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The second biggest factor affecting the sound produced by a drum is the tension at which the drum head is held against the shell of the drum. When the hoop is placed around the drum head and shell and tightened down with tension rods, the tension of the head can be adjusted. When the tension is increased, the amplitude of the sound is reduced and the frequency is increased, making the pitch higher and the volume lower.
The type of shell also affects the sound of a drum. Because the vibrations resonate in the shell of the drum, the shell can be used to increase the volume and to manipulate the type of sound produced. The larger the diameter of the shell, the lower the pitch. The larger the depth of the drum, the louder the volume. Shell thickness also determines the volume of drums. Thicker shells produce louder drums. Mahogany raises the frequency of low pitches and keeps higher frequencies at about the same speed. When choosing a set of shells, a jazz drummer may want smaller maple shells, while a rock drummer may want larger birch shells. For more information about tuning drums or the physics of a drum, visit the external links listed below.
Within the realm of popular music and jazz, "drums" usually refers to a drum kit or a set of drums (with some cymbals) and "drummer" to the actual band member or person who plays them.
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Caption | Atkinson at the premiere for Mr. Bean's Holiday in March 2007 |
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Birth name | Rowan Sebastian Atkinson |
Birth date | January 06, 1955 |
Birth place | Consett, County Durham, England, United Kingdom |
Current location | Danville, California |
Medium | Stand-up, television, film |
Genre | Physical comedy, satire |
Influences | Peter Sellers, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati |
Influenced | Steve Pemberton, David Walliams, David Schneider |
Active | 1978–present |
Notable work | Not the Nine O'Clock News Blackadder Mr. Bean The Thin Blue Line |
Spouse | |
Child | Ben Atkinson, Lily Atkinson, Gemma Atkinson |
Baftaawards | Best Light Entertainment Performance 1981 Not the Nine O'Clock News 1990 Blackadder Goes Forth |
Olivierawards | Best Comedy Performance 1981 Rowan Atkinson in Revue |
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He is most famous for his work in the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedy actors ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians.
The success of Not the Nine O'Clock News led to his starring in the medieval sitcom The Black Adder, which he also co-wrote with Richard Curtis, in 1983. After a three-year gap, in part due to budgetary concerns, a second series was written, this time by Curtis and Ben Elton, and first screened in 1986. Blackadder II followed the fortunes of one of the descendants of Atkinson's original character, this time in the Elizabethan era. The same pattern was repeated in the two sequels Blackadder the Third (1987) (set in the Regency era), and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) (set in World War I). The Blackadder series went on to become one of the most successful BBC situation comedies of all time, spawning television specials including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) and (1988).
Atkinson's other famous creation, the hapless Mr. Bean, first appeared on New Years Day in 1990 in a half-hour special for Thames Television. The character of Mr. Bean has been likened somewhat to a modern-day Buster Keaton. During this time, Atkinson appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal in 1987 and 1989. Several sequels to Mr. Bean appeared on television in the 1990s, and it eventually made into a major motion picture in 1997. Entitled Bean, it was directed by Mel Smith, his former co-star from Not the Nine O'Clock News. A second movie was released in 2007 entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday.
In 1995 and 1996, Atkinson portrayed Inspector Raymond Fowler in the popular The Thin Blue Line television series, written by Ben Elton, which takes place in a police station located in fictitious Gasforth.
Atkinson has fronted campaigns for Kronenbourg, Hitachi electrical goods, Fujifilm, and Give Blood. Most famously, he appeared as a hapless and error-prone espionage agent in a long-running series for Barclaycard, on which character his title role in Johnny English was based.
He also starred in a comedy spoof of Doctor Who as the Doctor, for a red nose day benefit. He had also been considered as a candidate for playing the Doctor in the actual show.
Atkinson gained further recognition with his turn as a verbally bumbling vicar in the 1994 hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. That same year he was featured in Walt Disney's The Lion King as Zazu the Red-billed Hornbill. Atkinson continued to appear in supporting roles in successful comedies, including Rat Race (2001), Scooby-Doo (2002), and ''Love Actually (2003).
In 2005, he acted in the crime/comedy Keeping Mum, which also starred Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze.
In addition to his supporting roles, Atkinson has also had success as a leading man. His television character Mr. Bean debuted on the big screen in 1997 with Bean to international success. A sequel, Mr. Bean's Holiday, was released in March 2007 and may be the last time he plays the character. He has also starred in the James Bond parody Johnny English in 2003. Its sequel, Johnny English Reborn will be released in 2011.
One of his better-known trademark comic devices is over-articulation of the "B" sound, such as his pronunciation of "Bob" in a Blackadder episode. Atkinson suffers from stuttering, and the over-articulation is a technique to overcome problematic consonants.
Atkinson's style is often visually-based. This visual style, which has been compared to Buster Keaton, Sunetra is of mixed descent, being the daughter of an Indian father and a British mother. The couple married at the Russian Tea Room in New York City in 1990. They have two children and live in Northamptonshire as well as Oxfordshire and London. In October 2010, his Blackadder co-star Stephen Fry confessed on The Rob Brydon Show that he had contemplated asking Sastry out (she was a make-up artist on the series), but discovered she was going on a date with Atkinson and kept quiet. Fry was best man at Atkinson's wedding in 1990.
In 2009, he criticised homophobic speech legislation, saying that the House of Lords must vote against a government attempt to remove a free speech clause in an anti-gay hate law.
Atkinson holds a category C+E (formerly 'Class 1') lorry driving licence, gained in 1981, because lorries held a fascination for him, and to ensure employment as a young actor. He has also used this skill when filming comedy material.
A lover of and participant in car racing, he appeared as racing driver Henry Birkin in the television play Full Throttle in 1995. In 1991, he starred in the self-penned The Driven Man, a series of sketches featuring Atkinson driving around London trying to solve his car-fetish, and discussing it with taxi drivers, policemen, used-car salesmen and psychotherapists.
Atkinson has raced in other cars, including a Renault 5 GT Turbo for two seasons for its one make series. He owns a McLaren F1, which was involved in an accident in Cabus, near Garstang, Lancashire with an Austin Metro. He also owns a Honda NSX. Other cars he owns include an Audi A8, and a Honda Civic Hybrid.
The Conservative Party politician Alan Clark, himself a devotee of classic motor cars, recorded in his published Diaries this chance meeting with a man he later realised was Atkinson while driving through Oxfordshire in May 1984: "Just after leaving the motorway at Thame I noticed a dark red DBS V8 Aston Martin on the slip road with the bonnet up, a man unhappily bending over it. I told Jane to pull in and walked back. A DV8 in trouble is always good for a gloat." Clark writes that he gave Atkinson a lift in his Rolls Royce to the nearest telephone box, but was disappointed in his bland reaction to being recognised, noting that: "he didn't sparkle, was rather disappointing and ."
