announced on Helm's website that he was "in the final stages of his battle with cancer" and thanked fans while requesting prayers. Two days Helm died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Born in Elaine, Helm grew up in Turkey Scratch, a hamlet of Marvell, Arkansas, his parents and Diamond Helm, were cotton farmers and great lovers of music. They encouraged their children to sing at a young age. Young Lavon began playing the guitar at the age of eight and played drums during his formative years, he saw Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys at the age of six and decided to become a musician. Arkansas in the 1940s and 50s stood at the confluence of a variety of musical styles—blues, country and R&B—that, when merged became known as rock and roll. Helm was influenced by all these styles, which he heard on the Grand Ole Opry on radio station WSM and R&B on radio station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee.
He saw traveling shows such as F. S. Walcott's Rabbit's Foot Minstrels. Another early influence on Helm was the work of the harmonica player and singer Sonny Boy Williamson II, who played blues and early rhythm and blues on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena and performed in Marvell with blues guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr. In his 1993 autobiography, This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band, Helm describes watching Williamson's drummer, James "Peck" Curtis, intently during a live performance in the early 1950s and imitating this R&B drumming style. Helm established the Jungle Bush Beaters, while in high school. Helm witnessed some of the earliest performances by southern country music and rockabilly artists such as Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty, Bo Diddley and fellow Arkansan Ronnie Hawkins. At age 17, Helm began playing in bars around Helena. While he was still in high school, Helm was invited to join Ronnie Hawkins's band, the Hawks, a popular bar and club act in the South and Canada, where rockabilly acts were successful.
Helm's mother insisted that he graduate from high school before touring with Hawkins, but he was able to play with the Hawks locally on weekends. After his graduation in 1958, Helm joined the Hawks as a full-time member, they moved to Toronto, Canada, where they signed with Roulette Records in 1959 and released several singles, including a few hits. Helm reported in his autobiography that fellow Hawks band members had difficulty pronouncing "Lavon" and started calling him "Levon" because it was easier to pronounce. In 1961, Helm with bassist Rick Danko backed guitarist Lenny Breau on several tracks recorded at Hallmark Studios in Toronto; these tracks are included on the 2003 release The Hallmark Sessions. By the early 1960s, Helm and Hawkins had recruited an all-Canadian lineup of musicians: guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, all of whom were multi-instrumentalists. In 1963, the band parted ways with Hawkins and started touring as Levon and the Hawks and as the Canadian Squires, before changing back to the Hawks.
They recorded two singles, but remained a popular touring bar band in Texas, Canada, on the East Coast of the United States, where they found regular summer club gigs on the New Jersey shore. By the mid-1960s, songwriter and musician Bob Dylan was interested in performing electric rock music and asked the Hawks to be his backing band. Disheartened by fans' negative response to Dylan's new sound, Helm returned to Arkansas for what turned out to be a two-year layoff, being replaced by other drummers, including Mickey Jones. With the completion of Dylan's world tour, which included the other four members of the Hawks, Helm went back to Arkansas—to home, to the "woodshed", as he called it, to consider his options; the eventual result was a return to Woodstock to rejoin his group. After the Hawks toured Europe with Dylan, they followed him back to the U. S. and settled near Woodstock, New York, remaining under salary to him. The Hawks recorded a large number of demo and practice tapes in Woodstock, playing daily with Dylan, who had withdrawn from public life the previous year.
These recordings were bootlegged and were released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. The songs and themes developed during this period played a crucial role in
Eddie Money
Edward Joseph Mahoney, known professionally as Eddie Money, is an American singer and multi-instrumentalist who had success in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of Top 40 hits and platinum albums. Money is well known for songs like "Baby Hold On", "Two Tickets to Paradise", "Maybe I'm a Fool", "Think I'm in Love", "Shakin'", "Take Me Home Tonight", "I Wanna Go Back", "Walk on Water", "The Love in Your Eyes", "Peace in Our Time". Money wrote and performed original songs for the films Americathon, Over the Top, Back to the Beach, Kuffs, along with the television series Hardball. Eddie Money was born Edward Joseph Mahoney into a large Irish Catholic family in New York City and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Dorothy and Daniel P. Mahoney, his grandfather and one of his brothers were members of the New York City Police Department and he himself was an NYPD trainee for a period of time. However, as his interest in music intensified, he ended his law enforcement career in favor of becoming a full-time musician.
