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Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. A new innovation is the accompaniment of a CD with a DVD of related material, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings. These could be regarded as a new form of double album; some such discs are also released on as a two-sided format called DualDisc.
The same principles apply to the triple album, which comprises three units. Packages with more units than three are often packaged as boxed sets.
The best-selling double album of all time is Pink Floyd's The Wall with over 30 million copies (60 million units) worldwide. The best-selling double album for a solo artist is Michael Jackson's , with over 20 million copies (40 million units) sold worldwide. Other best-selling double albums are The Beatles' White Album and Billy Joel's Greatest Hits I & II.
The double album has become less common since the decline of the vinyl LP and the advent of compact discs. A single LP had two sides, each of which had a capacity of up to 30 minutes (although shorter sides are more typical to avoid compromising sound quality), for a maximum of 30 to 60 minutes per record. A single CD has a capacity of 80 minutes (originally 74 minutes until the 1990s): accordingly, many old double albums on LP have been re-released as single albums on CD. However, other double albums on LP are re-released as double albums on CD, either because they are too large for a single CD, or simply to retain the structure of the original.
There are also double-LP albums, such as Mike Oldfield's Incantations and Chick Corea's My Spanish Heart, for which some tracks were removed or shortened for a single 74-minute CD release, though both were later re-released in their entirety when 80-minute CDs were developed.
Though the average album length has increased since the days of LPs, it remains rare for an artist to produce more than 80 minutes of studio material for one album. Thus, the double album is now more commonly seen in formats other than studio albums. Live albums that either present all or most of a single concert, or material from several concerts, are commonly released as double albums. Compilations such as greatest hits records can also often comprise double albums. Soundtracks and scores are also commonly released on two CDs; particularly soundtracks to musicals, which typically last longer than 80 minutes, are commonly released in their entirety as double albums, occasionally offering a second single-disc version featuring the most notable songs. The double album format is also frequently used for concept albums.
The double album is not entirely obsolete when it comes to studio albums, however. Some artists still occasionally produce a large enough quantity of material to justify a double album. For example, Barenaked Ladies recorded 29 songs (initially intending more than 30) for their first original album following the completion of their contract with Reprise Records, including several songs that were cut from past albums under that contract. Without needing to get a label's approval, they were able to release a 25-track "deluxe edition" double album Barenaked Ladies Are Me, as well as releasing the album as two separate single albums, as well as a variety of other formats. Nellie McKay reportedly fought with her label to get her debut album, Get Away from Me released as a double album, even though the material would have fit on a single disc. She has been said to be the first female artist to have a double album as a debut.
A recent development is the release of a double studio album in which the two discs contain different mixes of the same tracks. A notable example is Shania Twain's Up!, which was sold with a pop-mix disc and a country-mix disc in North America, or a pop-mix disc and a filmi-mix disc internationally.
Esham was the first Hip hop artist to release a double album ("Judgement Day") sold separately, Master P presented the Down South Hustlers Compilation, the first double CD album packaged together, later followed by 2Pac with All Eyez on Me and Notorious B.I.G. with Life after Death, the latter becoming the first gangsta rap album to be certified diamond.
Many albums since the recent rise in popularity of vinyl records, while released as a single disc on the CD version have been released as double albums, typically because they may slightly exceed the limitations of a single record. Many of these releases stretch the album to cover four sides, while some only fill three sides and leave the last one for a bonus track(s), or occasionally an etching. These albums are usually released as two 12" records but occasionally as two 10" records.
After a company decided on manual or automatic sequence, production of that title generally stayed in the same configuration indefinitely. Notable examples of albums using Automatic Sequence include the 1968 Reprise Records release, Electric Ladyland, by Jimi Hendrix which was still sold in Automatic Sequence well into the late 1980's. Another common example is Frampton Comes Alive by Peter Frampton which was released in Automatic Sequence on A&M; Records in 1976.
Triple albums are released across genres, including punk with The Clash's Sandinista!, alternative rock with Pearl Jam's 11/6/00 – Seattle, Washington, and mainstream pop with Prince's Emancipation.
The first triple hip-hop album was American Hunger by New York rap artist MF Grimm which was released in 2006. It contains 20 songs on each disc.
American hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco's canceled third studio album release LupEND would have been a triple-album, composed of discs titled "Everywhere," "Nowhere," and "Down Here." Joanna Newsom's 2010 album Have One On Me is a triple album; due to the unusual length of the songs, there are only six tracks on each disc.
Escalator over the Hill, Carla Bley's jazz opera (lyrics by Paul Haines), was originally released in 1971 as a triple album in a box which also contained a booklet with lyrics, photos and profiles of the musicians.
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| Name | John Lee Hooker |
|---|---|
| Landscape | yes |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Born | August 22, 1917Coahoma County, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | June 21, 2001Los Altos, California, U.S. |
| Instrument | Guitar, Vocals |
| Genre | Blues, talking blues, country blues |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, Musician |
| Years active | 1948–2001 |
| Label | Vee-Jay Records, Chess Records, Bluesway Records, Point Blank Records, Crown Records, Modern Records, Atco Records, King Records, Specialty Records, Polydor Records, Savoy Records, Impulse! Records, Ace Records, Atlantic Records, Verve |
| Associated acts | Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan |
| Url | John Lee Hooker.com |
| Notable instruments | Epiphone Sheraton |
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "I'm in the Mood" (1951) and "Boom Boom" (1962), the first two reaching R&B; #1 in the Billboard charts.
Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominence with memorable songs and influence on a generation of musicians.
Hooker and his siblings were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs, with his earliest exposure being the spirituals sung in church. In 1921, his parents separated. The next year, his mother married William Moore, a blues singer who provided Hooker with his first introduction to the guitar (and whom John would later credit for his distinctive playing style).
Hooker was also influenced by his stepfather, a local blues guitarist, who learned in Shreveport, Louisiana to play a droning, one-chord blues that was strikingly different from the Delta blues of the time. Around 1923 his natural father died. At the age of 15, John Lee Hooker ran away from home, reportedly never seeing his mother or stepfather again.
Throughout the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis, Tennessee where he worked on Beale Street at The New Daisy Theatre and occasionally performed at house parties.
Hooker's recording career began in 1948 when his agent placed a demo, made by Hooker, with the Bihari brothers, owners of the Modern Records label. The company initially released an up-tempo number, "Boogie Chillen'", which became Hooker's first hit single. as Johnny Lee for De Luxe Records in 1953/54 or as Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, or The Boogie Man.
His early solo songs were recorded under Bernie Besman. John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempo to fit the needs of the song. This often made it difficult to use backing musicians who were not accustomed to Hooker's musical vagaries. As a result, Besman would record Hooker, in addition to playing guitar and singing, stomping along with the music on a wooden pallet. For much of this time period he recorded and toured with Eddie Kirkland, who was still performing as of 2008. Later sessions for the VeeJay label in Chicago used studio musicians on most of his recordings, including Eddie Taylor, who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies very well. His biggest UK hit, "Boom Boom", (originally released on VeeJay) was recorded with a horn section.
He appeared and sang in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. Due to Hooker's improvisational style, his performance was filmed and sound-recorded live at the scene at Chicago's Maxwell Street Market, in contrast to the usual "playback" technique used in most film musicals. Hooker was also a direct influence in the look of John Belushi's character Jake Blues.
In 1989, he joined with a number of musicians, including Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt to record The Healer, for which he and Santana won a Grammy Award. Hooker recorded several songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront". He also appeared on stage with Van Morrison several times, some of which was released on the live album A Night in San Francisco. The same year he appeared as the title character on Pete Townshend's .
Hooker recorded over 100 albums. He lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area where, in 1997, he opened a nightclub in San Francisco's Fillmore District called "John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room", after one of his hits.
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83, a month shy of his 84th birthday. His last live in the studio recording on guitar and vocal was of a song he wrote with Pete Sears called "Elizebeth", featuring members of his "Coast to Coast Blues Band" with Sears on piano. It was recorded on January 14, 1998 at Bayview Studios in Richmond, California. The last song Hooker recorded before his death was "Ali D'Oro", a collaboration with the Italian soul singer Zucchero, in which Hooker sang the chorus "I lay down with an angel". He was survived by eight children, nineteen grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, a nephew, and fiance Sidora Dazi. One of his children is the musician John Lee Hooker, Jr.
Among his many awards, Hooker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1991 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. "Boogie Chillen" was included as one of the Songs of the Century. He was also inducted in 1980 into the Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, Hooker was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He maintained a solo career, popular with blues and folk music fans of the early 1960s and crossed over to white audiences, giving an early opportunity to the young Bob Dylan. As he got older, he added more and more people to his band, changing his live show from simply Hooker with his guitar to a large band, with Hooker singing.
His vocal phrasing was less closely tied to specific bars than most blues singers. This casual, rambling style had been gradually diminishing with the onset of electric blues bands from Chicago but, even when not playing solo, Hooker retained it in his sound.
Though Hooker lived in Detroit during most of his career, he is not associated with the Chicago-style blues prevalent in large northern cities, as much as he is with the southern rural blues styles, known as delta blues, country blues, folk blues, or "front porch blues". His use of an electric guitar tied together the Delta blues with the emerging post-war electric blues.
His songs have been covered by Buddy Guy, Cream, AC/DC, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Tom Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Van Morrison, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Doors, The White Stripes, MC5, George Thorogood, R. L. Burnside, The J. Geils Band, The Wheels, The Gories, Cat Power, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Grammy Awards: :* Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1990 for I'm in the Mood (with Bonnie Raitt) :* Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1998 for ''Don't Look Back :* Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 1998, "Don't Look Back" (with Van Morrison) :* Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000
THE DETROIT YEARS (recordings 1948-1955)
THE ROSEBUD YEARS (recordings 1975-2001)
Category:1910s births Category:2001 deaths Category:Acoustic blues musicians Category:African American guitarists Category:African American musicians Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:American blues guitarists Category:American blues singer-songwriters Category:American blues singers Category:American male singers Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees Category:Blues musicians from Mississippi Category:Musicians from Tennessee Category:Blues revival musicians Category:Modern Records artists Category:Kent Records artists Category:Flair Records artists Category:Vee-Jay Records artists Category:Chess Records artists Category:Charly Records artists Category:Specialty Records artists Category:Country blues musicians Category:Detroit blues musicians Category:Electric blues musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:National Heritage Fellowship winners Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
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| Name | Frank Zappa |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Frank Vincent Zappa |
| Born | December 21, 1940Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | December 04, 1993Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Instrument | Guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards, drums, synclavier |
| Genre | Progressive rock, jazz fusion, classical, avant-garde, | Occupation = Composer, musician, conductor, producer |
| Years active | 1950s–1993 |
| Label | Verve, Bizarre, Straight, DiscReet, Barking Pumpkin |
| Associated acts | The Mothers of InventionCaptain BeefheartSteve Vai |
| Url | Zappa.com |
| Notable instruments | Hagström VikingGibson ES-5 SwitchmasterGibson SGGibson Les PaulFender StratocasterSynclavier }} |
Frank Vincent Zappa (; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, electronic, orchestral, and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.
While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands—he later switched to electric guitar. He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. He wrote the lyrics to all his songs, which—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.
Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist and gained widespread critical acclaim. Many of his albums are considered essential in rock and jazz history. He is regarded as one of the most original guitarists and composers of his time. He also remains a major influence on musicians and composers. He had some commercial success, particularly in Europe, and for most of his career was able to work as an independent artist. Zappa was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
Zappa was married to Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman from 1960 to 1964. In 1967, he married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death from prostate cancer in 1993. They had four children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. Gail Zappa manages the businesses of her late husband under the name the Zappa Family Trust.
During his childhood, Zappa was often sick, suffering from asthma, earaches and sinus problems. A doctor treated the latter by inserting a pellet of radium into each of Zappa's nostrils; little was known at the time about the potential dangers of being subjected to even small amounts of therapeutic radiation. Nasal imagery and references appear both in his music and lyrics, as well as in the collage album covers created by his long-time visual collaborator, Cal Schenkel.