One car Atkinson will not own is a Porsche: "I have a problem with Porsches. They're wonderful cars, but I know I could never live with one. Somehow, the typical Porsche people—and I wish them no ill—are not, I feel, my kind of people. I don't go around saying that Porsches are a pile of dung, but I do know that psychologically I couldn't handle owning one."
Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Newcastle University Category:Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Car collectors Category:English Anglicans Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English film actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Living people Category:Mr. Bean Category:Old St. Beghians Category:People from Consett
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Name | Bernard Purdie |
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Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
Alias | Bernard "Pretty" PurdieMississippi Bigfoot |
Born | June 11, 1939Elkton, MarylandUnited States |
Instrument | Drums |
Genre | Soul, R&B;, Funk, Rock |
Occupation | Musician |
Years active | 1958–present |
Label | A&M;, Atco, EMI, Capitol |
Associated acts | James Brown, Jeff Beck, Hummingbird, Steely Dan, Aretha Franklin, Gil Scott-Heron, King Curtis, The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Randy Brecker, Quincy Jones, Hall & Oates, Isaac Hayes, Cat Stevens, Hair, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (soundtrack) |
Url | Bernard Purdie.com |
Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie (born June 11, 1939) is an American session drummer and is considered an influential and innovative exponent of funk. He is known for his strict musical time keeping
Purdie recorded Soul Drums (1968) as a band leader and although he went on to record Alexander's Ragtime Band, the album remained unreleased until Soul Drums was reissued on CD in 2009 with the Alexander's Ragtime Band sessions. Other solo albums include Purdie Good (1971),Soul Is...Pretty Purdie (1972) and the soundtrack for the Blaxploitation film Lialeh (1973).
Purdie was credited on the sound track album for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) and more recently he was the drummer for the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair and appeared on the associated Broadway cast recording.
Purdie was contracted by arranger Sammy Lowe to play a session with James Brown in 1965 and recording session records also show that Purdie played on "Ain't That A Groove" at the same session. and Get on the Good Foot (1972) on which "Ain't That A Groove" appeared.
Purdie started working with Aretha Franklin as musical director in 1970 and held that position for five years, His best known track with Franklin was "Rock Steady", on which he played what he termed as "a funky and low down beat". Of his time with Franklin he once commented that, "backing her was like floating in seventh heaven".
Purdie is known as a groove drummer with immaculate timing and makes use of precision half note, backbeats, and grooves. Purdie's signature sixteenth note hi-hat lick pish-ship, pish-ship, pish-ship is distinct and hard to copy and he is known for his versatility. He often employs a straight eight groove sometimes fusing several influences such as swing, blues and funk. He created a well-known drum pattern known as the Purdie shuffle, Half-Time Purdie Shuffle, that is a blues shuffle variation with the addition of syncopated ghost notes on the snare drum. Purdie's shuffle can be heard on Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters" and "Home At Last".
Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:People from Elkton, Maryland Category:American jazz drummers Category:American funk musicians Category:American rock musicians Category:American soul musicians Category:Jazz-blues musicians Category:Soul-jazz musicians Category:American session musicians Category:Steely Dan members Category:James Brown Orchestra members Category:Flying Dutchman Records artists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Phil Collins |
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Landscape | Yes |
Background | solo_singer |
Birth name | Philip David Charles Collins |
Born | January 30, 1951Chiswick, London, England |
Instrument | Drums, vocals,piano, guitar,keyboards,bass guitar |
Genre | PopRock |
Occupation | Singer-songwriter,musician, actor |
Years active | 1968–present |
Label | Virgin, Atlantic |
Associated acts | Genesis, Brand X, Flaming Youth, Philip Bailey, Eric Clapton, The Phil Collins Big Band |
Url |
Philip David Charles Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboardist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for English progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist.
Collins sang the lead vocals on several chart hits in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1978 and 1994, either as a solo artist or with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", dance pop of "Sussudio", piano-driven "Against All Odds", to the political statements of "Another Day in Paradise". His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay.
Collins's professional music career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. Following Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis's first international hit, "Follow You, Follow Me", demonstrated a drastic change from the band's early years.
His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins's total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2000, were 150 million. He has won seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and two Golden Globes for his solo work. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.
Collins is one of only three recording artists (along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) who have sold over 100 million albums worldwide both as solo artists and (separately) as principal members of a band. According to Billboard magazine, when his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins has the most top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the 1980s. In 2008, Collins was ranked the 22nd most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists".
His professional training began at fourteen when he entered Barbara Speake Stage School. He began a career as a child actor and model, and won his first major role as The Artful Dodger in the London production of Oliver!. He was an extra in The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night – one of hundreds of screaming teenagers during the TV concert sequence and seen fleetingly in a close-up. He was also in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as one of the children who stormed the castle at the end of the movie but was edited out. He also auditioned for the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968), a role won by fellow "Artful Dodger" actor, Leonard Whiting. Collins was among the last three finalists for the role of "I.Q." on the American children's television show The Bugaloos (he lost out to English actor/musician John McIndoe).
Despite the beginnings of an acting career, Collins continued to gravitate towards music. While attending Chiswick Community School he formed a band called The Real Thing and later joined The Freehold. With the latter group, he wrote his first song titled "Lying Crying Dying".
Collins's first record deal came as drummer for Flaming Youth who released a single album, Ark 2 (1969). A concept album inspired by the recent media attention surrounding the moon landing, Ark 2 (with Ronnie Caryl, Brian Chatton and Gordon (Flash) Smith), failed to make much commercial success despite positive critical reviews. Melody Maker featured the album as "Pop Album of the Month", describing it as "adult music beautifully played with nice tight harmonies". The album's main single, "From Now On", failed on the radio. After a year of touring, band tensions and the lack of commercial success dissolved the group. In 1970, the 19-year old Collins played percussion on the George Harrison song "The Art of Dying". Harrison credited him in the liner notes to the remastered CD version of the album released in 2000.
" featured the members of Genesis in puppet form, with the single cover (parodying the With the Beatles album and using puppets from the satirical TV show Spitting Image).]]
Collins won the audition. Nursery Cryme was released a year later. Although his role remained primarily that of drummer and backing vocalist for the next five years, he twice sang lead vocals: once on "For Absent Friends" (from Nursery Cryme) and once on "More Fool Me" (from Selling England by the Pound).
In 1974, while Genesis were recording the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Brian Eno (who is credited with "Enossification" for electronic vocal effects on the track "Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging") needed a drummer for his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Collins was sent to fill the gap, and played drums in lieu of payment for Eno's work with the band.
