Official name	Santa Monica
Settlement type	City
Nickname	SaMo, People's Republic of Santa Monica
Motto	Populus Felix en Urbe Felice(Latin)"Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land"
Image seal	Santa Monica seal.jpg
Map caption	Location of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California
Pushpin map	California
Coordinates region	US-CA
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	United States
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision name1	California
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Los Angeles
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Bobby Shriver
Leader title1	City Council
Leader name1	Kevin McKeownRobert HolbrookRichard BloomGleam DavisTerry O’DayPam O'Connor
Established title	Settled
Established date	August 3, 1769
Established title1	Incorporated
Established date1	December 9, 1886
unit pref	US
area footnotes
area total sq mi	8.416
area land sq mi	8.415
area water sq mi	0.001
area total km2	21.797
area land km2	21.794
area water km2	0.003
area water percent	0.01
Population as of	2010
Population total	89736
Population density km2	auto
Population density sq mi	auto
Timezone	PST
Utc offset	-8
Timezone dst	PDT
Utc offset dst	-7
Elevation m	32
Elevation ft	105
Website	www.santa-monica.org
Postal code type	ZIP codes
Postal code	90401-90411
Area code	310/424
Area code type	Area code
Blank name	FIPS code
Blank info	06-70000
Blank1 name	GNIS feature ID
Blank1 info	1652792
Footnotes	}}

Santa Monica is an upscale beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the southeast.

Santa Monica is home to executives and Hollywood celebrities and it is a mixture of very affluent, single-family neighborhoods, renters drawn by the high quality of life, lifelong surfers, young professionals and students. The Census Bureau 2010 population for Santa Monica is 89,736. Santa Monica is named for Saint Monica of Hippo because the area on which the city is now located was first visited by Spaniards on her feast day.

Because of its agreeable climate, Santa Monica had become a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core with significant job growth and increased tourism.

History

Attractions and cultural resources

The Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome (carousel) is a National Historic Landmark. It sits on the Santa Monica Pier, which was built in 1909. The La Monica Ballroom on the pier was once the largest ballroom in the US, and the source for many New Year's Eve national network broadcasts. The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was an important music venue for several decades and hosted the Academy Awards in the 1960s. McCabe's Guitar Shop is still a leading acoustic performance space, as well as retail outlet. Bergamot Station is a city-owned art gallery compound that includes the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The city is also home to the Santa Monica Heritage Museum.

Santa Monica has three shopping districts, Montana Avenue on the north side of the city, the Downtown District in the city's core, and Main Street on the south end of the city. Each of these districts has its own unique feel and personality. Montana Avenue is a stretch of boutique stores, restaurants, and small offices that generally features more upscale shopping. The Main Street district offers an eclectic mix of clothing, restaurants, and other specialty retail.

The Downtown District is the home of the Third Street Promenade, a major outdoor pedestrian-only shopping district that stretches for three blocks between Wilshire Blvd. and Broadway (not the same Broadway in downtown and south Los Angeles). Third Street is closed to vehicles for those three blocks to allow people to stroll, congregate, shop and enjoy street performers. Santa Monica Place, the indoor mall designed by Frank Gehry, is located at the south end of the Promenade. After a period of redevelopment, the mall reopened in the fall of 2010 as a modern shopping-entertainment complex with more outdoor space.

Santa Monica hosts the annual Santa Monica Film Festival.

The oldest movie theater in the city is the Majestic. Also known as the Mayfair Theatre, the theater which opened in 1912 has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Aero Theater (now operated by the American Cinematheque) and Criterion Theater were built in the 1930s and still show movies. The Santa Monica Promenade alone supports more than a dozen movie screens.

Palisades Park stretches out along the crumbling bluffs overlooking the Pacific and is a favorite walking area to view the ocean. It features a camera obscura. For 48 years local churches and the Police Association assembled a 12-tableau story of Christmas in Palisades Park. The sheds were open on the street side, protected by chain-link fencing (for years there was no fencing because vandalism was not yet a large problem). Inside were dioramas of the Holy Family made from store mannequins; critics argued that many of them did not resemble real people, were damaged, or were otherwise inappropriate. In 2001 the city decided to temporarily end the practice of allowing private groups to place displays in city parks, but in 2004 the Christmas displays returned.

The Santa Monica Steps, a long, steep staircase that leads from north of San Vicente down into Santa Monica Canyon, is a popular spot for all-natural outdoor workouts. Some area residents have complained that the stairs have become too popular, and attract too many exercisers to the wealthy neighborhood of multimillion-dollar properties.

Natives and tourists alike have enjoyed the Santa Monica Rugby Club since 1972. The club has been very successful since its conception, most recently winning back-to-back national championships in 2005 and 2006. Santa Monica defeated the Boston Irish Wolfhounds 57-19 in the Division 1 final, convincingly claiming its second consecutive American title on June 4, 2006, in San Diego. They offer Men's, Women's and a thriving children's programs. The club recently joined the Rugby Super League.

Every fall the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce hosts The Taste of Santa Monica on the Santa Monica Pier. Visitors can sample food and drinks from Santa Monica restaurants. Other annual events include the Business and Consumer Expo, Sustainable Quality Awards, Santa Monica Cares Health and Wellness Festival, and the State of the City.

Santa Monica is an international mecca for skateboarding culture.

Santa Monica has two hospitals: Saint John's Health Center and Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Its cemetery is Woodlawn Memorial.

Santa Monica has several newspapers and magazines, including the Santa Monica Star, Santa Monica Daily Press, the Santa Monica Mirror, the Santa Monica Observer, Santa Monica Magazine, and the Santa Monica Sun.

Geography

The city rests on a mostly flat slope that angles down towards Ocean Avenue and towards the south. High bluffs separate the north side of the city from the beaches.

Climate

Classified as a moderate Mediterranean climate (Koppen Csb), Santa Monica enjoys an average of 310 days of sunshine a year. Because of its location, nestled on the vast and open Santa Monica Bay, morning fog is a common phenomenon in May, June and early July (caused by ocean temperature variations and currents). Locals have a particular terminology for this phenomenon: the "May Gray" and the "June Gloom". Overcast skies are common for June mornings, but usually the strong sun burns the fog off by noon. Nonetheless, it will sometimes stay cloudy and cool all day during June, even as other parts of the Los Angeles area enjoy sunny skies and warmer temperatures. At times, the sun can be shining east of 20th Street, while the beach area is overcast. As a general rule, the beach temperature is from 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 6 degrees Celsius) cooler than it is inland.

It is also in September that highest temperatures tend to be reached. It is winter, however, when the hot, dry winds of the Santa Anas are most common. In contrast, temperatures exceeding 10 degrees below average are rare.

The rainy season is from late October through late March. Winter storms usually approach from the northwest and pass quickly through the Southland. There is very little rain during the rest of the year. Yearly rainfall totals are unpredictable as rainy years are occasionally followed by droughts.

Santa Monica usually enjoys a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean, keeping the air fresh and clean. Therefore, smog is less of a problem for Santa Monica than elsewhere around Los Angeles. However, in the autumn months of September through November, the Santa Ana winds will sometimes blow from the east, bringing smoggy inland air to the beaches.

Environment

The city is well known as one of the leading sustainable cities in all of the US. Three of every four of the city's public works vehicles run on alternative fuel, making it among the largest such fleets in the country. All public buildings use renewable energy. In the last 15 years, the city has cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 10%. City officials and residents have made the ongoing cleanup of the Santa Monica Bay a priority – an urban runoff facility catches 3.5 million gallons of water each week that would otherwise flow into the bay. Other environmental features include miles of beaches, extensive curbside recycling, farmers' markets, community gardens, and the city's bus system.

Cityscape

Demographics

Santa Monica's population has grown from 417 in 1880 to 89,736 in 2010. For population statistics by decade, see History of Santa Monica, California.

2010

The 2010 United States Census reported that Santa Monica had a population of 89,736. The population density was 10,662.6 people per square mile (4,116.9/km²). The racial makeup of Santa Monica was 69,663 (77.6%) White, 3,526 (3.9%) African American, 338 (0.4%) Native American, 8,053 (9.0%) Asian, 124 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 4,047 (4.5%) from other races, and 3,985 (4.4%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11,716 persons (13.1%).

The Census reported that 87,610 people (97.6% of the population) lived in households, 1,299 (1.4%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 827 (0.9%) were institutionalized.