Many of Zappa's childhood diseases may have arisen from exposure to mustard gas. His health worsened when he lived in the Baltimore area. They next moved to Monterey, California, where Zappa's father taught metallurgy at the Naval Postgraduate School. Shortly afterward, they moved to Claremont, then to El Cajon before finally moving to San Diego.
Zappa joined his first band, the Ramblers, at Mission Bay High School in San Diego. He was the band's drummer. About the same time his parents bought a phonograph, which allowed him to develop his interest in music, and to begin building his record collection. R&B; singles were early purchases, starting a large collection he kept for the rest of his life. He was interested in sounds for their own sake, particularly the sounds of drums and other percussion instruments. By age 12, he had obtained a snare drum and began learning the basics of orchestral percussion. The article described Varèse's percussion composition Ionisation, produced by EMS Recordings, as "a weird jumble of drums and other unpleasant sounds". Zappa decided to seek out Varèse's music. After searching for over a year, Zappa found a copy (he noticed the LP because of the "mad scientist" looking photo of Varèse on the cover). Not having enough money with him, he persuaded the salesman to sell him the record at a discount. and local pachuco groups), and modern jazz. His own heterogeneous ethnic background, and the diverse social and cultural mix in and around greater Los Angeles, were crucial in the formation of Zappa as a practitioner of underground music and of his later distrustful and openly critical attitude towards "mainstream" social, political and musical movements. He frequently lampooned musical fads like psychedelia, rock opera and disco. Television also exerted a strong influence, as demonstrated by quotations from show themes and advertising jingles found in his later works.
At Antelope Valley High School, Zappa met Don Vliet (who later expanded his name to Don Van Vliet and adopted the stage name Captain Beefheart). Zappa and Vliet became close friends, sharing an interest in R&B; records and influencing each other musically throughout their careers. Around the same time, Zappa started playing drums in a local band, The Blackouts. (In the 1970s and '80s, he invited Watson to perform on several albums.) Zappa considered soloing as the equivalent of forming "air sculptures", He graduated from Antelope Valley High School in 1958, and later acknowledged two of his music teachers on the sleeve of the 1966 album Freak Out! Due to his family's frequent moves, Zappa attended at least six different high schools, and as a student he was often bored and given to distracting the rest of the class with juvenile antics. He left community college after one semester, and maintained thereafter a disdain for formal education, taking his children out of school at age 15 and refusing to pay for their college.
Zappa left home in 1959, and moved into a small apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles. After meeting Kathryn J. "Kay" Sherman during his short stay at Pomona College, they moved in together in Ontario, and were married December 28, 1960. Zappa worked for a short period in advertising. His sojourn in the commercial world was brief, but gave him valuable insights into how it works. Throughout his career, he took a keen interest in the visual presentation of his work, designing some of his album covers and directing his own films and videos.
During the early 1960s, Zappa wrote and produced songs for other local artists, often working with singer-songwriter Ray Collins and producer Paul Buff. Their "Memories of El Monte" was recorded by The Penguins, although only Cleve Duncan of the original group was featured. Buff owned the small Pal Recording Studio in Cucamonga, which included a unique five-track tape recorder he had built. At that time, only a handful of the most sophisticated commercial studios had multi-track facilities; the industry standard for smaller studios was still mono or two-track. Although none of the recordings from the period achieved major commercial success, Zappa earned enough money to allow him to stage a concert of his orchestral music in 1963 and to broadcast and record it. He appeared on Steve Allen's syndicated late night show the same year, in which he played a bicycle as a musical instrument. With Captain Beefheart, Zappa recorded some songs under the name of The Soots. They were rejected by Dot Records for having "no commercial potential", a verdict Zappa subsequently quoted on the sleeve of Freak Out!
In 1964, after his marriage started to break up, he moved into the Pal studio and began routinely working 12 hours or more per day recording and experimenting with overdubbing and audio tape manipulation. This set a work pattern that endured for most of his life. Aided by his income from film composing, Zappa took over the studio from Paul Buff, who was now working with Art Laboe at Original Sound. It was renamed Studio Z. Studio Z was rarely booked for recordings by other musicians. Instead, friends moved in, notably James "Motorhead" Sherwood. Zappa started performing as guitarist with a power trio, The Muthers, in local bars in order to support himself.
An article in the local press describing Zappa as "the Movie King of Cucamonga" prompted the local police to suspect that he was making pornographic films. In March 1965, Zappa was approached by a vice squad undercover officer, and accepted an offer of $100 to produce a suggestive audio tape for an alleged stag party. Zappa and a female friend recorded a faked erotic episode. When Zappa was about to hand over the tape, he was arrested, and the police stripped the studio of all recorded material. Zappa was charged with "conspiracy to commit pornography". This felony charge was reduced and he was sentenced to six months in jail on a misdemeanor, with all but ten days suspended. His entrapment and brief imprisonment left a permanent mark, and was key in the formation of his anti-authoritarian stance. Zappa lost several recordings made at Studio Z in the process, as the police only returned 30 out of 80 hours of tape seized. Eventually, he could no longer afford to pay the rent on the studio and was evicted. Zappa managed to recover some of his possessions before the studio was torn down in 1966.
Wilson signed The Mothers to the Verve Records division of MGM Records, which had built up a strong reputation in the music industry for its releases of modern jazz recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but was attempting to diversify into pop and rock audiences. Verve insisted that the band officially re-title themselves "The Mothers of Invention" because "Mother", in slang terminology, was short for "motherfucker"—a term that apart from its profane meanings can denote a skilled musician.
During the recording of Freak Out!, Zappa moved into a house in Laurel Canyon with friend Pamela Zarubica, who appeared on the album. He labeled people on drugs "assholes in action", and he only tried cannabis a few times without any pleasure. He was a regular tobacco smoker for most of his life, and strongly critical of anti-tobacco campaigns. After a short promotional tour following the release of Freak Out!, Zappa met Adelaide Gail Sloatman. He fell in love within "a couple of minutes", and she moved into the house over the summer. Examples are "Plastic People" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It", which contained lyrics critical of the hypocrisy and conformity of American society, but also of the counterculture of the 1960s. As Zappa put it, "[W]e're satirists, and we are out to satirize everything." At the same time, Zappa had recorded material for a self-produced album based on orchestral works to be released under his own name. Due to contractual problems, the recordings were shelved and only made ready for release late in 1967. Zappa took the opportunity to radically restructure the contents, adding newly recorded, improvised dialogue to finalize what became his first solo album (under the name Francis Vincent Zappa It is an "incredible ambitious musical project", a "monument to John Cage", which intertwines orchestral themes, spoken words and electronic noises through radical audio editing techniques.
Situated in New York, and only interrupted by the band's first European tour, the Mothers of Invention recorded the album widely regarded as the peak of the group's late 1960s work, We're Only in It for the Money (released 1968). It was produced by Zappa, with Wilson credited as executive producer. From then on, Zappa produced all albums released by the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. We're Only in It for the Money featured some of the most creative audio editing and production yet heard in pop music, and the songs ruthlessly satirized the hippie and flower power phenomena. The cover photo parodied that of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The cover art was provided by Cal Schenkel whom Zappa met in New York. This initiated a life-long collaboration in which Schenkel designed covers for numerous Zappa and Mothers albums.
Reflecting Zappa's eclectic approach to music, the next album, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968), was very different. It represented a collection of doo-wop songs; listeners and critics were not sure whether the album was a satire or a tribute. Zappa has noted that the album was conceived in the way Stravinsky's compositions were in his neo-classical period: "If he could take the forms and clichés of the classical era and pervert them, why not do the same ... to doo-wop in the fifties?" A theme from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is heard during one song.
In New York, Zappa increasingly used tape editing as a compositional tool. A prime example is found on the double album Uncle Meat (1969), where the track "King Kong" is edited from various studio and live performances. Zappa had begun regularly recording concerts, and because of his insistence on precise tuning and timing, he was able to augment his studio productions with excerpts from live shows, and vice versa. Later, he combined recordings of different compositions into new pieces, irrespective of the tempo or meter of the sources. He dubbed this process "xenochrony" (strange synchronizations)—reflecting the Greek "xeno" (alien or strange) and "chrono" (time).
Zappa and the Mothers of Invention returned to Los Angeles in the summer of 1968, and the Zappas moved into a house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, only to move again to one on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the autumn. This was to be Zappa's home for the rest of his life. Despite being a success with fans in Europe, the Mothers of Invention were not faring well financially. Their first records were vocally oriented, but Zappa wrote more instrumental jazz and classical oriented music for the band's concerts, which confused audiences. Zappa felt that audiences failed to appreciate his "electrical chamber music". but also commented on the band members' lack of sufficient effort. Many band members were bitter about Zappa's decision, and some took it as a sign of Zappa's concern for perfection at the expense of human feeling. Others were irritated by 'his autocratic ways', Several members would, however, play for Zappa in years to come. Remaining recordings with the band from this period were collected on Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (both released in 1970).
After he disbanded the Mothers of Invention, Zappa released the acclaimed solo album Hot Rats (1969). It features, for the first time on record, Zappa playing extended guitar solos and contains one of his most enduring compositions, "Peaches en Regalia", which reappeared several times on future recordings. and had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.
Later in 1970, Zappa formed a new version of The Mothers (from then on, he mostly dropped the "of Invention"). It included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, due to persistent legal and contractual problems, adopted the stage name "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie", or "Flo & Eddie".
This version of the Mothers debuted on Zappa's next solo album Chunga's Revenge (1970), which was followed by the double-album soundtrack to the movie 200 Motels (1971), featuring The Mothers, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, and Keith Moon. Co-directed by Zappa and Tony Palmer, it was filmed in a week at Pinewood Studios outside London. co-director Palmer tried afterwards to have his name removed from the film. The film deals loosely with life on the road as a rock musician. It was the first feature film photographed on videotape and transferred to 35 mm film, a process which allowed for novel visual effects. It was released to mixed reviews. The score relied extensively on orchestral music, and Zappa's dissatisfaction with the classical music world intensified when a concert, scheduled at the Royal Albert Hall after filming, was canceled because a representative of the venue found some of the lyrics obscene. In 1975, he lost a lawsuit against the Royal Albert Hall for breach of contract.
After 200 Motels, the band went on tour, which resulted in two live albums, Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band From L.A.; the latter included the 20-minute track "Billy the Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera set in Southern California. This track was representative of the band's theatrical performances in which songs were used to build up sketches based on 200 Motels scenes as well as new situations often portraying the band members' sexual encounters on the road.
, Germany in 1971]] In December 1971, there were two serious setbacks. While performing at Casino de Montreux in Switzerland, the Mothers' equipment was destroyed when a flare set off by an audience member started a fire that burned down the casino. Immortalized in Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water", the event and immediate aftermath can be heard on the bootleg album Swiss Cheese/Fire, released legally as part of Zappa's Beat the Boots II compilation. After a week's break, The Mothers played at the Rainbow Theatre, London, with rented gear. During the encore, an audience member pushed Zappa off the stage and into the concrete-floored orchestra pit. The band thought Zappa had been killed—he had suffered serious fractures, head trauma and injuries to his back, leg, and neck, as well as a crushed larynx, which ultimately caused his voice to drop a third after healing. Musically, the albums were akin to Hot Rats. Zappa began touring again in late 1972.
In the mid-1970s Zappa prepared material for Läther (pronounced "leather"), a four-LP project. Läther encapsulated all the aspects of Zappa's musical styles—rock tunes, orchestral works, complex instrumentals, and Zappa's own trademark distortion-drenched guitar solos. Wary of a quadruple-LP, Warner Bros. Records refused to release it. Zappa managed to get an agreement with Mercury-Phonogram, and test pressings were made targeted at a Halloween 1977 release, but Warner Bros. prevented the release by claiming rights over the material. Zappa responded by appearing on the Pasadena, California radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast Läther and encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings. A lawsuit between Zappa and Warner Bros. followed, during which no Zappa material was released for more than a year. Eventually, Warner Bros. issued major parts of Läther against Zappa's will as four individual albums with limited promotion. Läther was released posthumously in 1996.