In 1975, following the final tour supporting the concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. Collins became lead vocalist after a lengthy but ultimately fruitless search for Gabriel's replacement (where he sang back up with the over 400 hopefuls that reportedly auditioned). In the short term, the group recruited former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford to play drums during live shows, although Collins continued to play during longer instrumental sections. Bruford's drumming can be heard on the track "The Cinema Show" on the live album Seconds Out. He was soon replaced by ex-Frank Zappa band member Chester Thompson, who became a mainstay of the band's live line-up. Collins, however, continued to play drums on all of the band's studio recordings.
The first album with Collins as lead vocalist, 1976's A Trick of the Tail, reached the American Top 40, and peaked high as #3 on the UK charts. Said Rolling Stone, "Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success.". Following the recording of Genesis's next album Wind and Wuthering guitarist Steve Hackett left the group to pursue his own solo career. The group decided to continue as a trio for recording with Mike Rutherford playing guitar and bass in the studio, although the lineup was regularly augmented by Chester Thompson and American guitarist Daryl Stuermer for concert tours.
Collins simultaneously performed in a jazz fusion group called Brand X. The band recorded their first album, Unorthodox Behaviour, with Collins as drummer, but because Genesis was Collins's priority, there were several Brand X tours and albums without him. Collins credits Brand X as his first use of a drum machine as well as his first use of a home 8-track tape machine.
Collins also performed on Steve Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, on which he sang lead vocals and played drums.
As the decade closed, Genesis began a shift from their progressive rock roots and toward more accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock music. The album ...And Then There Were Three... featured their first UK Top 10 and U.S. Top 40 single, "Follow You Follow Me".
In the 1980s, while Collins developed as a songwriter and established a parallel career as a solo artist, Genesis recorded a series of highly successful albums including Duke, Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. The latter album's title track reached #1 on the American Billboard singles chart, the only Genesis song to do so. The group received an MTV "Video of the Year" nomination in 1987 for the single "Land of Confusion" (which featured puppet caricatures created by the British satirical team Spitting Image) but lost out to Peter Gabriel's solo hit, "Sledgehammer". Reviews were generally positive, with Rolling Stone's J.D. Considine stating, "every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook."
Collins left Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career; The last studio album with him as the lead singer was 1991's We Can't Dance. He and Gabriel reunited with other Genesis members in 1999 to re-record "The Carpet Crawlers" for Genesis's . When in the mid-2000s discussions of a possible Genesis reunion arose, Collins stated that he would prefer to return as the drummer, with Gabriel handling the vocals. Eventually was announced for 2007, with the Collins/Rutherford/Banks lineup.
In March 2010, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio was asked to pay tribute to Genesis, one of his favorite bands, upon being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to Anastasio's speech, Phish appeared and performed two Genesis songs, "Watcher of the Skies" and "No Reply At All". Collins and his Genesis bandmates (minus Peter Gabriel) attended the ceremony but they did not perform.
Much like Face Value, much of the songs from Collins's 1982 follow-up album, Hello, I Must Be Going!, came from Collins's marital problems with his first wife such as "I Don't Care Anymore" and "Do You Know and Do You Care". Collins’s early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes." There were occasional poppier influences–Face Value
Two years before, Collins had played drums on Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record (often referred to as Melt), the first record to feature the "gated reverb" sound, which was used on the song "Intruder". Gabriel reportedly "didn't want any metal on the record" and asked Collins to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. Studio engineer Hugh Padgham augmented the drum sound by using a microphone normally intended for studio communication rather than recording and feeding it through a signal processor called a noise gate. This allowed the reverberation added to the drums to be suddenly cut off before it naturally decayed. The result was the arresting "gated reverb" which became Collins signature sound. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as "In The Air Tonight", "Mama" by Genesis, and Frida's "There's Something Going On".
No Jacket Required received criticism that the album was too safe, despite its upbeat reviews and commercial success. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, "After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans' expectations next time around." "Sussudio" also drew criticism for sounding too similar to Prince's "1999", a charge that Collins did not deny. Nevertheless, the album went straight to #1 in the U.S. and UK. In 1985, Collins was invited by Bob Geldof to perform at the Live Aid charity event. Collins had the distinction of being the only performer to appear at both the UK concert at Wembley Stadium and the US concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. He accomplished this by performing early in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting, then transferring to a Concorde flight to the USA enabling him to perform his solo material, and drum for Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia. While being a guest on major artists' hit recordings, Collins continued to enjoy solo success even while on tour with Genesis, besides from his number-one duet with Marilyn Martin in 1986, Collins would score two more hits from movies with the singles, "Two Hearts" (1988) and "Groovy Kind of Love" (1988), the latter two from the soundtrack of his feature film, Buster.
In 1989, Collins produced another successful album, ...But Seriously, featuring the anti-homelessness anthem "Another Day in Paradise", with David Crosby on backing vocals. (Collins later went on to co-write, sing and play on the song "Hero" on Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads.) "Another Day in Paradise" went to Number 1 on the Billboard Charts at the end of 1989 and won Collins a Grammy for Record of the Year (1990). In the process, it became the last #1 US pop hit of the 1980s. The album ...But Seriously became the first #1 US album of the 1990s. Other songs included "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" (#4 US, #15 UK), "Do You Remember?" (not released in the UK, but a #4 hit in the US), and "I Wish It Would Rain Down" (the latter featuring Clapton on guitar) (#3 US, #7 UK). Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins’s turn to politically-driven material. This theme recurred on his later albums. A live album, Serious Hits... Live!, followed.
Collins attempted a return to poppier music with Dance into the Light, which Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that "(e)ven Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins". It included minor hits such as the title track and The Beatles-inspired "It's in Your Eyes". Although the album went Gold in the US, it sold considerably less than his previous albums. Despite this the subsequent tour regularly sold out arenas.
In 1996, Collins formed The Phil Collins Big Band. With Collins as drummer, the band performed jazz renditions of various Collins and Genesis hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999, the group released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of "Invisible Touch", "Sussudio", and the more obscure "The Los Endos Suite" from A Trick of the Tail. , 6834 Hollywood Blvd]] A compilation album Hits was released in 1998 and sold very well, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in America. The album's sole new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit "True Colors", received considerable play on US Adult Contemporary stations while peaking at #2. Some of Collins's earlier hits (e.g. "I Missed Again", "If Leaving Me Is Easy", etc.) and other successes were not included in this compilation.
Collins's next single, "You'll Be in My Heart", from the Disney animated movie Tarzan, spent 19 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart – the longest time ever up to that point. The song won Collins an Academy Award for Best Song. It was his third nomination in the songwriters category, after being nominated in 1985 and 1989. Collins was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on 16 June 1999.
, Spain in July 2004.]]
In 2002 Collins released Testify. Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found this record to be the worst-reviewed album at the time of its release, though it has since been "surpassed" by three more recent releases. The album's "Can't Stop Loving You" (a Leo Sayer cover) was yet another #1 Adult Contemporary smash hit for Collins. Testify sold 140,000 copies in the United States by year's end, although a successful worldwide tour followed.
