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| Name | Ana Tijoux |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Anamaría Merino |
| Born | June 12, 1977Lille, France |
| Genre | Hip hop, Pop, Trip hop, Urban, R&B; |
| Url | MySpace |
Tijoux is the daughter of Chilean parents living in political exile in France during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship of Chile.
Makiza released their first cassette in 1998, Vida Salvaje. It was an independent production but gained huge acceptance in the local scene.
At the same time, Tiro de Gracia became the best selling Chilean rap group of all times with their debut Ser humano!! and that focused the interest of major record labels in rap music. As a result of this, Sony approached Makiza and offered them a record deal. Aerolíneas Makiza was the result of this deal, a CD that included new and improved versions of some songs from Vida Salvaje plus new song, including the hit single "La Rosa De Los Vientos".
Aerolíneas Makiza put Makiza instantly at the top of the game of Latin American hip-hop. Their style of rap was much more evolved than most the other Spanish speaking rap published in the continent to the moment. Their production style resembled the New York underground sound inspired by the Native Tongues. Their lyrics lacked the overwhelming machismo and violence of average rap, focusing more in more sensitive matters. That helped them receive the approval from a wider audience that wasn't involved in hip-hop culture.
Right before the release of their second single and their touring through neighbor countries, Tijoux decided to break off the group for personal reasons. At the moment, she announced that she was abandoning not only Makiza but hip-hop as a whole and her music career as well.
In 2001, Tijoux moved back to France where half of her relatives still lived. She stayed in France until 2004 and during that period, she didn't release any music.
After her return to Chile in 2004, she started singing with a Chilean funk band called Aluzinati. That same year, she appeared as a featured artist in Control Machete's last album, Uno Dos Bandera, and she also recorded a song with Julieta Venegas for the soundtrack of the movie Subterra.
It came as a surprise to the fans when Makiza announced a reunion show to promote the re-release of Vida Salvaje, now re-mastered and in CD format. Due to the success of that historical concert, Anita and Seo2, the only two remaining members of Makiza decided to reunite the group and started working on new material.
Casino Royale was the name of the new Makiza CD, released on 2005 under the independent lavel Bizarro Records. The new formation of Makiza included a third MC, Sonido Acido, and instead of using only one producer like they used to do in the past, they collaborated with different producers. In 2006, Tijoux announced she was leaving Makiza again and launching her solo career.
Tijoux started recording demos for her long-awaited solo debut with different producers. At one point, she even had a full band of live musicians, straying a bit from her pure hip-hop roots and exploring new forms and collaborations. During this time, she also collaborated as a guest vocalist in Julieta Venegas' radio-hit "Eres para Mí," which suddenly launched Tijoux to the mainstream pop market all over Latin America, Spain, and the United States.
In September 2007, Tijoux finally released her solo debut, named Kaos, under the independent label Oveja Negra. . Thanks to the first single, "Despabílate", Anita was nominated for the Latin version of the MTV Video Music Awards 2007 under the categories Best New Artist and Best Urban Artist. At the same time, she was nominated for song of the year together with Julieta Venegas for "Eres Para Mí".
In October 2009, Tijoux released her second solo album, titled 1977 after the year she was born. It is a return to her rap roots, an homage to the "golden age of hip-hop", and largely auto-biographical, exploring mature themes from her own life, from the death of a close friend to having a creative crises, from friendship to bad luck, amongst others. It is simple and straight to the point—this being emphasized by her leaving behind a lot of the singing she had been doing of late in other more pop collaborations, and concentrating on rap, both in Spanish and French. After years of sharing the spotlight with her group, collaborating with other artists, and trying to find her way as a solo artist, she has finally arrived in her own right—a raw, direct, and mature MC.
Recorded between May and September 2009, the new album was produced by Hordatoj, Foex y Tee, of the label Potoco Discos, together with Habitación del Pánico. Guests on the record include the saxophonist Agustín Moya with whom she worked with in Aluzinati, Andrés Celis, Solo Di Medina, Bubaseta, Stailok from the group Movimiento Original, DJ Dacel, Quique Neira from Godwana, Cómo Asesinar A Felipes, and the Detroit-based MC Invincible, who she met over MySpace and did a virtual collaboration for the song "Sube".