There were 46,917 households, out of which 7,835 (16.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,092 (27.9%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 3,510 (7.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,327 (2.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,867 (6.1%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 416 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 22,716 households (48.4%) were made up of individuals and 5,551 (11.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.87. There were 17,929 families (38.2% of all households); the average family size was 2.79.

The population was spread out with 12,580 people (14.0%) under the age of 18, 6,442 people (7.2%) aged 18 to 24, 32,552 people (36.3%) aged 25 to 44, 24,746 people (27.6%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,416 people (15.0%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.4 years. For every 100 females there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males.

There were 50,912 housing units at an average density of 6,049.5 per square mile (2,335.7/km²), of which 13,315 (28.4%) were owner-occupied, and 33,602 (71.6%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.1%. 30,067 people (33.5% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 57,543 people (64.1%) lived in rental housing units.

2000

As of the census of 2000, there are 84,084 people, 44,497 households, and 16,775 families in the city. The population density is 10,178.7 inhabitants per square mile (3,930.4/km²). There are 47,863 housing units at an average density of 5,794.0 per square mile (2,237.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city is 78.29% White, 7.25% Asian, 3.78% African American, 0.47% Native American, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 5.97% from other races, and 4.13% from two or more races. 13.44% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. There are 44,497 households, out of which 15.8% have children under the age of 18, 27.5% are married couples living together, 7.5% have a female householder with no husband present, and 62.3% are non-families. 51.2% of all households are made up of individuals and 10.6% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 1.83 and the average family size is 2.80.

The city of Santa Monica is consistently among the most educated cities in the United States, with 23.8 percent of all residents holding graduate degrees.

The population is diverse in age, with 14.6% under 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 40.1% from 25 to 44, 24.8% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% 65 years or older. The median age is 39 years. For every 100 females, there are 93.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.3 males.

According to a 2009 estimate, the median income for a household in the city is $71,095, and the median income for a family is $109,410 . Males have a median income of $55,689 versus $42,948 for females. The per capita income for the city is $42,874. 10.4% of the population and 5.4% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 9.9% of those under the age of 18 and 10.2% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Education

Elementary and secondary schools

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District provides public education at the elementary and secondary levels. In addition to the traditional model of early education school houses, SMASH (Santa Monica Alternative School House) is "a K-8 public school of choice with team teachers and multi-aged classrooms."

Elementary schools

The district maintains eight public elementary schools in Santa Monica:

Edison Language Academy

Franklin Elementary School

Grant Elementary School

John Muir Elementary School

McKinley Elementary School

Roosevelt Elementary School

Will Rogers Learning Community

Middle schools

The district maintains two public middle schools in Santa Monica: John Adams Middle School and Lincoln Middle School.

High schools

The district maintains two high schools in Santa Monica: Olympic High School and Santa Monica High School.

Private schools

Private schools in the city include:

Carlthorp School

Santa Monica Montessori School

Crossroads School

New Roads School

Saint Monica Catholic Elementary School

Concord High School

Pacifica Christian High

St. Anne Catholic School

Lighthouse Christian Academy

Saint Monica Catholic High School

Wildwood School

Post-secondary

Santa Monica College is a community college originally founded in 1929. Many SMC graduates transfer to the University of California system. It occupies 35 acres (14 hectares) and enrolls 30,000 students annually. The Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, associated with the RAND Corporation, is the U.S.'s largest producer of public policy PhDs. The Art Institute of California — Los Angeles is also located in Santa Monica near the Santa Monica Airport. L.A. Leadership College, an online institution, for underprivileged young adults, is located in Santa Monica.

Universities and colleges within a radius from Santa Monica include Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles Valley College, Santa Monica College, Loyola Marymount University, Mount St. Mary's College, Pepperdine University, California State University, Northridge, California State University, Los Angeles, UCLA, USC, West Los Angeles College, West Valley Occupational Center and California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Public library system

The Santa Monica Public Library consists of a Main Library in the downtown area, plus three neighborhood branches: Fairview, Montana Avenue and Ocean Park.

Transportation

Bicycles

Santa Monica has received the Bicycle Friendly Community Award (Bronze) by the League of American Bicyclists in 2009. The distinction was mostly based on the local bicycle valet program. Local bicycle advocacy organizations include Bikerowave (moved to Mar Vista in 2009) and Santa Monica Spoke. Local police cracked down on Santa Monica Critical Mass rides in 2008 and effectively discontinued this flourishing tradition.

Motorized vehicles

The Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) begins in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean and heads east. The Santa Monica Freeway between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles has the distinction of being one of the busiest highways in all of North America. After traversing Los Angeles County, I-10 crosses seven more states, terminating at Jacksonville, Florida. In Santa Monica, there is a road sign designating this route as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. State Route 2 (Santa Monica Boulevard) begins in Santa Monica, barely grazing State Route 1 at Lincoln Boulevard, and continues northeast across Los Angeles County, through the Angeles National Forest, crossing the San Gabriel Mountains as the Angeles Crest Highway, ending in Wrightwood. Santa Monica is also the western (Pacific) terminus of historic U.S. Route 66. Close to the eastern boundary of Santa Monica, Sepulveda Boulevard reaches from Long Beach at the south, to the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. Just east of Santa Monica is Interstate 405, the "San Diego Freeway", a major north-south route in Los Angeles County and Orange County, California.

The City of Santa Monica has purchased the first ZeroTruck all-electric medium-duty truck. The vehicle will be equipped with a Scelzi utility body, it is based on the Isuzu N series chassis, a UQM PowerPhase 100 advanced electric motor and is the only US built electric truck offered for sale in the United States in 2009.

Bus

The city of Santa Monica runs its own bus service, the Big Blue Bus, which also serves much of West Los Angeles and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). A Big Blue Bus was featured prominently in the action movie Speed.

The city of Santa Monica is also served by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus lines. Metro also complements Big Blue service, as when Big Blue routes are not operational overnight, Metro buses make many Big Blue Bus stops, in addition to MTA stops. It currently has no rail service but Metro is working on bringing light rail to Santa Monica in the form of the Exposition Line. Since the mid-1980s, various proposals have been made to extend the Purple Line subway to Santa Monica under Wilshire Boulevard. However, to this day, no plans to complete the "subway to the sea" are imminent, owing to the difficulty of funding the estimated $5 billion project. In the past, Santa Monica had rail service operated by the Pacific Electric Railway, until it was dismantled in the 1960s.

Airport and ports

The city owns and operates a general aviation airport, Santa Monica Airport, which has been the site of several important aviation achievements. Commercial flights are available for residents at Los Angeles International Airport, a few miles south of Santa Monica.

Like other cities in Los Angeles County, Santa Monica is dependent upon the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles for international ship cargo. In the 1890s, Santa Monica was once in competition with Wilmington, California, and San Pedro for recognition as the "Port of Los Angeles" (see History of Santa Monica, California).

Medical services

Two major hospitals are within the Santa Monica city limits, UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and St. John's Hospital. There are four fire stations providing medical and fire response within the city staffed with 6 Paramedic Engines, 1 Truck company, 1 Hazardous Materials team and 1 Urban Search & Rescue team. Santa Monica Fire Department has its own Dispatch Center. Ambulance transportation is provided by AmeriCare Ambulance Services.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Center in Santa Monica. The Department's West Area Health Office is in the Simms/Mann Center.

Government and infrastructure

The Santa Monica City Council, a Council-Manager form of government, with seven Council members elected at-large, is the current governing body of the city. Mayor Ken Genser died on January 9, 2010, and Pam O'Connor assumed the title of temporary mayor. Bobby Shriver then became official mayor May 25, 2010. In the state legislature Santa Monica is located in the 23rd California State Senate District, represented by Democrat Fran Pavley, and in the 41st California State Assembly district District, represented by Democrat Julia Brownley. Federally, Santa Monica is located in California's 30th congressional district, which has a Cook PVI of D +20 and is represented by Democrat Henry Waxman.

