Category:Artists by record label Category:RCA Records artists

Sofia Vembo (, Gallipoli, 1910 - Athens, 11 March 1978) was a leading Greek singer and actress active from the interwar period to the early postwar years and the 50s. She became best known for her performance of patriotic songs during the Greco-Italian War, when she was dubbed the "Songstress of Victory".

Her real name was Efi Bebo (Έφη Μπέμπο). She was born in Gallipoli, Eastern Thrace, in 1910, but after the Asia Minor Catastrophe her family moved to Tsaritsani in Greece, where her father became a tobacco worker, and later to Volos.

She began her career in Thessaloniki in the early 1930s. In the winter of 1933 she was hired by the theater operator Fotis Samartzis of the Kentrikon theater for the revue "Parrot 1933". She then began to record romantic songs for the Columbia company, achieving fame because of her distinctly sonorous contralto voice.

Her reputation however skyrocketed after the Italian attack on Greece on 28 October 1940, when her performance of patriotic and satirical songs became a major inspiration for the fighting soldiers. At the same time, she offered 2,000 gold pounds from her own fortune to the Hellenic Navy. Following the German invasion and occupation of the country in April 1941, she was transported to the Middle East, where she continued to perform for the Greek troops in exile.

After the war, in 1949, she acquired her own theatre, the "Vembo Theatre", in the Metaxourgeio quarter of Athens. In 1957, she married her long-time lover Mimis Traïforos. During the 60s, she began to perform less and less, before finally retiring in the early 70s. She died on 11 March 1978.

Because of her role in the war and her efforts during the Axis occupation, she was awarded the rank of Major in the Greek Army.

References

IMDB

Τραγούδια που έγραψαν ιστορία - Σοφία Βέμπο: Παιδιά, της Ελλάδος παιδιά

External links

Filmography

The Prosfygopoula (1938) in the role of Sofia Nakos

Stella (1955) in the role of Maria

Stournara 288 (1959) in the role of Jenny

Category:1910 births Category:1978 deaths Category:Greek actors Category:Greek female singers Category:Modern Greek-language singers

Beniamino Gigli (March 20, 1890 - November 30, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism of his interpretations. Nevertheless, such was Gigli's talent, he is considered to be one of the very finest tenors in the recorded history of music.

Biography

Gigli was born in Recanati, in the Marche, the son of a shoe-maker who loved opera. His brother Lorenzo became a famous Italian painter.

In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on October 15, 1914 when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo di Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro San Carlo di Napoli (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan (November 26, 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920s also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory—namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.

Some of the roles with which Gigli became particularly associated during this period included Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème and the title role in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, both of which he would later record in full.

Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo." In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's honey-toned lyric instrument.

Gigli left the Met in 1932, ostensibly after refusing to take a pay cut. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met's then general manager, was furious at his company's most popular male singer; he told the press that Gigli was the only singer not to accept the pay cut. There were in fact several others, Lily Pons and Rosa Ponselle among them; and it is well-documented that Gatti-Casazza gave himself a large pay increase in 1931, so that after the pay cut in 1932 his salary remained the same as it had been originally. Furthermore, Gatti was careful to hide Gigli's counter offer to the press, in which the singer offered to sing five or six concerts gratis, which in dollars saved was worth more than Gatti's imposed pay cut.

After leaving the Met, Gigli returned again to Italy, and sang in houses there, elsewhere in Europe, and in South America. He was criticized for being a favorite singer of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and toward the end of World War II was able to give few performances. However he immediately returned to the stage when the war ended in 1945, and the audience acclaim was greater and more clamorous than ever.

In the last few years of his life, Gigli gave concert performances more often than he appeared on stage. Before his retirement in 1955, Gigli undertook an exhausting world tour of Farewell Concerts. This impaired his health in the two years that remained to him, during which time he helped prepare his Memoirs (based primarily on an earlier Memoir, fleshed out by a series of interviews). Gigli died in Rome in 1957.

