Name	Elektra Records
Image name	Elektralogo.png
Parent	Warner Music Group
Founded	1950
Founder	Jac HolzmanPaul Rickolt
Status
Distributor	Atlantic Records Group(In the US)WEA International Inc.(Outside the US)Rhino Records (re-issues)
Genre	Various
Country	United States
Url

Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009. Elektra is currently celebrating its 60th anniversary.

History

Beginnings

Elektra was formed in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt, who each invested $300. The usual spelling of the Greek mythological Pleiad Electra was changed. Holzman famously explained, “I gave her the ‘K’ that I lacked”. He found the 'C' in the original name "too soft" but liked the "solid bite" of the letter 'K', citing its use in the Kodak name.

The first Elektra LP, New Songs (EKLP 1 released March 1951), was a collection of Lieder and similar 'art' songs which sold few copies. During the Fifties and early Sixties the label concentrated on folk music recordings, releasing a number of best-selling albums by Theodore Bikel, Ed McCurdy, Oscar Brand, Judy Collins and protest singers such as Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton. Holzman also recorded Josh White, who was without a record deal as a result of McCarthyite blacklisting.

In 1964, Elektra launched Nonesuch Records. This classical budget label was the best-selling budget classical label of the era. Other labels followed suit by starting their own budget series, but Nonesuch remained the most popular and Jac Holzman states in his book that profits from the budget classical label made it possible for Elektra to experiment with their pop releases by the mid-Sixties.

Elektra's entrance into pop gained the label considerable prestige on the music scene by being one of the first labels to sign up leading acts from the new wave of American psychedelic rock of 1966–67. The label’s most important signings were the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band (with Mike Bloomfield), the Los Angeles bands Love and The Doors, and the Detroit bands The Stooges and MC5. Another of Elektra's LA signings was Tim Buckley, father-to-be of Jeff Buckley.

Also in 1967, Elektra launched its influential Nonesuch Explorer Series, one of the first collections of what is now referred to as world music. Excerpts from several Nonesuch Explorer recordings were later included on the two Voyager Golden Discs which were sent into deep space in 1977 aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes.

The Asylum Records merger

Elektra, along with its Nonesuch Records subsidiary, was acquired by Kinney National Company in 1970. Soon afterwards Kinney consolidated their label holdings under the Warner Communications umbrella. Holzman remained in charge of Elektra until 1972, when it merged with Asylum Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records; Asylum's founder, David Geffen, would head the newly combined label. Holzman, in the meantime, was appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for Warner — ushering the company into home video and the first interactive cable system. Holzman also went on to start Discovery Records. In 1975, Geffen stepped down due to health problems. He would be replaced by Joe Smith, who later went on to become CEO of Capitol Records.

Although the company was technically listed as “Elektra/Asylum Records” on the label credits, as the years went on the company began to unofficially call itself Elektra Records again (with Asylum operating as a subsidiary label.) In 1982, Elektra launched a jazz subsidiary called Elektra/Musician. The following year, Bob Krasnow became president and CEO of Elektra; under his leadership, the label would reach its commercial peak throughout the rest of the 1980s and early to mid 1990s.

Elektra Entertainment Group

In 1989, the company officially changed its name to Elektra Entertainment. During this time, Elektra developed a relationship with the UK-based label 4AD, becoming the North American distributor for 4AD acts such as the Pixies, The Breeders, Frank Black and The Amps. This eventually led to Elektra's sister label Warner Bros. Records to sign an exclusive American distribution deal for nearly all 4AD releases from 1992 to 1998.

Like its sister labels, Elektra's fortunes began to wane in the mid-1990s, in part because of a series of bitter corporate battles between senior Warner label executives which seriously damaged the collective reputation of the group. Unhappy with major structural changes enacted by then Warner Music Group chairman Robert Morgado, Bob Krasnow abruptly resigned in July 1994, and others soon followed -- the highly respected Warner Bros CEO Mo Ostin decided not to renew his contract and left in December 1994, and Ostin's friend and protege Lenny Waronker left early the next year. Krasnow was replaced by Sylvia Rhone and during the year the label was renamed Elektra Entertainment Group.

In September 1994 another damaging controversy erupted when top heavy metal band Metallica filed suit against Elektra to terminate their contract and gain ownership of their master recordings. The group based its claim on a section of the California Labor Code that allows employees to be released from a personal services contract after seven years. By this time Metallica had been with the label for more than a decade and had racked up sales of over 40 million records, but they were still operating under the terms of their original 1984 contract, which provided a relatively low 14% royalty rate. The group also claimed that they were taking the action because Robert Morgado had refused to honor a new deal they had worked out with Bob Krasnow shortly before he quit the label. Elektra responded by counter-suing the group, but in December New York magazine reported rumours that then Warner Music US chairman Doug Morris had offered the group a lucrative new deal in exchange for dropping the suit which was reported to be even more generous than the earlier Krasnow deal. In January the group and Elektra jointly announced that they had settled the suit, and although a non-disclosure agreement kept the terms secret, media sources claimed that "a significant increase in royalty payments to the band as well as a renegotiation of the group's recording contract were key factors in Metallica and Elektra coming to terms."

Despite having a large stable of noted acts, as the 1990s drew to a close, Elektra began to see a slump in revenue, while noticeably underperforming on the charts. It also developed a bit of a sullen reputation in the industry for not properly promoting many of its releases, thus earning the nickname "Neglektra" by many of its acts and was easily lagging behind its sister labels Warner Bros. Records and Atlantic Records.

Atlantic absorption

In February 2004, Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to a group of private investors made up of Thomas Lee Partners, Bain & Company, and Edgar Bronfman Jr. (who assumed CEO duties).

Looking for ways to save money, the new owners of WMG decided to merge Elektra and Atlantic Records. Because it was the lesser performing label of the two, 40% of Elektra's operations were put into the new venture, while a commanding 60% of Atlantic's went in. Subsequently, the new company was called "Atlantic Records Group" with Elektra breaking off into a subsidiary which became dormant until the label was revived in 2009 (though longtime time Elektra artists such as Tracy Chapman, Björk, and Yolanda Adams continued to have releases on the label while newer signees such as Jason Mraz and Jet were transferred to Atlantic).

Elektra's catalog continues to be released/reissued by Rhino Records, which released a 5-CD box set various-artists compilation titled Forever Changing: the Golden Age of Elektra Records 1963-1973 in November, 2006.

Revival

Atlantic Records Group announced the revival of Elektra Records as an independent entity within Warner Music on June 1, 2009. The revived label is headed up by two new co-Presidents: Mike Caren, Exec. VP of A&R; for Atlantic Records, and John Janick, founder and President of prominent indie label Fueled by Ramen. The revived label uses a modified version of the circa-1970s Elektra logo.

The first release of the new label was the original soundtrack of the HBO show True Blood, and the first album released was Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM. The label is now home to artists such as Uffie, Little Boots and Justice.

Elektra Records artists

Notes

References

Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws. Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop Culture. First Media Books (1998). ISBN 0966122119.

Mick Houghton. Becoming Elektra. Jawbone Press (2010). ISBN 978-1-906002-29-9.

External links

Official website

The Elektra Story from BSN Pubs

Elektra discography to 1973

60th Anniversary Web page

Category:American record labels Category:Record labels established in 1950 Category:Warner Music labels Category:Atlantic Records Category:IFPI members

Name	Bruno Mars
Born	October 08, 1985 Honolulu, Hawaii
Origin	Los Angeles, California,
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Peter Gene Hernandez
Instrument	Vocals, drums, guitar, keyboard, bass
Voice type	Falsetto
Genre	Pop, alternative hip hop, soul, rock, R&B;
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, record producer
Years active	2007–present
Label	Atlantic, Elektra
Associated acts	The Smeezingtons, B.o.B, Cee Lo Green, Travie McCoy
Url

Peter Gene Hernandez (born October 8, 1985), better known by his stage name Bruno Mars, is an American singer-songwriter and music producer. Raised in Honolulu, Hawaii by a family of musicians, Mars began making music at a young age. After performing in various musical venues in his hometown throughout his childhood, he decided to pursue a musical career. Mars began producing songs for other artists, joining production team The Smeezingtons.

He became recognized as a solo artist after lending his vocals and co-writing the hooks for the songs "Nothin' on You" by B.o.B, and "Billionaire" by Travie McCoy. He also co-wrote the hits "Right Round" by Flo Rida featuring Kesha, "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan, and "Fuck You!" by Cee Lo Green. In October 2010, he released his debut album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. Anchored by the singles "Just the Way You Are" and "Grenade", the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200. He has been nominated for seven Grammys at the 53rd Grammy Awards, which will be held on February 13, 2011.

Life and career

1985–2008: Early life and beginnings

Mars was born Peter Gene Hernandez and raised in the Waikiki neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii by parents Pete and Bernadette "Bernie" Hernandez, of Puerto Rican and Filipino descent. His mother emigrated to Hawaii from the Philippines as a child and his father moved to the island from Brooklyn, New York. The two met when performing in a show where his mother was a hula dancer and his father played percussion. Mars was one of six children and came from a musical family who exposed him to a diverse mix of reggae, rock, hip hop, and R&B.; From a young age, he was impersonating and performing songs by artists such as Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, The Isley Brothers, and The Temptations. He later reflected on the influence Elvis had on his music, saying "I watch the best. I'm a big fan of Elvis. I'm a big fan of 1950s Elvis when he would go on stage and scare people because he was a force and girls would go nuts! You can say the same thing for Prince or The Police. It's just guys who know that people are here to see a show, so I watch those guys and I love studying them because I'm a fan." In 2010 he also acknowledged his Hawaiian roots and musical family as an influence, saying "Growing up in Hawaii made me the man I am. I used to do a lot of shows in Hawaii with my father's band. Everybody in my family sings, everyone plays instruments. My uncle's an incredible guitar player, my dad's an incredible percussionist, my brother's a great drummer, he actually plays in our band. I've just been surrounded by it." In 2003, shortly after graduating from President Theodore Roosevelt High School at the age of seventeen, Mars moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue a musical career.

In 2006, Mars was introduced to his future manager at Atlantic Records, Aaron Bay-Schuck, by his new songwriting partner Philip Lawrence. After hearing him play a couple of songs on the guitar, Bay-Schuck wanted to sign him immediately, but it took about three years for Atlantic records to finally sign Mars to the label. He also co-wrote the Sugababes' hit song "Get Sexy" and provided backing vocals on their album Sweet 7. His first musical appearance as a singer was in Far East Movement's second studio album Animal, featured on the track "3D". He was also featured on pastor and hip hop artist Jaeson Ma's debut single "Love" in August 2009. He reached prominence as a solo artist after being featured on and co-writing B.o.B's "Nothin' on You" and Travie McCoy's "Billionaire"; both songs peaked within the top ten of many charts worldwide. He said of them, "I think those songs weren't meant to be full-sung songs. If I'd sung all of "Nothin' on You", it might've sounded like some '90s R&B;." Following this success, Mars released his debut extended play (EP), titled It's Better If You Don't Understand, on May 11, 2010. The EP peaked at the ninety-ninth position on the Billboard 200 and produced one single: "The Other Side", featuring rappers Cee Lo Green and B.o.B. Mars collaborated with Cee Lo Green once more in August 2010 by co-writing his single "Fuck You!". He performed a medley of "Nothin' on You" and "Airplanes" with B.o.B and Hayley Williams at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010.