Economy

Santa Monica is home to the headquarters of many notable businesses, including Universal Music Group, Lions Gate Films, the RAND Corporation, Beachbody, Macerich, Entravision Communications, Anworth Mortgage, search engine company Business.com, and film / television production company and record label The Playtone Company, headed by actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman. Major companies with branch offices in Santa Monica include: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, MTV and Edmunds.com. The Design Center California for Volkswagen, formerly located in Simi Valley, moved to the former site of the Museum Of Flying at the Santa Monica Airport in 2006. Volkswagen's only styling studio in North America has been responsible for many notable automotive designs, including The New Beetle and The Audi Road Jet concept seen at the Detroit Car Show. The offices for the Comedy Central show South Park are located in Santa Monica. Supermarine, now Atlantic Aviation, is at the Santa Monica Airport. National Public Radio's West Coast headquarters are located in Santa Monica; KCRW, the network's West Coast flagship, is located at the Santa Monica College campus.

A number of game development studios are based in Santa Monica, making it a major location for the industry. These include:

Activision Blizzard

Naughty Dog (Creators of Crash Bandicoot (1996–1999), Jak & Daxter and Uncharted franchises)

SCE Studios Santa Monica

Studio Santa Monica (An in-house studio of SCE and creators of God of War)

Fatburger's headquarters are in Santa Monica. TOMS Shoes has its headquarters in Santa Monica.

Former Santa Monica businesses include Douglas Aircraft (now merged with Boeing) and MySpace (now headquartered in Beverly Hills). In December 1996, GeoCities was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in Santa Monica.

Top employers

According to the City's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:

! #	! Employer	! # of Employees
1	Santa Monica College	2,187
2	City of Santa Monica	2,177
3	Saint John's Health Center	1,813
4	Santa Monica – UCLA Medical Center	1,786
5	Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District	1,553
6	RAND Corporation	894
7	Activision	663
8	MTV Networks	648
9	Universal Music Group	620
10	ET Whitehall (Shutters on the Beach Hotel	546

Crime

In 2006, crime in Santa Monica affected 4.41% of the population, slightly lower than the national average crime rate that year of 4.48%. The majority of this was property crime, which affected 3.74% of Santa Monica's population in 2006; this was higher than the rates for Los Angeles County (2.76%) and California (3.17%), but lower than the national average (3.91%). These per-capita crime rates are computed based on Santa Monica's full-time population of about 85,000. However, the [[Santa Monica Police Department has suggested the actual per-capita crime rate is much lower, as tourists, workers, and beachgoers can increase the city's daytime population to between 250,000 and 450,000 people.

Violent crimes affected 0.67% of the population in Santa Monica in 2006, in line with Los Angeles County (0.65%), but higher than the averages for California (0.53%) and the nation (0.55%).

Hate crime has typically been minimal in Santa Monica, with only one reported incident in 2007. However, the city experienced a spike of anti-Islamic hate crime in 2001, following the attacks of September 11. Hate crime levels returned to their minimal 2000 levels by 2002.

In 2006, Santa Monica voters passed "Measure Y" with a 65% majority, which moved the issuance of citations for marijuana smoking to the bottom of the police priority list. A 2009 study by the Santa Monica Daily Press showed that since the law took effect in 2007, the Santa Monica Police had "not issued any citations for offenses involving the adult, personal use of marijuana inside private residences."

In June of 2011, the infamous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica after being a fugitive for 16 years. He had been living in the area for 15 years.

Gang activity

The Pico Neighborhood of Santa Monica experiences some gang activity. The city estimates that there are fewer than 50 gang members in Santa Monica, although some community organizers dispute this claim. Gang activity has been prevalent for decades in the Pico neighborhood.

In October 1998, alleged Culver City 13 gang member Omar Sevilla, 21, of Culver City was killed. A couple of hours after the shooting of Sevilla, German tourist Horst Fietze was killed. Several days later Juan Martin Campos, age 23, a Santa Monica City employer and former gang member was shot and killed. Police believe this was a retaliatory killing in response to the death of Omar Sevilla. Less than twenty-four hours later, Javier Cruz was wounded outside his home on 17th and Michigan, a violence riddled pocket of the Pico area.

In 1999, there was a double homicide in the Westside Clothing store on Lincoln Boulevard. During the incident, Culver City gang members David "Puppet" Robles and Jesse "Psycho" Garcia entered the store masked and began opening fire, killing Anthony and Michael Juarez. They then ran outside to a getaway vehicle driven by a third Culver City gang member, who is now also in custody. The clothing store was believed to be a local hang out for Santa Monica gang members. The dead included two men from Northern California who had merely been visiting the store's owner, their cousin, to see if they could open a similar store in their area. Police say the incident was in retaliation for a shooting committed by the Santa Monica 13 gang days before the Juarez brothers were gunned down.

Aside from the rivalry with the Culver City gang, gang members also feud with the Venice and West Los Angeles gangs. The main rivals in these regions include Venice 13, and Venice Shoreline Crips gangs located in the Oakwood area of Venice, California.

Sport

Parts of the city had the men's and women's marathon run through it during the 1984 Summer Olympics held in neighboring Los Angeles.

In popular culture

Film and television

Hundreds of movies have been shot or set in part within the city of Santa Monica. One of the oldest exterior shots in Santa Monica is Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage (1929) which shows much of 2nd Street. The comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) included several scenes shot in Santa Monica, including those along California Incline, which led to the movie's treasure spot, "The Big W". The Sylvester Stallone film Rocky III (1982) shows Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed training to fight Clubber Lang by running on the Santa Monica Beach, and Stallone's Demolition Man (1993) includes Santa Monica settings. Henry Jaglom's indie Someone to Love (1987), the last film in which Orson Welles appeared, takes place in Santa Monica's venerable Mayfair Theatre. Heathers (1989) used Santa Monica's John Adams Middle School for many exterior shots. The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) is set entirely in Santa Monica, particularly the Palisades Park area, and features a radio station that resembles KCRW at Santa Monica College. 17 Again (2009) was shot at Samohi. Other film that show significant exterior shots Santa Monica include Fletch (1985), Get Shorty (1995), and Ocean's Eleven (2001).

The documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) and the related dramatic film Lords of Dogtown (2005) are both about the influential skateboarding culture of Santa Monica's Ocean Park neighborhood in the 1970s.

The Santa Monica Pier is shown in many movies, including They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), The Sting (1973), Ruthless People (1986), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Clean Slate (1994), Forrest Gump (1994), The Net (1995), Love Stinks (1999), Cellular (2004), Iron Man (2008) and Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009).

A number of television series have been set in Santa Monica, including Baywatch, Three's Company, Pacific Blue, and Private Practice. The Santa Monica pier is shown in the main theme of CBS series NCIS: Los Angeles. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the main exterior set of the town of Sunnydale, including the infamous "sun sign", was located in Santa Monica in a lot on Olympic Boulevard.

The film The Doors (1991) and Speed (1994) featured vehicles from Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus line, relative to the eras depicted in the films.

The city of Santa Monica (and in particular the Santa Monica airport) was featured in Roland Emmerich's disaster film 2012 (2009). An earthquake destroys the airport and the surrounding area as a group of survivors escape in a personal plane.

Literature

Raymond Chandler's most famous character, private detective Philip Marlowe, frequently has a portion of his adventures in a place called "Bay City", which is modeled on depression-era Santa Monica. In Marlowe's world, Bay City is "a wide-open town", where gambling and other crimes thrive due to a massively corrupt and ineffective police force.

The setting on a certain portion of Mitch Albom's book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, has similarities to the Pacific Pier located along the Santa Monica beach. In the book, it is named Ruby Pier. Mitch Albom even acknowledged the Pacific Pier for its cooperation.

The main character from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot (novel) was a shipbuilder from Santa Monica.

In Al Capone Does My Shirts, the Flanagans move to Alcatraz from Santa Monica.

Tennessee Williams lived (while working at MGM Studios) in a hotel on Ocean Avenue in the 1940s. At that location he wrote The Glass Menagerie. His short story titled The Mattress by the Tomato Patch was set near Santa Monica Beach, and mentions the clock visible in much of the city, high up on The Broadway Building, on Broadway near 2nd Street.

Music

Universal Music Group is based in Santa Monica. Several of its labels such as Aftermath Entertainment (started by Dr.Dre), Interscope (started by Jimmy Iovine), A&M; Records, Geffen Records, Shady Records,and G-Unit Records (created by 50 Cent & Sha Money XL) are based in Santa Monica, CA.

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is based in Santa Monica on Olympic Boulevard.

The band "Linkin Park" was named after the Lincoln Park in Santa Monica.

The modern rock band Theory of a Deadman's song titled "Santa Monica", is a first-person account about a girl leaving her significant other to start a new life in Santa Monica.