The album and its first single "1977" were an immediate hit in the underground rap circles of Chile, where she was welcomed back after a bit of a stray. The record was amongst the top 10 of 2009 for the blog [worldhiphopmarket.com], and it was soon picked up by the U.S.-based Latin Alternative label Nacional Records, who released it in April 2010. She was invited to attend the prestigious South By South West Music Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2010, and from there went on to her first ever North American tour.
Category:1977 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Chilean female singers Category:Chilean people of French descent Category:Living people Category:Female rappers
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| Name | Tom Waits |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Thomas Alan Waits |
| Born | December 07, 1949Pomona, California, United States |
| Instrument | Vocals, keyboards, guitar |
| Genre | Rock, experimental music |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician, actor, composer |
| Years active | 1972–present |
| Label | Asylum Records, Island Records, ANTI- |
| Url | http://www.tomwaits.com/ |
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including Down By Law and Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.
Lyrically, Waits' songs frequently present atmospheric portrayals of grotesque, often seedy characters and places – although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2010, Waits was chosen to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
Waits currently lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children.
By 1965, while attending the Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista, Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub (now the Liar's Club) in San Diego—where artists of every genre performed—when he did his first paid gig for $25. he took his newly formed act to Monday nights at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, where musicians would line up all day for the opportunity to perform on stage that night. In 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A. (at the time, also home to musicians Glenn Frey of the Eagles, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, and Frank Zappa) and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21. From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of demo recordings for Cohen's Bizarre/Straight label, including many songs for which he would later become known. These early tracks were eventually to be released twenty years later on The Early Years, Volume One and Volume Two.
...a comprehensive study of a number of aspects of this search for the center of Saturday night, which Jack Kerouac relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see.
In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and released the double album Nighthawks at the Diner, recorded in a studio with a small audience in order to capture the ambience of a live show. The record exemplifies this phase of his career, including the lengthy spoken interludes between songs that punctuated his live act. That year, he also contributed backing vocals to Bonnie Raitt's "Sweet and Shiny Eyes," from her album Home Plate.
By this time, Waits was drinking heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll. Waits, looking back at the period, has said,
I was sick through that whole period [...] It was starting to wear on me, all the touring. I'd been traveling quite a bit, living in hotels, eating bad food, drinking a lot — too much. There's a lifestyle that's there before you arrive and you're introduced to it. It's unavoidable.
In reaction to these hardships, Waits recorded Small Change (1976), which finds him in a much more cynical and pessimistic mood, lyrically, with many songs such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening With Pete King)" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)". With the album, Waits asserted that he "tried to resolve a few things as far as this cocktail lounge, maudlin, crying-in-your-beer image that I have. There ain't nothin' funny about a drunk [...] I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out." The album, which also included long-time fan favorite "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)," featured famed drummer Shelly Manne and was, like his previous albums, heavily influenced by jazz.
Small Change, which was accompanied by the double A-side single "Step Right Up"/"The Piano Has Been Drinking," was a critical and commercial success and far outsold any of Waits's previous albums. With it, Waits broke onto Billboard's Top 100 Albums chart for the first time in his career (a feat Waits would not repeat until 1999 with the release of Mule Variations). This resulted in a much higher public profile, which brought with it interviews and articles in Time, Newsweek, and Vogue. Waits put together a regular touring band, The Nocturnal Emissions, which featured Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, Fitzgerald Jenkins on bass guitar, and Chip White on drums and vibraphone. Tom Waits and the Nocturnal Emissions toured the United States and Europe extensively from October 1976 until May 1977,
Foreign Affairs (1977) was musically in a similar vein to Small Change, but showed further artistic refinement and exploration into jazz and blues styles. Particularly noteworthy is the long cinematic spoken-word piece, "Potter's Field", set to an orchestral score. The album also features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers." The album Blue Valentine (1978) displayed Waits's biggest musical departure to date, with much more focus on electric guitar and keyboards than on previous albums and nearly no strings (with the exception of album-opener "Somewhere" — a cover of Leonard Bernstein's song from West Side Story — and "Kentucky Avenue") for a darker, more blues-oriented sound. The song "Blue Valentines" was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits' vocal. Around this time, Waits had a high-profile romantic relationship with Rickie Lee Jones (who appears on the sleeve art of the Foreign Affairs and Blue Valentine albums). In 1978, Waits also appeared in his first film role, in Paradise Alley as Mumbles the pianist, and contributed the original compositions "(Meet Me in) Paradise Alley" and "Annie's Back in Town" to the film's soundtrack.