Personal life

Like many artists, Gigli was a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he gave more fund raising concerts and raised more money than any other singer in history, with close to one thousand benefit concerts. He was deeply devoted to Padre Pio, his confessor, to whom he donated a large amount of money. Also, Gigli sang an unusual amount of sacred music (especially in the 1950s), atypical of a leading operatic tenor. Additionally, he was throughout his life deeply devoted to the sacred music of Don Lorenzo Perosi.

On the other hand, Gigli's relationships with women were often tainted by scandal. He lied in his memoirs, saying that he was married six months earlier than he really was. This was to conceal that his wife Costanza was pregnant before reaching the altar. Gigli had two children with Costanza: Enzo and Rina. (The latter was a well-known soprano in her own right.) Later, Gigli is well-known to have had a second family with Lucia Vigarani, producing three children. Gigli is rumored to have had at least three other children with as many different women. Gigli's exact number of offspring will probably never be known.

Gigli's musical legacy

Such is Gigli's popularity that most of his recordings including complete operas normally with Toti dal Monte have been converted to CD and are freely available. His disc legacy dates back to recordings in the 1930s which provide a good insight into the beauty of his voice due to EMI's digital enhancement of the recordings quality using the CEDAR process. He was liked by many composers and was the first to sing the title role in Andrea Chenier. Listen to his rendition of the complete opera Cavalleria rusticana and you will hear Pietro Mascagni’s voice welcoming you.

However if you want to hear his recordings from his Italian years in the early thirties until just after the war including his rendition of the "Giovinezza" you will have to go to Italy. His leaving the Met following a pay cut meant he fell into the arms of Mussolini and allegedly became his favorite. This would have been fatal to most singers and for a while after the war he had to sing with his daughter Rina as many sopranos would not sing with him. This ended with a concert in Covent Garden when the world and the critics saw what they had been missing. He described himself as a simple man with a gift from God. He was a generous man and would always end every concert by remaining on stage with the offer he would sing any song the audience wanted for a fee with the money going to charity.

Gigli was the principal tenor of Metropolitan Opera for good reason and his version of Nessun Dorma will amaze many by its similarity to that made famous by Pavarotti many years later. He has what all great singers have, which is a voice easily recognisable and the ability to put a stamp on a song and make it his own. Like Bjorling he sings in an apparently effortless way, examples exist on u-tube which clearly shows how easy and marvellous his voice production was.

In addition to his opera skills he is considered by many to be the greatest exponent of Neapolitan singing, he has a sound which is so definitively Italian and he sings convincingly in all Italian dialects. The double CD from EMI called Ole Sole Mio ranks as one of the best collections of this style of music, his version of Mamma still stands the test of time and no one sings Santa Lucia like he does with all the power of a true opera tenor coupled to a rapier like sweet falsetto. Unlike many opera stars today who sing can belto not bel canto Gigli had the power of a truly great tenor coupled to a melting falsetto and tingling pianissimo. His emotional renditions complete with sobs which caused the critics so much concern were loved by the masses. Like Domingo, Alagna and Florez do now he could sell a song and he knew the way an audience liked it.

Described as foxy by his accompanist his recordings reflect this in some of the unusual songs in his repertoire. He also was prone to including unusual twists and endings to the standards. For example he sings Chopin and English songs and his version of In the depths of the temple from the Pearl Fishers by Bizet sung with Giuseppe de Luca contains such a unique ending. At the end of his career his voice may have lost its power but it retained its beauty till the end; listen to the Dream from Manon in the live recording of a concert he gave in Rio just prior to his death.

Biographies

References

External links

International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation

Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

History of the Tenor - Sound Clips and Narration

Category:1890 births Category:1957 deaths Category:People from the Province of Macerata Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian tenors Category:Operatic tenors

Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991), was a Bohemian-born pianist.

Life and early career

Serkin was born in Eger, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Cheb, Czech Republic) to a Russian-Jewish family.

Hailed as a child prodigy, he was sent to Vienna at the age of 9, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later, composition with Joseph Marx making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. From 1918 to 1920 he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg and participated actively in Schoenberg's Society for the Private Performance of Music. He began a regular concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf Busch and his family, which included a then 3-year-old daughter Irene whom Serkin would marry 15 years later. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Serkin performed throughout Europe both as soloist and with Busch and the Busch Quartet. With the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1933, Serkin and the Busches (who were not Jewish but who vehemently opposed the Nazi regime) left Berlin for Basel, Switzerland.