Mars' debut album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, was released digitally on October 4, and saw its physical release on October 5, 2010. The lead single, "Just the Way You Are", was released on July 19, 2010, and has reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The music video was released on September 8, 2010. Two songs from the album, "Liquor Store Blues" featuring Damian Marley and "Grenade" were released to the iTunes Store as promotional singles. He opened for Maroon 5 on the fall leg of the Hands All Over Tour starting October 6, 2010. Mars will co-headline with Travie McCoy on a European tour starting October 18, 2010. The album also received generally positive reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly Leah Greenblatt praised Mars for his "instant-access melodies" and "sly snatches of dance-floor swagger", but noted weaknesses in songs deviant from his conventional pop and soul genres.

On September 19, 2010, Mars was arrested in Las Vegas for possession of cocaine. When talking to a police officer, Mars reportedly stated that what he did was "foolish" and that "he has never used drugs before". The court date, postponed for the second time until February 4, 2011, could see Mars face up to four years in prison and a $50,000 fine for possession of an alleged 2.6g of the drug.

Musical style

Although Mars has been referenced as "soft" because of his light falsetto voice, his co-producer says, "What people don't know is there's a darker underbelly to Bruno Mars." Mars himself says, "I blame that on me singing to girls back in high school." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times called him "one of the most versatile and accessible singers in pop, with a light, soul-influenced voice that’s an easy fit in a range of styles, a universal donor."

Mars also claims that his work with other artists influenced his musical style, saying that "'Nothing on You' had a Motown vibe, 'Billionaire' was a reggae acoustic guitar-driven song, though one of my favorites is the Cee-Lo song [Fuck You!]. I don't think anyone else could've sung that song. And there's 'Just the Way You Are.' If you know my story, you know I love all different genres of music." He cites doo-wop as a major influence on his music, referring to the genre as "just straightforward love songs — so charming and simple and romantic." |Best Collaboration | |- |Video of the Year | |- |rowspan="3"|BET Hip Hop Awards |Best Hip Hop Video | |- |Reese's Perfect Combo Award | |- |Verizon People's Champ Award | |- |MTV Video Music Awards |Best Pop Video | |- |MTV2 Sucker Free Summit Awards |Instant Classic | |- |Soul Train Music Awards |Song of the Year | |- |Teen Choice Awards''' |Best Single | |- |rowspan="8" align="center"|2011 |rowspan="7"|Grammy Awards |Best Rap Song | |- |Best Rap/Sung Collaboration | |- |rowspan="2"|Record of the Year | |- |rowspan="2"|"Fuck You!" | |- |Song of the Year | |- |"Just the Way You Are" |Best Male Pop Vocal Performance | |- |The Smeezingtons |Producer of the Year, Non-Classical | |- |Himself |NAACP Image Awards |Outstanding New Artist | |}

References

External links

Official website

Category:1985 births Category:Living people Category:American male singers Category:American musicians of Filipino descent Category:American singers of Puerto Rican descent Category:Elektra Records artists Category:Musicians from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Honolulu, Hawaii

Name	Keith Sweat
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Keith Sweat
Born	July 22, 1961
Origin	Harlem, New York City, U.S.
Genre	Urban R&B; New Jack Swing
Occupation	Singer-songwriter Record producer
Years active	1975–1984 (Group)1984–present (Solo)
Label	KEIA (1992–present)Stadium (1984-1985)Vintertainment/Elektra (1987-1990)Elektra (1990–2004)Atco / Rhino (2007–2009)Kedar (2010-Present)
Associated acts	LSG, Kut Klose, Silk, Medina Lewis, Dru Hill
Url	http://thesweathotel.com

Keith Sweat, (born July 22, 1961) is an American R&B;/soul, singer-songwriter, record producer, radio personality and a major contributor to the New jack swing era.

Biography

Before becoming a recording artist, Sweat worked for the commodities market in the New York Mercantile Exchange.

He has two daughters Keyshia (b. 1990) and Keia (b. 1992) and with former wife, Lisa Wu-Hartwell, two sons: Jordan (b. 1995) and Justin (b. 1998). He named his record label, Keia Entertainment, after his daughter Keia. He has full custody of all four of his children.

Music career

Sweat started his musical career as a member of a Harlem band called "Jamilah" in 1975. With the help of Jamilah, Sweat was able to hone his craft as a lead singer by performing regionally throughout the tri-State area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The group was started by bassist Larry Peoples, guitarist Michael Samuels, and drummer Walter Bradley. Additional members of the group included Peter DaCosta (vocals), Joseph McGeachy (sax), Dwight Banks (trumpet), and Kenneth Varner (keyboards).

After leaving the group in 1984 to aspire for a solo career, he sang at nightclubs throughout New York City and landed a chance to record for the independent label, Stadium Records. Sweat recorded only one tune for Stadium called "My Mind Is Made Up", which was their third ever release, but on Stadium's first release, he is credited as co-writer and co-producer of "You Are The One For Me", the last recording ever made by the group GQ. Considering that Keith Sweat's birth name is Keith Crier, and one of GQ's original members is also named Keith "Sabu" Crier, it can be disputed as to whether Sweat had any involvement in that song or if it was a mistake on the label's part having two "Keith Criers" in their company.

Later on in 1987, Keith Sweat was discovered by Vincent Davis and offered a recording contract with his label, Vintertainment Records, which was founded in 1983 on the foundations of early Hip-Hop and otherwise best known for releasing Joeski Love's "Pee Wee Dance" in 1985. Vintertainment was distributed by Elektra Records from 1985 until it ceased operations in 1990, in which case Elektra opted to buy Keith's contract outright and have him record directly for the label. . On November 25, 1987, Sweat released his debut solo album Make It Last Forever, which sold three million copies. The biggest hit from this album was "I Want Her" (#1 R&B;/#5 Pop), which was nominated for the 1989 Soul Train Best R&B;/Urban Contemporary Song of the Year award, while the title track from the album hit #2 on the R&B; charts.

Sweat reached the charts again with his second album I'll Give All My Love to You (1990) which hit #6 on the Billboard 200 chart, and Keep It Comin'(1991) which debuted in the top 20 of the album chart. The latter album did not sell as well because Keith did not promote it. The singles released during this period included "(There You Go) Tellin' Me No Again" (from the film New Jack City), "Why Me Baby" (featuring LL Cool J) and "Keep It Comin'". Sweat then moved from New York to Atlanta, where he founded the Keia Records label that would feature Silk & Kut Klose.

Sweat released his fourth album Get Up on It in the summer of 1994, and his self-titled fifth album in 1996. Both albums reached the top ten on the Billboard 200. The single "Twisted" hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and "Nobody" hit #3, which made them Sweat's biggest hits to date. The song "Just A Touch", with Kut Klose providing background vocals, has earned a regular spot on radio playlists. "Just A Touch" was a cover of the 1979 song "Just a Touch of Love" by Slave. Sweat's sixth album, Still in the Game was released in 1998, hitting #6 on the Billboard 200, and #2 on the R&B;/Hip Hop albums chart. It featured the singles "Come and Get With Me" (which featured Snoop Dogg) (#12 Hot 100) and "I'm Not Ready" (#16 Hot 100).

Sweat's success on the charts started to diminish in 2000, when he released the album Didn't See Me Coming. None of the singles from the album reached the top forty. They were moderate hits on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. On August 13, 2002, Keith Sweat released his ninth album, Rebirth. The single "One on One" reached #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #44 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. His 2008 album Just Me fared better with its first single, "Love U Better (featuring Keyshia Cole)" being played on Urban radio stations for about a year before the albums' release.

2010

Sweat is currently signed to Kedar Records and released his 10th Studio album entitled Ridin' Solo on June 22, 2010. The lead single taken from the album is 'Test Drive' and features label-mate Joe.

Since 2007, Sweat has been the host of a nationally syndicated radio program based upon the Quiet storm format. The Keith Sweat Hotel (known as The Quiet Storm with Keith Sweat on WBLS in New York City) is syndicated through Premiere Radio Networks.

Protegés

In 1992, Sweat discovered the group Silk, and helped craft their debut album, Lose Control, which hit #7 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The album's single "Freak Me" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 1, 1993. In 1993, Sweat discovered the Atlanta based female R&B; group Kut Klose. Sweat also produced the group's debut album Surrender, which produced the their biggest hit single "I Like", peaking to #8 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. In the fall of 1997, Sweat discovered the group Ol' Skool and helped with their self-titled debut. He was on their biggest single, "Am I Dreaming," which featured R&B; group Xscape.

Sweat also formed the R&B; supergroup LSG with Gerald Levert and Johnny Gill, and released their self-titled debut Levert.Sweat.Gill in 1997. That album featured "My Body", which became a hit single. The album was certified double platinum and reached #4 on the U.S. Billboard 200.

Discography

Make It Last Forever (1987)

I'll Give All My Love to You (1990)

Keep It Comin' (1991)

Get Up on It (1994)

Keith Sweat (1996)

Still in the Game (1998)

Didn't See Me Coming (2000)

Rebirth (2002)

Just Me (2008)

Ridin' Solo (2010)

Awards and nominations

American Music Awards

*1998, Favorite Male R&B;/Soul Artist [Nominated]

*1997, Favorite Male R&B;/Soul Artist (Winner)

*1997, Favorite R&B;/Soul Album: Keith Sweat (Nominated)

*1991, Favorite R&B;/Soul Male Artist (Nominated)

References

External links

Keith Sweat homepage at Atlantic Records

Biography & booking information

Keith Sweat artist page at VH1.com

[ Keith Sweat] artist page at Allmusic

Keith Sweat at Wenig- LaMonica Associates

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/photo.php?fbid=163573550327088&set;=a.150519154965861.26969.100000233325768

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/pages/Sweat-Keith/22795026798

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/pages/Keith-Sweat/107561169273228

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/profile.php?id=100000569760822

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keith-Sweat/105431629490126?ref=search#!/profile.php?id=100000364791163

Sweathotel

Keith Sweat Scores Billboard Top Ten Debut, #1 R&B;/Hip Hop Album in The Country Singersroom

Keith Sweat's SoulRnB.com group (videos, photos, discussions, etc.)