Heartattack and Vine, Waits's last studio album for Asylum, was released in 1980, featuring a developing sound that included both ballads ("Jersey Girl") and rougher-edged rhythm and blues. The same year, he began a long working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who asked Waits to provide music for his film One from the Heart. For Coppola's film, Waits originally wanted to work with Bette Midler; she was unavailable due to prior engagements, however. Waits ended up working with singer/songwriter Crystal Gayle as his vocal foil for the album.
After leaving Asylum for Island Records, Waits released Swordfishtrombones in 1983, a record that marked a sharp turn in his musical direction. While Waits had before played either piano or guitar, he now gravitated towards less common instruments, saying, "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone." Swordfishtrombones also introduced instruments such as bagpipes ("Town with No Cheer") and marimba ("Shore Leave") to Waits' repertoire, as well as pump organs, percussion (sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), horn sections (often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music), experimental guitar, and obsolete instruments (many of Waits' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin).
His songwriting shifted as well, moving away from the traditional piano-and-strings ballad sound of his 1970s output towards a number of styles largely ignored in pop music, including primal blues, cabaret stylings, rumbas, theatrical approaches in the style of Kurt Weill, tango music, early country music and European folk music as well as the Tin Pan Alley-era songs that influenced his early output. He also recorded a spoken word piece, "Frank's Wild Years," influenced by Ken Nordine's "word jazz" records of the 1950s. Apart from Captain Beefheart and some of Dr. John's early output, there was little precedent in popular music.
Waits's new emphasis on experimenting with various styles and instrumentation continued on 1985's Rain Dogs, a sprawling, 19-song collection which received glowing reviews (the album was ranked #21 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.) Contributions from guitarists Marc Ribot, Robert Quine, and Keith Richards accompanied Waits' move away from piano-based songs, in juxtaposition with an increased emphasis on instruments such as marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo. The album also spawned the 12" single "Downtown Train/Tango Till They're Sore/Jockey Full of Bourbon," with Jean Baptiste Mondino filming a promotional music video for "Downtown Train" (which would later become a hit for Rod Stewart), featuring a cameo from boxing legend Jake La Motta. The album peaked at #188 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart; however, its reputation has come to far outshine low initial sales.
Franks Wild Years, a musical play by Waits and Brennan, was staged as an off-Broadway musical in 1986, directed by Gary Sinise, in a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater. Waits himself played the lead role. Waits developed his acting career with several supporting roles and a lead role in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law in 1986, which also featured two of Waits's songs from Rain Dogs in the soundtrack. In the same year, Waits also contributed vocals to the song "Harlem Shuffle" on The Rolling Stones' album Dirty Work.
In 1987, he released Franks Wild Years (subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts"), which included studio versions from Waits' play of the same name. Rolling Stone summed up the album's myriad styles this way: "Everything from sleazy strip-show blues to cheesy waltzes to supercilious lounge lizardry is given spare, jarring arrangements using various combinations of squawking horns, bashed drums, plucked banjo, snaky double bass, carnival organ and jaunty accordion." Waits also continued to further his acting career with a supporting role as Rudy the Kraut in Ironweed (an adaptation of William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, in which Waits performed the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", as well as a part in Robert Frank's Candy Mountain, in which Waits also performed "Once More Before I Go." In 1988, Waits performed in Big Time, a surreal concert movie and soundtrack which he cowrote with his wife.
In 1989, Waits appeared in his final theatrical stage role to date, appearing as Curly in Thomas Babe's Demon Wine, alongside Bill Pullman, Philip Baker Hall, Carol Kane, and Bud Cort. The play opened at the Los Angeles Theater Center in February 1989 to mixed reviews, although Waits' performance was singled out by a number of critics, including John C. Mahoney, who described it as "mesmerizing." Waits finished the decade with appearances in three movies: as the voice of a radio DJ in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train; as Kenny the Hitman in Robert Dornhelm's Cold Feet; and the lead role of Punch & Judy man Silva in Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale. His only musical output of the year consisted of contributing his cover of Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love" to the soundtrack of the Al Pacino movie of the same name and contributing vocals to The Replacements song "Date to Church", which appeared as a B-side to their single "I'll Be You".