That same year Collins accepted an invitation to drum for the "house band" at a concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. In 2003 announced his last solo tour - the "First Final Farewell Tour", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. In 2006 he worked with Disney on a Broadway production of Tarzan, a musical which received generally mixed reviews. In 2007 Collins reunited with his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford for , a tour of Europe and North America. During the tour Genesis performed at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium. Following the band's performance, presenter Jonathan Ross had to apologise to viewers watching the televised version as Collins had used a swear word while singing "Invisible Touch".
Going Back was released on 13 September 2010, entering the UK charts at number 4, rising to number one the following week. In early summer 2010, Collins played six concerts entirely dedicated to the music from Going Back. These included a special programme, Phil Collins: One Night Only, which was broadcast on ITV1 on 18 September 2010.
Cymbals: HH Medium Crash 20" – HH Extra Thin Crash 17" – Hi-Hats 15" – HH Chinese 20" – HH Medium-Thin Crash 16" -HH Chinese 22" – HH Raw Bell Dry Ride 21".
Until 1986, Collins played Paiste and Zildjian Cymbals. Other drums he's used over the years are Premier, Noble & Cooley, Pearl, Simmons and Ludwig drums. He uses a Ludwig Speed King pedal and Pro Mark sticks.
Other instruments which have become synonymous with Collins's sound (particularly in his post-1978 Genesis and subsequent solo career) include the Roland CR-78 and Roland TR-808 drum machines, and the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano.
Collins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven American number one songs and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was not invited to perform the song at that year's presentation, although he was in the audience as the song's composer. Collins had arranged his U.S. tour to accommodate the possibility of appearing on the telecast in the event his song was nominated for an Oscar. It is believed that the producers of that year's Academy Awards show were not aware of his prominence as a musical performer. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, "Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper (emphasis added). I'm afraid the spots have already been filled". Collins instead watched Ann Reinking perform his song. For a long time afterwards, he would introduce his performance of "Against All Odds" at his concerts by saying: "Miss Ann Reinking's not here tonight, so I guess I'll have to sing my own song".
As a vocalist, Collins sang Stephen Bishop's composition "Separate Lives" for the film White Nights (1985) as a duet with Marilyn Martin. The single of the recording became another Number One hit for Collins. The song itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song (a category that honours the composer, not the vocalists). Bishop's song had parallels to some of the songs on Collins's first two albums. Writer Stephen Bishop noted that he was inspired by a failed relationship and called "Separate Lives" "a song about anger". When the song was being nominated for an Academy Award, in interviews about the original snub by the Academy for "Against All Odds", Collins would jokingly say "the hell with him – I'm going up too," referring to if Bishop's song were to win the award.
Collins's first film role since becoming a musician came in 1988 with Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in the 1960s. The movie received good reviews and Collins contributed four songs to the film's soundtrack. His rendition of "Groovy Kind of Love", originally a 1966 single by The Mindbenders, with lyrics by Toni Wine and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina in G major", op. 36 no. 5 reached Number One. The film also spawned the hit single "Two Hearts", which he wrote in collaboration with legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier; the two artists would go on to win a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and receive an Oscar nomination in the same category, the second such honour for Collins; "Big Noise", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of "A Groovy Kind Of Love".) The final song, "Loco In Acapulco", was another collaboration between him and Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group The Four Tops. Movie critic Roger Ebert said the role of Buster was "played with surprising effectiveness" by Collins, although the film's soundtrack proved more successful than the movie did.
.]]
Collins had cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and the AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On (1993). He starred in 1993's Frauds, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. He supplied voices to two animated features: Amblin's Balto (1995) and Disney's The Jungle Book 2 (2003). A long-discussed but never completed project was a movie titled The Three Bears; originally meant to star him alongside Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, he often mentioned the film, though an appropriate script never materialised.
Collins performed the soundtrack to the animated film Tarzan (1999) for The Walt Disney Company. Collins won an Academy Award for "You'll Be in My Heart", which he performed at that year's telecast as well as during a Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show. The song, which he also recorded in Spanish among other languages, became his only appearance on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks. They had a son, Simon Collins, and Collins adopted Bertorelli's daughter Joely Collins, now a Canadian actress. They divorced in 1980, after she started an affair with their painter and decorator. Collins later appeared on the BBC's Top of the Pops singing his 1981 solo hit "In The Air Tonight" with a pot of paint and brush positioned near his piano. Collins has since claimed that the presence of the paint and brush was coincidental. # Collins met his second wife, Jill Taverman, in 1980. They were married from 1984 to 1996. They had one daughter, named Lily Collins, who was born in 1989. Collins openly admits that some of their divorce-related correspondence was by fax (one, about access to their daughter, was reproduced in The Sun), but denies that this took her by surprise. In 2008, Collins was quoted in People Magazine: "Marriage is a difficult proposition. But I haven't given up on it, either.
Collins was appointed a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in 1994 in recognition of his work on behalf of the Prince's Trust.
Bob Geldof said of Collins after recording the drums for the Band Aid single "Feed The World (Do They Know its Christmas)", "Phil Collins is a magnificent soul. He has touched the world through his music and he continues to fight against world poverty. He is one of life's true heroes."
Collins has stated he is a supporter of animal rights and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In 2005, he donated an autographed drumstick in support of PETA's campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Collins also has a lifelong interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artifacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and spoken at related events.
Collins has often been mentioned erroneously in the British media as being a supporter of the Conservative Party and an opponent of the Labour Party. Shortly before the 2005 election (when Collins was living in Switzerland), Noel Gallagher is reported as saying: "Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil is threatening to come back." However, Collins has since stated that although he did once claim many years earlier that he might leave Britain if most of his income was taken in tax, which was Labour Party policy at that time for top earners, he has never been a Conservative Party supporter and he left Britain for Switzerland in 1994 purely because he met a woman who lived there. He said of Gallagher: “I don’t care if he likes my music or not. I do care if he starts telling people I’m a wanker because of my politics. It’s an opinion based on an old misunderstood quote.” Despite his claim that he did not leave Britain for tax purposes, he was one of several super-rich figures living in tax havens who were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008.
Collins founded the Little Dreams Foundation in February 2000, which aims to "realise the dreams of children in the fields of sports and art" by providing future prodigies aged 4 to 16 years with financial, material, and mentoring support with the help of experts in various fields.
Collins supports the South African charity The Topsy Foundation, which provides relief services to some of South Africa's most under-resourced rural communities through a multi-faceted approach to the consequences of HIV and AIDS and extreme poverty, and he donates all royalties earned in South Africa to the organization.