In 1933 Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C., where he performed with Adolf Busch. In 1936 he launched his solo concert career in the U.S. with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini. The critics raved, describing him as "an artist of unusual and impressive talents in possession of a crystalline technique, plenty of power, delicacy, and tonal purity." In 1937, Serkin played his first New York recital at Carnegie Hall.

Emigration to the United States

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Serkins and Busches emigrated to the United States, where Serkin taught several generations of pianists at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 1968 to 1976 he served as the Institute's Director. He lived with his growing family first in New York, then in Philadelphia, as well as on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, Serkin and Adolf Busch founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival near Brattleboro, Vermont with the goal of stimulating interest in and performance of chamber music in the United States. He made numerous recordings from the 1940s into the 1980s, including one at RCA Victor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1944, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toscanini. Most of his recordings were made for Columbia Masterworks, although in the 1980s he also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc. Serkin admired the music of Max Reger, which he discovered while working with Adolf Busch. In 1959, he became the first pianist in the United States to record Reger's Piano Concerto, Op. 114, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in March 1972 celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1. The orchestra and board of directors also named Serkin an honorary member of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society, a distinction also conferred on Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest artist with the orchestra. He is also regarded as one of the primary interpreters of the music of Beethoven in the 20th century.

Revered as a musician's musician, a father figure to a legion of younger players who came to the Marlboro School and Festival, and a pianist of enormous musical integrity, he toured all over the world and continued his solo career and recording activities until illness prevented further work in 1989. He died of cancer on May 8, 1991, aged 88, at home on his Guilford, Vermont farm.

He and Irene were the parents of seven children (one of whom died in infancy), including pianist Peter Serkin and cellist Judith Serkin. They also had fifteen grandchildren. Irene Busch Serkin died in 1998.

Awards and recognitions

Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)

Kennedy Center Honors (1981)

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance - Mstislav Rostropovich and Rudolf Serkin for Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38 and Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99 (1984)

National Medal of Arts (1988)

References

A biography, Rudolf Serkin: A Life, by Stephen Lehmann and Marion Faber was published in 2003.

External links

JFK Presidential Library & Museum - Presidential Medal of Freedom

Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts

Category:Austrian classical pianists Category:American classical pianists Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Czechoslovak immigrants to the United States Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:American people of Czech descent Category:American people of Austrian descent Category:Czech people of Russian descent Category:Austrian people of Russian descent Category:People from Cheb Category:1903 births Category:1991 deaths Category:People from Windham County, Vermont

Playername	John Charles
Fullname	William John Charles, CBE
Height
Dateofbirth	December 27, 1931
Cityofbirth	Swansea
Countryofbirth	Wales
Dateofdeath	February 21, 2004
Cityofdeath	Wakefield
Countryofdeath	England
Position	Centre Half, Centre Forward
Youthyears	1946–1948
Youthclubs	Swansea Town
Years	1948–19571957–196219621962–19631963–19661966–19711972–1974
Clubs	Leeds UnitedJuventusLeeds UnitedRomaCardiff CityHereford UnitedMerthyr Tydfil
Caps(goals)	297 (150)150 (93)11 (3)10 (4)69 (18)173 (80)
Nationalyears	1950–1965
Nationalteam	Wales
Nationalcaps(goals)	38 (15)
Manageryears	1967–19711972–19741987
Managerclubs	Hereford United (player-manager)Merthyr Tydfil (player-manager)Hamilton Steelers

William John Charles, CBE (27 December 1931 – 21 February 2004), commonly known as John Charles, was a Welsh international footballer best remembered for spells with Leeds United and Juventus. Rated by many as the greatest all-round footballer ever to come from Wales, due to his philosophy of never kicking or intentionally hurting opposing players. Standing at 6 feet 2 inches, he was nicknamed Il Gigante Buono – The Gentle Giant.

Biography

Charles was born in the Cwmbwrla district of Swansea during late 1931. Charles would play football as a child, with younger brother Mel Charles who also went on to become a professional, later playing alongside each other for the Welsh national team.