The following year, Waits was extremely busy working on movie soundtracks, acting, and contributing to a number of music projects by other artists. First, Waits appeared on the Primus album Sailing the Seas of Cheese as the voice of "Tommy the Cat", which exposed him to a new audience in alternative rock. This was the first of several collaborations between Waits and the group; Frontman Les Claypool would appear on several subsequent Waits releases. The same year saw Waits provide spoken word contributions to Devout Catalyst, an album by one of Waits' greatest influences, Ken Nordine, on the songs "A Thousand Bing Bangs" and "The Movie." Waits also contributed vocals to a duet with singer Bob Forrest on the song "Adios Lounge" on the Thelonious Monster album Beautiful Mess. He also contributed vocals to two songs ("Little Man" and "I'm Not Your Fool Anymore") on jazz tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards' album Mississippi Lad. Edwards was extremely complimentary of Waits' contributions, saying:
Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract with PolyGram. He's wonderful, he's America's best lyricist since Johnny Mercer. He came down to the studio on the Mississippi Lad album, that's the first one I did for PolyGram, and he sang two of my songs, wouldn't accept any money, just trying to give me the best boost that he could.
The only collection of exclusively Waits-performed material of 1991 appeared when Waits composed and conducted the almost exclusively instrumental music for Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film Night on Earth, which was released as an album the following year. In July 1991, Screamin' Jay Hawkins released the album Black Music for White People, which features covers of two Waits compositions: "Heartattack & Vine" (which later that year was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit) and "Ice Cream Man". Waits continued to appear in movie acting roles, the most significant of which was his uncredited cameo as a disabled veteran in Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King. He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and Jamie Lee Curtis in Steve Rash's Queens Logic, and opposite Tom Berenger and Kathy Bates in Hector Babenco's film At Play in the Fields of the Lord, adapted from Peter Matthiessen's 1965 novel.
Bone Machine, Waits's first studio album in five years, was released in 1992. The stark record featured a great deal of percussion and guitar (with little piano or sax), marking another change in Waits' sound. Critic Steve Huey calls it "perhaps Tom Waits's most cohesive album... a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative — and often harrowing — effect... Waits' most affecting and powerful recording, even if it isn't his most accessible." Bone Machine was awarded a Grammy in the Best Alternative Album category. On December 19, 1992 Alice, Waits's second theatrical project with Robert Wilson, premiered at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Paul Schmidt adapted the text from the works of Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, in particular), with songs by Waits and Kathleen Brennan presented as intersections with the text rather than as expansions of the story, as would be the case in conventional musical theater. These songs would be recorded by Waits as a studio album 10 years later on Alice. 1992 also saw Waits featuring in Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula, as the possessed lunatic Renfield.
In 1993, he released The Black Rider, which contained studio versions of the songs that Waits had written for the musical of the same name three years previously, with the exceptions of "Chase the Clouds Away" and "In the Morning," which appeared in the theatrical production but not on the studio album. William S. Burroughs also guests on vocals on "'Tain't No Sin". In the same year, Waits lent his vocals to Gavin Bryars' 75-minute reworking of his 1971 classical music piece Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet; appeared in Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Carver's stories Short Cuts and Jim Jarmusch's , a short black and white movie with Iggy Pop; and his third child, Sullivan, was born. In 1997, Waits and Brennan wrote and performed the music for Bunny the animated short film by 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, which was awarded Best Animated Short Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 1995, Holly Cole released Temptation, a tribute album consisting entirely of Waits covers.
In 1998, after Island Records released the compilation Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years, Waits left the label for Epitaph, whose president, Andy Kaulkin, said the label was "...blown away that Tom would even consider us. We are huge fans." Waits himself was full of praise for the label, saying "Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians. They have good taste and a load of enthusiasm, plus they're nice people. And they gave me a brand-new Cadillac, of course." The album was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist. The album won a Grammy in 2000; As an indicator of how difficult it is to classify Waits's music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song "Hold On"), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy. The album was also his highest-charting album in the U.S. to date, reaching #30.
The same year, Waits made a foray into producing music for other artists, teaming up with his old friend Chuck E. Weiss to coproduce (with his wife, Kathleen Brennan) Extremely Cool, as well as appearing on the record as a guest vocalist and guitarist. He also contributed a cover of Skip Spence's "Books of Moses" to , a collection of covers of the singer's songs on Birdman Records. an official version would not be released until 2007. The same year, Waits contributed a version of "The Return of Jackie and Judy" Waits was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.