Category:1961 births Category:African American musicians Category:American male singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American record producers Category:Songwriters from New York Category:American soul musicians Category:Living people Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:People from Manhattan

Name	Selena Gomez
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Selena Marie Gomez
Born	July 22, 1992Grand Prairie, Texas,United States
Genre	Dance-pop, pop rock
Occupation	Actress, singer, songwriter, fashion designer
Instrument	Vocals
Years active	2002–present
Label	Hollywood
Associated acts	Selena Gomez & the Scene
Url

Selena Marie Gomez (born July 22, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador who is best known for her contributions in the role of Alex Russo to the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place. She subsequently ventured into feature films and has starred in the television movies Another Cinderella Story, , and Princess Protection Program and made her theatrical film debut in Ramona and Beezus.

Enhancing her repertoire into the music industry, Gomez is the lead singer for the pop band Selena Gomez & the Scene who, together, have released two studio albums Kiss & Tell and A Year Without Rain. She has also contributed to the soundtracks of Tinker Bell, Another Cinderella Story and Wizards of Waverly Place after signing a record deal with Hollywood Records.

Early life

Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas Her father is Mexican American and her mother is of half Italian descent. Her birth parents divorced when she was five years old, and she was raised as an only child by her working mother. In 2006, Mandy remarried Brian Teefey. She is named after Tejano singer Selena. In a 2009 interview with People, Gomez mentioned that she developed an early interest in acting from watching her mother prepare for and act in theater productions.

Acting career

Gomez began her acting career at age seven, playing Gianna on Barney & Friends. She said that she learned "everything" about how to act while on the show. Season 7 of Barney & Friends, when Selena Gomez was on the show, was held up for some time. Because of this, the episodes featuring Gomez did not air until she was in 5th grade. This resulted in some mild controversy/confusion as to whether she was on Barney in the 5th grade or the 1st grade. She later had minor roles in and the TV film Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial By Fire. In 2004, Gomez was discovered by the Disney Channel in a nation wide scouting. Gomez appeared as a guest star on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and had a guest appearance – that later turned into a recurring role – on Hannah Montana from season's two to three. In early 2007 Gomez was cast in the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place as one of the three main characters, Alex Russo.

In 2008, Gomez appeared in Another Cinderella Story, the direct-to-DVD sequel to the 2004 Hilary Duff film, opposite Drew Seeley. She also had a minor voiceover role as one the Mayor's ninety-six daughters in Horton Hears a Who! which released in March of that year. In April, Lacey Rose, of Forbes ranked Gomez as being fifth on their "Eight Hot Kid Stars To Watch" list; and Rose described Gomez as having been "a multitalented teen". In June, 2009, Gomez appeared in the made-for-television Disney Channel movie, Princess Protection Program with her then best friend Demi Lovato. On August 28, one month after appearing in Princess Protection Program, Gomez appeared in , a made-for-television film based on the show.

In 2009, Gomez did a guest appearance as herself in one episode, of Lovato's Disney Channel television show Sonny With a Chance, entitled "Battle of The Network Stars". Gomez, along with two cast members of Wizards of Waverly Place appeared in a television three-way cross-over episode with Hannah Montana and The Suite Life on Deck, entitled Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana. In February 2009, Gomez signed on to star as one of the two female leads in Ramona and Beezus, a film adaption of the children's novel series by Beverly Cleary. In March, 2010, Variety reported that Gomez was set to star as one of the three lead roles in Monte Carlo.

Music career

Solo career

In 2008, Gomez recorded a cover of "Cruella de Vil" -which included a music video for – for the compilation album DisneyMania 6. Gomez recorded three songs for the Another Cinderella Story soundtrack, which Gomez appears in. Gomez also recorded "Fly to Your Heart" for the 2008 animated film Tinker Bell. In July 2008 – before Gomez' sixteenth birthday, she signed a recording deal with Hollywood Records, a music label owned by Disney. In 2009, Gomez recorded "One and the Same" for Princess Protection Program as a duet with Lovato – they both appear in the film. Gomez recorded four songs, one of which was a cover, for the Wizards of Waverly Place soundtrack, only one single (Magic) from the album was released. In May, of the same year, Gomez was featured – with Forever the Sickest Kids, on a duet version of the non-album song "Whoa Oh!".

Selena Gomez & the Scene

Formed in 2009, Selena Gomez & the Scene (aka Selena & The Scene) is a teen pop band which consists of Selena Gomez on vocals, Ethan Roberts on guitar, Joey Clement on bass, Greg Garman on drums and Dane Forrest on keyboards. Kiss & Tell is the band's debut studio album and was released on September 29, 2009 by Hollywood Records. On March 5, 2010, the album was certified Gold by RIAA. The album's single, "Naturally", was certified Platinum by the RIAA on July 15, 2010. In October 2008, Gomez participated in St. Jude's Children's Hospital "Runway For Life" benefit. Gomez is a spokesperson for Borden Milk; she is featured in the campaign's print and television ads. She is the ambassador of DoSomething.org after being involved with the charity Island Dog, which help dogs in Puerto Rico. She got involved while filming Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie in Puerto Rico. Gomez is a spokesperson for State Farm Insurance, and is featured in their TV commercials; which air on the Disney Channel, to raise awareness of being a safe driver. Gomez is also involved with the charity RAISE Hope For Congo, the charity helps raise awareness about the violence against Congolese women, in the Congo.

In October 2008, Gomez was named UNICEF's spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign, which encouraged children to raise money on Halloween to help children around the world.

In August 2009, a 17-year-old Gomez became the youngest UNICEF ambassador ever, passing fellow songstress Hayley Westenra, who had been 18. In her first official field mission, Gomez traveled to Ghana on September 4, 2009 for a week to witness first-hand the stark conditions of vulnerable children that lack vital necessities including clean water, nourishment, education and healthcare. Gomez explained during an interview with Associated Press that she wanted to use her star power to bring awareness to Ghana: “That’s why I feel very honored to have a voice that kids listen to and take into consideration [...] I had people on my tour asking me where IS Ghana, and they Googled it […] and because I went there, they now know where Ghana is. So it’s pretty incredible.” Gomez said of her role as ambassador that: "Every day 25,000 children die from preventable causes. I stand with UNICEF in the belief that we can change that number from 25,000 to zero. I know we can achieve this because every moment, UNICEF is on the ground providing children with the lifesaving assistance needed to ensure zero becomes a reality." Gomez, who raised over $700,000 for the charity in 2008, stated that she hopes to be able to raise 1 million dollars in 2009. and hosted a live web cast series on Facebook in support of the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign. Gomez will return as the UNICEF spokesperson for the 60th anniversary of Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign in 2010.

Gomez is involved in Disney's Friends for Change, an organization which promotes "environmently-friendly behavior", and appears in its public service announcements to raise awareness for the cause on the Disney Channel. Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers recorded "Send It On", a charity single which serves as the theme song for Disney's Friends for Change in 2009. The song debuted on the Hot 100 at number twenty. Disney's Friends For Change will direct all of its proceeds from "Send it On" to environmental charities to the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. During her visit, Gomez gave the school an award, and gave them $1,000 worth of school supplies. Gomez spent the day with the students and talked about the importance of giving back to the community.

Entrepreneurship

Gomez was part of Sears back-to-school fashion ad campaign. As part of the campaign Gomez was featured in the television commercials. In August 2009, Gomez also hosted the "Sears Arrive Air Band Casting Call" – to select five people for the first-ever "Sears Air Band", which performed at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

In October 2008, Gomez launched her own production company, July Moon Productions, and partnered with XYZ Films to create star vehicles for Gomez. As part of the agreement Gomez will have the opportunity to be able option articles, hire writers and create talent packages to shop to studios. Also, as part of the deal, "XYZ Films will allow Gomez to star in and produce at least two films. The clothing line will consist of and feature bohemian dresses, floral tops, jeans, skirts, jackets, scarves and hats, all made from recycled or eco-friendly materials. and described the clothing as being "pretty, feminine, and bohemian," and: "With my line, I really want to give the customer options on how they can put their own looks together [...] I want the pieces that can be easy to dress up or down, and the fabrics being eco-friendly and organic is super important [...] Also, the tags will all have some of my inspirational quotes on them. I'm just looking to send a good message." Gomez, who has no background in fashion, teamed up with designers Tony Melillo and Sandra Campos, both who have worked with big-name fashion houses.

Personal life

Gomez began wearing a purity ring when she was 12 years old. She is the owner of five rescue dogs and describes herself as a "huge animal lover".

After Gomez and Lovato, whom she first met at the Barney & Friends auditions, posted a video blog on YouTube in March 2008, Miley Cyrus and her friend Mandy Jiroux uploaded a parody of that video, which caught the interest of entertainment media. Reports included the theory that Gomez and Lovato might replace Cyrus. Gomez clarified there was no feud, saying: "I'm not interested in being anybody but myself, and I'm not here to replace anyone. I think that she's a wonderful performer, and of course it's a compliment. But I would like to take a different route." In answering a question on Hispanic heritage, to stationery provider Scholastic's news service for kids and teens, Gomez said: "My family does have Quinceañeras, and we go to the communion church. We do everything that's Catholic, but we don't really have anything traditional except go to the park and have barbeques on Sundays after church."

In January 2011, Gomez began receiving death threats via Twitter from fans of Justin Bieber after pictures surfaced of the two kissing. Gomez however remained coy about their relationship stating, "We just like to hang out. They shouldn't be stopping us from going out to dinner and things like that".

Filmography

; Film {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year !! Title !! Role !! class="unsortable" | Notes |- |2003 | |Waterpark Girl |Minor role |- |2005 |Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire |Julie |Television movie |- |2006 |Brain Zapped |Emily Grace Garcia |Television movie |- |2008 |Another Cinderella Story |Mary Santiago |Direct-to-videoMain role |- |2008 |Horton Hears a Who! |Helga |(Voice) |- |2009 |Princess Protection Program |Carter Mason |Disney Channel Original MovieMain role |- |2009 | |Alex Russo |Disney Channel Original MovieMain role |- |2009 |Arthur and the Vengeance of Maltazard |Princess Selenia |(Voice)(Replaced Madonna) |- |2010 |Ramona and Beezus |Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby |Main role |- |2011 |Monte Carlo |Grace |Main role |}

; Television {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year !! Title !! Role !! class="unsortable" | Notes |- |2002 to 2003 |Barney & Friends |Gianna |Recurring role |- |2006 |The Suite Life of Zack & Cody |Gwen |"A Midsummer's Nightmare" (Season 2, episode 22) |- |2007 to 2008 |Hannah Montana |Mikayla |"I Want You to Want Me... to Go to Florida" (Season 2, episode 13)"That's What Friends Are For?" (Season 2, episode 18)"(We're So Sorry) Uncle Earl" (Season 2, episode 22) (uncredited) |- |2009 |Sonny With a Chance |Herself |"Battle of the Networks' Stars" (Season 1, episode 13) |- |2009 |The Suite Life on Deck |Alex Russo |"Double-Crossed" (Season 1, episode 21) |- |2007 to present |Wizards of Waverly Place |Alex Russo |Main role |}