While still at school, Charles joined the boys section of the local team Swansea Town, who would later become Swansea City. When he left school at age 14, he was taken onto the groundstaff at Vetch Field, yet because of his young age; Third Division Swansea never gave him a first-team call up. His only senior appearances came for the reserve side in the Welsh Football League.

Leeds United first spell

While playing for Gendros, a local youth club, he was scouted by Leeds United and given a trial in September 1948. At his trial he impressed and duly signed for them at the age of 17, relocating to Yorkshire.

Major Buckley, then manager of Leeds, selected Charles in a variety of positions including right-back, centre-half and left-half for Leeds Reserves.

Charles made his first team debut as a centre back for Leeds United in a friendly versus Dumfries club Queen of the South on 19 April 1949. Charles was tasked with marking the Scotland centre forward who in winning 3–1 ten days before at Wembley had run the England defence ragged, Billy Houliston. The score was 0–0. After the game Houliston said 17 year old Charles was "the best centre-half I've ever played against".

Charles made his league debut against Blackburn Rovers also in April 1949, playing at centre-half. Two seasons later he played a couple of matches at centre-forward, scoring twice in the second match. This prompted a debate as to where Charles should play in the team, but he remained at centre-half until the 1952–53 season. He scored 150 league goals in eight years for Leeds, including 42 goals in the 1953–54 season.

He also played for the Army during his two years of National Service between 1950 and 1952, also dabbling in boxing, cricket, running and basketball. It was during this period that he suffered a serious cartilage injury, causing him to miss most of the 1951–52 season.

Playing in Italy with Juventus

In 1957 he joined the Italian club Juventus F.C. for a then-British-record £65,000 transfer fee. The transfer was notable as Charles became one of the first British professional players to be signed for an overseas team after John Fox Watson led the way moving from Fulham to Real Madrid in 1948. In his five years at Juventus he scored 93 goals in 155 matches, winning the scudetto (Italian league championship) three times, and the Italian Cup twice.

and Boniperti at Juve.]]

The respect Charles earned from Juventus fans was shown when, on the occasion of the club's centenary in 1997 they voted him to be the best-ever foreign player to play for their team.

Returning to Britain

Following his time at Juventus F.C., he returned to Leeds United but his second spell at Elland Road was less successful. After five years in Italy he found it difficult to adjust to life back in England. He returned to Italy to play for A.S. Roma, initially with success. However he then began to suffer from injuries and personal problems and left to join Cardiff City where he was to finish his league career.

He later became manager of Hereford United and Merthyr Tydfil, and technical director of the Canadian team Hamilton Steelers, who he became coach of midway through the 1987 season.

International career with Wales

Charles first played for the Wales national team shortly after his 18th birthday.

He was the heart of the side which made it to the quarter finals of the 1958 Football World Cup (the country's only appearance in the World Cup), but was defeated 1–0 by eventual winners Brazil (a goal by the emerging Pelé) in his absence due to injury. In total for Wales, Charles made 38 appearances and scored 15 goals.

Charles played for the Great Britain team against Ireland in 1955.

Life after football

Following his retirement from football, Charles became the landlord of the New Inn public house on Elland Road, Churwell, Leeds which later was also managed by another Leeds United and Wales international legend Byron Stevenson. Charles was awarded a CBE in 2001, and until shortly before his death he still attended every Leeds United home game. In 2002 he was made a vice-president of the Football Association of Wales, and in 2003, he was granted the freedom of the city of Swansea. There was a campaign to knight John Charles, but, in the end, this never happened resulting only in a CBE. Charles became an Inaugural Inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002. The West Stand of the Elland Road Stadium is named "The John Charles Stand" in his honour for the great service he provided to Leeds United and a bust has been created, financed by Leeds United Chairman Ken Bates, to be displayed in the entrance to the banqueting suite (attached to the back of The John Charles Stand) in his remembrance. The South Leeds Stadium, used by Leeds United for reserve matches, was renamed the John Charles Stadium in his honour. There is also a street named "John Charles Way" Close to the Elland Road Stadium

In January 2004 he suffered a heart attack shortly before an interview for Italian television, and required the partial amputation of one foot for circulation reasons before he was returned to Britain. He died in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, early on 21 February 2004.