Robert Howe, representing Phil Collins Limited, said at the time, "The defendants claim royalties in respect to recordings to which they have made no contribution. They appeared in five out of 15 tracks but say they are entitled to full royalties on the whole album, which flies in the face of common-sense." Howe further said that Collins felt the two men had been well rewarded in relation to the nine-month tour. "He [Collins] is not seeking for them to put a hand in their pockets and pay back as much as a penny," according to Mr Howe.
On 19 April 2000, the British High Court ruled that the two musicians would receive no more royalty money from Phil Collins. The amount that Collins was seeking was halved, and Louis Satterfield and Rhamlee Davis, the American performers who originally brought the suit forward in California, would not have to repay any of it. Collins had not sought actual repayment but wanted a declaration from the court that he could stop paying royalties to the performers who claimed they were entitled to royalties on all 15 tracks of an album recorded during Collins's 1990 Seriously, Live! World Tour. The judge ruled, however, the men should have been paid for only the five tracks on which they performed, including the hit "Sussudio".
"In the Air Tonight" re-entered the New Zealand charts in 2008 at #3 and then peaked at #1, after featuring in the 'Cadbury Gorilla' advert.
Category:1951 births Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Ballad musicians Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:BRIT Award winners Category:British expatriates in Switzerland Category:English-language singers Category:English drummers Category:English film actors Category:English male models Category:English male singers Category:English pop singers Category:English rock drummers Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:Genesis (band) members Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Lieutenants of the Royal Victorian Order Category:Living people Category:Musicians from London Category:People from Chiswick Category:Silver Clef Awards winners Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees
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Name | Lady Gaga |
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Img alt | Portrait of a young, pale-skinned Caucasian female with blond hair |
Background | solo_singer |
Birth name | Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta |
Born | March 28, 1986New York City, U.S. |
Instrument | Vocals, piano, synthesizer, keytar |
Genre | Pop, dance |
Occupation | Singer-songwriter, performance artist, record producer, dancer, businesswoman |
Years active | 2005–present |
Label | Def Jam, Cherrytree, Streamline, Kon Live, Interscope |
Url |
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter. She began performing in the rock music scene of New York City's Lower East Side in 2003 and enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She soon signed with Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. During her early time at Interscope, she worked as a songwriter for fellow label artists and captured the attention of Akon, who recognized her vocal abilities, and signed her to his own label, Kon Live Distribution.
Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which was a commercial success and achieved international popularity with the singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". The album reached number one on the record charts of six countries, accomplished positions within the top-ten worldwide, and topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart while simultaneously peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States. Achieving similar worldwide success, the follow-up EP The Fame Monster (2009), produced a further two global chart-topping singles "Bad Romance" and "Telephone" and allowed her to embark on a second global headlining concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just months after having finished her first, The Fame Ball Tour. Her second studio album, Born This Way, is scheduled for release in 2011.
Inspired by glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen, as well as pop singers such as Madonna and Michael Jackson, Gaga is well-recognized for her outré sense of style as a recording artist, in fashion, in performance and in her music videos. Her contributions to the music industry have garnered her numerous achievements including two Grammy Awards, amongst twelve nominations; two Guinness World Records; and the estimated sale of fifteen million albums and fifty-one million singles worldwide. Billboard named her as the Artist of the Year in 2010 and ranked her as the 73rd Artist of the 2000s decade. Gaga has been included in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as Forbes' list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world. Forbes also placed her at number seven on their annual list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women.
An avid thespian in high school musicals, Gaga portrayed lead roles as Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure" as she told in an interview, "I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn’t fit in, and I felt like a freak." Acquaintances dispute that she did not fit in school. "She had a core group of friends; she was a good student. She liked boys a lot, but singing was No. 1," recalled a former high school classmate. Referring to her "expressive, free spirit", Gaga told Elle magazine "I'm left-handed!"
At age 17, Gaga gained early admission to the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and lived in a NYU dorm on 11th Street. There she studied music and improved her songwriting skills by composing essays and analytical papers focusing on topics such as art, religion, social issues and politics. Gaga felt that she was more creative than some of her classmates. "Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself," she said. By the second semester of her sophomore year, she withdrew from the school to focus on her musical career. Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll for Tisch if she was unsuccessful. "I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen," she said. Shortly after, her former management company introduced her to songwriter and producer RedOne, whom they also managed. The first song she produced with RedOne was "Boys Boys Boys", She also started the Stefani Germanotta Band with some friends from NYU. They recorded an extended play of their ballads at a studio underneath a liquor store in New Jersey, becoming a local fixture at the downtown Lower East Side club scene. Music producer Rob Fusari, who helped her write some of her earlier songs, compared some of her vocal harmonies to that of Freddie Mercury. He explained,
She was known thereafter as Lady Gaga. The pair began playing gigs at downtown club venues like the Mercury Lounge, The Bitter End, and the Rockwood Music Hall, with their live performance art piece known as "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue." Billed as "The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow", their act was a low-fi tribute to 1970s variety acts. In August 2007, Gaga and Starlight were invited to play at the American Lollapalooza music festival. The show was critically acclaimed, and their performance received positive reviews.
Fusari sent the songs he produced with Gaga to his friend, producer and record executive Vincent Herbert. Herbert was quick to sign her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records, upon its establishment in 2007. She credited Herbert as the man who discovered her, adding "I really feel like we made pop history, and we're gonna keep going." While Gaga was writing at Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio. He then convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M; Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live Distribution Gaga continued her collaboration with RedOne in the recording studio for a week on her debut album The album peaked at number one in United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland, and the top-five in Australia, the United States and fifteen other countries. Worldwide, The Fame has sold over fourteen million copies. Its lead single "Just Dance" topped the charts in six countries – Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States – and later received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording. The following single "Poker Face" was an even greater success, reaching number-one in almost all major music markets in the world, including the United Kingdom and the United States. It won the award for Best Dance Recording at the 52nd Grammy Awards, over nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The Fame was nominated for Album of the Year; it won the Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. Although her first concert tour happened as an opening act for fellow Interscope pop group, the reformed New Kids on the Block, she ultimately headlined her own worldwide concert tour, The Fame Ball Tour, which was critically appreciated and began in March 2009; culminating in September of that year. The cover of the annual "Hot 100" issue of Rolling Stone in May 2009 featured a semi-nude Gaga wearing only strategically placed plastic bubbles. She was nominated for a total of nine awards at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, winning the award for Best New Artist, while her single "Paparazzi" won two awards for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects. In October, Gaga received Billboard magazine's Rising Star of 2009 award. She attended the Human Rights Campaign's "National Dinner" the same month, before marching in the National Equality March for the equal protection of LGBT people in all matters governed by US civil law in Washington, D.C.