; Music videos {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year !! Title !! Artist !! class="unsortable" | Notes |- |2008 |"Burnin' Up" |Jonas Brothers |Played Nick Jonas' love interest |}

Discography

Singles

Other songs

Music videos

{|class="wikitable" ! Year || Title |- | 2008 || "Cruella de Vil" |- | 2008 || "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" |- | 2008 || "Fly to Your Heart" |- | 2009 || "One and the Same" |- | 2009 || "Magic" |- | 2009 || "Send It On" |}

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Category:1992 births Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Actors from Texas Category:American bloggers Category:American child actors Category:American child singers Category:American dance musicians Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American television personalities Category:American pop singers Category:American rock singers Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:American drummers Category:Living people Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American musicians of Mexican descent Category:Hispanic and Latino American people Category:Musicians from Texas Category:People from Grand Prairie, Texas Category:UNICEF people Category:YouTube video producers

Name	James Taylor
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	James Vernon Taylor
Born	March 12, 1948Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Origin	Carrboro, North Carolina
Instrument	VocalsGuitarHarmonica
Genre	Folk rockRockPopCountry
Occupation	Singer-songwritermusician
Years active	1968–present
Label	Apple/Capitol/EMI RecordsWarner Bros. RecordsColumbia/SME RecordsHear Music
Associated acts	Carole King, Carly Simon
Url	JamesTaylor.com

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Carrboro, North Carolina. He owns a house in the Berkshire County town of Washington, Massachusetts. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

Taylor achieved his major breakthrough in 1970 with the #3 single "Fire and Rain" and had his first #1 hit the following year with "You've Got a Friend", a recording of Carole King's classic song. His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million US copies. Following his 1977 album, JT, he has retained a large audience over the decades. His commercial achievements declined slightly until a big resurgence during the late 1990s and 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums (including Hourglass, October Road and Covers) were released.

Biography

Early years

James Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1948, where his father, Isaac M. Taylor, was a resident. His father was from a well-off family of Southern Jewish and Scottish ancestry. James was the second of five children, the others being Alex (born 1947), Kate (born 1949), Livingston (born 1950), and Hugh (born 1952).

In 1951, when James was three years old, the family moved to the countryside of Carrboro, North Carolina, when Isaac took a job as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. They built a house in the Morgan Creek area, which was sparsely populated. James attended public primary school in Chapel Hill. Isaac Taylor later rose to become Dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971. The family spent summers on Martha's Vineyard beginning in 1953.

Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child in North Carolina, and switched to the guitar in 1960. His style on that instrument evolved from listening to hymns, carols, and Woody Guthrie, while his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand." He began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school in Massachusetts in Fall 1961; summering before then with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York. The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar quickly realized that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing." Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at age 14, and continued to learn the instrument effortlessly.

Taylor faltered during his junior year at Milton, not feeling at ease in the high-pressured college prep environment despite having good scholastic performance. He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School. There he joined a band his brother Alex had formed called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964 they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side. He would later view his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver ... like a pardon or like a reprieve," and both his brother Livingston and sister Kate would later be patients and students there as well.

1966–1969: Early career

Taylor checked himself out of McLean and, at Kortchmar's urging, moved to New York City to form a band. They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream".

Taylor associated with a motley collection of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay, and wrote the "Paint It, Black"-influenced "Rainy Day Man" to depict his drug experience. Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast, Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album. Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink." Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions.

Taylor decided to try being a solo act and a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living variously in Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea. He recorded some demos in Soho and, capitalizing on Kortchmar's connection to The King Bees (who once once opened for Peter and Gordon), brought the demos to Peter Asher, who was A&R; head for The Beatles' newly-formed label Apple Records. Asher showed the demos to Paul McCartney, who later said, "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great." Taylor recorded the album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios, at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album. McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric holy host of others standing around me made reference to the Beatles, while the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the starting point for Harrison's classic "Something". McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Hewson to add orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages in between them; these would receive a mixed reception at best.

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit, using heroin and methedrine. Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the U.S. In early 1969, to clean up the situation, three of the Beatles brought in Allen Klein, who began purging Apple personnel. Asher did not like Klein; he resigned of his own accord and offered to manage Taylor, to which Taylor agreed. Klein wanted to hit Taylor with a $5 million lawsuit for leaving, but McCartney (a Klein antagonist) and then the other Beatles, overruled him on the grounds that artists should not be holding each other to contracts. Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months. But while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969, signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records. in 2003. ("Fire and Rain" was also listed #227 on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Songs of All Time).

for Two-Lane Blacktop: Boswell, Oklahoma ]] During the time Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace's protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska. (This performance was released in 2009 on the album Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace.) In January 1971, sessions for Taylor's next album, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, began. Released in April, the album also gained massive critical acclaim and contained Taylor's biggest Pop single in the U.S., a version of the Carole King standard "You've Got a Friend" (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The album itself reached #2 in the album charts, which would be Taylor's highest position ever on this list. In early 1972, Taylor received his first Grammy Award, for (Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male) for "You've Got a Friend" (King also won Song of the Year for the same song on that ceremony). The album went on to sell 2½ million copies in the United States alone.

November 1972 saw the release of Taylor's fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured cameos by Linda Ronstadt and consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. It was received with generally lukewarm reviews and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, overall sales were disappointing. The lead single "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" peaked at #18 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, "One Man Parade", barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment. A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years.

1974–1976: Career ups and downs

Taylor spent most of 1973 enjoying his new life as a married man, and he did not return to the recording studio until January 1974, when sessions for his fifth album began. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster, being his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold a mere 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track was a huge disappointment, and failed to even appear on the Top 100 – nevertheless, it stands today as an often reprised fan favorite in concerts.

However, James Taylor's artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached #6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", which featured wife Carly in backing vocals and reached #5 in America and #1 in Canada. On the Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feel-good "Mexico" also reached the Top 5 of that list. A critically very-well received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor's electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with classics such as "Wandering" and "Angry Blues." It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, "Sarah Maria".

Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor's last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A very melodic album, it was highlighted with the single "Shower the People", an enduring classic that hit #1 Adult Contemporary and almost hit the Top 20 of the Pop Charts. But the album was not very well-received, reaching only #16 and being highly criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Nevertheless 1976 was a huge boom year in the recording business — the year of inception of the "Platinum" disc — and In The Pocket was certified Gold.

With the close of Taylor's contract with Warner, in November the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. It became with time his best-selling album, ever. It was certified eleven times Platinum in the US, earning a Diamond certification by the RIAA and eventually selling close to twenty million copies worldwide. It still stands as the best-selling folk album by any artist.

1977–1981: Move to Columbia and maintained success

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album – "JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That's not meant to criticize Taylor's earlier efforts [...]. But it's nice to hear him sounding so healthy." JT reached #4 in the Billboard charts, selling more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album's Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor's all-time biggest selling studio album. It was propelled by the highly successful cover of Jimmy Jones and Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man", which hit #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached #4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles – the rocking "Your Smiling Face" (an enduring live favorite) reached the American Top 20; however, "Honey Don't Leave L.A." did not enjoy much success, barely reaching the Top 75.

Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor collaborated with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in the recording of a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979 with the cover-studded Platinum album Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Up on the Roof". (Two selections from Flag, "Millworker" and "Brother Trucker," were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's non-fiction book , and James himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of "Mockingbird" with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.

On December 7, 1980 Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would assassinate John Lennon. Taylor told the BBC in 2010 "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John." The next night Taylor who lived in the next building from Lennon heard the assassination.

In March 1981, James Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work, whose themes concerned his relationship with his father, the course his ancestors had taken, and the effect he and Simon had had on each other. The album was another Platinum success, reaching #10 and providing Taylor's final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, "Her Town Too," which reached #5 Adult Contemporary and #11 on the Hot 100 in Billboard. The album's title was, in part, drawn from the reasons for Taylor's divorce from Carly Simon. She gave him an ultimatum: cut back on his music and touring, and spend more time with her and their children, or the marriage was through. The album's title was Taylor's answer, and Simon asked for divorce. (The emotional repercussions of the divorce likely served as at least part of the inspiration for "Her Town Too.")

1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings

Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 – saying "Our needs are different; it seem[s] impossible to stay together" – and their divorce became final in 1983. Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program. Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children, he dropped methadone and finally kicked his habit for good. He was encouraged by the nascent democracy in Brazil at the time, buoyed by the positive reception he got from the large crowd and other musicians, and musically energized by the sounds and nature of Brazilian music. "I had... sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while, " he recalled in 1995. "I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track." The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive. Taylor's next albums were partially successful – in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic "Copperline" and the upbeat "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' About That", both hit singles in the AC radio. During the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs from throughout his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow." In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.

1997–2003: Successful comeback

After six years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill. "Enough To Be On Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade. The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker's divorce, which took place in 1996. Rolling Stone found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics." Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a huge commercial success, reaching #9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor's first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on "Little More Time With You". The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.

On February 18, 2001 at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, Taylor wed for the third time, marrying Caroline ("Kim") Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They had begun dating in 1995, when they met as he appeared with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The couple reside in the town of Washington, Massachusetts with their twin boys, Rufus and Henry, born in April 2001 to a surrogate mother via in vitro fertilization. The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a "limited edition" two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia," which also appeared on Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia album. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, "How's the World Treating You?" In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released with distribution through Hallmark Cards.

Current events

Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004 Taylor joined the "Vote for Change" tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year's Presidential campaign. Taylor's appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.

Taylor performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 24, 2004. In December, he appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled "A Change Is Gonna Come". He sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline. Later on, he appeared on CMT's Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, MusiCares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes, and had for them lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him. They performed his song, "Shower the People", with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals on Taylor's live tours for many years.

In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony. In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the best Original Song. On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.

Taylor's next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks' Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. The introspective album grew out of a three-year tour of the United States and Europe—featuring some of Taylor's most beloved songs and anecdotes about their creative origins—accompanied solely by the "one man band" of his longtime pianist/keyboardist, Larry Goldings. The mix of One Man Band won a TEC Award for best surround sound recording in 2008.

November 28–30, 2007, Taylor, accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at The Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, began their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23, 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly..." Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.

]] In December 2007 James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008 Taylor recorded approximately 20 songs by others for a new album with a band including Luis Conte, Michael Landau, Lou Marini, Arnold McCuller, Jimmy Johnson, David Lasley, Walt Fowler, Andrea Zonn, Kate Markowitz, Steve Gadd and Larry Goldings. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008. This album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best known hits might suggest. The Covers sessions stretched to include "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," from the musical Oklahoma - a song that his grandmother had caught him singing over and over at the top of his lungs when he was seven years old. Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends. A additional album, called Other Covers, came out in April 2009, containing songs that were recorded during the same sessions as the original Covers but had not been put out to the full public yet.

During October 19–21, 2008, Taylor performed a series of free concerts in five North Carolina cities in support of Barack Obama's presidential bid. On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the , singing "Shower the People" with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.