John had a brother, Mel Charles and a nephew Jeremy Charles, who also represented Wales.

In 1998, the Football League, as part of its centenary season celebrations, included Charles on its list of 100 League Legends.

On 29 November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Wales by the Football Association of Wales as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.

In 2004, Charles was voted at number 19 in the 100 Welsh Heroes poll.

Ability

In the foreword for Charles' autobiography, Sir Bobby Robson described him as "incomparable" and classed him among the all-time footballing greats such as Pelé, Diego Maradona and George Best. He also notes that Charles is the only footballing great to be world class in two very different positions.

Jimmy Greaves once stated that "if I were picking my all-time great British team, or even a world eleven, John Charles would be in it". Other footballers have also named him as one of the best, including Jack Charlton, Nat Lofthouse and Billy Wright.

Charles' accomplishments with Juventus led to him being voted 'the greatest foreign player ever in Serie A', ahead of Maradona, Michel Platini, Marco Van Basten and Zinedine Zidane – this in 1997, 34 years after his last appearance in the league. In 2001 he became the first non-Italian inducted to the Azzurri Hall of Fame.

Honours

Serie A: Champions (1958, 1960, 1961)

Coppa Italia: Winners (1959, 1960)

Welsh Cup: Winners (1964, 1965)

Italian Player of the Year: 1958

The John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds is named after Charles.

The West stand at Elland Road is named "The John Charles Stand" and the entrance lobby to the Banqueting Suite attached to the back of the stand contains a bust of Charles, in memory of all he did for the club.

A street near Elland Road in the Lower Wortley area of Leeds is named "John Charles Way"

The John Charles Lounge in Aberystwyth Town Football Club's ground is named after Charles

Career statistics

These statistics are incomplete, missing figures indicated by – {|border=1 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=2 style="background: ivory; font-size: 95%; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; clear:center" |+ Club performance |- !rowspan="2"|Club !rowspan="2"|Division !rowspan="2"|Season !colspan="2"|League !colspan="2"|Cup !colspan="2"|Other !colspan="2"|Total |- !Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals |- |rowspan="9" align=center valign=top|Leeds United |Second Division |1948–49 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |- |Second Division |1949–50 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|47 |align="center"|1 |- |Second Division |1950–51 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|36 |align="center"|3 |- |Second Division |1951–52 |align="center"|18 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|23 |align="center"|0 |- |Second Division |1952–53 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|26 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|27 |- |Second Division |1953–54 |align="center"|39 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|43 |- |Second Division |1954–55 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|12 |- |Second Division |1955–56 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|29 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|29 |- |First Division |1956–57 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|38 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|39 |- |rowspan="5" align=center valign=top|Juventus |Serie A |1957–58 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|38 |align="center"|29 |- |Serie A |1958–59 |align="center"|29 |align="center"|19 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|24 |- |Serie A |1959–60 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|23 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|37 |align="center"|26 |- |Serie A |1960–61 |align="center"|32 |align="center"|15 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|37 |align="center"|16 |- |Serie A |1961–62 |align="center"|21 |align="center"|8 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|10 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|Leeds United |Second Division |1962–63 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|3 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|A.S. Roma |Serie A |1962–63 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |- |rowspan="3" align=center valign=top|Cardiff City |Second Division |1963–64 |align="center"|33 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|11 |- |Second Division |1964–65 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|6 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|3 |- |Second Division |1965–66 |align="center"|7 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |- |rowspan="5" align=center valign=top|Hereford United |Southern Premier |1966–67 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|26 |align="center"|9 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|51 |align="center"|37 |- |Southern Premier |1967–68 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1968–69 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1969–70 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1970–71 |align="center"|24 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|6 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|12 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|Merthyr Tydfil |Southern Premier |1971–72 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |colspan=3|Career totals |align="center"|602 |align="center"|304 |align="center"|51 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|30 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|683 |align="center"|333 |- |}