Waits released Real Gone, his first nontheatrical studio album since Mule Variations, in 2004. It is Waits's only album to date to feature absolutely no piano on any of its tracks. Waits beatboxes on the opening track, "Top of the Hill," and most of the album's songs begin with Waits's "vocal percussion" improvisations. It is also more rock-oriented, with less blues influence than he has previously demonstrated, and it contains an explicitly political song — a first for Waits. In the album-closing "Day After Tomorrow", he adopts the persona of a soldier writing home that he is disillusioned with war and is thankful to be leaving. The song does not mention the Iraq war specifically, and, as Tom Moon writes, "It could be the voice of a Civil War soldier singing a lonesome late-night dirge." Waits himself does describe the song as something of an "elliptical" protest song about the Iraqi invasion, however. Critic Thom Jurek describes "Day After Tomorrow" as "one of the most insightful and understated antiwar songs to have been written in decades. It contains not a hint of banality or sentiment in its folksy articulation." The same year, Waits contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Tell It on the Mountain" on the Grammy Award (Best Traditional Gospel Album)-winning album of the same name by The Blind Boys of Alabama. He also contributed a version of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" since 2000 at #10 and #20, respectively (as of November 2009). The same years, Waits appeared on Sparklehorse's album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, playing piano on the track "Morning Hollow."
Five different versions of Waits's song "Way Down in the Hole" have been used as the opening theme songs for the HBO television show The Wire. Waits's own version, from Franks Wild Years, was used for season two. The other versions used for the series were performed by, in season order, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, "DoMaJe" and Steve Earle.
Recently, Waits has made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances. In November 2006, Waits appeared on The Daily Show and performed "The Day After Tomorrow." This was significant for his having been only the third performing guest on the show, the first being Tenacious D and the second The White Stripes. On May 4, 2007, Waits performed "Lucinda" and "Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" from Orphans on the last show of a week Late Night with Conan O'Brien spent in San Francisco. There was a short interview after the last performance. Waits also played in the Bridge School Benefit on October 27–28, 2007 with Kronos Quartet.
On July 10, 2007, Waits released the download-only digital single "Diamond In Your Mind". The version of the song was recorded with Kronos Quartet, with Greg Cohen, Philip Glass, and The Dalai Lama at the benefit concert "Healing The Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation" at Avery Fisher Hall, recorded on September 21, 2003.
Waits's song "Trampled Rose" (from Real Gone) appeared on the critically acclaimed album Raising Sand, a collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Waits also provided guest vocals on the song "Pray" by fellow ANTI- artists The Book of Knots on their album Traineater.
He played the role of Kneller in the film , which opened in November 2007.
On January 22, 2008, Waits made a rare live appearance in Los Angeles, performing at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services—The House of Justice, a nonprofit poverty law center.
On May 7, 2008, Waits announced the Glitter and Doom Tour starting in June 2008, touring cities in the southern United States and subsequently announced a series of dates in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Waits was awarded the key to the city of El Paso, Texas during a concert on June 20, 2008. In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, The Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli described Waits' music thus: }}
On May 20, 2008 Scarlett Johansson's debut album, entitled Anywhere I Lay My Head, featured covers of ten Tom Waits songs. Waits made an appearance on the album The Spirit of Apollo by alternative hip hop project N.A.S.A., on the track "Spacious Thoughts."
Waits wrote the following introduction for the Tompkins Square compilation People Take Warning – Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913–1938:
In late 2009, Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was released, with Waits in the role of Mr. Nick. Production began in December 2007 in London. Star Heath Ledger's death in January 2008 cast doubt on the film's future, but the production was salvaged with the addition of new actors playing his character in scenes he did not complete.
Waits played the role of "The Engineer" in the film The Book of Eli, opposite Denzel Washington, which opened in January 2010.
He is currently working on a new stage musical with director (and long-time collaborator) Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh.
Waits filed his first lawsuit in 1988 against Frito-Lay. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an award of $2.375-million in his favor (Waits v. Frito-Lay, 978 F. 2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992)). Frito-Lay had approached Waits to use one of his songs in an advertisement. Waits declined the offer, and Frito-Lay hired a Waits soundalike to sing a jingle similar to Small Change's "Step Right Up," which is, ironically, a song Waits has called "an indictment of advertising". Waits won the lawsuit, becoming one of the first artists to successfully sue a company for using an impersonator without permission.