Taylor performed on the final The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 29, 2009, distinguishing himself further as the final musician to appear in Leno's original 17-year run.

On September 8, 2009 Taylor made an appearance at the twenty-fourth season premiere block party of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Chicago's Michigan Avenue.

performing "You've Got a Friend" together during their Troubadour Reunion Tour in 2010.]] On January 1, 2010, Taylor sang the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, while Daniel Powter sang the Canadian national anthem.

On March 7, 2010, Taylor sang The Beatles' "In My Life" in tribute to deceased artists at the 82nd Academy Awards.

In March 2010 he commenced the Troubadour Reunion Tour with Carole King and members of his original band, including Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and Danny Kortchmar. They played shows in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and North America, with the final night being at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, CA. The tour was a major commercial success, and in some locations found Taylor playing arenas instead of his usual theaters or amphitheaters. Ticket sales amounted to over 700,000 and the tour grossed over 59 million dollars. It was one of the most successful tours of the year.

Musicians in the family

Taylor's four siblings—Alex, Livingston, Hugh, and Kate—have also been musicians with recorded albums. Livingston is still an active musician; Kate was active in the 1970s but did not record another album until 2003; Hugh operates a bed-and-breakfast with his wife, The Outermost Inn in Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard; and Alex died in 1993. Taylor's children with Carly Simon—Ben and Sally—have also embarked on musical careers.

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards

1971 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "You've Got a Friend"

1977 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Handy Man"

1998 — Best Pop Album, Hourglass

2001 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"

2003 — Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, "How's the World Treating You" with Alison Krauss

2006 — Grammy Award-sponsored MusiCares Person of the Year. At a black tie ceremony held in Los Angeles, musicians from several eras paid tribute to Taylor by performing his songs, often prefacing them with remarks on his influence on their decisions to become musicians. These artists included Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, India.Arie, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and Keith Urban. Paul Simon performed as well, although he was not included in the televised program; Taylor's brother Livingston appeared on stage as a "backup singer" for the finale, along with Taylor's twin boys, Rufus and Henry.

Other recognition

1995 — Honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1995.

2000 — Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2000.

2000 — Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2000.

2003 — The Chapel Hill Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Taylor. At the same occasion the US-15-501 highway bridge over Morgan Creek, near the site of the Taylor family home and mentioned in Taylor's song "Copperline", was named in honor of Taylor.

2004 — George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing. 2004 — Ranked 84th in Rolling Stone's list of "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time."

2009 — Honorary Doctorate of Music from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Discography

;U.S. Billboard Top 10 Albums

1970 – Sweet Baby James (#3)

1971 – Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (#2)

1972 – One Man Dog (#4)

1975 – Gorilla (#6)

1977 – JT (#4)

1979 – Flag (#10)

1981 – Dad Loves His Work (#10)

1997 – Hourglass (#9)

2002 – October Road (#4)

2008 – Covers (#4)

2010 – Live at the Troubadour (with Carole King) (#4)

;U.S. Billboard Top 10 'Pop' Singles

1970 – "Fire and Rain" (#3)

1971 – "You've Got a Friend" (#1)

1974 – "Mockingbird" (with Carly Simon) (#5)

1975 – "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" (#5)

1977 – "Handy Man" (#4)

Other appearances

He provided acoustic guitar accompaniment for several tracks on Joni Mitchell's 1971 album Blue.

He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" where he played some of his songs to Homer, Buzz Aldrin, and Race Bannon when they were in space. He also appeared later on in the series when the family put together a jigsaw puzzle. His face was the missing final piece.

Performed "Second Star to the Right" on in 1988 as one of Various Artists.

Taylor performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 25, 2007, at Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals in Boston on June 5, 2008, and at the NHL's Winter Classic game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins, the first hockey game ever held at Boston's Fenway Park.

He appeared on Sesame Street performing the song "Your Smiling Face" although the song was sung "Your Grouchy Face" as he sang it to Oscar the Grouch. He also appeared on the Sesame Street video compilation Silly Songs, and the album , performing the song "Jellyman Kelly".

Has appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live six times as a musical guest: in 1976 performing "Shower the People," "Roadrunner" (with David Sanborn), and "Sweet Baby James" (host: Lily Tomlin); in 1979 performing "Johnnie Comes Back," "Up on the Roof," and "Millworker" (host: Michael Palin); in 1980 performing with Paul Simon "Cathy's Clown / Take Me to the Mardi Gras" (host: Paul Simon); in 1988 performing "Never Die Young," "Sweet Potato Pie," and "Lonesome Road" (host: Robin Williams); in 1991 performing "Stop Thinkin' About That," "Shed A Little Light," and "Sweet Baby James" (Host: Steve Martin); and in 1993 performing "Memphis," "Slap Leather," and "Secret of Life" (host: Rosie O'Donnell).

He provided background vocals for "Back In The High Life Again" by Steve Winwood in 1986.

He performed at a benefit concert supporting John B. Anderson's U.S. presidential campaign at Charleston, West Virginia in 1980.

He provided background vocals for "Perfect Love" by Marc Cohn.

He appeared on The West Wing where he played Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come.

He appeared on the The Johnny Cash Show, singing "Sweet Baby James", "Fire and Rain", and "Country Road", on February 17, 1971.

His song "Fire and Rain" was in the movie Remember the Titans and the movie " Running on Empty" in 1988 .

He provided vocals for the song "First Me, Second Me" by the Italian band Elio e le Storie Tese

Along with Linda Ronstadt, he did backup vocals for two hit singles on Neil Young's Harvest: "Old Man" and "Heart of Gold". Twenty years later, the two would reunite with Young on his Harvest Moon album, singing backup on "From Hank to Hendrix," "War of Man," and the title track.

He made his debut for his 24th album Other Covers on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 10, 2009.

He appeared on the final of Star Académie, the Quebec version of American Idol, on April 13, 2009.

On May 29, 2009, he made a guest appearance and sang "Sweet Baby James" on the final episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno before Leno was replaced by Conan O'Brien.

Taylor appeared briefly in the 2009 movie Funny People, where he played Carolina in My Mind for a MySpace corporate event as the opening act for the main character.

Bibliography

References

External links

The Official James Taylor website

The official James Taylor Facebook page

James Taylor Online

James Taylor discography

James Taylor profile, NNDB

Dedication of James Taylor Bridge

"Carolina in My Mind" — The James Taylor Story at the Chapel Hill Museum

2006 Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year

James Taylor Tabs

BBC Radio 2, "The James Taylor Story: Parts I & II, presented by Bob Harris, 13 & 20 January 2004

Category:1970s_singers Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:American acoustic guitarists Category:American folk guitarists Category:American folk singers Category:American male singers Category:American pop guitarists Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Apple Records artists Category:American people of English descent Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Musicians from Massachusetts Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:People from Belmont, Massachusetts Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers

Jac Holzman (born 1931) was the founder, chief executive officer and head of both Elektra Records and Nonesuch Records.

Biography

He was born in 1931.

He founded Elektra Records in his St. John's College dorm room in 1950 and Nonesuch Records in 1964. He signed such legendary acts as The Doors, Queen, Love, Carly Simon, The Stooges, Harry Chapin, and Bread to Elektra and discovered folk singer Judy Collins. In 1970 he merged his music interests with Warner Communications (WCI) and continued his association with the labels he created for three additional years. While a part of the Warner Music Group, Mr. Holzman helped to establish both the WEA Distributing Corp (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Distributing Corp) and WEA International.

In 1973, Holzman was appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for WCI. Holzman guided the company into home video and the first interactive cable television system, QUBE. Until 1972, he was a director of Pioneer Electronics Japan, helping that company, and Warner, adopt the compact disc and Laserdisc. Holzman was a member of the board of Atari, one of the first videogame companies, which was acquired by WCI in 1976.

In 1979 Holzman became the nexus between ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith and John Lack of Warner Cable. He persuaded Lack to meet with Nesmith who had been nursing an idea for a program he called PopClips, which was later to morph into the sensation that became MTV. Holzman had been the first to produce a video to introduce The Doors' first album 12 years earlier (1967)* and he thought that Nesmith's notion of building a TV structure around that idea made real sense.

In 1982, following the death of President and founder Robert Gottschalk, Holzman took charge of Panavision, a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Communications and turned that financially troubled company around.

In 1986 he formed FirstMedia, an investment firm which acquired Cinema Products Corporation, the maker of the Oscar winning Steadicam camera stabilization system.

In 1991, through FirstMedia, Holzman acquired the Discovery, Trend and Musicraft jazz labels from the estate of Albert Marx, which was also acquired by Warner Music Group in 1993.

After Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and a group of investors acquired Warner Music Group from Time Warner Inc. in 2004, Bronfman brought Holzman back to WMG, reuniting him with the company that he had helped to found with Ahmet Ertegun and Mo Ostin. Although Holzman's work at Warner Music covers a range from mentoring executives and future planning, his first project was the creation of an on-line label, Cordless Recordings, introduced in late 2005. Cordless gives bands space to hone their art and grow without the expectations and cash outlays associated with a major label.

In 2008 Holzman received the NARAS Grammy Trustees Award.

On December 15, 2010, it was announced that Holzman will be awarded the Ahmet Ertegun Award (along with Specialty Records founder Art Rupe) by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Holzman is the father of Adam Holzman (guitarist), a jazz-rock keyboardist who has played with Miles Davis, Jaclyn Easton, writer and Internet entrepreneur, and Marin Sander-Holzman, editor and filmmaker.

References

External links

Word 152 - 2010-10-21 - David Hepworth talks to Jac Holzman, on Elektra's 60th. RSS feed

Who is Jac Holzman?

Blast from the Past Seeks Next Big Thing

http://www.digitalmusicforum.com/west/speakers09.shtml

Becoming Elektra, Elektra’s early years by Mick Houghton

Follow the Music - Holzman & Daws (ISBN 0-9661221-1-9) (paperback, ISBN 0-9661221-0-0).

Category:American music industry executives Category:St. John's College (United States) alumni Category:American record producers Category:Living people Category:American Jews Category:1931 births Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees

Name	Carly Simon
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Carly Elisabeth Simon
Born	June 25, 1945New York City, New York, United States
Origin	Riverdale, Bronx, New York, United States
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano
Genre	Pop, rock, adult contemporary, pop standards
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, actress, writer
Years active	1964–present
Label	Elektra (1971–1979)Warner Bros. (1980–1984)Epic (1985–1986)Arista (1987–2001)Rhino (2002–2004)Columbia (2005–2007)Hear Music (2008)Iris (2009–present)
Associated acts	James Taylor, Elephant's Memory
Url	carlysimon.com

Carly Elisabeth Simon (born June 25, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work. Simon has a contralto vocal range.

She is the former wife of another notable singer-songwriter, James Taylor, with whom she has two children: Sarah "Sally" Maria Taylor and Ben Taylor, who are also musicians.

A long-respected and acclaimed artist, Simon was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.