|alt= Profile of a young blond woman. Her hair falls in waves up to her shoulders. She wears a purple leotard with visible sequins attached. Ample bosom, arm and leg are visible.]] Written over the course of 2008–09, The Fame Monster, a collection of eight songs, was released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience while she travelled the world, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Its first single "Bad Romance" topped the charts in eighteen countries, while reaching the top-two in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In the US, Gaga became the first artist in digital history to have three singles (along with "Just Dance" and "Poker Face") to pass the four million mark in digital sales. The song received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance while its accompanying music video was nominated for Best Short Form Music Video. The album's second single "Telephone", which features singer Beyoncé, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and became Gaga's fourth UK number-one single while its accompanying music video, although controversial, was met mostly positive reception from contemporary critics: praising her for "the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna." Her following single "Alejandro" paired Gaga with fashion photographer Steven Klein for a music video similarly as controversial – critics complimented its idea and dark nature, but the Catholic League attacked Gaga for her use of blasphemy. Despite the controversy surrounding her music videos, they have made Gaga one of the first artists to gain over one billion viral views on video-sharing website YouTube. Musically, The Fame Monster has also received abundant success. Equating to the amount of Grammy nominations her debut received, The Fame Monster garnered a total of six – among them Best Pop Vocal Album and her second-consecutive nomination for Album of the Year. The success of the album allowed Gaga to embark on her second headlining worldwide concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just weeks after the release of The Fame Monster and months after having finished her first. Upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished concert tour will have ran for over one and a half years. Additionally, Gaga has performed other songs from the album at international events like the 2009 Royal Variety Performance where she sang "Speechless", a power ballad, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II; the 52nd Grammy Awards where her opening performance consisted of the song "Poker Face" and a piano duet of "Speechless" in a medley of "Your Song" with Elton John; and the 2010 BRIT Awards where a performance of an acoustic rendition of "Telephone" followed by "Dance in the Dark" dedicated to the late fashion designer and close friend, Alexander McQueen, supplemented her hat-trick win at the awards ceremony.
Barbara Walters chose Gaga as one the "10 Most Fascinating People of 2009" for her annual ABC News special. When interviewed by the journalist, Gaga dismissed the claim that she is intersex as an urban legend. Responding to a question on this issue, she stated, "At first it was very strange and everyone sorta said, 'That's really quite a story!' But in a sense, I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny." Excited about bringing back Polaroid and "combining it with the digital era", Gaga was named Chief Creative Officer for a line of imaging products for the international optic company in January 2010 with the intent of creating fashion, technology and photography products. Her production team, Mermaid Music LLC, was sued in March by Rob Fusari; claiming that he was entitled to a 20% share of its earnings. Gaga's lawyer, Charles Ortner, described the agreement with Fusari as "unlawful" and declined to comment, however, five months later, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. In April, Gaga was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the year. While giving an interview to The Times, Gaga hinted at having Systemic lupus erythematosus, commonly referred to as lupus, which is a connective tissue disease. She later confirmed with Larry King that she does not have lupus but "the results were borderline positive".
Lending her vocal talent elsewhere, Gaga also paired with Elton John to record an original duet for the soundtrack to the forthcoming animated Disney feature film Gnomeo and Juliet. The song, titled "Hello, Hello", is scheduled for release in February 2011.
Gaga's vocals have drawn frequent comparison to those of Madonna and Gwen Stefani, while the structure of her music is said to echo classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. While reviewing her debut album The Fame, The Sunday Times asserted "in combining music, fashion, art and technology, Lady GaGa evokes Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa 'Hollaback Girl', Kylie Minogue 2001 or Grace Jones right now." Similarly, The Boston Globe critic Sarah Rodman commented that she draws "obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen Stefani... in [her] girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats." Though her lyrics are said to lack intellectual stimulation, "[she] does manage to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace." Music critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B;-ish beats.
Gaga has identified fashion as a major influence. Her love of fashion came from her mother, who she stated was "always very well kept and beautiful." Entertainment Weekly put her outfits on its end of the decade "best-of" list, saying, "Whether it's a dress made of Muppets or strategically placed bubbles, Gaga's outré ensembles brought performance art into the mainstream."
Critical reception of Gaga's music, fashion sense and persona are mixed. Her status as a role model, trailblazer and fashion icon is by turns affirmed and denied. Gaga's albums have received mostly positive reviews, Her role as a self-esteem booster for her fans is also lauded, as is her role in breathing life into the fashion industry. Her performances are described as "highly entertaining and innovative"; in particular, the blood-spurting performance of "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was described as "eye-popping" by MTV. She continued the "blood soaked" theme in The Monster Ball Tour, in which she wore a revealing leather corset and is "attacked" by a performer dressed in black who gnaws on her throat, causing "blood" to spurt down her chest, after which she lies "dying" in a pool of blood. Her performances of that scene in Manchester, England triggered protests from family groups and fans in the aftermath of a local tragedy, in which a taxi driver had murdered 12 people. "What happened in Bradford is very fresh in people's minds and given all the violence which happened in Cumbria just hours earlier, it was insensitive," said Lynn Costello of Mothers Against Violence. Chris Rock later defended her flamboyant, provocative behavior. "Well, she's Lady Gaga," he said. "She's not 'Lady Behave Yourself.' Do you want great behavior from a person named Gaga? Is this what you were expecting?" She later returned to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress which was supplemented by boots, a purse and a hat—each fabricated from the flesh of a dead animal. The dress, named Time magazine's Fashion Statement of 2010 and more widely known as the "meat dress", was made by Argentinian designer Franc Fernandez and received divided opinions—evoking the attention of worldwide media but invoking the fury of animal rights organization PETA. Gaga, however, later denied any intention of causing disrespect to any person or organization and wished for the dress to be interpreted as a statement of human rights with focus upon those in the LGBT community.
Gaga's treatment of her fans as "Little Monsters" has inspired criticism, due to the highly commercial nature of her music and image. Camille Paglia wrote a cover story "Lady Gaga and the death of sex" on September 12, 2010, in The Sunday Times in which she asserts that Gaga "is more an identity thief than an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for the freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed when she is none of those."
Gaga's influence on modern culture and society has provoked the University of South Carolina into offering a full-time course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" in the objective of unravelling "the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga with respect to her music, videos, fashion, and other artistic endeavors".
Although declining an invitation to record a benefit song, Gaga held a concert of The Monster Ball Tour following the 2010 Haiti earthquake and dedicated it to the country’s reconstruction relief fund. This concert, held at the Radio City Music Hall, New York, on January 24, 2010, donated any received revenue to the relief fund while, in addition, all profits from sales of products on Gaga’s official online store on that same day were donated. Gaga announced that an estimated total of $500,000 was collected for the fund.