In 1993, Levi's used Screamin' Jay Hawkins' version of Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" in a commercial. Waits sued, and Levi's agreed to cease all use of the song and offered a full page apology in Billboard. Waits found himself in a situation similar to his earlier one with Frito Lay in 2000 when Audi approached him, asking to use "Innocent When You Dream" (from Franks Wild Years) for a commercial broadcast in Spain. Waits declined, but the commercial ultimately featured music very similar to that song. Waits undertook legal action, and a Spanish court recognized that there had been a violation of Waits's moral rights in addition to the infringement of copyright. The production company, Tandem Campany Guasch, was ordered to pay compensation to Waits through his Spanish publisher. Waits was later quoted as jokingly saying the company got the name of the song wrong, thinking it was called "Innocent When You Scheme".
In 2005, Waits sued Adam Opel AG, claiming that, after having failed to sign him to sing in their Scandinavian commercials, they had hired a sound-alike singer. In 2007, the suit was settled, and Waits gave the sum to charity.
Waits has also filed a lawsuit unrelated to his music. He was arrested in 1977 outside Duke's Tropicana Coffee Shop in Los Angeles. Waits and a friend were trying to stop some men from bullying other patrons. The men were plainclothes police, and Waits and his friend were taken into custody and charged with disturbing the peace. The jury found Waits not guilty; he took the police department to court and was awarded $7,500 compensation.
Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American actors of Norwegian descent Category:American composers Category:American film actors Category:American male singers Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American musicians of Norwegian descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Eels (band) members Category:English-language singers Category:Epitaph Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Chula Vista, California Category:People from Pomona, California Category:People from the San Fernando Valley Category:People from Sonoma County, California Category:Singers from California Category:Songwriters from California Category:Writers from California Category:Sebastopol, California Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
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| Name | Steve Aoki |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Birth name | Steve Aoki |
| Born | November 30, 1977 |
| Origin | Miami, Florida, United States |
| Genre | Electro house, Electronic |
| Label | Dim Mak Records |
Steve Aoki (born November 30, 1977) is an American electro house musician, record producer and the founder of Dim Mak Records.
Aoki attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and graduated with two B.A.s; one in Women's Studies and the other in Sociology. In college, he produced do-it-yourself records and ran underground concerts out of his Biko room in the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative , which was located in Isla Vista, a section of residential land adjacent to UCSB. As a concert venue, the apartment became known as The Pickle Patch. By his early 20s, Aoki had built his own record label, which he named Dim Mak after his childhood hero, Bruce Lee. He has also been in numerous bands, including This Machine Kills, which released an album on Ebullition Records, Esperanza, and The Fire Next Time.
His father, Rocky, once said that he had 'three kids from three different women at exactly the same time'. He found out about the third child with the third woman when he was sued for paternity. In 2005, Rocky sued four of his children (Grace, Kevin, Kyle, and Echo) for an alleged attempt to take control of the companies he founded, which, at the time, had an estimated value between US $60 million and $100 million. Steve and his younger half-sister, Devon, were not named in the suit.
Aoki's debut album, Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles was released in January 2008. He also had an Essential Mix that aired on BBC Radio 1 on August 2, 2008.10
He has remixed many artists and bands, including Drake, Lenny Kravitz, Bloc Party, Snoop Dogg, Robin Thicke, S.P.A., Kid Cudi, Chester French and Peaches.
He remixed the track "When The Wind Blows" that features on the UK edition of The All-American Rejects 2008 album When The World Comes Down.
On November 10, 2009 he released a remix for Drake's song "Forever". The song features Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wanye, and Eminem. The track made it to the top of Hype Machine's chart in December 2009.
In March 2010 Aoki released "I'm In The House", a collaboration with Zuper Blahq—alter-ego of Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am. The song charted at #29 in the UK Singles Chart in its first week of release.
Producer-songwriter Lucas Secon confirmed in a May 2010 interview with HitQuarters that he and Rivers Cuomo had recently worked with Aoki on a single.
Aoki and friend Greger, the owner of WeSC, came up with the idea together to do the "Aoki headphones." They used different shades of green, because that was Aoki's favorite color at the time. Each season Aoki plans to design new headphones for WeSC. Aoki also is endorsed by KR3W Apparel and Supra Footwear, where he develops and designs an entire range of clothing and shoes for both companies under his name.
Aoki is a co-owner in a Korean BBQ restaurant Shin alongside Danny Masterson, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, Mark Ronson, Laura Prepon, Jerry Butler, among others. He also co-owned a management company called Deckstar with DJ AM along with their managers and Paul Rosenberg. Underneath the Deckstar Management division, Dim Mak management has been formed to manage some of the label's artists and other DJs.