Although Zappa eventually gained the rights to all his material created under the MGM and Warner Bros. contracts, the various lawsuits meant that for a period Zappa's only income came from touring, which he therefore did extensively in 1975–1977 with relatively small, mainly rock-oriented, bands. The performances included an impromptu musical collaboration with cast member John Belushi during the instrumental piece "The Purple Lagoon". Belushi appeared as his Samurai Futaba character playing the tenor sax with Zappa conducting. Zappa's song, "I'm the Slime", was performed with a voice-over by SNL booth announcer Don Pardo, who also introduced "Peaches En Regalia" on the same airing.
Zappa's band at the time, with the additions of Ruth Underwood and a horn section (featuring Michael and Randy Brecker), performed during Christmas in New York, recordings of which appear on one of the albums released by Warner Bros., Zappa in New York (1978). It mixes intense instrumentals such as "The Black Page" and humorous songs like "Titties and Beer". The former composition, written originally for drum kit but later developed for larger bands, is notorious for its complexity in rhythmic structure, radical changes of tempo and meter, and short, densely arranged passages.
Zappa in New York featured a song about sex criminal Michael H. Kenyon, "The Illinois Enema Bandit", which featured Don Pardo providing the opening narrative in the song. Like many songs on the album, it contained numerous sexual references, Zappa dismissed the criticism by noting that he was a journalist reporting on life as he saw it. Predating his later fight against censorship, he remarked: "What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?" The remaining albums released by Warner Bros. Records without Zappa's consent were Studio Tan in 1978 and Sleep Dirt in 1979, which contained complex suites of instrumentally-based tunes recorded between 1973 and 1976, and whose release was overlooked in the midst of the legal problems. Also released by the label without the artist's consent was Orchestral Favorites in 1979, which featured recordings of a concert with orchestral music from 1975.
On December 21, 1979, Zappa's movie Baby Snakes premiered in New York. The movie's tagline was "A movie about people who do stuff that is not normal". The 2 hour and 40 minutes movie was based on footage from concerts in New York around Halloween 1977, with a band featuring keyboardist Tommy Mars and percussionist Ed Mann (who would both return on later tours) as well as guitarist Adrian Belew. It also contained several extraordinary sequences of clay animation by Bruce Bickford who had earlier provided animation sequences to Zappa for a 1974 TV special (which later become available on the video The Dub Room Special (1982)). The movie did not do well in theatrical distribution, but won the Premier Grand Prix at the First International Music Festival in Paris in 1981. The Zappa Family Trust released it on DVD, and it has been available since 2003. Miami Vice and The Ren and Stimpy Show.
After spending most of 1980 on the road, Zappa released Tinsel Town Rebellion in 1981. It was the first release on his own Barking Pumpkin Records, and it contains songs taken from a 1979 tour, one studio track and material from the 1980 tours. The album is a mixture of complicated instrumentals and Zappa's use of sprechstimme (speaking song or voice)—a compositional technique utilized by such composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg—showcasing some of the most accomplished bands Zappa ever had (mostly featuring drummer Vinnie Colaiuta). the political and sociological satire in songs like the title track and "The Blue Light" have been described as a "hilarious critique of the willingness of the American people to believe anything". The album is also notable for the presence of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, who joined Zappa's touring band in the fall of 1980.
The same year the double album You Are What You Is was released. Most of it was recorded in Zappa's brand new Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK) studios, which were located at his house, The album included one complex instrumental, "Theme from the 3rd Movement of Sinister Footwear", but focused mainly on rock songs with Zappa's sardonic social commentary—satirical lyrics targeted at teenagers, the media, and religious and political hypocrisy. "Dumb All Over" is a tirade on religion, as is "Heavenly Bank Account", wherein Zappa rails against TV evangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson for their purported influence on the US administration as well as their use of religion as a means of raising money. In 1981, Zappa also released three instrumental albums, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar Some More, and The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, which were initially sold via mail order, but later released through the CBS label due to popular demand. The albums focus exclusively on Frank Zappa as a guitar soloist, and the tracks are predominantly live recordings from 1979–1980; they highlight Zappa's improvisational skills with "beautiful performances from the backing group as well". Another guitar-only album, Guitar, was released in 1988, and a third, Trance-Fusion, which Zappa completed shortly before his death, was released in 2006.
For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa's work was influenced by his use of the Synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. Even considering the complexity of the music he wrote, the Synclavier could realize anything he could dream up. The Synclavier could be programmed to play almost anything conceivable, to perfection: "With the Synclavier, any group of imaginary instruments can be invited to play the most difficult passages ... with one-millisecond accuracy—every time". Zappa viewed the Synclavier and real-life musicians as separate. The Synclavier pieces stood in contrast to the orchestral works, as the sounds were electronically generated and not, as became possible shortly thereafter, sampled.
The album Thing-Fish was an ambitious three-record set in the style of a Broadway play dealing with a dystopian "what-if" scenario involving feminism, homosexuality, manufacturing and distribution of the AIDS virus, and a eugenics program conducted by the United States government. New vocals were combined with previously released tracks and new Synclavier music; "the work is an extraordinary example of bricolage". Finally, in 1984, Zappa released Francesco Zappa, a Synclavier rendition of works by 18th century composer Francesco Zappa (no known relation), and Them or Us, a two-record set of heavily edited live and session pieces.
The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation ... The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?
Zappa set excerpts from the PMRC hearings to Synclavier music in his composition "Porn Wars" on the 1985 album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, and the full recording was released on Congress Shall Make No Law.... Zappa is heard interacting with Senators Fritz Hollings, Slade Gorton, Al Gore (who claimed, at the hearing, to be a Zappa fan), and in an exchange with Florida Senator Paula Hawkins over what toys Zappa's children played with. Zappa expressed opinions on censorship when he appeared on CNN's Crossfire TV series and debated issues with Washington Times commentator John Lofton in 1986. Zappa's passion for American politics was becoming a bigger part of his life. He had always encouraged his fans to register to vote on album covers, and throughout 1988 he had registration booths at his concerts. He even considered running for President of the United States.
Zappa's last tour in a rock and jazz band format took place in 1988 with a 12-piece group which had a repertoire of over 100 (mostly Zappa) compositions, but which split under acrimonious circumstances before the tour was completed. The tour was documented on the albums Broadway the Hard Way (new material featuring songs with strong political emphasis), The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (Zappa "standards" and an eclectic collection of cover tunes, ranging from Maurice Ravel's Boléro to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"), and Make a Jazz Noise Here (mostly instrumental and avant-garde music). Parts are also found on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, volumes 4 and 6.
In 1991, Zappa was chosen to be one of four featured composers at the world-acclaimed Frankfurt Festival in 1992 (the others were John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Alexander Knaifel). Zappa was approached by the German chamber ensemble, Ensemble Modern, which was interested in playing his music for the event. Although ill, Zappa invited them to Los Angeles for rehearsals of new compositions and new arrangements of older material. In addition to being satisfied with the ensemble's performances of his music, Zappa also got along with the musicians, and the concerts in Germany and Austria were set up for the fall. It would become his last professional public appearance, as the cancer was spreading to such an extent that he was in too much pain to enjoy an event that he otherwise found "exhilarating". next to the grave of actor Lew Ayres. On Monday, December 6 his family publicly announced that "Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6:00 pm on Saturday".
Zappa earned widespread critical acclaim in his lifetime and after his death. The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) writes: "Frank Zappa dabbled in virtually all kinds of music—and, whether guised as a satirical rocker, jazz-rock fusionist, guitar virtuoso, electronics wizard, or orchestral innovator, his eccentric genius was undeniable". Even though his work drew inspiration from many different genres, Zappa was seen establishing a coherent and personal expression. In 1971, biographer David Walley noted that "The whole structure of his music is unified, not neatly divided by dates or time sequences and it is all building into a composite". On commenting on Zappa's music, politics and philosophy, Barry Miles noted in 2004 that they cannot be separated: "It was all one; all part of his 'conceptual continuity. Guitar Player devoted a special issue to Zappa in 1992, and asked on the cover "Is FZ America's Best Kept Musical Secret?" Editor Don Menn remarked that the issue was about "The most important composer to come out of modern popular music". Among those contributing to the issue was composer and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky, who conducted premiere performances of works of Ives and Varèse in the 1930s. He became friends with Zappa in the 1980s, and said "I admire everything Frank does, because he practically created the new musical millennium. He does beautiful, beautiful work ... It has been my luck to have lived to see the emergence of this totally new type of music." Conductor Kent Nagano remarked in the same issue that "Frank is a genius. That's a word I don't use often ... In Frank's case it is not too strong ... He is extremely literate musically. I'm not sure if the general public knows that". Pierre Boulez stated in Musician magazine's posthumous Zappa tribute article that Zappa "was an exceptional figure because he was part of the worlds of rock and classical music and that both types of his work would survive." Many music scholars acknowledge Zappa as one of the most influential composers of his generation. As an electric guitarist, he has become highly regarded.
In 1994, jazz magazine Down Beat
In 1994, lobbying efforts initiated by psychiatrist John Scialli led the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center to name an asteroid in Zappa's honor: 3834 Zappafrank. The asteroid was discovered in 1980 by Czechoslovakian astronomer Ladislav Brozek, and the citation for its naming says that "Zappa was an eclectic, self-trained artist and composer ... Before 1989 he was regarded as a symbol of democracy and freedom by many people in Czechoslovakia".
In 1995, a bust of Zappa by sculptor Konstantinas Bogdanas was installed in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. A replica was offered to the city of Baltimore in 2008, and on September 19, 2010—the twenty-fifth anniversary of Zappa's testimony to the US senate—a ceremony dedicating the replica was held. Speakers at the event included Gail Zappa and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. In 2002, a bronze bust was installed in German city Bad Doberan, since 1990 location of the Zappanale, an annual music festival celebrating Zappa. At the initiative of musicians community ORWOhaus, the city of Berlin named a street in the Marzahn district "Frank-Zappa-Straße" in 2007. The same year, Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed August 9 as the city's official "Frank Zappa Day" citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defense of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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| Name | Mauro Picotto |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Birth name | Mauro Picotto |
| Alias | CRW, R.A.F., Lizard Man, χρω, Lava, Megamind, Megavoices |
| Born | December 25, 1966 |
| Origin | Cavour, Italy |
| Genre | Trance, Techno, Hard House |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Label | Media Records (until 2002), Bakerloo, Alchemy |
| Url | www.mauropicotto.com |
He now promotes his own techno club night, Meganite (named after an early 21st century track of his), which has run for consecutive years annually since 2005 at Privilege Ibiza. He now produces under his own record label, Bakerloo.
Picotto longed to start making his own productions, but felt that to be successful he must first become a DJ. After winning the Walky Cup competition on national TV, an event for the top DMC DJs in Italy, he met with Daniele Davoli who was there to promote his Black Box single "Ride On Time", and this led Picotto towards record producing. His first track "We Gonna Get", produced under the name RAF, became a Top 20 hit single across much of Europe.
Another RAF release followed, alongside remixes and co-writing credits for Clubhouse (who had a European hit with "Light My Fire"), Cappella (best-known for rave hits like "U Got 2 Let The Music" and "Move On Baby") and the 49ers. A track released under his own name, "Bakerloo Symphony", ended up being Number 1 in Italy for eight weeks. Also in 1996 Picotto became a partner in Media Records alongside Gianfranco Bortolotti.
1998 saw the release of the gatecrasher anthem, "Lizard (Gonna Get You)". The track ended up being a Top 30 hit in the UK Singles Chart - and was followed by two further instalments in the reptilian trilogy: "Iguana" (#39) and "Komodo (Save a Soul)", which would give Picotto the highest UK chart position of his career - #13.