Gaga also contributes in the fight against HIV and AIDS with the focus upon educating young women about the risks of the disease. In collaboration with Cyndi Lauper, Gaga joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to launch a line of lipstick under their supplementary cosmetic line, Viva Glam. Titled Viva Glam Gaga and Viva Glam Cyndi for each contributor respectively, all net proceeds of the lipstick line were donated to the cosmetic company’s campaign to prevent HIV and AIDS worldwide. In a press release, Gaga declared, "I don't want Viva Glam to be just a lipstick you buy to help a cause. I want it to be a reminder when you go out at night to put a condom in your purse right next to your lipstick."
, October 11, 2009|alt=A blond woman speaking on a kiosk. She wears a white shirt and black glasses. Behind her, the balcony of a building is visible.]] Gaga attributes much of her early success as a mainstream artist to her gay fans and is considered to be a rising gay icon. Early in her career she had difficulty getting radio airplay, and stated, "The turning point for me was the gay community. I've got so many gay fans and they're so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They'll always stand by me and I'll always stand by them. It's not an easy thing to create a fanbase." She thanked FlyLife, a Manhattan-based LGBT marketing company with whom her label Interscope works, in the liner notes of The Fame, saying, "I love you so much. You were the first heartbeat in this project, and your support and brilliance means the world to me. I will always fight for the gay community hand in hand with this incredible team." One of her first televised performances was in May 2008 at the NewNowNext Awards, an awards show aired by the LGBT television network Logo, where she sang her song "Just Dance". In June of the same year, she performed the song again at the San Francisco Pride event.
After The Fame was released, she revealed that the song "Poker Face" was about her bisexuality. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she spoke about how her boyfriends tended to react to her bisexuality, saying "The fact that I'm into women, they're all intimidated by it. It makes them uncomfortable. They're like, 'I don't need to have a threesome. I'm happy with just you'." She proclaimed that the October 11, 2009, National Equality March rally on the national mall was "the single most important event of her career." As she exited, she left with an exultant "Bless God and bless the gays," At the rally, she performed a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" declaring that "I'm not going to [play] one of my songs tonight because tonight is not about me, it's about you." She changed the original lyrics of the song to reflect the death of Matthew Shepard, a college student murdered because of his sexuality. In September 2010, she spoke at a rally in favor of repealing the US military's Don't ask, don't tell policy, which prohibits lesbian, gay and bisexual people from serving openly, and released an online video urging her fans to contact their Senators in an effort to get the policy overturned. Editors of The Advocate commented that she had become the "fierce advocate" for gays and lesbians that future president Barack Obama had promised to be during his campaign.
Category:1986 births Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American dance musicians Category:American electronic musicians Category:American female pop singers Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Bisexual musicians Category:BRIT Award winners Category:English-language singers Category:Feminist artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Interscope Records artists Category:Keytarists Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:New York University alumni Category:Singers from New York Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:Wonky Pop acts
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Name | Emilíana Torrini |
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Background | solo_singer |
Birth name | Emilíana Torrini |
Born | May 16, 1977 |
Origin | Iceland |
Instrument | Voice |
Genre | Indie pop, Alternative |
Occupation | Singer, Songwriter |
Years active | 1994–present |
Label | EMI, Rough Trade Records |
Associated acts | GusGus, Kylie Minogue, Sneaker Pimps, Björk |
Url | www.emilianatorrini.com |
Emilíana Torrini (born May 16, 1977) is an Icelandic singer, best known for her 2009 single Jungle Drum, 1999 album Love in the Time of Science and for performing "Gollum's Song", during the ending credits of Peter Jackson's film .
Her father is Italian and her mother is Icelandic. Because of name regulations in Iceland, her father Salvatore Torrini had to change his name to "Davíð Eiríksson", which also implied that Emilíana Torrini had to use the surname after her father in the traditional way; "Emilíana Torrini Davíðsdóttir". A few years later, the name regulations were changed, and she was again allowed to use her original surname.
She grew up with her parents in Iceland. Her father owns and operates a well-known Italian restaurant in Iceland (Italia, located at Laugavegur 11 in Reykjavik) where she once worked as a waitress. After playing a session of gigs in London, Torrini decided to stay and live there. She has one child, a son, who was born September 6, 2010.
Category:1977 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:Icelandic female singers Category:Icelandic musicians Category:Icelandic people of Italian descent Category:One Little Indian Records artists Category:Rough Trade Records artists
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Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
---|---|
Name | Chester Thompson |
Born | December 11, 1948Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
Genre | Progressive rockPop rockJazz fusion |
Years active | 1973–present |
Instrument | Drums |
Associated acts | Genesis, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, Frank Zappa, Weather Report, Era |
Url | chesterthompson.com |
Chester Cortez Thompson (born December 11, 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American drummer and session musician.
Thompson made his name as a session drummer, going on to play in Frank Zappa's touring band (as part of the 1973-1974 lineups which also featured percussionist Ruth Underwood and jazz keyboardist George Duke) and with Weather Report. He played on such noted Zappa albums as One Size Fits All and Roxy & Elsewhere.
His longest standing gig was with Genesis. His relationship with the band began with the departure of frontman Peter Gabriel. Then drummer, Phil Collins, assumed Gabriel's role in live shows but remained behind the drum kit in the studio. Thompson became the touring drummer in 1977, playing on their tours in that year and in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983/4, 1986/7, 1992 and the 2007 reunion Turn It On Again Tour. Chester is featured on their live albums Seconds Out, Three Sides Live and , and Live Over Europe 2007. He chose not to be involved in the band's Calling All Stations tour, following the band's failure to invite him to join the studio band following Phil Collins's departure.
Thompson has also worked with Phil Collins on his solo concert tours, drumming on the 1982/83 Hello, I Must Be Going! tour, 1985 No Jacket Required tour, 1990 ...But Seriously tour, The Tarzan Premiere tour of 1999 and The Final Farewell tour of 2004/05. Chester also appears on Phil Collins' Serious Hits... Live! live album and DVD, and has released his own solo album, A Joyful Noise.
Chester also plays on the Steve Hackett albums, Please Don't Touch and . Later on, he played on Tony Banks' solo album A Curious Feeling. He also appears on The Tokyo Tapes album released in 1998 which features Steve Hackett and John Wetton amongst many others. He was also a founding member of the band Fire Merchants with Brand X guitarist John Goodsall and bassist Doug Lunn and appeared on their first recording in 1989.
Chester's playing style is widely acknowledged and respected, and can be seen on numerous live videos of Genesis, from late 1970s up to early 1990s. His live playing with the band is a striking mixture of his own style and Collins' own, being equally comfortable with acoustic and electronic drums. In the past, Chester has endorsed Ludwig Drums (1970-March, 1977), Pearl Drums (April, 1977 - July, 1987), Sonor Drums (1990–1999) and Paiste cymbals (1970–90), but now endorses DW drums since 2000 and Sabian cymbals since 1990.