References

External links

English Football Hall of Fame Profile

UEFA.com – Wales' Golden Player

John Charles – A True Leeds United Legend – LeedsUnited.com

Leeds United Fan Club – John Charles

John Charles at the Wales Video Gallery

Category:UEFA Golden Players Category:1931 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Wales international footballers Category:Welsh football managers Category:Welsh footballers Category:The Football League players Category:First Division/Premier League topscorers Category:Welsh expatriate footballers Category:Serie A footballers Category:Serie A topscorers Category:Leeds United A.F.C. players Category:Juventus F.C. players Category:A.S. Roma players Category:Cardiff City F.C. players Category:Swansea City A.F.C. players Category:Hereford United F.C. players Category:Hereford United F.C. managers Category:Merthyr Tydfil F.C. players Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Swansea Category:1958 FIFA World Cup players Category:Expatriate footballers in Italy Category:Association football utility players Category:English Football Hall of Fame inductees

Jimmy Elledge (born January 8, 1943, Nashville, Tennessee His first recording for the label was "Funny How Time Slips Away", which was written by Willie Nelson and produced by Atkins. The song became a hit, peaking at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961,

References

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:People from Nashville, Tennessee Category:Musicians from Tennessee Category:American country singers Category:RCA Victor artists

Frankie Carle (March 25, 1903–March 7, 2001) was an American pianist and bandleader. As a very popular bandleader in the 1940s and 1950s, Carle was nicknamed "The Wizard of the Keyboard", He started out working with a number of mainstream dance bands. He received attention when he joined Horace Heidt's band, later becoming co-leader of the band.

He left Heidt's band in 1944 to form his own. His daughter, Marjorie Hughes, was the lead female singer. Carle had several major hits in the 1940s and early 1950s, including his theme song, "Sunrise Serenade" and "Oh! What It Seemed To Be!" His band disbanded after 1955 and he performed mainly as a soloist thereafter. Carle died of natural causes in Mesa, Arizona in 2001, a few weeks shy of his 98th birthday.

Album

30 Hits of the Tuneful '20s RCA Victor (LSP-2592, 1963)

Bibliography

Lagumina, Salvatore, et al. (2000). The Italian American Experience. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Walker, Leo (1989). The Big Band Alamanac. Hollywood: Da Capo Press.

External links

New York Times obituary: "Frankie Carle, 97, Band Leader Who Wrote 'Sunrise Serenade'", by William H. Honan, March 10, 2001

Frankie Carle at Solid!

Frankie Carle at Space Age Pop Music

Frankie Carle at Musicmatch Guide

Category:1903 births Category:2001 deaths Category:American musicians Category:RCA Victor artists

Name	Eartha Kitt
Caption	Kitt in 2006,
Birth name	Eartha Mae Keith
Birth date	January 17, 1927
Birth place	North, South Carolina, U.S.
Death date	December 25, 2008
Death place	Weston, Connecticut, U.S.
Years active	1943–2008
Occupation	Actress/Singer
Spouse	John "Bill" McDonald (June 6, 1960–1965
Name	Kitt, Eartha
Short description	American Singer
Date of birth	1927-01-17
Place of birth	North, South Carolina, United States
Date of death	2008-12-25
Place of death	Weston, Connecticut, United States

Category:African American actors Category:African American singers Category:African American female singers Category:American people of Native American descent Category:American anti-Vietnam War activists Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American musical theatre actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:Annie Award winners Category:Cabaret singers Category:Deaths from colorectal cancer Category:Native American actors Category:Native American singers Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Musicians from South Carolina Category:Actors from South Carolina Category:Vocal jazz musicians Category:Cancer deaths in Connecticut Category:1927 births Category:2008 deaths

Name	Artie Shaw
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	Arthur Jacob Arshawsky
Born	May 23, 1910New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	December 30, 2004Thousand Oaks, California, U.S.
Instrument	Clarinet
Genre	Swing, big band
Occupation	Bandleader, composer
Years active	1925–2004

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky (May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004), better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings.