Later tracks he was involved in also made an impact on the UK chart. "I Feel Love" - released under the pseudonym CRW - reached #15 in 2000, whilst "Communication (Somebody Answer The Phone)" - which he produced alongside Mario Più - reached the UK Top 5 at the end of 1999.
His remix of "On The Beach" by York, also helped to propel that song into the UK Top Five in Spring 2000, when it was selected by the record company - Manifesto - to be used as the official radio edit. Two solo albums, The Double Album (2000) and The Others (2002), followed, as well as remixes and productions for Freddie Mercury, Jimmy Somerville, the Pet Shop Boys and U2. Upon leaving Media Records in 2002, Picotto formed Bakerloo Music, as well as a new label Alchemy, releasing several club tracks, including "New Time New Place" and the "Alchemy EP". That same year he launched his Meganite party at the Miami Winter Music Conference.
Picotto has more recently released several Meganite Ibiza albums on a new label Big In Ibiza.
Picotto's 'Meganite' party is held every Wednesday at Ibiza'a Privilege club.
Category:1966 births Category:Living people Category:People from the Province of Turin Category:Italian DJs Category:Techno musicians Category:Remixers Category:Italian trance musicians
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| Name | Keshia Chanté |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Keshia Chanté Harper |
| Born | June 16, 1988Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Origin | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Url |
Keshia Chanté (born Keshia Chanté Harper on June 16, 1988) is a Canadian Juno Award-winning critically acclaimed, singer, songwriter, model, actress. She signed to BMG Music Canada at the age of 14 and has released two albums.
Chanté has won many awards, including a Juno Award, "Best New Artist" at the Canadian Radio Awards and Urban Music Awards, as well as "Video of the Year" and "Fans Choice". She has had six Top Ten singles at radio.
She is called the Canadian "Princess of Pop".
She is known in the U.S. for her "Bad Boy" video that was in heavy rotation on BET, her guest appearance in Bow Wow & Chris Brown's "Shortie Like Mine" video and constant media attention surrounding her personal life.
After a three-year hiatus, in November 2010 Chante released 2 videos for 2 new singles "Table Dancer" and "Test Drive", both off her new album Night & Day, slated for release in Spring 2011. Both singles are currently nominated for Juno Awards; R&B; Recording of the Year for "Test Drive" and Dance Recording of the Year for "Table Dancer".
Chanté took part in several school and community talent shows. One performance was brought to the attention of Ottawa DJ Trevor Mason who sent the tape to BMG Canada big wig Ivan Berry. She then received a call from Berry that would change her life forever. After performing an impromptu song over the phone, Keshia was invited into Toronto for a live audition that eventually led to a record deal.
Chanté balanced high school and her new found career, by traveling to Toronto on weekends to begin recording for her debut album. In 2004, she moved to Toronto to better balance work and school. She chose to continue school by attending Fletcher's Meadow Secondary School, and graduated as a straight-A student with her class in 2006, her final year being with a private tutor. Later, in June 2004, Chanté topped the charts again (Top 5) with the release of her fourth single "Does He Love Me?" ft. Foxy Brown which Chanté & Foxy Brown wrote and "Young Gav" (Foxy Brown's older brother) produced. The video was also directed by Little X and became #1 on MuchMusic for 3 weeks. The video also garnered her an Urban Music Video Award for "Video of the Year".
On June 22, 2004 Chanté released her self-titled debut album. On December 3, 2004 it was certified gold. It contained her previous singles, as well as her later to be released fifth "Let the Music Take You" penned by Chanté. In October 2004, at the Canadian Urban Music Awards Chanté swept all three of nominations, winning awards for "Best New Artist", "Video of the Year" (for Bad Boy), "Fans' Choice Award" and by surprise taking home the "Rising Star of the Year" award.
In December 2004, Chante headlined Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto for New Year's Eve. In February 2005, Chante won Chartattack Awards for "Best Album" and "Sexiest Female". During the same month, she was also selected to represent Canada at Expo 2005 held in Japan.
In July 2005, Chanté went on a cross Canada mall and venue tour sponsored by Solo Mobile (Bell), EckoRed and SPC sponsored Chante's tour across Canada which helped raise awareness for phone counseling service Kids Help Phone.
In September 2005, Chante performed on tour with Destiny's Child throughout Canada during there Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It tour, and is also included on the Destiny's Child Live In Atlanta Tour DVD.
In October 2005, Chante received four nominations at the Urban Music Awards.
In March 2006 she released her "2U" Album teaser single, "Ring The Alarm", which was used for WarChild's "Keep The Beat" charity campaign. All the proceeds from "Ring The Alarm" went to supported children at war and was also featured on triple platinum compilation "MuchDance 2006".
In July of that year, she released her single "Been Gone", produced by Philadelphia's Matrax Productions. The video was shot by Little X (making it her 3rd collaboration with him) and was shot inside of "Fletcher's Meadow Secondary School" where Chanté attended in her last year of school and graduated. Her second single, "2U", produced by Matrax was released in early November. 2U's video was shot on October 22 in Miami by director Bobby O'Neill, and was released on Yahoo Music Canada on November 16.
Also in 2006, Chanté made a featured cameo appearance in label mate Bow Wow's video "Shortie Like Mine". The video depicts Rapper Bow Wow searching for Keshia Chanté on his laptop. They send messages back and forth throughout the video.
Her second album, in which Chanté executive produced
MTV's "The Diary of Keshia Chante" aired in Canada December 6, 2006, showing footage following Chante as she travelled to Miami and LA working on her album.
In September, Chanté announced that she would release a 2 disc album titled "Night & Day" slated for a release in Spring 2011. One disc, titled 'Night' will be all Dance music and the other disc, titled 'Day' will be R&B;, reminiscent of Chanté's first two albums. When looking for inspiration and the direction that she wanted for this album, she stated that wanted something with "no-genre", sing something that was real and to the heart. Keshia found inspiration from Brandy's Afrodisiac.
In October, Chanté released two new singles, "Table Dancer" from the 'Night' side of her album and "Test Drive" from the 'Day' side. In November, the music video for "Test Drive" was released exclusively on VEVO, starring Chanté's boyfriend, NHL goalie Ray Emery and endorsed by Smarties. Later the music video for "Table Dancer" was released, endorsed by Pepsi. The video is currently on the video charts climbing and has already entered into Top 10.
"Table Dancer" so far has reached #44 on the Canadian Hot 100, accumulating an audience of over 5,000,000 and #24 on the Top 40. The single has also entered the Canadian iTunes R&B;/Soul Chart and peaked at #6.
In February 2011, Chanté was nominated for two Juno Awards; R&B; Recording of the Year for "Test Drive" and Dance Recording of the Year for "Table Dancer". Denise Sheppard from Amazon.ca also noted, "[Chanté is] a teen-targeted pop phenom" whose "music has the one-two punch of melodic hooks and the voice to back them up; a combination that can and will appeal to dance/pop music fans of any age.
Chanté is artistically involved in her projects, especially in the writing process. She has received executive production credit on most of her music in which she has been involved, however she doesn't formulate beats herself, she typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. Some of her songs are autobiographical, which she has admitted are taken from personal experiences, as well as her friends.
Chanté's music is generally contemporary R&B;, but she also incorporates pop, dance and hip hop into her music.
From an early age, Chanté has been named a vocal powerhouse with a mature, lush voice beyond her years.
Chante regularly attends front row at Fashion Week with her outfits anticipated and documented. In 2010, she attended Evan Biddell's show and appeared in his opening runway video.
In October 2009, Chanté acquired stock in Guess's upscale fashion brand Marciano. Chanté also co-owns the Marciano Store in Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Center.
In 2007, it was announced that Chante would be collaborating on a diamond jewellery line with conflict-free diamond company, Polar Bear Diamonds and begin working on a perfume line.
In November 2010, Chante became the face of Pepsi and their Pepsi Refresh Project campaign, with Pepsi presenting Chante's video "Table Dancer". Chante is the face of Ontario Tourism and sings the theme song "There's No Place Like This" in their commercials. Chanté is the face of the Sony's Cyber-Shot Digital Camera Chante has collaborated with Smarties in music video "Test Drive".
Chante worked closely with Alicia Keys to throw a fundraising concert to help build awareness about AIDS with the Stephen Lewis Foundation and was a part of BET'S Rap-It-Up campaign.
In 2008, she visited Dominican Republic to work with World Vision. She has also been a part of three consecutive WorldVision 30 Hour Famine's and has been a part of many of their campaigns and advertisements endorsing the event.
Chante also developed the Roger's Love Music Speaking Tour where she spoke to school students across Canada and donated tens of thousands of dollars to their music programs.
She has contributed to WarChild's Keep The Beat campaign donating the proceeds of her singles to them, as well as the proceeds that came from her songs inclusion into the MuchMusic's MuchDance compilations.
In November 2010, CANFAR announced Chante as their official Youth Ambassador. She participated in World AIDS Day doing a media tour with CANFAR President Christopher Bunting.
Chante's currently in a relationship with NHL netminder Ray Emery. In June 2010, eTalk Daily and Entertainment Tonight Canada broke the news that Chante and Ray Emery had began dating. Emery has been featured as the love interest in her music video for "Test Drive".
Chante has been friendly linked to Chris Brown whom she met in 2006 after doing a TV meetup show together. They began a definite friendship afterwards. reported that Chante was the "other woman" in the Chris Brown assault against Rihanna claiming Chante was the woman who sent the text message Chante was in fact in LA during the incident.
In May 2009, Drake spoke to MuchMusic about Verse 2 of his song "Deceiving" addressing speculation of his past relationship with Chante, "Would I call Keshia Chante an ex? I'd be proud to say she is an ex. I'm proud to say we had our time, when we were, like 16 years old. She's great. She's one of the first people in the industry that I met, we just connected."
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Category:1988 births Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:Canadian Roman Catholics Category:Canadian rhythm and blues singers Category:Canadian female singers Category:Canadian people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Category:Canadian people of Portuguese descent Category:Canadian people of Puerto Rican descent Category:Black Canadian musicians Category:Black Canadian actors Category:Juno Award winners Category:Musicians from Ottawa Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:People from Ottawa
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| Name | Kery James |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Alix Mathurin |
| Born | December 28, 1977Les Abymes, Guadeloupe, West Indies |
| Genre | French rap, hardcore rap, conscious rap |
| Occupation | Rapper, songwriter, dancer, record producer, philanthropist |
| Years active | 1992–present |
| Associated acts | Mafia K'1 Fry, Idéal J |
| Url | keryjames-officiel.skyrock.com |
Kery James (born Alix Mathurin, December 28, 1977) is a French rapper singer, songwriter, dancer, and record producer, who was born in West Indies from Haitian parents. His mother raised him in Orly, a suburb of Paris. Nowadays with his three solo albums, he is one of the most respected French rappers. The media labelled him "the rapper repented through Islam". Kery James is aware of it, he really assumes this image. " I prefer to be the one who hold this role rather than somebody else. Numerous young Muslims are tempted to be intolerant or extremist. If I can open their eyes it is a good thing for them."
At around thirteen years old, he became a member of the group Idéal Junior (later abbreviated to Idéal J). They garnered a few singles with explicit titles like Hardcore, Pour une poignée de dollars and a first album titled Original MC’s sur une mission. In 1992, their single La vie est dure was released showing great promise though one of the talented artists, Alter, promptly left the group. In subsequent years while colleague Mehdi progressed as a prominent producer, Kery worked extensively on writing new material, his texts refcting a life that involved altercations with the police, street rivalries and an omnipresent fear of death.