The band Everclear released a song titled "Santa Monica" in 1995, which became their first mainstream hit.

The band Savage Garden also released a song titled "Santa Monica" off their #3 US album Savage Garden (1997).

The ska/reggae band, Bedouin Soundclash has a song entitled "Santa Monica".

One of the few songs that musical satirist Tom Lehrer has recorded since the 1970s is a tribute to the holidays of the Jewish calendar entitled "I'm Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica".

Santa Monica is referenced throughout Jack's Mannequin's debut album Everything In Transit.

In 1968, British singer-songwriter Noel Harrison released a song and album titled Santa Monica Pier. In 1948, bandleader Kay Kyser released a 78 record of the novelty song "When Veronica Plays the Harmonica (Down at the Pier in Santa Monica)."

Kim Kibum, a member of the popular Korean boy band Super Junior attended Santa Monica High School

Video games

Santa Monica is featured in the video games True Crime: Streets of LA (2003), Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (2004), Destroy All Humans! (2004), Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (2005), and Midnight Club: Los Angeles (2008).

See also

List of City of Santa Monica Designated Historic Landmarks

List of people from Santa Monica, California

Aragon Ballroom (Ocean Park, Santa Monica, California)

Muscle Beach

Santa Monica neighborhoods

References

External links

City of Santa Monica

Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau

Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce

Santa Monica Public Library

A Weekend in Santa Monica – slideshow by The New York Times

Category:Populated places established in 1769 Category:1984 Summer Olympic venues Category:Populated coastal places in California Category:Cities in Los Angeles County, California Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:Seaside resorts in California Category:Incorporated cities and towns in California

ar:سانتا مونيكا، كاليفورنيا az:Santa-Monika bg:Санта Моника ca:Santa Monica cs:Santa Monica da:Santa Monica (Californien) de:Santa Monica es:Santa Mónica (California) eo:Santa Monica fa:سنتا مونیکا، کالیفرنیا fr:Santa Monica ko:샌타모니카 hr:Santa Monica, Kalifornija id:Santa Monica, California it:Santa Monica (California) he:סנטה מוניקה sw:Santa Monica, California ht:Santa Monica, Kalifòni la:Sancta Monica (California) lt:Santa Monika mn:Санта-Моника nl:Santa Monica (Californië) ja:サンタモニカ no:Santa Monica pnb:سانٹا مونیکا pl:Santa Monica pt:Santa Mônica (Califórnia) ro:Santa Monica ru:Санта-Моника sco:Santa Monica, Californie simple:Santa Monica, California sk:Santa Monica sr:Санта Моника fi:Santa Monica sv:Santa Monica tl:Santa Monica, Kaliporniya ta:சாந்தா மொனிக்கா th:แซนตามอนิกา (รัฐแคลิฟอร์เนีย) uk:Санта-Моніка vi:Santa Monica, California vo:Santa Monica (California) zh:圣莫尼卡

Name	Bob Dylan
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Robert Allen Zimmerman
Alias	Elston Gunnn, Blind Boy Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood Thomas, Tedham Porterhouse, Lucky/Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov
Origin	Hibbing, Minnesota, U.S.
Birth date	May 24, 1941
Birth place	Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, keyboard, bass
Genre	Rock, folk rock, folk, blues, country, gospel, alternative country, country rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer, visual artist, poet, writer, director, screenwriter
Years active	1959–present
Label	Columbia, Asylum
Associated acts	Traveling Wilburys, The Band, Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Website	}}

Bob Dylan (), born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet and painter. He has been a major figure in music for five decades and has had immense influence on popular music. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of his early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan proceeded to revolutionize perceptions of the limits of popular music in 1965 with the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone".

His lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, and the performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly, to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.

Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.

Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a road called the Bob Dylan Pathway was opened in the singer's honor in his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

Life and career

Origins and musical beginnings

Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham) was born in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogroms of 1905. His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars, Turkey.

Dylan's parents, Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. Robert Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age six, when his father was stricken with polio and the family returned to his mother's home town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood. Robert Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio—first to blues and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll. He formed several bands while he attended Hibbing High School. The Shadow Blasters was short-lived, but his next, The Golden Chords, lasted longer and played covers of popular songs. Their performance of Danny and the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone off. In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To follow Little Richard." The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn (sic), he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and providing handclaps.

Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him:

He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit.

During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan". In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."

1960s

Relocation to New York and record deal

Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he travelled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).

From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village. In September, he gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times of a show at Gerde's Folk City. The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond. Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material combined with two original compositions. The album made little impact, selling only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even. Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and back-up vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying Victoria Spivey and Big Joe Williams on a recording for Spivey Records. While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for Broadside Magazine, a folk music magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records. Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1964 album Jack Elliott.

Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman. Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client. Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming." Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.

From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom. He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television. At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song. The recording of The Madhouse on Castle Street was wiped by the BBC in 1968. While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins, The Pinder of Wakefield, and Bunjies. He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy.

By the time Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in May 1963, he had begun to make his name as both a singer and a songwriter. Many of the songs on this album were labeled protest songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger's passion for topical songs. "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi. His most famous song at this time, "Blowin' in the Wind", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting a precedent for many other artists who had hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.

While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, Freewheelin' also included a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal talking blues. Humor was a large part of Dylan's persona, and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles. George Harrison said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."

The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying." Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover. Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.

Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies; Peter, Paul and Mary; The Association; Manfred Mann; and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces. The cover versions became so ubiquitous that CBS started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."

"Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single and then quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records."

Protest and Another Side

In May 1963, Dylan's political profile was raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan Show. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.

By this time, Dylan and Baez were both prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan. The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with "Only A Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers; and the Brechtian "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger. On a more general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "North Country Blues" address the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too Many Mornings".

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements. These tensions were publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom Paine Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an intoxicated Dylan brashly questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded on a single June evening in 1964, had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal, humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Spanish Harlem Incident" and "To Ramona" are romantic and passionate love songs, while "Black Crow Blues" and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" suggest the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan's music. "It Ain't Me Babe", on the surface a song about spurned love, has been described as a rejection of the role his reputation had thrust at him. His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the impressionistic "Chimes of Freedom," which sets elements of social commentary against a denser metaphorical landscape in a style later characterized by Allen Ginsberg as "chains of flashing images," and "My Back Pages," which attacks the simplistic and arch seriousness of his own earlier topical songs and seems to predict the backlash he was about to encounter from his former champions as he took a new direction.

In the latter half of 1964 and 1965, Dylan's appearance and musical style changed rapidly, as he made his move from leading contemporary songwriter of the folk scene to folk-rock pop-music star. His scruffy jeans and work shirts were replaced by a Carnaby Street wardrobe, sunglasses day or night, and pointy "Beatle boots". A London reporter wrote: "Hair that would set the teeth of a comb on edge. A loud shirt that would dim the neon lights of Leicester Square. He looks like an undernourished cockatoo." Dylan also began to spar in increasingly surreal ways with his interviewers. Appearing on the Les Crane TV show and asked about a movie he was planning to make, he told Crane it would be a cowboy horror movie. Asked if he played the cowboy, Dylan replied, "No, I play my mother."

Going electric

Dylan's April 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home was yet another stylistic leap, featuring his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", owed much to Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business"; its free association lyrics have been described as both harkening back to the manic energy of Beat poetry and as a forerunner of rap and hip-hop. The song was provided with an early music video which opened D. A. Pennebaker's cinéma vérité presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back. Instead of miming to the recording, Dylan illustrated the lyrics by throwing cue cards containing key words from the song on the ground. Pennebaker has said the sequence was Dylan's idea, and it has been widely imitated in both music videos and advertisements.

The B side of Bringing It All Back Home consisted of four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. "Mr. Tambourine Man" quickly became one of Dylan's best known songs when The Byrds recorded an electric version that reached number one in both the U.S. and the U.K. charts. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" were acclaimed as two of Dylan's most important compositions.

In the summer of 1965, as the headliner at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan performed his first electric set since his high school days with a pickup group drawn mostly from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, featuring Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Sam Lay (drums) and Jerome Arnold (bass), plus Al Kooper (organ) and Barry Goldberg (piano). Dylan had appeared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in 1965 Dylan, met with a mix of cheering and booing, left the stage after only three songs. One version of the legend has it that the boos were from the outraged folk fans whom Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar. Murray Lerner, who filmed the performance, said: "I absolutely think that they were booing Dylan going electric." An alternative account claims audience members were merely upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. This account is supported by Kooper and one of the directors of the festival, who reports his audio recording of the concert proves that the only boos were in reaction to the emcee's announcement that there was only enough time for a short set.