Early life

Simon was born in New York City, New York. Her father, of Jewish descent, was Richard L. Simon (co-founder of Simon & Schuster), a pianist who often played Chopin and Beethoven at home. Her mother was Andrea Louise Simon (née Heinemann), a civil rights activist and singer of black and German descent. In a 2004 interview with fashion designer Michael Kors for the July issue of Interview Magazine, Simon revealed her full ancestry as being Jewish, African, Cuban and French, making it evident that her multiracial mother was of German, Cuban and African ancestry.

Carly Simon was raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City and has two older sisters, Joanna (b. 1940) and Lucy (b. 1943), and a younger brother, Peter (b. 1947). Simon, her sisters and brother Peter, were raised nominal Catholics, according to a book of photography Peter published in the late 1990s. She attended Riverdale Country School. She also briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College and joined Alpha Gamma Delta, before dropping out to pursue music.

Early career

Simon's career began with a short-lived attempt with her sister Lucy as The Simon Sisters. They had a minor hit in 1964 which was called "Winkin', Blinkin', and Nod", and made three albums together before Lucy left to get married and start a family. Later, Simon collaborated with eclectic New York rockers Elephant's Memory for about six months. She also appeared in the 1971 Milos Forman movie Taking Off and played an auditioning singer and sang "Long Term Physical Effects", which was included in Taking Off, the 1971 soundtrack for the movie.

Her solo music career began in 1971, with the self-titled Carly Simon on Elektra Records. The album contained her breakthrough top-ten hit "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be". It was followed quickly by a second album, Anticipation. The title song from that album, written about a romance between Simon and Cat Stevens, was a significant hit, reaching #3 at Easy Listening radio and #13 on Billboard's Hot 100. The next single release - also reportedly written about Stevens - was "Legend In Your Own Time" which failed to make much of an impact on the charts. After their brief liaison during 1970–1971 ended amicably, Stevens wrote his song "Sweet Scarlet" about Simon, who also had highly publicized relationships with Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson, and James Taylor during this period.

In 1973 Simon scored the biggest success of her career with the classic global smash "You're So Vain". It hit #1 on the U.S. Pop and Adult Contemporary charts and sold over a million copies in the United States alone. It was one of the decade's biggest hits and propelled Simon's breakthrough album No Secrets to #1 on the U.S. album charts, where it stayed for six consecutive weeks. The album achieved Gold status that year, but by the album's 25th anniversary in 1997, the album had been certified Platinum. "You're So Vain" received Grammy Award nominations for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. Additionally, as of 2008, it is listed at #72 on the Billboard Hot 100's definitive list of the Hot 100's top 100 songs from the chart's first 50 years, August 1958 through July 2008.

The subject of the song itself has become one of the biggest enigmas in popular music, as this track also carries one of the most famous lyrics: "You're so vain/I bet you think this song is about you." Simon has never publicly admitted who the song is about. She hinted that it could be a composite of several people, and for many people the most likely "suspects" have always been Beatty or Jagger, who sings backup vocals on this recording. Simon has given vague hints over the decades to a variety of talk shows and publications, saying that riddles wouldn't be interesting if everyone knew the answers to them. On August 5, 2003, she did finally auction off the information to the winner of a charity function for a grand total of US$50,000, with the condition that the winner (a television executive, Dick Ebersol on NBC's Today Show) not reveal who it is.

Later in 1973, the follow-up single, "The Right Thing To Do", was another sizable hit, reaching #4 Adult Contemporary and #17 Pop. That same year Simon performed on Lee Clayton's album Lee Clayton and co-sang on the song "New York Suite 409" and on Livingston Taylor's album Over the Rainbow and sang with both Livingston and his famous brother, James Taylor (who was, by then, her husband) on the songs "Loving Be My New Horizon" and "Pretty Woman".

In 1974, Simon followed the smash No Secrets album with Hotcakes, which reached #3 on Billboard's Album Chart and was certified Gold, though it did not match the sales of No Secrets. Hotcakes included two top ten singles, "Mockingbird," a duet with James Taylor that peaked at #5 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart, and "Haven't Got Time For the Pain," which hit #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. The same year, Simon provided vocals on Tom Rush's album Ladies Love Outlaws and co-sang with Rush on "No Regrets" and as backup on "Claim On Me". In 1975, Elektra released her first greatest-hits album, The Best of Carly Simon, which became Simon's all time best selling disc and eventually reached Triple-Platinum status in the United States.

Simon's record sales declined considerably with 1975's Playing Possum and 1976's Another Passenger. Playing Possum was a Top Ten album, with a Top 40 single "Attitude Dancing" and two other charting singles, but Another Passenger produced only one single, "It Keeps You Running," which barely scraped into the top 50. 1976 also saw Simon contributing backup vocals on the song "Peter" on Peter Ivers's album Peter Ivers. She also made her only appearance on Saturday Night Live. It was a pre-taped performance—a rare occurrence on that show—because Simon suffered terrible bouts of stage fright. In the appearance, she sang two songs: "Half A Chance" and her signature song, "You're So Vain".

In 1977, Simon had a surprise international hit with "Nobody Does It Better", the theme to the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. The million-selling Gold single held at #2 for several weeks, behind Debby Boone's mega-hit "You Light Up My Life" (which became the biggest hit of the entire decade). "Nobody Does It Better" remains Simon's second-biggest U.S. hit, after "You're So Vain". It was 1977's biggest Adult Contemporary hit, where it held at #1 for seven straight weeks. It also received Grammy nominations for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance Female.

Also in 1977, Simon co-produced Libby Titus's album Libby Titus and sang backup on two songs: "Can This Be Our Love Affair?" and "Darkness 'Til Dawn".

Simon's career took another upward swing in 1978 with the hit album Boys In The Trees. The album produced another Top 10 Pop and Adult Contemporary hit with the jazzy and sensual "You Belong To Me". Boys In The Trees was a major success, and returned Simon to Platinum album status in the U.S. It later earned Simon yet another Grammy nomination. She was featured on the front covers of People and Rolling Stone magazines that spring. Also in 1978, Simon and James Taylor sang backing vocals on two songs for Taylor's sister Kate's album Kate Taylor: "Happy Birthday Sweet Darling" and "Jason & Ida". Simon and Taylor also sang backup on three songs on John Hall's debut solo album John Hall, "The Fault", "Good Enough" and "Voyagers". Simon and Taylor would also sing backup on one song, "Power", from Hall's next album, which is also titled Power (1979).

On November 2, 1978, Simon guested on the song "I Live In The Woods" at a live, four-hour concert by Burt Bacharach and the Houston Symphony Orchestra at Jones Hall in Houston, Texas. All the songs at that concert became Bacharach's album Woman, which was released in 1979. That year, shortly after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, from September 19 to September 22, a series of concerts were held at New York City's Madison Square Garden and sponsored by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), a group of musicians against nuclear power, co-founded by John Hall. Always politically active, Simon and James Taylor were part of the concerts which later became a documentary and concert film, No Nukes (1980) as well as a live album of the same name (1979).

Simon released her last album for Elektra, Spy, in 1979. It sold poorly, although a harder-edged single from the album, "Vengeance", was a modest hit and received airplay on U.S. album rock stations. "Vengeance" earned Simon a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance Female in early 1980 - the first year to feature the new category.

From 1972 to 1979, Simon sang backup vocals on the following James Taylor songs and albums (not counting compilations): "One Man Parade" from 1972's One Man Dog, "Rock 'n' Roll Is Music Now", "Let It All Fall Down", "Me And My Guitar", "Daddy's Baby" and "Ain't No Song" from 1974's Walking Man, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" from 1975's Gorilla, "Shower the People", "A Junkie's Lament", "Slow Burning Love" and "Family Man" from 1976's In the Pocket, and "B.S.U.R." from 1979's Flag. She also co-wrote with Taylor the song "Terra Nova" on his 1977 album JT. At the end of the song, Simon sang what has come to be known as "Lambert's Cove".

1980s

In 1980, Simon signed with Elektra's sibling label Warner Bros. Records. During a show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while she toured to promote her album, Come Upstairs, Simon collapsed onstage of exhaustion. She subsequently performed considerably less throughout the 1980s. Simon scored another million-selling U.S. Gold single with the hit, "Jesse", from that album. Simon also contributed the song "Be With Me" to the 1980 album , which was produced by her sister Lucy and Lucy's husband, David Levine. Simon can also be heard on the song "In Harmony", along with other members of the Simon/Taylor families. Carly and Lucy contributed a "Simon Sisters" song — which was called "Maryanne" — to the 1982 follow-up album In Harmony 2, which was also produced by Lucy and her husband. Both albums won Grammy Awards for Best Album for Children.

Torch (1981) was an album of melancholy jazz standards, but suffered from disappointing sales. The Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards produced single "Why", from the soundtrack to the 1982 film Soup For One, was a top-ten hit single in the U.K. but stalled at #74 in the U.S. She had another minor U.K. success with the single "Kissing With Confidence", a song off the 1983 album Dancing For Mental Health by Will Powers (a pseudonym for photographer Lynn Goldsmith). Simon was the uncredited singer of the song co-written and mixed by Todd Rundgren. Simon's singles were generally less successful in the 1980s, although most of them did quite well on Adult Contemporary radio formats. In 1983, she made her last album for Warner, Hello Big Man, but this also suffered from disappointing sales. That same year, Simon performed on two albums, The Perfect Stranger by Jesse Colin Young (singing on the track "Fight For It" with Young) and Wonderland by Nils Lofgren (singing on the track "Lonesome Ranger" with Lofgren). By this time, her contract with Warner Bros ended. In 1985, she signed with Epic Records and made one album for them, Spoiled Girl. This too was commercially unsuccessful and her contract with Epic was cancelled.

In 1986, Simon signed with Arista Records and soon rebounded from her career slump. Her first album for Arista, Coming Around Again (1987), gave Simon another international hit with the title track (which was featured in the film Heartburn), returning her to the Billboard Pop Top 20 and the U.K. Top 10 (It also garnered her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance). The album also featured the Top 10 Adult Contemporary hits "Give Me All Night", "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of", "All I Want Is You" and a cover of "As Time Goes By" (featuring Stevie Wonder on harmonica). The album itself was her first Gold release in nine years, and went Platinum in 1988. These and older songs were featured in a picturesque HBO concert special which was filmed at Martha's Vineyard, where Simon and her band performed live on a pier. Most of these songs were compiled for her 1988 album, Greatest Hits Live. The album continued her mounting comeback, quickly going Gold, and was later certified Platinum by the RIAA in 1996. From "Live" a recording of Simon's evergreen "You're So Vain" was released as a single in the U.K.