In 1996 the band's first album under the moniker Ideal J led the group to became renowned and respected as amongst the top French rappers with well-know singles like Ghetto français, Show business and, Je veux du cash. Ideal J multiplied their appearances on Maxis and as featured acts, reaching a surprising maturity with the single J'désole mes parents present on the compilation Nouvelle donne. However, Kery's career was put temporarily on hold in 1999 when his close childhood friend Las Montana was shot and killed. Kery took refuge in religious faith and took the name Ali as a symbol of his full conversion to Islam.
In 2004, Kery James' second album, Ma vérité continued to underline social and political militant messages taking positions on such subjects as the war in Iraq and on reality TV. However, at the same time, duets with very popular stars such as Diam's Mélanie Giorgadès and Amel Bent, started to distance him from his underground image.
In March 2008 this metamorphosis to mainstream popularity was underlined by a new album À l'ombre du show business whose title track was a collaboration with legendary French chanson star Charles Aznavour. Other tracks included Le combat continue part III, Banlieusards and Vrai Peura. On its first week of release the album reached third place on the French charts with 24,459 albums sold. For the music videos of this album, he worked with Luc Besson , Matthieu Kassovitz , J.G Biggs and Chris Macari.
Category:1977 births Category:Living people Category:French rappers Category:Guadeloupean musicians Category:French people of Haitian descent Category:Converts to Islam Category:French Muslims Category:French people of Black African descent
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| Name | Jeff Buckley |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Jeffrey Scott Buckley |
| Alias | Scott "Scotty" Moorhead |
| Born | November 17, 1966Anaheim, California, USA |
| Died | May 29, 1997Memphis, Tennessee, USA |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar |
| Genre | Alternative rock, folk |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician |
| Years active | 1991–1997 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Associated acts | The A.M., Shinehead, Gods and Monsters |
| Url | www.jeffbuckley.com |
Over the following two years, the band toured widely to promote the album, including concerts in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia. In 1996, they stopped touring and made sporadic attempts to record his second album in New York with Tom Verlaine as producer. In 1997, Buckley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to resume work on the album, to be titled My Sweetheart the Drunk, recording many four-track demos while also playing weekly solo shows at a local venue. While awaiting the arrival of his band from New York, he drowned during a spontaneous evening swim — fully clothed — in the Wolf River, when he was caught in the wake of a passing boat. His body was found on June 4, 1997.
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases of his material, including a collection of four-track demos and studio recordings for his unfinished second album My Sweetheart the Drunk and expansions of debut album Grace and his Live at Sin-é EP. Chart success also came posthumously; with Leonard Cohen's song, "Hallelujah" he attained his first #1 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs in March 2008 and reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart at Christmas 2008. Buckley and his work remain popular and are regularly featured in 'greatest' lists in the music press.
Buckley was brought up around music. His mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist. His stepfather introduced him to Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Pink Floyd at an early age. Buckley grew up singing around the house and in harmony with his mother, later noting that all his family sang. Buckley began playing guitar at the age of five after discovering an acoustic guitar in his grandmother's closet. Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was the first album he ever owned; the hard rock band Kiss was also an early favorite. At the age of 12, he decided to become a musician, He attended Loara High School, and played in the school's jazz band. During this time, he developed an affinity for progressive rock bands such as Rush, Genesis, and Yes, as well as jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola.
After graduating from high school, he moved north to Hollywood to attend the Musicians Institute, completing the one-year course at the age of 19. Buckley later told Rolling Stone the school was "the biggest waste of time",
He moved to New York City in February 1990, but found few opportunities to work as a musician. He was introduced to Qawwali, the devotional music of Pakistan, and to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one of its best-known singers. Buckley was an impassioned fan of Khan, and during his cafe days, he often covered Khan's songs. In January 1996, he interviewed Khan for Interview and wrote liner notes for Khan's Supreme Collection, Vol. 1 compilation. Buckley also became interested in blues musician Robert Johnson and hardcore punk band Bad Brains during this time. Cohen and Buckley hoped to attract attention from the music industry with the demo tape.
Buckley flew back to New York early the following year to make his public singing debut at a tribute concert for his father called "Greetings from Tim Buckley". The event, produced by show business veteran Hal Willner, was held at St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn on April 26, 1991. With accompaniment by experimental rock guitarist Gary Lucas, Buckley performed "I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain", a song Tim Buckley wrote about an infant Jeff Buckley and his mother. Buckley returned to the stage to play "Sefronia – The King's Chain", "Phantasmagoria in Two", and concluded the concert with "Once I Was" performed acoustically with an impromptu a cappella ending, due to a snapped guitar string. Buckley's performance at the concert was counter-intuitive to his desire to distance himself musically from his father. Buckley later explained his reasoning to Rolling Stone: "It wasn't my work, it wasn't my life. But it bothered me that I hadn't been to his funeral, that I'd never been able to tell him anything. I used that show to pay my last respects."
On subsequent trips to New York in mid-1991, Buckley began co-writing with Gary Lucas resulting in the songs "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", and by late 1991 he began performing with Lucas' band Gods and Monsters around New York City. After being offered a development deal as a member of Gods and Monsters at Imago Records, Buckley moved back to New York to the Lower East Side at the end of 1991. The day after Gods and Monsters officially debuted in March 1992, Buckley decided to leave the band.
Buckley began performing at several clubs and cafés around Lower Manhattan, but Sin-é in the East Village became his main venue. and quickly earned a regular Monday night slot there. His repertoire consisted of a diverse range of folk, rock, R&B;, blues and jazz cover songs, much of it music he had newly learned. During this period, he discovered singers such as Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, and Judy Garland. Buckley performed an eclectic selection of covers from a range of artists from Led Zeppelin, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bob Dylan, Édith Piaf, Elton John, The Smiths, Bad Brains, Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson Original songs from the Babylon Dungeon Sessions, and the songs he'd written with Gary Lucas were also included in his set lists. Industry maven Clive Davis even dropped by to see him. for a three-album, essentially million-dollar deal in October 1992. Recording dates were set for July and August 1993 for what would become Buckley's recording debut, an EP of four songs which included a cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do". Live at Sin-é was released on November 23, 1993, documenting this period of Buckley's life.
In January 1994, Buckley left to go on his first solo North American tour to support Live at Sin-é. Buckley played clubs and coffeehouses and made in-store appearances. In June, Buckley began his first full band tour called the "Peyote Radio Theatre Tour" that lasted into August. Pretender Chrissie Hynde, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and The Edge from U2 were among the attendees of these early shows.
Grace was released on August 23, 1994. In addition to seven original songs, the album included three covers: "Lilac Wine", based on the version by Nina Simone; and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, based on John Cale's recording from the Cohen tribute album, I'm Your Fan. by Time, and is included on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Sales of Grace were slow and it garnered little radio airplay, despite critical acclaim. The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed it "a romantic masterpiece" and a "pivotal, defining work". Despite slow initial sales the album went gold in France and Australia over the next two years, and selling over six times platinum in Australia in 2006.
Grace won appreciation from a host of revered musicians, including members of Buckley's biggest influence, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page considered Grace close to being his "favorite album of the decade". Robert Plant was also complimentary. Others who had influenced Buckley's music lauded him: Bob Dylan named Buckley "one of the great songwriters of this decade", The album eventually went on to feature in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, appearing at #303.
In late January, the band did their first tour of Japan, playing concerts and appearing for promotion of the album and newly released Japanese single "Last Goodbye". The band returned to Europe on February 6 and toured various Western European countries before returning to the U.S. on March 6. Among the gigs performed during this period, Buckley and his band performed at a 19th century built French venue, the Bataclan, and material from the concert was recorded and later released in October of that year as a four track EP, Live from the Bataclan. Also, songs from a performance on February 25, at the venue Nighttown in Rotterdam, were subsequently released as a promotional-only CD, So Real.
Touring recommenced in April with dates across the U.S. and Canada. During this period Buckley and the band notably played Metro in Chicago, which was recorded on video and later released as Live in Chicago on VHS and later on DVD. In addition, on June 4 they played at Sony Music Studios for the Sony Music radio hour. Following this was a month long European tour between June 20 and July 18 in which they played many summer music festivals. During the tour, Buckley played two concerts at the Paris Olympia, a venue made famous by the French vocalist Édith Piaf, that he considered the finest performances of his career. Shortly after this Buckley attended the Festival de la Musique Sacrée (Festival of Sacred Music), also held in France, and performed "What Will You Say" as a duet with Alim Qasimov, an Azerbaijani mugham singer. Sony BMG has since released a live album, 2001's Live a L'Olympia, which has a selection of songs from both Olympia performances and the collaboration with Qasimov.
Buckley's Mystery White Boy tour, playing concerts in both Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, lasted between August 28 and September 6 and recordings of these performances were compiled and released on the live album Mystery White Boy. Buckley was so well received during these concerts that his album Grace went gold in Australia, selling over 35,000 copies, and taking this into account he decided a longer tour was needed and returned for a tour of New Zealand and Australia in February the following year.
Following Johnson's departure, the band, now without a drummer, was put on hold and did not perform live again until February 12, 1997. Due to the pressure from extensive touring, Buckley spent the majority of the year away from the stage. However, from May 2 to May 5 he played a short stint as bass guitarist with Mind Science of the Mind, with friend Nathan Larson, then guitarist of Shudder to Think.}}
On February 4, 1997, Buckley played a short set at The Knitting Factory's tenth anniversary concert featuring a selection of his new songs: "Jewel Box", "Morning Theft", "Everybody Here Wants You", "The Sky is a Landfill" and "Yard of Blonde Girls". Lou Reed was there to watch Later that month, Buckley recorded a spoken word reading of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Ulalume", for the album Closed on Account of Rabies. This would be his last recording in New York; shortly after, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee.
Buckley became interested in recording at Easley McCain Recording in Memphis, at the suggestion of friend Dave Shouse from the Grifters. He rented a shotgun house there, of which he was so fond he contacted the owner about the possibility of buying it. Throughout this period, February 12 to May 26, 1997, Buckley played at Barristers', a bar located in downtown Memphis underneath a parking garage in an alley off of Jefferson Avenue. He played numerous times in order to work through the new material in a live atmosphere, at first with band and then solo as part of a Monday night residency. In early February, Buckley and the band did a third recording session with Verlaine, in Memphis, but Buckley expressed his dissatisfaction with the sessions and later called Grace producer, Andy Wallace, to step in as Verlaine's replacement. a slackwater channel of the Mississippi River, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of the song "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. Buckley had gone swimming there several times before. A roadie in Buckley's band, Keith Foti, remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley had vanished. Despite a determined rescue effort that night, Buckley remained missing. On June 4, two locals spotted his body in the Mississippi River near a riverboat, and it was brought to land.
Buckley's autopsy showed no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system and the death was ruled as an accidental drowning. The following statement was released from the Buckley estate: }}
After Buckley's death, a collection of demo recordings and a full-length album he had been reworking for his second album were released as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk — the compilation being overseen by his mother, Mary Guibert, band members and old friend Michael J. Clouse, as well as Chris Cornell. The album achieved gold sales in Australia in 1998. Three other albums composed of live recordings have also been released, along with a live DVD of a performance in Chicago. A previously unreleased 1992 recording of "I Shall Be Released", sung by Buckley over the phone on live radio, was released on the album For New Orleans.
Since his death, Buckley has been the subject of numerous documentaries: Fall in Light, a 1999 production for French TV, Goodbye and Hello, a program about Buckley and his father produced for Netherlands TV in 2000 and Everybody Here Wants You, a documentary made in 2002 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). An hour long documentary about Buckley called has been shown at various film festivals to critical acclaim. The film was released worldwide in 2009 by Sony BMG Legacy as part of the Grace Around The World Deluxe Edition. In the spring of 2009 it was revealed that Ryan Jaffe, best known for scripting the movie The Rocker, had replaced Brian Jun as screenwriter. Orion Williams is also set to co-produce the film with Michelle Sy. A separate project involving the book Dream Brother was allegedly cancelled.