Nevertheless, Dylan's 1965 Newport performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment. In the September issue of Sing Out!, singer Ewan MacColl wrote: "Our traditional songs and ballads are the creations of extraordinarily talented artists working inside disciplines formulated over time... 'But what of Bobby Dylan?' scream the outraged teenagers... Only a completely non-critical audience, nourished on the watery pap of pop music, could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel." On July 29, just four days after his controversial performance at Newport, Dylan was back in the studio in New York, recording "Positively 4th Street". The lyrics teemed with images of vengeance and paranoia, and it was widely interpreted as Dylan's put-down of former friends from the folk community—friends he had known in the clubs along West 4th Street.

Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde

In July 1965, Dylan released the single "Like a Rolling Stone", which peaked at No.2 in the U.S. and at No.4 in the UK charts. At over six minutes, the song has been widely credited with altering attitudes about what a pop single could convey. Bruce Springsteen, in his speech during Dylan's inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said that on first hearing the single, "that snare shot sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind". In 2004, and again in 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine listed it as number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The song also opened Dylan's next album, Highway 61 Revisited, titled after the road that led from Dylan's Minnesota to the musical hotbed of New Orleans. The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike Bloomfield's blues guitar and Al Kooper's organ riffs. "Desolation Row" offers the sole acoustic exception, with Dylan making surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this epic song, which was described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of celebrated characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."

In support of the record, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts and set about assembling a band. Mike Bloomfield was unwilling to leave the Butterfield Band, so Dylan mixed Al Kooper and Harvey Brooks from his studio crew with bar-band stalwarts Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, best known at the time for being part of Ronnie Hawkins's backing band The Hawks (later to become The Band). On August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the group was heckled by an audience still annoyed by Dylan's electric sound. The band's reception on September 3 at the Hollywood Bowl was more favorable.

While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences on tour, their studio efforts floundered. Producer Bob Johnston persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville in February 1966, and surrounded him with a cadre of top-notch session men. At Dylan's insistence, Robertson and Kooper came down from New York City to play on the sessions. The Nashville sessions produced the double-album Blonde on Blonde (1966), featuring what Dylan later called "that thin wild mercury sound". Al Kooper described the album as "taking two cultures and smashing them together with a huge explosion": the musical world of Nashville and the world of the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob Dylan.

On November 22, 1965, Dylan secretly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds. Some of Dylan's friends (including Ramblin' Jack Elliott) claim that, in conversation immediately after the event, Dylan denied that he was married. Journalist Nora Ephron first made the news public in the New York Post in February 1966 with the headline "Hush! Bob Dylan is wed."

Dylan undertook a world tour of Australia and Europe in the spring of 1966. Each show was split into two parts. Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. In the second half, backed by the Hawks, he played high voltage electric music. This contrast provoked many fans, who jeered and slow handclapped. The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in England on May 17, 1966. An official recording of this concert was finally released in 1998: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966. At the climax of the evening, a member of the audience, angered by Dylan's electric backing, shouted: "Judas!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you ... You're a liar!" Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" as they launched into the final song of the night—"Like a Rolling Stone."

During his 1966 tour, Dylan was frequently described as exhausted and acting "as if on a death trip". D. A. Pennebaker, the film maker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else." In a 1969 interview with Jann Wenner, Dylan said, "I was on the road for almost five years. It wore me down. I was on drugs, a lot of things... just to keep going, you know?" In 2011, BBC Radio 4 reported that, in an interview which Robert Shelton had taped in 1966, Dylan claimed that he had kicked a heroin habit in New York City: "I got very, very strung out for a while... I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it." Some journalists questioned the validity of this confession, pointing out that Dylan had "been telling journalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career."

Motorcycle accident and reclusion

After his European tour, Dylan returned to New York, but the pressures on him increased. ABC Television had paid an advance for a TV show they could screen. His publisher, Macmillan, was demanding a finished manuscript of the poem/novel Tarantula. Manager Albert Grossman had already scheduled an extensive concert tour for that summer and fall.

On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock, New York, throwing him to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries were never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race." In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for eight years.

Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began editing film footage of his 1966 tour for Eat the Document, a rarely exhibited follow-up to Dont Look Back. A rough-cut was shown to ABC Television and was promptly rejected as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience. In 1967 he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, called "Big Pink". These songs, initially compiled as demos for other artists to record, provided hit singles for Julie Driscoll ("This Wheel's on Fire"), The Byrds ("You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "Nothing Was Delivered"), and Manfred Mann ("Mighty Quinn"). Columbia belatedly released selections from them in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. Over the years, more and more of the songs recorded by Dylan and his band in 1967 appeared on various bootleg recordings, culminating in a five-CD bootleg set titled The Genuine Basement Tapes, containing 107 songs and alternate takes. In the coming months, the Hawks recorded the album Music from Big Pink using songs they first worked on in their basement in Woodstock, and renamed themselves The Band, thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.

In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville. Back in the recording studio after a 19-month break, he was accompanied only by Charlie McCoy on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums, and Pete Drake on steel guitar. The result was John Wesley Harding, a quiet, contemplative record of shorter songs, set in a landscape that drew on both the American West and the Bible. The sparse structure and instrumentation, coupled with lyrics that took the Judeo-Christian tradition seriously, marked a departure not only from Dylan's own work but from the escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s musical culture. It included "All Along the Watchtower", with lyrics derived from the Book of Isaiah (21:5–9). The song was later recorded by Jimi Hendrix, whose version Dylan later acknowledged as definitive. Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, and Dylan made his first live appearance in twenty months at a Guthrie memorial concert held at Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1968, where he was backed by The Band.

Dylan's next release, Nashville Skyline (1969), was virtually a mainstream country record featuring instrumental backing by Nashville musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan, a duet with Johnny Cash, and the hit single "Lay Lady Lay." Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, including Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings," but they were not used on the album.

In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash's new television show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from the North Country", "I Threw It All Away" and "Living the Blues". Dylan next travelled to England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight rock festival on August 31, 1969, after rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival far closer to his home.

1970s

In the early 1970s, critics charged that Dylan's output was of varied and unpredictable quality. Rolling Stone magazine writer and Dylan loyalist Greil Marcus notoriously asked "What is this shit?" upon first listening to 1970's Self Portrait. In general, Self Portrait, a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received. Later that year, Dylan released New Morning, which some considered a return to form. In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison; Harrison recorded both "I'd Have You Anytime" and Dylan's "If Not For You" for his 1970 solo triple album All Things Must Pass. Dylan's surprise appearance at Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh attracted much media coverage, reflecting that Dylan's live appearances had become rare.

Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village. These sessions resulted in one single, "Watching The River Flow", and a new recording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece". On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson," which he released a week later. For many, the single was a surprising return to protest material, mourning the killing of Black Panther George Jackson in San Quentin Prison that summer. Dylan contributed piano and hamony vocals to Steve Goodman's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.

In 1972, Dylan signed onto Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing the role of "Alias," a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis. Despite the film's failure at the box office, the song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" has proven its durability as one of Dylan's most extensively covered songs.

Return to touring

Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new record label, David Geffen's Asylum Records, when his contract with Columbia Records expired. On his next album, Planet Waves, he used The Band as backing group, while rehearsing for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young," which became one of his most popular songs. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Biographer Howard Sounes noted that Jakob Dylan believed the song was about him.

Columbia Records simultaneously released Dylan, a haphazard collection of studio outtakes (almost exclusively cover songs), which was widely interpreted as a churlish response to Dylan's signing with a rival record label. In January 1974, Dylan returned to live touring after a break of seven years; backed by The Band, he embarked on a high-profile, coast-to-coast North American tour, playing 40 concerts. A live double album of the tour, Before the Flood, was released on Asylum Records. Soon, Columbia Records sent word that they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold". Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, apparently miffed that while there had been millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour, Geffen had managed to sell only 700,000 copies of Planet Waves. Dylan returned to Columbia Records, which subsequently reissued his two Asylum albums on their imprint.

After the tour, Dylan and his wife became publicly estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about relationships and ruptures, and quickly recorded a new album entitled Blood on the Tracks in September 1974. Dylan delayed the album's release, however, and re-recorded half of the songs at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother David Zimmerman.

Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks received mixed reviews. In the NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes." In Rolling Stone, reviewer Jon Landau wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." However, over the years critics have come to see it as one of Dylan's greatest achievements, perhaps the only serious rival to his mid-60s trilogy of albums. In Salon.com, Bill Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-'60s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."

That summer Dylan wrote a lengthy ballad championing the cause of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who had been imprisoned for a triple murder committed in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1966. After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "Hurricane", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its 8:32 minute length, the song was released as a single, peaking at No.33 on the U.S. Billboard Chart, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, named after the Shoshone medicine man, shaman, teacher, and activist Rolling Thunder. The tour was a varied evening of entertainment featuring about one hundred performers and supporters drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Joni Mitchell, David Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez, and violinist Scarlet Rivera, whom Dylan discovered while she was walking down the street, her violin case hanging on her back. Allen Ginsberg accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard was initially hired to write the film's screenplay, but ended up accompanying the tour as informal chronicler.

Running through late 1975 and again through early 1976, the tour encompassed the release of the album Desire, with many of Dylan's new songs featuring an almost travelogue-like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright Jacques Levy. The spring 1976 half of the tour was documented by a TV concert special, Hard Rain, and the LP Hard Rain; no concert album from the better-received and better-known opening half of the tour was released until 2002's Live 1975.

The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film Renaldo and Clara, a sprawling and improvised narrative, mixed with concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received generally poor, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.

In November 1976, Dylan appeared at The Band's "farewell" concert, along with other guests including Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and Neil Young. Martin Scorsese's acclaimed cinematic chronicle of this show, The Last Waltz, was released in 1978 and included about half of Dylan's set. In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton's No Reason To Cry.

In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were recorded and released as the live double album, Bob Dylan At Budokan. Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, while Janet Maslin defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals." When Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour'. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."

In April and May 1978, Dylan went into the studio in Santa Monica, California, to record an album of new material with the same large band and backing vocalists: Street-Legal. It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life". However, it suffered from poor sound recording and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.

Born-again period

In the late 1970s, Dylan became a born-again Christian and released two albums of Christian gospel music. Slow Train Coming (1979) featured the guitar accompaniment of Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) and was produced by veteran R&B; producer, Jerry Wexler. Wexler recalled that when Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording, he replied: "Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year old Jewish atheist. Let's just make an album." The album won Dylan a Grammy Award as "Best Male Vocalist" for the song "Gotta Serve Somebody". The second evangelical album, Saved (1980), received mixed reviews, and was described by Dylan critic Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior." When touring from the fall of 1979 through the spring of 1980, Dylan would not play any of his older, secular works, and he delivered declarations of his faith from the stage, such as:

Dylan's embrace of Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musicians. Shortly before his murder, John Lennon recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody". By 1981, while Dylan's Christian faith was obvious, Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times that "neither age (he's now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion to born-again Christianity has altered his essentially iconoclastic temperament."

1980s

In the fall of 1980 Dylan briefly resumed touring for a series of concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective", where he restored several of his popular 1960s songs to the repertoire. Shot of Love, recorded the next spring, featured Dylan's first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with explicitly Christian songs; the song "Every Grain of Sand" reminded some critics of William Blake's verses.

In the 1980s the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded Infidels in 1983 to the panned Down in the Groove in 1988. Critics such as Michael Gray condemned Dylan's 1980s albums both for showing an extraordinary carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. The Infidels recording sessions, for example, produced several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Most well regarded of these were "Blind Willie McTell", a tribute to the dead blues musician and an evocation of African American history, "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child". These three songs were later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.

Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded his next studio album, Empire Burlesque. Arthur Baker, who had remixed hits for Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper, was asked to engineer and mix the album. Baker has said he felt he was hired to make Dylan's album sound "a little bit more contemporary".

Dylan sang on USA for Africa's famine relief fundraising single "We Are the World". On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax at the Live Aid concert at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia. Backed by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Dylan performed a ragged version of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty, and then said to the worldwide audience exceeding one billion people: "I hope that some of the money ... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe ... one or two million, maybe ... and use it to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks." His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson to organize a series of events, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.

In April 1986, Dylan made a brief foray into the world of rap music when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", a song featured on Kurtis Blow's album Kingdom Blow. Dylan's next studio album, Knocked Out Loaded, was released in July 1986 and contained three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker, Kris Kristofferson and the traditional gospel hymn "Precious Memories"), plus three collaborations with other writers (Tom Petty, Sam Shepard and Carole Bayer Sager), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since Freewheelin' (1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, 'Brownsville Girl', a work of genius.

In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured extensively with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with The Grateful Dead in 1987, resulting in a live album Dylan & The Dead. This album received some very negative reviews: Allmusic said, "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." After performing with these musical permutations, Dylan initiated what came to be called The Never Ending Tour on June 7, 1988, performing with a tight back-up band featuring guitarist G. E. Smith. Dylan continued to tour with this small but constantly evolving band for the next 20 years.

In 1987, Dylan starred in Richard Marquand's movie Hearts of Fire, in which he played Billy Parker, a washed-up-rock-star-turned-chicken farmer whose teenage lover (Fiona) leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation (played by Rupert Everett). Dylan also contributed two original songs to the soundtrack—"Night After Night", and "I Had a Dream About You, Baby", as well as a cover of John Hiatt's "The Usual". The film was a critical and commercial flop. Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen's introductory speech declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.

When Dylan released the album Down in the Groove in May 1988, it was even more unsuccessful in its sales than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the Traveling Wilburys. Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, and in the fall of 1988 their multi-platinum Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 reached number three on the US album chart, featuring songs that were described as Dylan's most accessible compositions in years. Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990, which they released with the unexpected title Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.

Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy produced by Daniel Lanois. Dylan critic Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." The track "Most of the Time", a lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film High Fidelity, while "What Was It You Wanted?" has been interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.

1990s

Dylan's 1990s began with Under the Red Sky (1990), an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy. The album contained several apparently simple songs, including "Under the Red Sky" and "Wiggle Wiggle". The album was dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo"; this was later explained as a nickname for the daughter of Dylan and Carolyn Dennis, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, who was four at that time. Sidemen on the album included George Harrison, Slash from Guns N' Roses, David Crosby, Bruce Hornsby, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Elton John. Despite the stellar line-up, the record received bad reviews and sold poorly.

In 1991, Dylan was honored by the recording industry with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from American actor Jack Nicholson. The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, and Dylan performed his song "Masters of War". Dylan then made a short speech that startled some of the audience.

The next few years saw Dylan returning to his roots with two albums covering old folk and blues numbers: Good as I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), featuring interpretations and acoustic guitar work. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", penned by a 19th century teacher and sung by Dylan with a haunting reverence. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged. He claimed his wish to perform a set of traditional songs for the show was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on a greatest hits package. The album produced from it, MTV Unplugged, included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and jingoism.

With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed-in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois at Miami's Criteria Studios in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis, brought on by histoplasmosis. His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before Pope John Paul II at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".

September saw the release of the new Lanois-produced album, Time Out of Mind. With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award.

In December 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor in the East Room of the White House, paying this tribute: "He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful."

2000s

Dylan commenced the new millennium by winning his first Oscar; his song "Things Have Changed", penned for the film Wonder Boys, won an Academy Award in March 2001. The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.

"Love and Theft" was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well-received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads.

In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his "born again" period and participated in the CD project Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan. That year also saw the release of the film Masked & Anonymous, which Dylan co-wrote with director Larry Charles under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast which included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.

In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. The book confounded expectations. Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-'60s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums New Morning (1970) and Oh Mercy (1989). The book reached number two on The New York Times' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award.

Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film biography No Direction Home was broadcast in September 2005. It was shown on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two in the UK and PBS in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo, Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Dylan himself. The film received a Peabody Award in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The accompanying soundtrack featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.

Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by The Beatles, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone".

Modern Times (2006–08)

May 3, 2006, was the premiere of Dylan's DJ career, hosting a weekly radio program, Theme Time Radio Hour, for XM Satellite Radio, with song selections revolving around a chosen theme. Dylan played classic and obscure records from the 1930s to the present day, including contemporary artists as diverse as Blur, Prince, L.L. Cool J and The Streets. The show was praised by fans and critics as "great radio," as Dylan told stories and made eclectic references with his sardonic humor, while achieving a thematic beauty with his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record played was Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh". This has led to speculation that Dylan's radio series may have ended.