Category:African American musicians Category:American rock drummers Category:Genesis (band) members Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:Musicians from Maryland Category:Weather Report members Category:1948 births Category:Living people
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Name | Buddy Rich |
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Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
Birth name | Bernard Rich |
Alias | Traps the Drum Wonder (as a boy) and "B" (as an adult) |
Born | September 30, 1917 |
Died | April 02, 1987 |
Origin | Brooklyn, New York, USA |
Instrument | Drums, percussion |
Genre | Jazz, big band, swing, bebop |
Occupation | Musician, songwriter, bandleader, actor |
Years active | 1919–1987 |
Associated acts | Joe MarsalaBunny BeriganArtie ShawTommy DorseyBenny CarterHarry JamesLes BrownCharlie VenturaJazz at the PhilharmonicNat King ColeElla FitzgeraldGene Krupa and Louis Armstrong |
Url | http://www.buddyrich.com/ |
In addition to Tommy Dorsey (1939–1942, 1945, 1954–1955), Rich also played with Benny Carter (1942), Harry James (1953-1956–1962, 1964, 1965), Les Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Jazz at the Philharmonic, as well as leading his own band and performing with all-star groups. In the early fifties Rich played with Dorsey and also began to perform with trumpeter Harry James, an association which lasted until 1966. In 1966, Rich left James in order to develop a new big band. For most of the period from 1966 until his death, he led successful big bands in an era when the popularity of big bands had waned from their 1930s and 40s peak. In this later period, Rich continued to play clubs but he had stated in multiple interviews that the great majority of his big band's performances were at high schools, colleges and universities, with club performances done to a much lesser degree. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich's sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.
He often used contrasting techniques to keep long drum solos from getting mundane. Aside from his energetic explosive displays, he would go into quieter passages. One passage he would use in most solos starts with a simple single-stroke roll on the snare picking up speed and power, then slowly moving his sticks closer to the rim as he gets quieter and then eventually playing on just the rim itself while still maintaining speed. Then he would reverse the effect and slowly move towards the center of the snare while increasing power.
Rich also demonstrated incredible skill at brush technique. On one album, 1955's The Lionel Hampton Art Tatum Buddy Rich Trio, Rich plays brushes almost exclusively throughout.
Another technique that few drummers have been able to perfect is the stick-trick where he does a fast roll just by slapping his two sticks together in a circular motion. When performing a single-stroke roll, Rich could be clocked at up to 20 strokes per second, a feat now only being approached decades later by Mike Mangini, Jojo Mayer, Matt Smith and others.
In 1942, Rich and drum teacher Henry Adler co-authored the instructional book Buddy Rich's Modern Interpretation of Snare Drum Rudiments, regarded as one of the more popular snare-drum rudiment books.
One of Adler's former students introduced Adler to Rich. "The kid told me Buddy played better than [Gene] Krupa. Buddy was only in his teens at the time and his friend was my first pupil. Buddy played and I watched his hands. Well, he knocked me right out. He did everything I wanted to do, and he did it with such ease. When I met his folks, I asked them who his teacher was. 'He never studied,' they told me. That made me feel very good. I realized that it was something physical, not only mental, that you had to have."
In a 1985 interview, Adler clarified the extent of his teacher-student relationship to Rich and their collaboration on the instructional book:
"I had nothing to do with [the rumor that I taught Buddy how to play]. That was a result of Tommy Dorsey's introduction to the Buddy Rich book," Adler said. "I used to go around denying it, knowing that Buddy was a natural player. Sure, he studied with me, but he didn't come to me to learn how to hold the drumsticks. I set out to teach Buddy to read. He'd take six lessons, go on the road for six weeks and come back. He didn't have time to practice."
"Tommy Dorsey wanted Buddy to write a book and he told him to get in touch with me. I did the book and Tommy wrote the foreword. Technically, I was Buddy's teacher, but I came along after he had already acquired his technique."
When asked about Rich's ability to read music, Bobby Shew, lead trumpeter in Rich's mid-60s big band replied, :"No. He’d always have a drummer there during rehearsals to read and play the parts initially on new arrangements... He’d only have to listen to a chart once and he’d have it memorized. We'd run through it and he'd know exactly how it went, how many measures it ran and what he'd have to do to drive it... The guy had the most natural instincts."
The West Side Story medley is a complex and difficult-to-perform big-band arrangement which highlights Rich's remarkable ability to blend the rhythm of his drumming into his band's playing of the musical chart. Penned by Bill Reddie, Rich received the West Side Story arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's melodies from the famed musical in the mid-1960s and found it to be very challenging even for him. It consists of many rapid-fire time changes and signatures and took almost a month of constant rehearsals to perfect. It since became a staple in all his performances, clocking in at various lengths from seven to fifteen minutes. Bernstein himself had nothing but praise for it. In 2002, a DVD was released called The Lost West Side Story Tapes that captured a 1985 performance of this along with other numbers. These tapes had been previously thought to have been lost in a fire. Rich's ability to create spontaneous drum solos that matched and melded with the musical intricacies and intensity of big band scores was chief among his musical brilliance.
On one recording, Rich threatens to fire Dave Panichi, a trombonist, for wearing a beard. Days before Rich died, he was visited by Mel Tormé, who claims that one of Rich's last requests was "to hear the tapes" that featured his angry outbursts. At the time, Tormé was working on an authorized biography of Rich which was released after Rich's death, titled Traps, The Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich.
Dusty Springfield allegedly slapped Rich after several days of "putting up with Rich's insults and show-biz sabotage."
Band member and lifelong friend David Lucas says that "Rich had a soft heart underneath it all. His favorite song was "It's Not Easy Being Green".
Buddy Rich held a black belt in karate, as mentioned in a CNN television interview with Larry King, c. 1985.
In an episode of Michael Parkinson's British talk show, Parkinson kidded Rich about his Donny Osmond kick, by claiming that Rich was the president of The Osmonds' fan club. Reportedly, prior to heart surgery, when asked by a nurse if he was allergic to anything; he replied, "Yes, Country and Western music!"
Carter Beauford, drummer for the Dave Matthews Band, was first introduced to drumming when his father, who couldn't find a baby-sitter, took Carter to a Buddy Rich show. Beauford learned his ambidextrous drumming style by watching recordings of Buddy Rich on television and mirroring his technique, thereby learning to keep time with both hands somewhat accidentally.
Since Rich's death, a number of memorial concerts have been held. In 1994, the Rich tribute album was released. Produced by Rush drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, the album features performances of Rich staples by a number of rock and jazz drummers such as Kenny Aronoff, Dave Weckl, Steve Gadd, Max Roach, Steve Smith, Matt Sorum and Peart himself, accompanied by the Buddy Rich Big Band. A was issued in 1997.
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