Rufus Wainwright, whose career had barely started when he met Buckley, wrote "Memphis Skyline" in tribute to him, singing "then came hallelujah sounding like mad Ophelia, for me in my room living, turn back and you will stay, under the Memphis Skyline".
Duncan Sheik also wrote and recorded the song "A Body Goes Down", from his 1998 album Humming in response to Buckley's death.
Steve Adey wrote a song tribute entitled "Mississippi" on his 2006 album All Things Real. The song contains the lyrics "Until the morning thief steals the humming of the Lord", a reference to Buckley's song "Morning Theft".
Willie Nile’s On The Road To Calvary from his 1999 album Beautiful Wreck Of The World was written as a tribute to Buckley.
Juliana Hatfield has written two songs related to her grieving for Buckley: "Trying Not To Think About It" on her EP Please Do Not Disturb and "Until Tomorrow" on Beautiful Creature.
Mike Doughty's song "Grey Ghost" from his album Haughty Melodic was written in response to Buckley's death.
Chris Cornell wrote a tribute song entitled "Wave Goodbye" on his first solo album Euphoria Morning.
Patty Griffin wrote a tribute song entitled "Goodbye" on her solo album Flaming Red.
Mark Eitzel included a song written in tribute to Jeff Buckley, To The Sea, on his The Invisible Man album.
The band Hey Rosetta! wrote a tribute song entitled "Lions for Scottie" for their album Plan Your Escape.
Ron Sexsmith wrote a tribute song entitled "In a Flash" on his album Whereabouts.
In May and June 2007, Buckley's life and music were celebrated globally with tributes in Australia, Canada, England, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Macedonia, Portugal and the U.S. Many of Buckley's family members attended the various tribute concerts across the globe, some of which they helped organize. There are three annual Jeff Buckley tribute events: the Chicago-based Uncommon Ground, featuring a three day concert schedule, An Evening With Jeff Buckley, an annual New York City tribute, and the Australia-based Fall In Light. The latter event is run by the Fall In Light Foundation, which in addition to the concerts, runs a "Guitars for Schools" program. The name of the foundation is taken from the lyrics of Buckley's "New Year's Prayer".
In a similar vein, the 2008 UK X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, released a cover of "Hallelujah" with the intent to top the UK Singles Chart as the Christmas number one single. Buckley fans countered this, launching a campaign with the aim of propelling Buckley's version to the number one spot. The campaign picked up support through social network websites and it soon spread to the mainstream media. Buckley's version of the song entered the UK charts at #49 on November 30 and by December 21 it had reached #2; in spite of the fact that it had not been released in a physical format.
In 2009, actress and singer Scarlett Johansson covered Buckley's "Last Goodbye" for the soundtrack of her film He's Just Not That Into You.
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| Name | Archduke Franz Ferdinand |
|---|---|
| Succession | Archduke of Austria-Este |
| Reign | 1889 - 1914 |
| Reign-tpe | Pretendence |
| Predecessor | Francis II As Archduke of Austria-Este Also Francis V as Duke of Modena |
| Successor | Charles |
| Date of birth | December 18, 1863 |
| Place of birth | Graz, Austrian Empire |
| Date of death | June 28, 1914 |
| Place of death | Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary |
| Spouse | Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg |
| Issue | Princess Sophie von HohenbergMaximilian, Duke of HohenbergPrince Ernst von Hohenberg |
| House | House of Habsburg-Lorraine |
| Father | Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria |
| Mother | Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Signature | Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Signature.svg |
Franz Ferdinand (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was an Archduke of Austria-Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungary and of Bohemia, and from 1889 until his death, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused Germany and Austria-Hungary, and countries allied with Serbia (the Triple Alliance Powers) to declare war on each other, starting World War I.
He was born in Graz, Austria, the oldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (younger brother of Franz Joseph and Maximilian) and of his second wife, Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. When he was only twelve years old, his cousin Duke Francis V of Modena died, naming Franz Ferdinand his heir on condition that he add the name Este to his own. Franz Ferdinand thus became one of the wealthiest men in Austria.
He exerted influence on the armed forces even when he did not hold a specific command through a military chancery that produced and received documents and papers on military affairs. This was headed by Alexander Brosch von Aarenau and eventually employed a staff of sixteen..
By 1913 Franz Ferdinand, as heir to the elderly emperor, had been appointed inspector general of all the armed forces of Austria-Hungary (Generalinspektor der gesamten bewaffneten Macht), a position superior to that previously held by Archduke Albrecht and including presumed command in wartime.
Deeply in love, Franz Ferdinand refused to consider marrying anyone else. Pope Leo XIII, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and the German Emperor Wilhelm II all made representations on his behalf to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, arguing that the disagreement between Franz Joseph and Franz Ferdinand was undermining the stability of the monarchy.
Finally, in 1899, Emperor Franz Joseph agreed to permit Franz Ferdinand to marry Sophie, on condition that the marriage would be morganatic and that their descendants would not have succession rights to the throne. As his sometime admirer Karl Kraus put it, "he was not one who would greet you ... he felt no compulsion to reach out for the unexplored region which the Viennese call their heart." His relations with Emperor Franz Joseph were tense; the emperor's personal servant recalled in his memoirs that "thunder and lightning always raged when they had their discussions." The commentaries and orders which the heir to the throne wrote as margin notes to the documents of the Imperial central commission for architectural conservation (where he was Protector) reveal what can be described as "choleric conservativism."
Franz Ferdinand had a fondness for trophy hunting that was excessive even by the standards of European nobility of this time. In his diaries he kept track of an estimated 300,000 game kills, 5,000 of which were deer. A small fraction of the trophies were on exhibit at his Bohemian castle at Konopiště which he also stuffed with various antiquities, his other great collection passion.
Historians have disagreed on how to characterize the political philosophies of Franz Ferdinand, some attributing generally liberal views on the empire's nationalities while others have emphasized his dynastic centralism, Catholic conservatism, and tendency to clash with other leaders. He advocated granting greater autonomy to ethnic groups within the Empire and addressing their grievances, especially the Czechs in Bohemia and the Yugoslavic peoples in Croatia and Bosnia, who had been left out of the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867. Yet his feelings towards the Hungarians were less generous; he regarded Magyar nationalism as a revolutionary threat to the Habsburg dynasty and reportedly became angry when officers of the 9th Hussars Regiment (which he commanded) spoke Magyar in his presence - despite the fact that it was the official regimental language. He further regarded the Hungarian branch of the Dual Monarchy's army, the Honvédség, as an unreliable and potentially threatening force within the empire, complaining at the Hungarians' failure to provide funds for the joint army and opposing the formation of artillery units within the Hungarian forces.
He also advocated a careful approach towards Serbia - repeatedly locking horns with Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Vienna's hard-line Chief of the General Staff, warning that harsh treatment of Serbia would bring Austria-Hungary into open conflict with Russia, to the ruin of both Empires.
He was disappointed when Austria-Hungary failed to act as a Great Power, such as during the Boxer Rebellion; in 1900 other nations, including, in his description, "dwarf states like Belgium and Portugal", sent troops to protect Westerners and punish the Chinese, but Austria-Hungary did not.
Franz Ferdinand was a prominent and influential supporter of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in a time when sea power was not a priority in Austrian foreign policy and the Navy was relatively little known and supported by the public. After his assassination in 1914, the Navy honoured Franz Ferdinand and his wife with a lying in state aboard the SMS Viribus Unitis.
The royal couple insisted on seeing all those injured at the hospital. After travelling there, Franz and Sophie decided to go to the palace, but their driver took a wrong turn onto a side street, where Princip spotted them. a relatively low-power round, and a pocket-sized FN model 1910 pistol. The archduke's aides attempted to undo his coat but realized they needed scissors to cut it open. It was too late; he died within minutes. Sophie also died en route to the hospital.
A detailed account of the shooting can be found in Sarajevo by Joachim Remak:
One bullet pierced Franz Ferdinand's neck while the other pierced Sophie's abdomen. ... As the car was reversing (to go back to the Governor's residence because the entourage thought the Imperial couple were unhurt) a thin streak of blood shot from the Archduke's mouth onto Count Harrach's right cheek (he was standing on the car's running board). Harrach drew out a handkerchief to still the gushing blood. The Duchess, seeing this, called: "For Heaven's sake! What happened to you?" and sank from her seat, her face falling between her husband's knees.
Harrach and Potoriek ... thought she had fainted ... only her husband seemed to have an instinct for what was happening. Turning to his wife despite the bullet in his neck, Franz Ferdinand pleaded: "Sopherl! Sopherl! Sterbe nicht! Bleibe am Leben für unsere Kinder! - Sophie dear! Don't die! Stay alive for our children!". Having said this, he seemed to sag down himself. His plumed hat ... fell off; many of its green feathers were found all over the car floor. Count Harrach seized the Archduke by the uniform collar to hold him up. He asked "Leiden Eure Kaiserliche Hoheit sehr? - Is Your Imperial Highness suffering very badly?" "Es ist nichts - It is nothing" said the Archduke in a weak but audible voice. He seemed to be losing consciousness during his last few minutes, but, his voice growing steadily weaker, he repeated the phrase perhaps six or seven times more.
A rattle began to issue from his throat, which subsided as the car drew in front of the Konak bersibin (Town Hall). Despite several doctors' efforts, the Archduke died shortly after being carried into the building while his beloved wife was almost certainly dead from internal bleeding before the motorcade reached the Konak.
The assassinations, along with the arms race, nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and the alliance system all contributed to the Origins of World War I, which began less than two months after Franz Ferdinand's death, with Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. The assassination of Ferdinand is considered the most immediate cause of World War I.
Franz Ferdinand is interred with his wife Sophie in Artstetten Castle, Austria. Video: Franz Ferdinand's Funeral
Category:1863 births Category:1914 deaths Category:1914 crimes Category:Roman Catholic monarchs Category:Austrian Roman Catholics Category:Hungarian Roman Catholics Category:Archdukes of Austria Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Assassinated royalty Category:Austro-Hungarian Army officers Category:Austro-Hungarian people of World War I Category:Bohemian princes Category:Deaths by firearm in Bosnia and Herzegovina Category:Extra Knights Companion of the Garter Category:House of Austria-Este Category:House of Habsburg-Lorraine Category:Hungarian princes Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary Category:Knights of the Golden Fleece Category:Knights of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation Category:People from Graz Category:Burials at the Imperial Crypts, Vienna
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| Name | Bob Dylan |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Robert Allen Zimmerman |
| Alias | Elston Gunnn, Blind Boy Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Tedham Porterhouse, Lucky/Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov |
| Origin | New York, New York, U.S. |
| Birth date | May 24, 1941 |
| Birth place | Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, keyboard, bass |
| Genre | Rock, folk rock, folk, blues, country, gospel |
| Occupation | Musician, songwriter, producer, visual artist |
| Years active | 1959–present |
| Label | Columbia, Asylum |
| Associated acts | Traveling Wilburys, The Band, Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Shadow Blasters, The Golden Chords |
| Url |
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and painter. He has been a major figure in music for five decades. a number of his earlier songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements.
His early lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social and philosophical, as well as literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres, exploring numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly, to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.
Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.
Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
Dylan's parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. Robert Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age six, when his father was stricken with polio and the family returned to his mother's home town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood. Robert Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio—first to blues and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll. Their performance of Danny and the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone off. In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To follow Little Richard."
Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him: "The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings." He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit.
During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan". In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free." who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).
From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. In September, he gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times of a show at Gerde's Folk City. The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond. Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little impact, selling only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even. Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for Broadside Magazine, a folk music magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records. Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming."
From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom. He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television. At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song. While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins, The Pinder of Wakefield, and Bunjies. "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi. His most famous song at this time, "Blowin' in the Wind", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting a precedent for many other artists who had hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.
While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, Freewheelin' also included a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal talking blues. Humor was a large part of Dylan's persona, and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles. George Harrison said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."
The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying." Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover. Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.
Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies; Peter, Paul and Mary; The Association; Manfred Mann; and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces. The cover versions became so ubiquitous that CBS started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."
"Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single and then quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records."
Dylan's next release, Nashville Skyline (1969), was virtually a mainstream country record featuring instrumental backing by Nashville musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan, a duet with Johnny Cash, and the hit single "Lay Lady Lay." Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, including Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings," but they were not used on the album.
In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash's new television show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from the North Country", "I Threw It All Away" and "Living the Blues". Dylan next travelled to England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight rock festival on August 31, 1969, after rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival far closer to his home.
Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village. These sessions resulted in one single, "Watching The River Flow", and a new recording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece". On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson," which he released a week later. Dylan contributed piano and hamony vocals to Steve Goodman's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.
In 1972, Dylan signed onto Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing the role of "Alias," a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis. Despite the film's failure at the box office, the song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" has proven its durability as one of Dylan's most extensively covered songs.
Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new record label, David Geffen's Asylum Records, when his contract with Columbia Records expired. On his next album, Planet Waves, he used The Band as backing group, while rehearsing for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young," which became one of his most popular songs. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Biographer Howard Sounes noted that Jakob Dylan believed the song was about him. In January 1974, Dylan returned to live touring after a break of seven years; backed by The Band, he embarked on a high-profile, coast-to-coast North American tour, playing 40 concerts. A live double album of the tour, Before the Flood, was released on Asylum Records. Soon, Columbia Records sent word that they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold". Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, apparently miffed that while there had been millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour, Geffen had managed to sell only 700,000 copies of Planet Waves. Dylan delayed the album's release, however, and re-recorded half of the songs at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother David Zimmerman.
Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks received mixed reviews. In the NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practise takes." In Rolling Stone, reviewer Jon Landau wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape." with Allen Ginsberg, on the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975]]
That summer Dylan wrote a lengthy ballad championing the cause of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who had been imprisoned for a triple murder committed in Paterson, New Jersey in 1966. After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "Hurricane", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its 8:32 minute length, the song was released as a single, peaking at #33 on the U.S. Billboard Chart, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue. The tour was a varied evening of entertainment featuring about one hundred performers and supporters drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Joni Mitchell. David Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, and violinist Scarlet Rivera, whom Dylan discovered while she was walking down the street, her violin case hanging on her back. Allen Ginsberg accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard was initially hired to write the film's screenplay, but ended up accompanying the tour as informal chronicler.
Running through late 1975 and again through early 1976, the tour encompassed the release of the album Desire, with many of Dylan's new songs featuring an almost travelogue-like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright Jacques Levy. The spring 1976 half of the tour was documented by a TV concert special, Hard Rain, and the LP Hard Rain; no concert album from the better-received and better-known opening half of the tour was released until 2002's .
The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film Renaldo and Clara, a sprawling and improvised narrative, mixed with concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received generally poor, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.
In November 1976, Dylan appeared at The Band's "farewell" concert, along with other guests including Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and Neil Young. Martin Scorsese's acclaimed cinematic chronicle of this show, The Last Waltz, was released in 1978 and included about half of Dylan's set. In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton's No Reason To Cry.
In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were recorded and released as the live double album, Bob Dylan At Budokan. Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, while Janet Maslin defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals." When Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour'. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California." It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life". However, it suffered from poor sound recording and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.
In the 1980s the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded Infidels in 1983 to the panned Down in the Groove in 1988. Critics such as Michael Gray condemned Dylan's 1980s albums both for showing an extraordinary carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. The Infidels recording sessions, for example, produced several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Most well regarded of these were "Blind Willie McTell", a tribute to the dead blues musician and an evocation of African American history, "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child". These three songs were later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded his next studio album, Empire Burlesque. Arthur Baker, who had remixed hits for Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper, was asked to engineer and mix the album. Baker has said he felt he was hired to make Dylan's album sound "a little bit more contemporary". His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson to organize a series of events, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.
In April 1986, Dylan made a brief foray into the world of rap music when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", a song featured on Kurtis Blow's album Kingdom Blow. Dylan's next studio album, Knocked Out Loaded, was released in July 1986 and contained three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker, Kris Kristofferson and the traditional gospel hymn "Precious Memories"), plus three collaborations with other writers (Tom Petty, Sam Shepard and Carole Bayer Sager), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since Freewheelin' (1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, 'Brownsville Girl', a work of genius.
In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured extensively with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with The Grateful Dead in 1987, resulting in a live album Dylan & The Dead. This album received some very negative reviews: Allmusic said, "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." After performing with these musical permutations, Dylan initiated what came to be called The Never Ending Tour on June 7, 1988, performing with a tight back-up band featuring guitarist G. E. Smith. Dylan continued to tour with this small but constantly evolving band for the next 20 years. Dylan also contributed two original songs to the soundtrack—"Night After Night", and "I Had a Dream About You, Baby", as well as a cover of John Hiatt's "The Usual". The film was a critical and commercial flop. Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen's introductory speech declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.
When Dylan released the album Down in the Groove in May 1988, it was even more unsuccessful in its sales than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the Traveling Wilburys. Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, and in the fall of 1988 their multi-platinum Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 reached number three on the US album chart, Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990, which they released with the unexpected title Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.
Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy produced by Daniel Lanois. Dylan critic Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." The track "Most of the Time", a lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film High Fidelity, while "What Was It You Wanted?" has been interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.
In 1991, Dylan was honored by the recording industry with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from American actor Jack Nicholson. The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, and Dylan performed his song "Masters of War".
The next few years saw Dylan returning to his roots with two albums covering old folk and blues numbers: Good as I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), featuring interpretations and acoustic guitar work. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", penned by a 19th century teacher and sung by Dylan with a haunting reverence. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged. He claimed his wish to perform a set of traditional songs for the show was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on a greatest hits package. The album produced from it, MTV Unplugged, included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and jingoism.
With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed-in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois at Miami's Criteria Studios in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis, brought on by histoplasmosis. His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before Pope John Paul II at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".
September saw the release of the new Lanois-produced album, Time Out of Mind. With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award.
In December 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor in the East Room of the White House, paying this tribute: "He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful."
Dylan commenced the new millennium by winning his first Oscar; his song "Things Have Changed", penned for the film Wonder Boys, won an Academy Award in March 2001. The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.
"Love and Theft" was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well-received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads.
In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his "born again" period and participated in the CD project . That year also saw the release of the film Masked & Anonymous, which Dylan co-wrote with director Larry Charles under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast which included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.
, November 2005]]In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, . The book confounded expectations. Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-'60s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums New Morning (1970) and Oh Mercy (1989). The book reached number two on The New York Times' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award.
Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film biography No Direction Home was broadcast in September 2005. It was shown on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two in the UK and PBS in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Dylan himself. The film received a Peabody Award in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.
Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by The Beatles, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone".
On August 29, 2006, Dylan released his Modern Times album. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for The Guardian characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft". Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's Desire.
Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and Bob Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for "Someday Baby". Modern Times was named Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by Uncut in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the iTunes Music Store released , a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.
In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan I'm Not There, written and directed by Todd Haynes, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie uses six distinct characters to represent different aspects of Dylan's life, played by Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Eddie Vedder, Mason Jennings, Stephen Malkmus, Jeff Tweedy, Karen O, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, Richie Havens, and Tom Verlaine.
On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records released the triple CD retrospective album Dylan, anthologising his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. As part of this campaign, Mark Ronson produced a re-mix of Dylan's 1966 tune "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," which was released as a maxi-single. This was the first time Dylan had sanctioned a re-mix of one of his classic recordings.
The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s. This first became evidenced in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV advertisement for Victoria's Secret lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper Will.i.am in a Pepsi ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII. The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by Will.i.am doing a hip hop version of the song's third and final verse.
In October 2008, Columbia released Volume 8 of Dylan's Bootleg Series, as both a two-CD set and a three-CD version with a 150-page hardcover book. The set contains live performances and outtakes from selected studio albums from Oh Mercy to Modern Times, as well as soundtrack contributions and collaborations with David Bromberg and Ralph Stanley. The pricing of the album—the two-CD set went on sale for $18.99 and the three-CD version for $129.99—led to complaints about "rip-off packaging" from some fans and commentators. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The plethora of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to Uncut's reviewer: "Tell Tale Signs is awash with evidence of (Dylan's) staggering mercuriality, his evident determination even in the studio to repeat himself as little as possible."
The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work. Andy Gill wrote in The Independent that the record "features Dylan in fairly relaxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab such grooves and sentiments as flit momentarily across his radar. So while it may not contain too many landmark tracks, it's one of the most naturally enjoyable albums you'll hear all year."
, April 28, 2006]]
In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart.
On October 13, 2009, Dylan released a Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart, comprising such Christmas standards as "Little Drummer Boy", "Winter Wonderland" and "Here Comes Santa Claus". Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album will benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis in the UK, and the World Food Programme.
The album received generally favorable reviews. The New Yorker commented that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that Dylan's intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In USA Today, Edna Gundersen pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé, and the Ray Conniff Singers." Gundersen concluded that Dylan "couldn't sound more sentimental or sincere".
In an interview published by Street News Service, journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too." The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim". In the same week, Sony Legacy released Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings, a box set which for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from Bob Dylan (1962) to John Wesley Harding (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format, accompanied by new liner notes by Dylan critic Greil Marcus.
In January 2011, Dylan's organization published details of performances scheduled to take place in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Australia in April 2011.
Dylan's performances in China in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set-list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set-list existed.
Dylan responded to these allegations of censorship by posting a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."
From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series.
In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of Howard Sounes' Dylan biography, Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan in 2001. Dylan now lives in Malibu, California, when not on the road.
For a period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bob Dylan publicly converted to Christianity. From January to April 1979, Dylan participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went over to Bob's house and ministered to him. He responded by saying, 'Yes he did in fact want Christ in his life.' And he prayed that day and received the Lord."
By 1984, Dylan was deliberately distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come." In response to Loder's asking whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind." In 1997 he told David Gates of Newsweek:
In an interview published in The New York Times on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon Pareles reported that "Dylan says he now subscribes to no organized religion."
Dylan has been described, in the last 20 years, as a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the bar mitzvahs of his sons and attending Hadar Hatorah, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva. In September 1989 and September 1991, Dylan appeared on the Chabad telethon. Jewish news services have reported that Dylan has visited Chabad synagogues; on September 22, 2007 (Yom Kippur), he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was called to the Torah for the sixth aliyah.
Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, when he told Ed Bradley that "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God." He also explained his constant touring schedule as part of a bargain he made a long time ago with the "chief commander—in this earth and in the world we can't see."
In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, Christmas in the Heart, Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."
Initially modeling his style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, and lessons learned from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."
When Dylan made his move from acoustic music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex. For many critics, Dylan's greatest achievement was the cultural synthesis exemplified by his mid-'60s trilogy of albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In Mike Marqusee's words: "Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B;, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console."
One legacy of Dylan's verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks published a 500 page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Dylan's voice was, in some ways, as startling as his lyrics. New York Times critic Robert Shelton described Dylan's early vocal style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie's old performances, etched in gravel like Dave Van Ronk's." David Bowie, in his tribute, "Song for Bob Dylan", described Dylan's singing as "a voice of sand and glue". Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal on his hit single, "Like a Rolling Stone", as "at once young and jeeringly cynical". As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal Oral Tradition, "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album Oh Mercy) is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."
Dylan's influence has been felt in several musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in USA Today: "Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Syd Barrett, Cat Stevens, and Tom Waits. More directly, both The Byrds and The Band, two 1960s contemporary groups with some measure of influence on popular music themselves, largely owed their initial success to Dylan: the Byrds with their hit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and subsequent album; and the Band for their association with him on tour in 1966, on retreat in Woodstock, and on their debut album featuring three previously unreleased Dylan songs.