On August 29, 2006, Dylan released his Modern Times album. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for The Guardian characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft". Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's Desire.

Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and Bob Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for "Someday Baby". Modern Times was named Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by Uncut in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the iTunes Music Store released Bob Dylan: The Collection, a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.

In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan I'm Not There, written and directed by Todd Haynes, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie uses six distinct characters to represent different aspects of Dylan's life, played by Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Ben Whishaw. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Eddie Vedder, Mason Jennings, Stephen Malkmus, Jeff Tweedy, Karen O, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, Richie Havens, and Tom Verlaine.

On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records released the triple CD retrospective album Dylan, anthologising his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. As part of this campaign, Mark Ronson produced a re-mix of Dylan's 1966 tune "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," which was released as a maxi-single. This was the first time Dylan had sanctioned a re-mix of one of his classic recordings.

The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s. This first became evidenced in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV advertisement for Victoria's Secret lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper Will.i.am in a Pepsi ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII. The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by Will.i.am doing a hip hop version of the song's third and final verse.

In October 2008, Columbia released Volume 8 of Dylan's Bootleg Series, Tell Tale Signs: Rare And Unreleased 1989–2006 as both a two-CD set and a three-CD version with a 150-page hardcover book. The set contains live performances and outtakes from selected studio albums from Oh Mercy to Modern Times, as well as soundtrack contributions and collaborations with David Bromberg and Ralph Stanley. The pricing of the album—the two-CD set went on sale for $18.99 and the three-CD version for $129.99—led to complaints about "rip-off packaging" from some fans and commentators. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The plethora of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to Uncut's reviewer: "Tell Tale Signs is awash with evidence of (Dylan's) staggering mercuriality, his evident determination even in the studio to repeat himself as little as possible."

Together Through Life, Christmas in the Heart (2009)

Bob Dylan released his album Together Through Life on April 28, 2009. In a conversation with music journalist Bill Flanagan, published on Dylan's website, Dylan explained that the genesis of the record was when French film director Olivier Dahan asked him to supply a song for his new road movie, My Own Love Song; initially only intending to record a single track, "Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its own direction". Nine of the ten songs on the album are credited as co-written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter.

The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work. Andy Gill wrote in The Independent that the record "features Dylan in fairly relaxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab such grooves and sentiments as flit momentarily across his radar. So while it may not contain too many landmark tracks, it's one of the most naturally enjoyable albums you'll hear all year."

In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200 chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart.

On October 13, 2009, Dylan released a Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart, comprising such Christmas standards as "Little Drummer Boy", "Winter Wonderland" and "Here Comes Santa Claus". Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album will benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis in the UK, and the World Food Programme.

The album received generally favorable reviews. The New Yorker commented that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that Dylan's intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In USA Today, Edna Gundersen pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole, Mel Tormé, and the Ray Conniff Singers." Gundersen concluded that Dylan "couldn't sound more sentimental or sincere".

In an interview published by Street News Service, journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too."

2010s

On October 18, 2010, Dylan released Volume 9 of his Bootleg Series, The Witmark Demos. This comprised 47 demo recordings of songs taped between 1962 and 1964 for Dylan's earliest music publishers: Leeds Music in 1962, and Witmark Music from 1962 to 1964. One reviewer described the set as "a kind of alternate early history of Dylan's songwriting process, 'writing five new songs before breakfast,' as he once famously quipped". The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim". In the same week, Sony Legacy released Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings, a box set which for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from Bob Dylan (1962) to John Wesley Harding (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format, accompanied by new liner notes by Dylan critic Greil Marcus.

On April 12, 2011, Legacy Recordings released Bob Dylan in Concert – Brandeis University 1963 . The recording was taped at Brandeis University on May 10, 1963, two weeks prior to the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The tape had been discovered in the archive of music writer Ralph J. Gleason, and had previously been available as a limited edition supplement to The Bootleg Series Vol. 9. The recording carries liner notes by Dylan scholar Michael Gray. Gray writes, "(The) Dylan performance it captured, from way back when Kennedy was President and the Beatles hadn't yet reached America, wasn't even on fans' radar.... It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period... This is the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star."

The extent to which his work was studied at an academic level was demonstrated on Dylan's 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, when three universities organised symposia on his work. The University of Mainz, the University of Vienna, and the University of Bristol invited literary critics and cultural historians from Europe and the US to give papers on aspects of Dylan's work. Other events, including tribute bands, intellectual debates and simple singalongs, took place around the world, as reported in The Guardian: "From Moscow to Madrid, Norway to Northampton and Malaysia to his home state of Minnesota, self-confessed "Bobcats" will gather today to celebrate the 70th birthday of a giant of popular music."

In August 2011, Dylan's label, Egyptian Records, announced that an album of previously unheard Hank Williams songs, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, would be released in October. Dylan had helped to curate this project, in which songs unfinished when Williams died in 1953 were completed and recorded by a variety of artists, including Dylan himself, his son Jakob Dylan, Levon Helm, Norah Jones, Jack White, and others.

Never Ending Tour

The Never Ending Tour commenced on June 7, 1988, and Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century—a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. By the end of 2010, Dylan and his band had played more than 2300 shows, anchored by long-time bassist Tony Garnier, multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron and guitarist Charlie Sexton. To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan's performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. Critical opinion about Dylan's shows remains divided. Critics such as Richard Williams and Andy Gill have argued that Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material. Others have criticised his vocal style as a "one-dimensional growl with which he chews up, mangles and spits out the greatest lyrics ever written so that they are effectively unrecognisable", and his lack of interest in bonding with his audience.

Dylan's performances in China in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set-list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set-list existed.

Dylan responded to these allegations of censorship by posting a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."

In April 2011, Dylan performed concerts in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Australia. Dylan's website has published details of Dylan's 2011 tour of Europe, Israel and the US from June to August, commencing in Cork, Ireland, and concluding in Bangor, Maine.

Artist

Over a decade after Random House had published Drawn Blank (1994), a book of Dylan's drawings, an exhibit of his art, The Drawn Blank Series, opened in October 2007 at the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany. This first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings showcased more than 200 watercolors and gouaches made earlier in 2007 from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of the book Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series.

From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series. In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery, announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. The Gagosian Gallery has announced an exhibition of Dylan's art, The Asia Series, will take place at their Madison Avenue Gallery in September-October 2011.

Discography

Awards

Personal life

Family

Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965. Their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan, was born on January 6, 1966, and they had three more children: Anna Lea, Samuel Isaac Abraham, and Jakob Luke (born December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds (later Dylan, born October 21, 1961). Maria married musician Peter Himmelman, an Orthodox Jew, in 1988. In the 1990s, Dylan's son Jakob became well known as the lead singer of the band The Wallflowers. Jesse Dylan is a film director and a successful businessman. Bob and Sara Dylan were divorced on June 29, 1977.

In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of Howard Sounes' Dylan biography, Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan in 2001. Dylan now lives in Malibu, California, when not on the road.

Religious beliefs

Growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, Dylan and his family were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community, and in May 1954 Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah. Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited Israel, and also met Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the New York-based Jewish Defense League. Time Magazine quoted Dylan saying about Kahane, "He's a really sincere guy. He's really put it all together." Subsequently, Dylan downplayed the extent of his contact with Kahane.

For a period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dylan was a public convert to Christianity. From January to April 1979, he participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went over to Bob's house and ministered to him. He responded by saying, 'Yes he did in fact want Christ in his life.' And he prayed that day and received the Lord."

By 1984, Dylan was deliberately distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come." In response to Loder's asking whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind." In 1997 he told David Gates of Newsweek:

In an interview published in The New York Times on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon Pareles reported that "Dylan says he now subscribes to no organized religion."

Dylan has been described, in the last 20 years, as a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the bar mitzvahs of his sons and attending Hadar Hatorah, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva. In September 1989 and September 1991, Dylan appeared on the Chabad telethon. Jewish news services have reported that Dylan has visited Chabad synagogues; on September 22, 2007 (Yom Kippur), he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was called to the Torah for the sixth aliyah.

Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, when he told Ed Bradley that "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God." He also explained his constant touring schedule as part of a bargain he made a long time ago with the "chief commander—in this earth and in the world we can't see."