In November 2009, Aoki created his own magazine titled "Aoki" through a celebrity magazine publishing company called MYMAG.
Category:1977 births Category:Club DJs Category:American DJs Category:Living people Category:People from New York City Category:People from Newport Beach, California Category:University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Category:American musicians of Japanese descent
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She represented her country at the Eurovision Song Contest 1977 in London with the entry Lapponia (music by Aarno Raninen and lyrics by Monica Aspelund) and finished 10th with 50 points. Her younger sister, Ami Aspelund, also represented Finland in Eurovision, in 1983 with the song "Fantasiaa."
On September 30, 1978, Aspelund was a passenger on Finnair Flight 405, which was hijacked by Aarno Lamminparras; the flight was en route from Oulu to Helsinki. Aspelund was eventually released along with 43 other passengers.
Aspelund currently lives in Lake Worth, Florida.
Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1977 Category:Finnish Eurovision Song Contest entrants Category:Finnish female singers Category:Finnish singers Category:Swedish-speaking Finns
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| Caption | John Travolta in 2007 |
|---|---|
| Birth name | John Joseph Travolta |
| Birth date | February 18, 1954 |
| Birth place | Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor, singer, dancer, producer, writer |
| Years active | 1969–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Jett (1992–2009)Ella Bleu (2000)Benjamin (2010) |
| Website | http://www.travolta.com |
Travolta has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The first, for his role in Saturday Night Fever and the second for Pulp Fiction. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty.
Travolta's first California-filmed television role was as a fall victim in, Emergency! (S2E2), in September 1972, but his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan, a bully who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek's character in the horror film, Carrie (1976). Around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).
Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. The couple had a son, Jett (1992-2009). Their daughter, Ella Bleu, was born in 2000. On May 18, 2010, Travolta and Preston announced that she was pregnant with the couple's third child, later confirmed to be a boy. Their son, Benjamin, was born on November 23, 2010 in Florida.
Travolta and Preston have regularly attended marriage counseling; Travolta admits that therapy has helped the marriage.
Travolta is a certified private pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Australian Boeing 707–138 airliner. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his children. Pan American World Airways was a large operator of the Boeing 707 and used Clipper in its names. The 707 aircraft bears the marks of Qantas, as Travolta acts as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flies. His $4.9 million estate in the Jumbolair subdivision in Ocala, Florida, is situated on Greystone Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to his front door. On September 13, 2010, during the first episode of the final season of her talk show, Oprah Winfrey announced that she would be taking her entire studio audience on an 8-day expenses-paid trip to Australia, with Travolta serving as pilot for the trip. He had helped Winfrey plan the trip for over a year.
Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975 when he was given the book while filming the movie The Devil's Rain in Durango, Mexico. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, joining other celebrities in helping with the relief efforts, Travolta flew his 707 full of supplies, doctors, and Scientologist Volunteer Ministers into the disaster area.
In June 2010, Travolta and Preston donated $10,000 to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund while on a trip to South Africa.
On January 23, 2009, three people were arrested in The Bahamas in relation to the plot. It is believed that the plot centered around a "refusal to transport" document allegedly signed by Travolta and Preston when paramedics arrived to treat their son, that a police spokesman noted did not apply in the Travolta case. One of the people arrested, Obie Wilchcombe, a Member of The Bahamian Parliament and former Bahamian Minister of Tourism, was described as a "close friend" of Travolta and Preston.
Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:American actors of Italian descent Category:American aviators Category:American dancers Category:American film actors Category:American male singers Category:American musical theatre actors Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American pop singers Category:American Scientologists Category:American television actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Converts from Roman Catholicism Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:People from Bergen County, New Jersey Category:People from Englewood, New Jersey
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| Name | Jackson Browne |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Clyde Jackson Browne |
| Born | October 09, 1948Heidelberg, Germany |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, piano |
| Genre | Rock, Folk, Country |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician, political activist |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Label | Elektra RecordsAdrenaline Music GroupInside RecordingsAsylum Records |
| Associated acts | Warren Zevon, David Lindley, Waddy Wachtel, Bonnie Raitt, Clarence Clemons, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez |
| Url | jacksonbrowne.com |
Jackson Browne (born Clyde Jackson Browne; October 9, 1948) is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician who has sold in excess of 17 million albums in the United States alone.