There have been dissenters. Because Dylan was widely credited with imbuing pop culture with a new seriousness, the critic Nik Cohn objected: "I can't take the vision of Dylan as seer, as teenage messiah, as everything else he's been worshipped as. The way I see him, he's a minor talent with a major gift for self-hype." Similarly, Australian critic Jack Marx credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot be disputed is that Dylan invented the arrogant, faux-cerebral posturing that has been the dominant style in rock since, with everyone from Mick Jagger to Eminem educating themselves from the Dylan handbook." In an offhand remark, Joni Mitchell described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and a "fake" in a 2010 interview in the Los Angeles Times; she was responding to a suggestion that the two were similar in that they changed their birthnames. Mitchell's comments led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticising Dylan.
If Dylan's legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, as Dylan approaches the age of 70, he is today described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. As J. Hoberman wrote in The Village Voice, "Elvis might never have been born, but someone else would surely have brought the world rock 'n' roll. No such logic accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of history demanded that a would-be Elvis from Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through the Greenwich Village folk revival to become the world's first and greatest rock 'n' roll beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into a folk tradition of his own making."
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| Name | Aretha Franklin |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Aretha Louise Franklin |
| Born | March 25, 1942Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Origin | Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupation | Singer, songwriter, pianist |
| Years active | 1956–present |
| Genre | Soul, jazz, blues, R&B;, gospel, rock |
| Instrument | Vocals, piano |
| Label | ColumbiaAtlanticArista |
| Associated acts | Sweet Inspirations, Carolyn Franklin, Erma Franklin, Cissy Houston, George Benson, George Michael, Michael McDonald, Mahalia Jackson, Albertina Walker, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye, Natalie Cole |
Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B;, and gospel music. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time and the ninth greatest artist of all time.
Franklin is one of the most honored artists by the Grammy Awards, with 18 competitive Grammys and two honorary Grammys. She has 20 #1 singles on the Billboard R&B; Singles Chart and two #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Respect" (1967) and "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" (1987), a duet with George Michael. Since 1961, she has scored a total of 45 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. She also has the most million-selling singles of any female artist (14). Between 1967 and 1982 she had 10 #1 R&B; albums---more than any other female artist.
In 1987, Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was the only featured singer at the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
After the release of a tribute album to Dinah Washington, Columbia drifted away from their early jazz dreams for Franklin and had the singer record renditions of girl group-oriented hits including "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)", "Every Little Bit Hurts" and "Mockingbird" but every attempt to bring her success with the material failed. Still, Franklin had already gained a reputation for being a multi-talented vocalist and musician. During a show in 1965, the master of ceremonies gave Franklin a tiara crown declaring her "the queen of soul". The title would prove to be prophetic. By 1966, struggling with recording for Columbia, Franklin decided not to sign a new contract with the label and settled with a deal with Atlantic. After she gained success in Atlantic, Columbia would release material from Franklin's prior recordings with the label which continued until 1969.
By the end of the year, Franklin not only became a superstar but she stood as one of the symbols of the civil rights movement partially due to her rendition of "Respect", which had a feminist-powered theme after Franklin recorded it. Franklin's other hits during the late sixties included "Think", her rendition of Dionne Warwick's "I Say a Little Prayer", "Ain't No Way" and "The House That Jack Built" among others. By the end of the sixties, Franklin's title as "the queen of soul" became permanent in the eyes of the media. After a few struggles in 1969, she returned with the ballad, "Call Me" in January 1970. That same year she had another hit with her gospel version of Ben E. King's "Don't Play That Song", while in 1971, Franklin was one of the first black performers to headline Fillmore West where she later released a live album. That same year she released the acclaimed Young, Gifted & Black album, which featured two top ten hits, the ballad "Daydreamin'" and the funk-oriented "Rocksteady". In 1972, she released her first gospel album in nearly two decades with Amazing Grace. The album eventually became her biggest-selling release ever, selling over two million copies and becoming the best-selling gospel album of all time.
Franklin briefly returned to the top 40 in 1976 with the Curtis Mayfield production, Sparkle, which spawned the number-one R&B; hit, "Giving Him Something He Can Feel". Despite this, Franklin struggled to find success with subsequent releases. After the release of 1979's La Diva, an attempt for Franklin to find a disco audience that flopped, selling less than 50,000 copies, Franklin's contract with Atlantic expired. Neither Atlantic nor Aretha had any interest in renewing it. While performing in Las Vegas on June 10, 1979, Franklin's father, C.L., was shot during an attempted robbery at his LaSalle Street home in Detroit. The incident left C.L. in a coma for the next five years. Franklin would move back to the Detroit area in late 1982 from Los Angeles (where she had moved to in 1976) to assist with care of her father in Detroit.
The album released in July 1985, Who's Zoomin' Who?, featured R&B;, pop, dance, synthpop and rock elements and became Franklin's first platinum-certified success. The album launched several major hits including the title track and the Motown-inspired "Freeway of Love". The rock-influenced Annie Lennox duet, "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves" also became a hit for Franklin on the pop charts though it failed to climb higher than #66 on the R&B; chart due to its more pop rock-leaning sound. Music Videos for each of the singles became prominent fixtures on MTV, BET and VH-1 among other video channels. In 1986, Franklin released her self-titled follow-up to Who's Zoomin' Who. The album sold close to a million copies and featured the number-one hit, "I Knew You Were Waiting for Me", a duet with George Michael. The song became Franklin's first single since "Respect" nearly 20 years back to hit number-one on the Hot 100. Other hits from the album included a cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and another Motown-inspired hit, "Jimmy Lee". A year later, Franklin returned to her gospel roots with the album, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, which failed to repeat the success of Amazing Grace despite a powerful rendition of "Oh Happy Day", featuring Mavis Staples, but did reach the Top 10 of Billboard's gospel albums chart.
Also in 1986, she sang the theme song ("Together") for the ABC television network.
In 2008, Franklin was honored as MusiCares "Person of the Year," two days prior to the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, where she was awarded her 18th career Grammy. Franklin was personally asked by then newly-elected President Barack Obama to perform at his inauguration singing "My Country 'tis of Thee". The memorable hat she wore at the ceremony was donated to the Smithsonian Institution. In 2010, Franklin received an honorary music degree from Yale University.
In 2010 and through early 2011, Franklin had told the media she picked actress Halle Berry to play her in the featured role of the legendary singer in a biopic loosely based on Franklin's memoirs, Aretha: From These Roots. In January 2011, Berry turned down the role saying she felt she had to sing like Aretha to play her. Franklin said she's now setting her sights on singers Fantasia and Jennifer Hudson on getting the lucrative role.
Marking her 50th anniversary in show business, Franklin released her thirty-eighth studio album, A Woman Falling Out Of Love, on May 3, 2011, through WalMart. It is the first release off Franklin's own record label, Aretha's Records, a label she formed back in the 1990s. However, it peaked at a dissapointing #54 on Billboard's main album chart.
Franklin co-produced some of the new tracks. The first single from the album is the ballad, "How Long I've Been Waiting". Ronald Isley will be featured in the album doing the Barbra Streisand standard, "The Way We Were", as he and Franklin covered the Carole King classic, "You've Got a Friend", first issued on Isley's Mr. I album.
Following her exit from the stage in November and her surgery in December, Franklin has returned to the stage, rescheduling dates she was forced to cancel due to recent health problems.
Against her father's wishes Aretha began dating a family acquaintance named Ted White. In 1961 they were quickly married in Ohio by a judge. White became her personal manager as well as co-writer. Shortly afterward, Aretha purchased a house on Sorrento Avenue in northwest Detroit, where she resided for the next decade. Their son, Ted White Jr., was born in 1964. Aretha and Ted divorced in 1969. Teddy is her musical director and guitarist of her touring band. From 1969 until 1976, Franklin had a seven-year relationship with her road manager Ken Cunningham. In the early 1970s the couple moved from Detroit to New York City, at which time Aretha's grandmother moved into her Sorrento Avenue home. Their son Kecalf (from the initials of his parents' names: Kenneth E Cunningham Aretha Louise Franklin and pronounced "kelf") was born on March 28, 1970 at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital.
On April 11, 1978 Aretha married actor Glynn Turman at her father's New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit. C. L. Franklin performed the marriage ceremony. The couple returned to their home in Encino, California. In late 1982 Franklin moved back to Detroit and in 1985 she purchased a home in West Bloomfield - where she still resides. Turman and Franklin divorced in early 1984. The couple didn't have children during their short-term marriage. They remained friends and she sang the theme song for his show A Different World in the late 1980s. While White is 11 years older than Franklin, Cunningham and Turman are both several years her junior.
Franklin's sons, Ted White Jr. and Kecalf Cunningham, are active in the music business. Teddy has been a guitarist in Aretha's back up band since the late 1980s while Kecalf has been working in the industry as a Christian hip-hop rapper and producer.
Aretha's parents are both deceased, as are her sisters Erma and Carolyn and brothers Cecil and Vaughn (citation needed). Her only surviving sibling is half-sister Carl Ellan Kelley (née Jennings; born in 1940), C.L. Franklin's daughter by Mildred Jennings, a then 13 year old congregant of New Salem Baptist Church of Memphis, Tennessee, where C.L. was pastor in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Brother Vaughn (Barbara Franklin's son from a relationship before her marriage to C. L.) died of lung cancer at the age of 75 (citation needed).
Aretha is a Democrat.
In September 2010, Franklin's second eldest son, Edward, was attacked and severely beaten by three people while at a gas station on Joy Road in northwest Detroit.
Due to her long-term friendship with Cissy Houston during Houston's time with The Sweet Inspirations who sang background on several of Franklin's songs, Aretha became a godmother to Whitney Houston in the late 1960s. Houston sang the operatic soprano whoop in the background of Franklin's "Ain't No Way".
Franklin was named after her aunts Aretha and Louise.
{|class="wikitable"
!colspan="5"|Aretha Franklin's 18 Grammy Award Wins
|-
!#
!Year
!Category
!Genre
!Title
|-
| 1 || align="center"| 1968 || Best Rhythm & Blues Recording || R&B; ||Respect
|-
| 2 || align="center"| 1968 || |Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Respect
|-
| 3 || align="center"| 1969 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Chain Of Fools
|-
| 4 || align="center"| 1970 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Share Your Love With Me
|-
| 5 || align="center"| 1971 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Don't Play That Song For Me
|-
| 6 || align="center"| 1972 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Bridge Over Troubled Water
|-
| 7 || align="center"| 1973 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Young, Gifted and Black (album)
|-
| 8 || align="center"| 1973 || Best Soul Gospel Performance || Gospel || Amazing Grace (album)
|-
| 9 || align="center"| 1974 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Master Of Eyes
|-
|10 || align="center"| 1975 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing
|-
|11 || align="center"| 1982 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Hold On...I'm Comin' (album track)
|-
|12 || align="center"| 1986 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Freeway Of Love
|-
|13 || align="center"| 1988 || Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Aretha (album)
|-
|14 || align="center"| 1988 || Best R&B; Performance - Duo Or Group with Vocals || R&B; || I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) (with George Michael)
|-
|15 || align="center"| 1989 || Best Soul Gospel Performance - Female || Gospel || One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism (album)
|-
|*|| align="center"| 1991 || Living Legend Award || Special
|
|-
|*|| align="center"| 1994 || Lifetime Achievement Award || Special
|
|-
|16 || align="center"| 2004 || Best Traditional R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || Wonderful
|-
|17|| align="center"| 2006 || Best Traditional R&B; Vocal Performance || R&B; || A House Is Not A Home
|-
|18|| align="center"| 2008 || Best Gospel-Soul Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group || Gospel
|Never Gonna Break My Faith (with Mary J. Blige)
|}
Category:1942 births Category:1950s singers Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:African American female singers Category:African American pianists Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:American child singers Category:American gospel singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American soul singers Category:Arista Records artists Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Feminist musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Tennessee Category:Musicians from Detroit, Michigan Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:People from Memphis, Tennessee Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Rhythm and blues pianists Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters from Michigan Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients
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