Scoring music to film

Throughout the 1980s, Simon successfully contributed to several film and television scores, including the songs:

"Why" for the film Soup For One (1982)

"Something More" for the film Love Child (1982)

"Someone Waits for You" for the film Swing Shift (1984)

"All the Love in the World" for the television film Torchlight (1985)

"It's Hard To Be Tender" for the television miniseries Sins (1986)

"If It Wasn't Love" for the film Nothing In Common (1986)

"Two Looking at One" for the film The Karate Kid, Part II (1986)

"Coming Around Again"/"Itsy Bitsy Spider" for the film Heartburn (1986)

"Let the River Run" for the film Working Girl (1988) (for which she won the Academy Award for Best Song (1988); the Golden Globe Award for Best Song (1988); and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media (1990))

She is the first artist to win all three awards (Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy) for a song that is composed and written, as well as performed, entirely by a single artist (the only other such artist being Bruce Springsteen for his "Streets of Philadelphia" 1993: Oscar, 1994: Golden Globe & two Grammys).

The Working Girl soundtrack album came out in early 1989, and featured more music from Simon, and as a tribute to Christa McAuliffe, who was slated to be the first teacher in space and who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster for whom Simon also wrote a song "You're Where I Go". McAuliffe was a Simon fan and had taken a cassette of her music on board the shuttle.

In 1987, Simon also sang the theme for the 1988 Democratic National Convention, "The Turn of The Tide", for a Marlo Thomas television special Free to Be...A Family. The song was later included on the 1988 soundtrack album of the same name on A&M; Records.

1990s

In 1990, Simon released two albums: her second standards album, My Romance, and an album of original material Have You Seen Me Lately The latter featured a major (#4) Adult Contemporary hit with "Better Not Tell Her" - Simon's biggest hit of the 1990s. Her second children's book, "The Boy of the Bells" was also published in 1990 and she wrote the score for the 1990 film Postcards from the Edge. In 1991, Simon wrote her third children's book, "The Fisherman's Song", which was based on the song of the same name from her 1990 album "Have You Seen Me Lately". The same year, she performed a duet with Plácido Domingo on the song "The Last Night Of The World" (from the Miss Saigon musical) on Domingo's album The Broadway I Love. A year later, Simon wrote the music for the Nora Ephron film "This Is My Life", notable the song "Love Of My Life". In 1993, she contributed the song "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" for the film Sleepless In Seattle and recorded the same song in combo with "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" with Frank Sinatra for his album Duets.

1993 saw Simon recording a contemporary opera called (having been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera Association and the Kennedy Center) and published of her fourth children's book, The Nighttime Chauffeur. She also contributed to Andreas Vollenweider's album Eolian Minstrel. Simon co-wrote the song "Private Fires" with Vollenweider and was featured vocalist on the song.

In 1994, she covered "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" for Ken Burns' 1994 film Baseball , as well as a recording of "I've Got a Crush On You" for Larry Adler's covers album The Glory of Gershwin. That same year, Simon recorded another album of original songs, Letters Never Sent, and contributed a Christmas song, "The Night Before Christmas", to the movie and soundtrack Mixed Nuts. In April 1995, Simon surprised thousands of commuters at New York's Grand Central Terminal with an unannounced performance which was filmed for a Lifetime Television Special. It was also released on home video in December of that year. Also in 1995, she put aside years of stage fright long enough to perform on an American concert tour in conjunction with Hall & Oates. That same year, Clouds In My Coffee, a boxed set (of highlights from her career from 1965 to 1995) was released. On August 30, 1995, Simon made a rare joint appearance with her ex-husband, James Taylor, for a concert on Martha's Vineyard. Dubbed "Livestock '95", it was a benefit for the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society, with over 10,000 people in attendance. She performed a duet with Mindy Jostyn on the song "Time, Be On My Side", on Jostyn's 1995 album Five Miles From Hope.

Simon wrote the theme songs to several more movies, including "Two Little Sisters" from the 1996 movie Marvin's Room and "In Two Straight Lines" from the 1998 movie Madeline. 1997 saw the release of Simon's third standards album in collaboration with Jimmy Webb, Film Noir, for which she was Grammy nominated for Best Traditional Vocal Performance, as well as her fifth children's book, "Midnight Farm". In 1998, Simon was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy and received chemotherapy. In 1999 , a U.K.-only greatest hits album, was released. That year, Simon was the featured vocalist for "Your Silver Key" on the album Cosmopoly by Andreas Vollenweider.

During the 1990s, the American press reported an incident between Simon and the Pretenders' vocalist Chrissie Hynde, at a Joni Mitchell concert at New York's Fez Club. Some reports stated that a drunk and disorderly Hynde grabbed Simon around the neck and punched her, although Simon attempted to put these rumors to rest on her official website in 2002. Numerous witnesses, however, claim that Simon was, indeed, assaulted by Hynde.

2000s

In 2000, she returned from her illness with The Bedroom Tapes, her first album of original songs in almost six years. It was however one of the poorest selling albums of her career. One of the album tracks "Our Affair" was featured in a remixed version in the Gwyneth Paltrow film "Bounce". In 2001, Simon performed on "Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)" with Janet Jackson on Jackson's album All for You. She also contributed back-up vocals on two songs, "Don't Turn Away" and "East Of Eden", for Mindy Jostyn's 2001 album Blue Stories. In November 2001, "Let the River Run" was used in a public service ad for the United States Postal Service. Entitled "Pride", it was produced to boost public confidence and postal worker morale in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2001 Anthrax attacks.

In 2002, Simon recorded a Christmas album, Christmas Is Almost Here, for Rhino Records , while she was in Los Angeles to lend support to her son Ben Taylor and his band. That same year, Simon personally chose all of the songs for a two disc anthology album, to be titled Anthology for Rhino Records. 2003 saw a re-release of her 2002 Christmas album with two extra tracks and called Christmas Is Almost Here Again on Rhino Records. The two extra tracks, "White Christmas" and "Forgive", were also released as a single. Simon also performed several concerts during the 2004 holiday season at Harlem's Apollo Theater , along with BeBe Winans, son Ben and daughter Sally, Rob Thomas, Livingston Taylor, Mindy Jostyn and Kate Taylor, along with other members of the Taylor and Simon family.

Among Simon's recent work, there were songs for the Disney Winnie the Pooh films Piglet's Big Movie in 2003 and Pooh's Heffalump Movie in 2005. Several of her songs were also featured in the 2004 movie Little Black Book that starred Brittany Murphy and Holly Hunter. Simon appears in a cameo role as herself at the end of the movie. 2004 also saw the release of her fourth greatest hits album, , which peaked at #22 on the Billboard charts that year (#25 in the U.K.). The album became Simon's first Gold-certified disc since the late 1980s.

In 2005, she released her fourth album of standards, titled Moonlight Serenade. It reached #7 on the Billboard Album charts, her highest-charting album in nearly 30 years. She was also nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. To promote Moonlight Serenade, Simon performed two concerts onboard the Queen Mary 2 which were recorded and released on DVD in 2005. She also performed in a concert tour in the United States - her first tour in 10 years. Simon also sang a duet, "Angel Of The Darkest Night", with Mindy Jostyn on Jostyn's 2005 album Coming Home , which was released several months after Jostyn's death, on March 10, 2005. As one of Simon's closest friends, Jostyn was married to Jacob Brackman, Simon's long-time friend and musical collaborator. In 2005, she became involved in the legal defense of musician and family friend John Forté with his struggle against a federal incarceration.

The following year, Simon recorded yet her fifth album of covers, a collection of "soothing songs and lullabies" which was called Into White for Columbia Records. The eclectic collection featured covers of songs by Cat Stevens - the title track, Judy Garland, The Beatles and the Everly Brothers , as well as two new original songs. It also features the vocal collaborations of her children, Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor, both accomplished artists. Released in 2007, it became Billboard Magazine's "Hot Shot Debut", entering the chart at number #13.

Simon is also the featured vocalist on four songs on Andreas Vollenweider's holiday album Midnight Clear, released in 2006: "Midnight Clear", "Suspended Note", "Hymn to the Secret Heart" and "Forgive". "Forgive" is a song Simon wrote for her own holiday album on RHINO Records from 2002 (re-released in an expanded version in 2003), Christmas Is Almost Here.

In 2005, Simon paired up with Livingston Taylor on his album There You Are Again (2006), adding her vocals to his opening track "We're The Best Of Friends".

In March 2008, it was announced that Simon had signed to the Starbucks label Hear Music. She released a new album entitled This Kind of Love with them in the spring of 2008. The album is her first collection of original songs since 2000's The Bedroom Tapes. However, in October 2009, it was reported that Simon was suing Starbucks, saying they did not adequately promote her This Kind of Love album — despite that it peaked at a lofty #15 on Billboard's album chart and sold nearly 150,000 copies. (Incidentally, Simon's suit states that Starbucks publicly announced it was backing out of participation in Hear Music just days before the album debut — a decision that she claims doomed the record before it was even released.)

On June 19, 2008, Carly Simon and her son, Ben, performed "You're So Vain" together on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite radio.

In 2009 Carly released an album of reworkings of many of her classic songs titled "Never Been Gone" on Iris Records.

On November 26, 2009, Simon appeared on the Care Bears float of the 83rd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, where she sang "Let The River Run".

On 2 March 2010 Venue at Studio 3 BBC Maida Vale Studios London "RADIO 2 - AN EVENING WITH CARLY SIMON " Presented by Paul Gambaccini. Carly Simon performed live for the first time in the UK to a small audience of approximately 100 people with her son Ben Taylor

Film and television appearances

Besides music, Simon has also appeared (as herself) in films, such as the 1985 film Perfect, and an uncredited appearance in the 2004 film Little Black Book. On television, she appeared (also as herself) in a 1989 episode of Thirtysomething and voiced a 1995 episode of Frasier entitled "Roz in the Doghouse".

Personal life

Simon married fellow singer-songwriter James Taylor on November 3, 1972. Simon and Taylor had two children, Sarah "Sally" Maria Taylor (born January 7, 1974) and Benjamin "Ben" Simon Taylor (born January 22, 1977), both of whom are musicians and political activists. Simon and Taylor divorced in 1983. In the June 20, 2004, issue of Askmen.com, Simon said that she no longer speaks to her ex-husband, James Taylor. "I would say our relationship is non-existent. It's not the way I want it." On October 4, 2007, Simon became a grandmother, when her daughter Sally gave birth to a son, Bodhi Taylor Bragonier.

Prior to her marriage to Taylor, Simon was briefly engaged to William Donaldson in the 1960s (who jilted fiancee Sarah Miles for her). Donaldson described her as "the answer to any sane man's prayers; funny, quick, erotic, extravagantly talented." She also was engaged to musician Russ Kunkel, from 1985 to 1986.

Simon married James Hart, a writer, poet, and businessman, on December 23, 1987. The couple divorced in 2007.

Simon underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and reconstructive surgery for breast cancer during 1997 and 1998. There had been a lump in her breast for several years before then, but her doctors had advised her against surgery. Simon later recounted: "Then one doctor said, 'You know what, I'd rather see it in a jar than in your breast.'" She also said that she felt "a little angry with myself" over the fact that she didn't insist on taking it out sooner. Simon's surgery came at the same time as the death of her long-time friend Linda McCartney, who had also struggled with breast cancer. Simon described McCartney's death as having emotionally "crushed" her.