Money moved to Berkeley and became a regular at city clubs, where he secured a recording contract with Columbia Records. In the late 1970s, he charted with singles such as "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets to Paradise". Money continued his successes and took advantage of the MTV music video scene in the early 1980s with his humorous narrative videos for "Shakin'" and "Think I'm in Love," but his career began to decline after an unsuccessful album in 1983, accompanied by his struggles with drug addiction. Money made a comeback in 1986, returned to the mainstream rock spotlight with the album Can't Hold Back; the album's Ronnie Spector duet "Take Me Home Tonight" reached the Top 100. The hit "I Wanna Go Back" was from the same album. Money followed the album with another Top 10 hit, "Walk on Water", but his Top 40 career ended following the number 21 placement of "I'll Get By" in 1992. During the 1990s and 2000s, Money continued to release numerous compilation albums as well as albums featuring new material.
Since 1992, Money has traditionally opened the summer concert season for DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan. In January 2010, he performed a medley of his hit singles during the halftime performance at the Liberty Bowl, he still tours often accompanied by other prominent rock acts from the 1970s and 1980s. Money has made several television appearances on American sitcoms, he played himself on an episode of the sitcom The King of Queens in May 2002, which used his name. In 2012, Money appeared in a GEICO insurance commercial, in which he owns a travel agency and sings "Two Tickets to Paradise" to a family that wants tickets for a vacation. A reality television series about Money and his family, Real Money, debuted on AXS TV on April 8, 2018. In 2018, Money appeared in episode 6 of The Kominsky Method as a fictional version of himself, indebted to the IRS, portraying the character Freddie Money in an eponymous tribute band at a casino to avoid further tax problems. Money and his wife Laurie have been married since 1989.
They have five children: Zachary, Joseph and Desmond. He joined a twelve-step program in 2001, has said of his addiction that he "came to the realization that I didn't need for my quick wit." Studio albums Eddie Money Life for the Taking Playing for Keeps No Control Where's the Party? Can't Hold Back Nothing to Lose Right Here Love and Money Ready Eddie Wanna Go Back Covers Official website Eddie Money at AllMusic Eddie Money at Rolling Stone at the Wayback Machine
Walmart
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969, it owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses. As of January 31, 2019, Walmart has 11,348 stores and clubs in 27 countries, operating under 55 different names; the company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, as Asda in the United Kingdom, as the Seiyu Group in Japan, as Best Price in India. It has wholly owned operations in Argentina, Chile and South Africa. Since August 2018, Walmart only holds a minority stake in Walmart Brasil, with 20% of the company's shares, private equity firm Advent International holding 80% ownership of the company. Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue—over US$500 billion, according to Fortune Global 500 list in 2018—as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees.
It is a publicly traded family-owned business. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through their holding company, Walton Enterprises, through their individual holdings. Walmart was the largest U. S. grocery retailer in 2019, 65 percent of Walmart's US$510.329 billion sales came from U. S. operations. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. By 1988, Walmart was the most profitable retailer in the U. S. and by October 1989, it had become the largest in terms of revenue. Geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, by the early 1990s, the company had stores from coast to coast: Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989 and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster in July 1990. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania opened in October 1990: the first main store in the Northeast. Walmart's investments outside North America have seen mixed results: its operations and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, South America, China are successful, whereas its ventures in Germany and South Korea failed.
In 1945, businessman and former J. C. Penney employee Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores from the Butler Brothers, his primary focus was selling products at low prices to get higher-volume sales at a lower profit margin, portraying it as a crusade for the consumer. He experienced setbacks because the lease price and branch purchase were unusually high, but he was able to find lower-cost suppliers than those used by other stores and was able to undercut his competitors on pricing. Sales increased 45% in his first year of ownership to US$105,000 in revenue, which increased to $140,000 the next year and $175,000 the year after that. Within the fifth year, the store was generating $250,000 in revenue; when the lease for the location expired, Walton was unable to reach an agreement for renewal, so he opened up a new store at 105 N. Main Street in Bentonville, naming it "Walton's Five and Dime"; that store is now the Walmart Museum. On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Walmart Discount City store at 719 W. Walnut Street in Rogers, Arkansas.
The building is now occupied by a hardware store and an antique mall, while the company's "Store #1" has since relocated to a larger discount store and now expanded to a Supercenter several blocks west at 2110 W. Walnut Street. Within its first five years, the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached US$12.6 million in sales. In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas, in Sikeston and Claremore, Oklahoma; the company was incorporated as Wal-Mart, Inc. on October 31, 1969, changed its name to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. in 1970. The same year, the company opened a home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas, it had 38 stores operating with 1,500 sales of $44.2 million. It began trading stock as a publicly held company on October 1, 1970, was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange; the first stock split occurred in May 1971 at a price of $47 per share. By this time, Walmart was operating in five states: Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma; as the company moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 employees and total sales of $340.3 million.