Early life

Born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in New York City, Shaw grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where, according to his autobiography However, after recording "Any Old Time" she left the band due to hostility from audiences in the South, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more "mainstream" singer. His band became enormously successful, and his playing was eventually recognized as equal to that of Benny Goodman: longtime Duke Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard cited Shaw as his favorite clarinet player. He fused jazz with classical music by adding strings to his arrangements, experimented with bebop, and formed "chamber jazz" groups that utilized such novel sounds as harpsichords or Afro-Cuban music.

The long series of musical groups Shaw formed included such talents as vocalists Billie Holiday, Helen Forrest and, Mel Tormé; drummers Buddy Rich and Dave Tough, guitarists Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, and Tal Farlow and trombonist-arranger Ray Conniff, among countless others. He composed the morose "Nightmare", with its Hassidic nuances, for his personal theme, rather than more approachable songs. In a televised interview of the 1970s, Shaw derided the often "asinine" songs that bands were compelled to play night after night. In 1994, he told Frank Prial (The New York Times), "I thought that because I was Artie Shaw I could do what I wanted, but all they wanted was 'Begin the Beguine.' " Band pianist Johnny Guarneri played a harpsichord on the quintet recordings and Al Hendrickson played an electric guitar, which was unusual in jazz recordings of the time. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge later became part of the group, succeeding Billy Butterfield. The Gramercy Five's biggest hit was "Summit Ridge Drive". A CD of The Complete Gramercy Five sessions was released in 1990.

Throughout his career, Shaw would take sabbaticals from the music business. This included studying advanced mathematics, as cited in Karl Sabbagh's The Riemann Hypothesis. His first interregnum, at the height of his success, was met with disbelief by booking agents. They predicted that Shaw would not only be abandoning a million-dollar enterprise but that nightclub and theater owners would sue him for breach of contract. Shaw's offhand response was, "Tell 'em I'm insane. A nice, young American boy walking away from a million dollars, wouldn't you call that insane?"

In 1954, Shaw stopped playing the clarinet, citing his own perfectionism, which, he later said, would have killed him. He explained to a reporter, "In the world we live in, compulsive perfectionists finish last. You have to be Lawrence Welk, or, on another level, Irving Berlin, and write the same kind of music over and over again. I'm not able to do that."

In 1946, Shaw was present at a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan, part of a core group of actors and artists who were trying to sway the organization away from communism, presented an anti-communist declaration which, if signed, was to run in newspapers. There was bedlam as many rose to champion the communist cause, and Artie Shaw began praising the democratic standards of the Soviet constitution. as well as an expert fly fisherman. In his later years, Shaw lived and wrote in the Newbury Park section of Thousand Oaks, California. Shaw had long suffered from adult onset diabetes and eventually died of complications of the disease at age 94. Sponsored by Old Gold cigarettes, Shaw broadcast on CBS from November 20, 1938 until November 14, 1939.

At the height of his popularity, Shaw reportedly earned $60,000 per week. For a comparison, George Burns and Gracie Allen were each making US $5,000 per week during the year the Artie Shaw Orchestra provided the music for their radio show. He entered psychoanalysis and began to pursue a writing career. His autobiography, The Trouble With Cinderella: An Outline of Identity was published in 1952 (with later reprint editions in 1992 and 2001). Revealing downbeat elements of the music business, Shaw explained that "the trouble with Cinderella" is "nobody ever lives happily ever after." He turned to semi-autobiographical fiction with the three short novels in I Love You, I Hate You, Drop Dead! (1965, reprinted in 1997), which prompted Terry Southern's comment: "Here is a deeply probing examination of the American marital scene. I flipped over it!" Shaw's short stories, including "Snow White in Harlem," were collected in The Best of Intentions and Other Stories (1989). He worked for years on his 1000-page autobiographical novel The Education of Albie Snow, but the three-volume work remains unpublished. Currently, through Curtis International Associates, the Artie Shaw Orchestra is still active.

Shaw is mentioned in the CBS television show "NCIS" by Ernie Yost, the fictional Medal of Honor recipient, in the episode "Call of Silence."

References

External links

University of Arizona: Artie Shaw Collection

Biography at swingmusic.net

Swing Bandleader, Clarinetist Artie Shaw Dies, The Washington Post, December 31, 2004

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