Coming to prominence in the 1970s, Browne's political interests and personal angst have been central to his career, resulting in popular songs such as "Somebody's Baby", "These Days", "The Pretender", "Lawyers in Love" and "Running On Empty". In 2004, Browne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by his friend Bruce Springsteen. The same year, Browne received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Los Angeles' Occidental College for "a remarkable musical career that has successfully combined an intensely personal artistry with a broader vision of social change and justice".
at a fundraising event in 2008]] Although a liberal Democrat, Browne appeared in several rallies for presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000, singing "I Am a Patriot" and other songs. He participated in the Vote for Change tour during October 2004, playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org to mobilize people to vote for John Kerry in the presidential election. Browne appeared with Bonnie Raitt and Keb' Mo', and once with Bruce Springsteen. During late 2006, Browne performed with Michael Stanley and J. D. Souther at a fundraiser for Democratic candidates in Ohio. For the 2008 Presidential Election, he endorsed John Edwards for the Democratic Presidential Nomination and performed at some of Edwards' appearances. After Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, Browne endorsed Obama.
Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1, was released in 2005 on Inside Recordings. The album consists of live recordings of eleven previously released tracks and "The Birds of St. Marks", a song that does not appear on any of Browne's studio albums. This album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007 in the category of Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.
Browne is part of the No Nukes group which is against the expansion of nuclear power. During 2007, the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".
A live album, Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2, was released on March 4, 2008.
Browne acted in the 2007 film, .
Browne's new studio album, Time The Conqueror, was released September 23, 2008 via Inside Recordings, his first studio album with new songs in six years, all written by Browne, save three song co-written with several of his longtime band members since ending his relationship with longtime distributor Elektra Records in 2003. The album reached the Billboard 200 album chart at #20, which was his first top 20 record since releasing Lawyers in Love in 1983. In addition, the album peaked at #2 on the Billboard Independent Album chart.
During August 2008, Browne sued John McCain, the Ohio Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee for using his 1977 hit, "Running on Empty", in an attack advertisement against Barack Obama without his permission. In July 2009, the matter was settled under an undisclosed financial agreement with an apology from the McCain campaign and other parties.
During August 2008, he appeared on the ALMA Awards in a taped interview honoring Trailblazer Award recipient and long time friend, Linda Ronstadt.
Browne was married in January 1981 to Australian model Lynne Sweeney with whom he had a second son, Ryan Browne currently a bass player/singer in Sonny and the Sunsets, born in 1982. Browne and Sweeney were divorced in 1983, when he began dating actress Daryl Hannah. The relationship with Hannah ended in 1992. He has been with artist and environmental activist, a co-founding member of the Plastics Pollution Coalition, Dianna Cohen, since the mid 1990s.
Browne campaigns against the unnecessary use of water in plastic bottles and takes steps to reduce usage on his tours.
Browne covered John Lennon's "Oh My Love" to benefit Amnesty International's campaign to alleviate the crisis in Darfur. The song appears on the album , which was released on June 12, 2007 and features many other prominent artists performing other Lennon covers, such as R.E.M., Jack Johnson, U2, Avril Lavigne, Green Day, and The Black Eyed Peas.
Browne performed live and recorded the Beatles song medley "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight" in 1991 with Jennifer Warnes for the charity album "For Our Children"to benefit the Pediatrics AIDS Foundation.
Browne performed and sang the role of the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True" 1995 musical performance for charity alongside Roger Daltrey, Natalie Cole, and other musicians.
Browne covered Lowen & Navarro's "Weight of the World" on Keep The Light Alive: Celebrating The Music of Lowen & Navarro. The proceeds of the album benefit The Eric Lowen Trust, ALS Association Greater Los Angeles, and Augie's Quest.
Browne also held a benefit concert for the Rory David Deutsch Foundation which is dedicated to providing funding for brain tumor research and treatment.
In October 2010 Browne performed at both days of the 24th Annual Bridge School Benefit Concert, a yearly fundraiser established by Neil Young benefiting the Bridge School. The Bridge School assists children with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs.
For "promoting peace and justice through his music and his unrelenting support for that which promotes nonviolent solutions to problems both nationally and internationally", Browne received the Courage of Conscience Awards from The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts.
Category:1948 births Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American activists Category:American male singers Category:American pop singers Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock pianists Category:Songwriters from California Category:Living people Category:American musicians of Norwegian descent Category:People from Heidelberg Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Asylum Records artists Category:Elektra Records artists Category:The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band members
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