In the 1980s, Walmart continued to grow and by the company's 25th anniversary in 1987, there were 1,198 stores with sales of $15.9 billion and 200,000 associates. This year marked the completion of the company's satellite network, a $24 million investment linking all operating units with the Bentonville office via two-way voice and data transmission and one-way video communication. At the time, the company was the largest private satellite network, allowing the corporate office to track inventory and sales and to communicate to stores. In 1988, Walton was replaced by David Glass. Walton remained as Chairman of the Board. With the contribution of its superstores, the company surpassed Toys "R" Us in toy sales in 1998. While it was the third-largest retailer in the United States, Walmart was more profitable than rivals Kmart and Sears by the late 1980s. By 1990, it became the largest U. S. retailer by revenue. Prior to the summer of 1990, Walmart had no presence on the West Coast or in the Northeast, but in July and October that year, it opened its first stores in California and Pennsylvania, respectively.
By the mid-1990s, it was far and away the most powerful retailer in the U. S. and expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994
Colbie Caillat
Colbie Marie Caillat is an American singer-songwriter. Caillat rose to fame through social networking website Myspace. At that time, she was the number one unsigned artist of her genre. After signing with Universal Republic Records, she released her debut album, Coco, in July 2007; the album included the hit singles "Bubbly" and "Realize", has sold 2,060,000 copies in the US, is certified 2x Platinum. In 2008 she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, "Lucky". In August 2009 she released Breakthrough, her second album, which became her first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, it has been certified gold by the RIAA. Breakthrough was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards, she was part of the group that won Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammy Awards for her background vocals and writing on Taylor Swift's Fearless album. In July 2011 she released All of You. In October 2012 she released Christmas in the Sand. Caillat has sold over 10 million singles. In 2009 she was named Billboard magazine's 94th-best-selling music artist of the 2000s.
Caillat was born in Malibu and grew up in Newbury Park, California. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Tusk albums; when she was an infant, her parents gave her the nickname "Coco", which she would name her debut album. Caillat took piano lessons as a child, but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 years old, when she became enthralled with Lauryn Hill's performance in Sister Act 2, she realized that she wanted to be a singer, began taking vocal lessons, performing onstage for the first time in sixth grade. Since she has covered the Roberta Flack song "Killing Me Softly", covered by Lauryn Hill, Hill's own "Tell Him". Caillat soon met producer Mikal Blue. Caillat began playing the acoustic guitar at age 19, Blue helped her record her first song, she auditioned for American Idol but was rejected at the pre-audition stage and was unable to sing for the judges. The second time she auditioned for the show, she sang her own original song, "Bubbly", was rejected once again.
However, Caillat expressed gratitude at the judges' decision. I was nervous. I didn't look the greatest. I wasn't ready for it yet. I was glad, when I auditioned, that they said no." The popularity of Caillat's MySpace profile led her to become the number-one unsigned singer in her genre for four consecutive months. Caillat's debut album, was released on July 10, 2007 in Australia and Asia and a week in North America, its deluxe edition was released on September 2008 in Japan and November 11, 2008 worldwide. The album was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA with shipments to U. S. retailers of 2,000,000 units. The album's first single, "Bubbly", peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Pop 100, it topped the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks charts for 19 and 14 weeks, respectively. The single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on December 13, 2007, with sales of more than 2.6 million downloads in the US. On November, 20, she released the Christmas song "Mistletoe" and peaked at number 75 at Billboard Hot 100.
The song was the most downloaded holiday song of 2007. It was featured in the film Baby Mama; the second single from Coco, "Realize", was released in January 23, 2008, peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming her second Top 20 hit in the United States."The Little Things", was released as the third single in Germany on March 7, 2008 and in United States in October 2008. The single did not chart well in the US, was her weakest charting single from the album, peaking at number seven on US Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100, she recorded a French translated version of this song. The original music video was shot in San Francisco. Another music video for the song was shot in Hawaii and was a prequel to "Bubbly"; the fourth and final single from the album in the United States was, "Somethin' Special", released on July 29, 2008. The song was included only in the deluxe edition, it was released to give support to the American athletes participating in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, in China, was included on the AT&T Team USA Soundtrack.
Caillat sings on "You" by Schiller and appears in the music video. She has been involved in the soundtrack of the movie Imagine That, she is featured in Colombian singer Juanes' album La vida... es un ratico in the song "Hoy Me Voy". In October, the song "Midnight Bottle" was included in the soundtrack of Brazilian soap opera Três Irmãs, she played herself in this soap opera and performed the song. Caillat provided background vocals for and co-wrote Taylor Swift's song "Breathe", on her album, Fearless. In January 13, 2009, Caillat released a duet with Jason Mraz, called "Lucky", on his album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things. Caillat's second album, was released in August 2009. Most of the album features guitarist David Becker on two tracks. Becker has worked with Caillat's father Ken. Caillat had writer's block during the recording sessions, so she enlisted her friends Kara DioGuardi and Jason Reeves, they went to Hawaii for three weeks, rented a beach house and wrote songs. Breakthrough debuted at number-one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 106,000 copies, becoming her first album to debut at th
Blake Shelton
Blake Tollison Shelton is an American country singer and television personality. In 2001, he made his debut with the single "Austin"; the lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, "Austin" spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The now Platinum-certified debut album produced two more top 20 entries. Although the album was released on Giant Records Nashville, he was transferred to Warner Bros. Records Nashville after Giant closed in late 2001, his second and third albums, 2003's The Dreamer and 2004's Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill, are gold and platinum, respectively. His fourth album, Pure BS, was re-issued in 2008 with a cover of Michael Bublé's pop hit "Home" as one of the bonus tracks, his fifth album, Startin' Fires was released in November 2008. It was followed by the extended plays Hillbilly Bone and All About Tonight in 2010, the albums Red River Blue in 2011, Based on a True Story... in 2013, Bringing Back the Sunshine in 2014, If I'm Honest in 2016.