Simon lives on Martha's Vineyard and is associated with a store in Vineyard Haven named Midnight Farm, the title of one of her series of children's books from the late 1980s and 1990s.

In an interview published on May 1, 2008, with the Bay Area Reporter, an LGBT news service, Simon was asked about the possibility of a performance in the True Colors Tour. She responded, "The part that I could be involved in is the gay and lesbian part. The part that would be hard for me is to commit to a tour, because I'm not very comfortable [with] being onstage. But the part that would be easiest for me would be singing on behalf of all of us. I don't consider myself to be not gay... I've enlarged all of my possibilities. I have a lot of extremely personal stories to tell about that, but we won't go into that right now. Let's just say that it just depends upon who I'm with."

Simon addressed the rumors about her sexuality created by the interview on The Howard Stern Show which aired June 18, 2008. Since July 2006 she has been dating a surgeon, Richard H. Koehler, a Gulf War veteran.

Simon has been close friends with James Taylor's younger brother Livingston Taylor for over forty years. Livingston has said, "I love Carly and Carly loves me. She's a ferocious advocate and supporter of my music." They have worked as a musical duo for some songs such as "Best of Friends", released in Livingston's 2006 album There You Are Again, and others earlier in their careers.

In May 2010 Simon revealed she was one of the several celebrities who fell victim to Kenneth I. Starr, now a prison inmate, whose Ponzi scheme lured her into investing millions of dollars with him, which were lost.

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards:

* 1971 — Best New Artist

* 1989 — Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television for "Let the River Run" from Working Girl (1988)

* 2004 (inducted) — Grammy Hall of Fame Award for "You're So Vain" (1973)

Academy Award:

*1988 — Best Song, "Let the River Run" from Working Girl

Golden Globe Awards:

*1989 — Best Original Song, "Let the River Run" from Working Girl (1988)

Other awards:

* 1994 — inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Discography

{| |- |width=50%| Studio albums

Carly Simon, 1971 (out of print)

Anticipation, 1971

No Secrets, 1972

Hotcakes, 1974

Playing Possum, 1975

Another Passenger, 1976 (out of print)

Boys in the Trees, 1978

Spy, 1979

Come Upstairs, 1980

Torch, 1981

Hello Big Man, 1983

Spoiled Girl, 1985

Coming Around Again, 1987

My Romance, 1990

Have You Seen Me Lately, 1990 (out of print)

This Is My Life, 1992 (out of print)

, 1993 (out of print)

Letters Never Sent, 1994

Film Noir, 1997

The Bedroom Tapes, 2000 (out of print)

Moonlight Serenade, 2005

Into White, 2007

This Kind of Love, 2008

Never Been Gone, 2009

| Compilations

The Best of Carly Simon, 1975 — U.S. #17 (singles compilation)

Greatest Hits Live, 1988 — U.S. #87; U.K. #49 (singles compilation)

Clouds in My Coffee, 1995 (three-disc retrospective box set)

, 1999 (singles compilation) (out of print)

Christmas Is Almost Here, 2002 (Christmas compilation)

Anthology, 2002 (singles compilation) (out of print)

Christmas Is Almost Here Again, 2003 (Christmas compilation) (out of print)

, 2004 (singles compilation)

Carly Simon Collector's Edition, 2009 (tin box)

|}

Videography

Live from Martha's Vineyard, 1987

Carly in Concert — My Romance, 1990

Live at Grand Central, 1995

A Moonlight Serenade on the Queen Mary 2, 2005

Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars documentary, songs by Carly Simon 2006

Works

Amy the Dancing Bear, 1989

The Boy of the Bells, 1990

The Fisherman's Song, 1991

The Nighttime Chauffeur, 1993

Midnight Farm, 1997

References

External links

carlysimon.com, Simon's official website

Autobiography

Carly Simon at the Notable Names Database

Carly Simon at Rollingstone

Category:1945 births Category:American female guitarists Category:American female singers Category:American Jews Category:American musicians of French descent Category:American musicians of German descent Category:American people of Cuban descent Category:American people of Spanish descent Category:American pop singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Arista Records artists Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:Breast cancer survivors Category:Elektra Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish composers and songwriters Category:Living people Category:Massachusetts Democrats Category:People from the Bronx Category:Riverdale, Bronx Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Traditional pop music singers

Name	Ben Watt
Birthname	Benjamin Brian Watt
Birthdate	December 06, 1962
Birthplace	Barnes, London
Nationality	British
Occupation	musician, DJ, and record producer
Spouse	Tracey Thorn
Children	Jean, Alfie and Blake
Notableworks	Everything but the Girl
Website	http://www.myspace.com/benwatt

Ben Watt (born 6 December 1962, Barnes, London) is a British musician, DJ, and record producer, best known as one half of the duo, Everything but the Girl.

Family

Watt is the son of British bandleader Tommy Watt and has four half brothers and sisters. He is the youngest of the family. Watt lives with his spouse and creative partner Tracey Thorn in Hampstead, North London. They met at Hull University in 1981 and after 28 years as a couple, in 2009, they married at the Chelsea Registry Office. They have twin daughters, Jean and Alfie, born in 1998, and a son, Blake, born in 2001.

Recording artist

Watt began recording in 1981 on the indie label Cherry Red - and went on to make the album North Marine Drive, a collection of folk-jazz solo recordings in 1983. He then joined forces with vocalist Tracey Thorn. For 18 years they wrote and recorded together - creating nine studio albums as Everything but the Girl (EBTG), signing to Warners in 1984, and then Virgin in 1995. These albums and many of their singles achieved UK and US chart success, the song "Missing" reaching number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1995. In the mid-nineties, the band shifted focus from alt-pop towards electronica, charting with Walking Wounded, Protection (with Massive Attack), Temperamental and other work.

DJ and remixer

Lazy Dog

In 1998, Ben Watt established the London deep house Sunday club and compilation series, "Lazy Dog" with Jay Hannan. The tiny Notting Hill Arts Club in west London, hosted it twice-monthly and they attracted a cult following. Watt moved away from EBTG's mainstream eclecticism and into club-oriented dance music production, producing a string of dance remixes for Sade, Sunshine Anderson, Zero 7, Maxwell, Meshell Ndegeocello and Sandy Rivera. Lazy Dog ended on 16 May 2003 with a farewell closing party at their second home, The End, in central London. They made two compilation CDs from that time: Lazy Dog Volumes 1 and 2.

Buzzin' Fly

In April 2003, Watt launched his own independent deep house and techno record label, Buzzin' Fly (named after the Tim Buckley song). It went on to foster the careers of young producer/DJs such as Justin Martin, Mademoiselle Caro & Franck Garcia and Rodamaal. The label hosted Watt's own club productions such as Lone Cat, Pop A Cap In Yo' Ass (with Estelle) and defining work from remixers such as Ame, Radio Slave, Charles Webster and John Tejada. Buzzin' Fly won Best Breakthrough Label in the House Music Awards in 2004 and Runner-Up Best British Label from DJ Magazine Awards in 2007 and 2008.

Neighbourhood and Cherry Jam

Watt helped found and own the West London nightclubs Neighbourhood and Cherry Jam. From 2002 to 2005, under his creative direction, Cherry Jam hosted underground club nights, art exhibitions, the long-running spoken-word night Book Slam and The Libertines' official debut show. At Neighbourhood, Watt brought in artists such as Groove Armada and many international DJs to guest at his own in-house club nights, hosting Rough Trade Records 25th Anniversary and the inaugural House Music Awards. He resigned in June 2005.

2007-2010

In 2007, Watt launched Strange Feeling Records, an alt-indie sub-label of Buzzin' Fly. Early signings included the critically acclaimed Copenhagen band, Figurines, and the Hungarian trio The Unbending Trees. In 2010 the label released and globally distributed the third solo album Love And Its Opposite by Watt's wife Tracey Thorn. Watt also hosts the weekly Buzzin' Fly Radio Show that recently broadcast its 150th edition. It has seen lengthy stints on both the Galaxy Network and the Kiss Network as well us several internet restreams and global syndications. Watt remains a central figure on London's club scene and continues to DJ internationally.

Writing

Watt's autobiographical book, Patient (Penguin, 1996), details his battle with the rare life-threatening auto-immune disease (Churg-Strauss syndrome). Watt's website states that it won New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Sunday Times Book Of The Year, Village Voice Literary Supplement Favorite Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the Esquire-Waterstones (UK) Best Non-Fiction Award.

Discography

Singles

"Cant" (Cherry Red Records) - June 1981

"Summer Into Winter EP" (Cherry Red Records) with Robert Wyatt - March 1982

"Some Things Don't Matter" (Cherry Red Records) - February 1983

"Lone Cat" (Buzzin' Fly]) - April 2003

"A Stronger Man" with Sananda Maitreya (Buzzin' Fly) - Jan 2004

"Outspoken Part 1" (Buzzin' Fly) - Jan 2005 (feat "Pop A Cap In Yo' Ass" with Estelle and "Attack, Attack, Attack" with Baby Blak

"Buzzin' Fly Vol 2 EP" (Buzzin' Fly) - April 2005 feat "Le Boom" by Justin Martin remixes of "Lone Cat (Holding On)" by Justin Martin, and "Pop A Cap In Yo Ass" by Ben Watt featuring Estelle)

"We Are Silver EP" (Buzzin' Fly) - April 2007 (includes "Old Soul" and "Lone Cat" remix)

"Just A Blip" (Buzzin' Fly) - June 2007 (features on Buzzin' Fly Vol 4 Sampler EP)

"Guinea Pig" (Buzzin' Fly) - Oct 2008

Album

North Marine Drive (Cherry Red Records) - February 1983

Compilations mixed by Ben Watt

Lazy Dog Vol. 1 (Virgin Records) with Jay Hannan - October 2000

Back To Mine with Tracey Thorn as Everything But The Girl - May 2001

Lazy Dog Vol. 2 (Virgin Records) with Jay Hannan - March 2002

Buzzin' Fly Vol 1: Replenishing Music for the Modern Soul (Buzzin' Fly) - March 2004

Buzzin' Fly Vol 2: Replenishing Music for the Modern Soul (Buzzin' Fly) - April 2005

Inthemix.06 with Ivan Gough (Australian release; 2 CDs) - November 2006

Buzzin' Fly Vol 3 (Buzzin' Fly) - June 2006

Buzzin' Fly Vol 4 (Buzzin' Fly) - May 2007

Buzzin' Fly - 5 Golden Years in the Wilderness (Buzzin' Fly) - June 2008

Notes

External links

Ben Watt's Twitter page

Ben Watt's MySpace page

Everything But The Girl official site

Buzzin' Fly Records

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:English male singers Category:English DJs Category:English record producers Category:English electronic musicians Category:Remixers Category:Club DJs Category:People from Barnes