As of June 2017, Shelton has charted 33 singles, including 24 number ones, 17 of which were consecutive. The 11th No. 1 broke "the record for the most consecutive No. 1 singles in the Country Airplay chart's 24-year history". He is a seven-time Grammy Award nominee. Shelton is known for his role as a judge on the televised singing competitions Nashville Star, Clash of the Choirs, The Voice, he has been on The Voice since its inception, in six of fifteen seasons, a member of his team has won. From 2011 to 2015, Shelton was married to singer Miranda Lambert. Shelton was born in Ada, Oklahoma, to Dorothy, a beauty salon owner, Richard Shelton, a used car salesman. Shelton began singing at an early age and by the age of 12, he was taught how to play the guitar by his uncle. By age 15, he had written his first song. By age 16, he had received a Denbo Diamond Award in his home state. On November 13, 1990, his older brother Richie Shelton was killed in an automobile accident. After graduating from high school at seventeen, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a singing career.
There he got a job at a music publishing company and, in 1997, he was aided by Bobby Braddock to obtain a production contract with Sony Music. Some years in Nashville, he signed to Giant Records in 2001. In 2001, he was slated to release a song entitled "I Wanna Talk About Me" as a single. However, staff at the label considered the song unsuitable for a lead-off single, the song was recorded by Toby Keith, whose version was a number 1 single. Instead, Giant released "Austin" as Shelton's debut single. Shortly after that song was released, Giant Records was closed, Shelton was transferred to parent company Warner Bros. Records. "Austin" became Shelton's first number one hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts and spent five weeks at that position. Warner released Shelton's self-titled debut album, produced by songwriter Bobby Braddock, it produced the Top 20 hits "All Over Me", which Shelton co-wrote with Earl Thomas Conley and Mike Pyle, "Ol' Red". Although Shelton's rendition of "Ol' Red" was not a major radio hit, he considers it his signature song, it has become popular in concert.
The album received a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of 1,000,000 copies. The album received a positive review from Maria Konicki Dinoia of Allmusic, who called "Austin" "tremendously imaginative" and praised Shelton for including songs written by Braddock and Conley. Country Standard Time was less favorable, with Scott Homewood saying that the "album just smacks of being assembled with the intent on capturing the burgeoning alternative country market". Shelton's second album, The Dreamer, was first released on February 2003, on Warner Bros.. Records, its lead-off single, "The Baby", reached No. 1 on the country charts, holding that position for three weeks. Although the second and third singles only reached No.32 and No. 24, The Dreamer earned gold certification as well. He, along with Andy Griggs and Montgomery Gentry, sang guest vocals on Tracy Byrd's mid-2003 single "The Truth About Men". Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill was the title of Shelton's third studio album, released in 2004.
Its lead-off single, the Harley Allen co-write "When Somebody Knows You That Well", peaked at No.37 on the country charts, while the follow-up "Some Beach" became his third No.1 hit, holding that position for four weeks. It was followed by a cover of Conway Twitty's 1988 single "Goodbye Time". Both this cover and its followup, reached Top Ten for Shelton as well; as with his first album, Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill was certified platinum. Accompanying the album's release was a video collection entitled Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill: A Video Collection. On December 18, 2005, several of Shelton's songs, including "Nobody but Me", appeared on the TV movie The Christmas Blessing, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Rebecca Gayheart, Angus T. Jones, Rob Lowe. Shelton had a small role at the end of the movie, playing himself at a benefit concert, singing "Nobody but Me". Shelton released his fourth studio album, Pure BS, in early 2007. Unlike with his first three albums, which were produced by Bobby Braddock, Shelton worked with Braddock, Brent Rowan, Paul Worley as producers for this album.
Its first two singles—"Don't Make Me" and "The More I Drink"—were both Top 20 hits on the country charts reaching No.12 and No. 19. In late 2007, Shelton made appearances on television shows: first as a judge on the talent competition Nashville Star, on C