In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, Christmas in the Heart, Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."

Legacy

Bob Dylan is one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally. Dylan was included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". Biographer Howard Sounes placed him among the most exalted company when he said, "There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists."

Initially modeling his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, and lessons learned from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."

When Dylan made his move from acoustic music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex. For many critics, Dylan's greatest achievement was the cultural synthesis exemplified by his mid-'60s trilogy of albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In Mike Marqusee's words: "Between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B;, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat poetry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console."

One legacy of Dylan's verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks published a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot, Keats and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dylan's voice was, in some ways, as startling as his lyrics. New York Times critic Robert Shelton described Dylan's early vocal style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie's old performances, etched in gravel like Dave Van Ronk's." David Bowie, in his tribute, "Song for Bob Dylan", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue". Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal on his hit single, "Like a Rolling Stone", as "at once young and jeeringly cynical". As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal Oral Tradition, "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album Oh Mercy) is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."

Dylan's influence has been felt in several musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in USA Today: "Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Syd Barrett, Cat Stevens,Joni Mitchell, and Tom Waits. More directly, both The Byrds and The Band, two 1960s contemporary groups with some measure of influence on popular music themselves, largely owed their initial success to Dylan: the Byrds with their hit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and subsequent album; and the Band for their association with him on tour in 1966, on retreat in Woodstock, and on their debut album featuring three previously unreleased Dylan songs.

There have been dissenters. Because Dylan was widely credited with imbuing pop culture with a new seriousness, the critic Nik Cohn objected: "I can't take the vision of Dylan as seer, as teenage messiah, as everything else he's been worshipped as. The way I see him, he's a minor talent with a major gift for self-hype." Similarly, Australian critic Jack Marx credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot be disputed is that Dylan invented the arrogant, faux-cerebral posturing that has been the dominant style in rock since, with everyone from Mick Jagger to Eminem educating themselves from the Dylan handbook." Joni Mitchell described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and his voice as "fake" in a 2010 interview in the Los Angeles Times, in response to a suggestion that she and Dylan were similar since they had both changed their birthnames. Mitchell's comment led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticizing Dylan.

If Bob Dylan's legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, now that he has reached the age of 70, he has been described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. As J. Hoberman wrote in The Village Voice, "Elvis might never have been born, but someone else would surely have brought the world rock 'n' roll. No such logic accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of history demanded that a would-be Elvis from Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through the Greenwich Village folk revival to become the world's first and greatest rock 'n' roll beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into a folk tradition of his own making."

Footnotes

References

External links

BobDylan.com – Official web site, including lyrics and touring schedule

Expecting Rain – Dylan news and events, updated daily

BobLinks – Comprehensive log of concerts and set lists

Bjorner's Still on the Road – Information on recording sessions and performances

Category:1941 births Category:American blues singers Category:American Christians Category:American country singers Category:American DJs Category:American folk guitarists Category:American folk singers Category:American gospel singers Category:American harmonica players Category:American male singers Category:American memoirists Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Category:American poets Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:American people of Jewish descent Category:Columbia Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Harmonica blues musicians

Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Minnesota Category:Musicians from New York City Category:People from Duluth, Minnesota Category:People from Greenwich Village, New York Category:Pulitzer Prize winners Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:Traveling Wilburys members Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:University of Minnesota alumni Category:Converts to Christianity

af:Bob Dylan ar:بوب ديلن an:Bob Dylan ast:Bob Dylan bn:বব ডিলন bar:Dylan Bob bs:Bob Dylan br:Bob Dylan bg:Боб Дилън ca:Bob Dylan cs:Bob Dylan cy:Bob Dylan da:Bob Dylan de:Bob Dylan et:Bob Dylan el:Μπομπ Ντίλαν es:Bob Dylan eo:Bob Dylan eu:Bob Dylan fa:باب دیلن fo:Bob Dylan fr:Bob Dylan fy:Bob Dylan ga:Bob Dylan gl:Bob Dylan ko:밥 딜런 hy:Բոբ Դիլան hr:Bob Dylan io:Bob Dylan id:Bob Dylan ia:Bob Dylan os:Боб Дилан is:Bob Dylan it:Bob Dylan he:בוב דילן kn:ಬಾಬ್‌ ಡೈಲನ್‌ ka:ბობ დილანი sw:Bob Dylan la:Robertus Dylan lv:Bobs Dilans lb:Bob Dylan lt:Bob Dylan li:Bob Dylan hu:Bob Dylan mk:Боб Дилан mn:Боб Дилан mrj:Боб Дилан nl:Bob Dylan new:बब डिल्यान ja:ボブ・ディラン no:Bob Dylan nn:Bob Dylan oc:Bob Dylan uz:Bob Dylan pl:Bob Dylan pt:Bob Dylan ro:Bob Dylan ru:Боб Дилан se:Bob Dylan sco:Bob Dylan sq:Bob Dylan scn:Bob Dylan simple:Bob Dylan sk:Bob Dylan sl:Bob Dylan sr:Боб Дилан sh:Bob Dylan fi:Bob Dylan sv:Bob Dylan tl:Bob Dylan ta:பாப் டிலான் te:బాబ్ డైలాన్ th:บ็อบ ดิลลัน tr:Bob Dylan uk:Боб Ділан vi:Bob Dylan vls:Bob Dylan war:Bob Dylan yo:Bob Dylan zh:鲍勃·迪伦

name	Jeff Dunham
birth name	Jeffrey William Robinson Dunham
birth date	April 18, 1962
birth place	Dallas, Texas, U.S.
medium	Stand-up
nationality	American
genre	Ventriloquism
influences	Edgar Bergen
spouse	Paige Dunham
notable work	Jeff Dunham: Arguing with MyselfJeff Dunham: Spark of InsanityJeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas SpecialThe Jeff Dunham Show
website	www.JeffDunham.com
past members	}}

Jeffrey William Robinson "Jeff" Dunham (born 18 April 1962) is an American ventriloquist and stand-up comedian who has also appeared on numerous television shows, including Star Search, Late Show with David Letterman, Comedy Central Presents, The Tonight Show and Sonny With a Chance. He is familiar to Comedy Central audiences for his three specials on that network: Jeff Dunham: Arguing with Myself, Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, and Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special. Dunham also starred in The Jeff Dunham Show for one season on the network in 2009. His style has been described as "a dressed-down, more digestible version of Don Rickles with multiple personality disorder". Describing his characters, Time observes, "All of them are politically incorrect, gratuitously insulting and ill tempered." Dunham has been credited with reviving ventriloquism, and doing more to promote the art form than anyone since Edgar Bergen.

Dunham has been called "America's favorite comedian" by Slate.com, and according to the concert industry publication Pollstar, he is the top-grossing standup act in North America, and is among the most successful acts in Europe as well. As of March 2009, he has sold over four million DVDs, an additional $7 million in merchandise sales, and received more than 350 million hits on YouTube (his introduction of Achmed the Dead Terrorist in Spark of Insanity is the ninth most watched YouTube video). A Very Special Christmas Special was the most-watched telecast in Comedy Central history, with its DVD going quadruple platinum (selling over 400,000) in its first two weeks. Forbes.com ranked Dunham as the third highest-paid comedian in the United States behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, and reported that he was one of the highest-earning comics from June 2008 to June 2009, earning approximately $30 million during that period.

Early life and career

Dunham was born in Dallas, Texas in 1962, and raised in an affluent neighborhood as an only child, adopted by a real estate appraiser and a homemaker. He began ventriloquism at age eight, when his parents gave him a Mortimer Snerd dummy for Christmas, and an accompanying how-to record album. The next day he checked out a how-to book on ventriloquism from the library. Dunham began practicing for hours in front of a mirror, studying the routines of Edgar Bergen, and the how-to record Jimmy Nelson's Instant Ventriloquism, finding ventriloquism to be a learned skill, similar to juggling, that anyone with a normal speaking voice can acquire.

When Dunham was in the sixth grade, he began attending the Vent Haven ConVENTion in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, an annual international meeting of ventriloquists that includes competitions, where he met Jimmy Nelson in person. Dunham has missed only one ConVENTion since then, in 1977. The organizers of the ConVENTion eventually declared Dunham a "retired champion", ineligible from entering any more competitions, as other attendees were too intimidated to compete against him. The Vent Haven Museum devotes a section to Dunham, alongside Señor Wences and his idol, Edgar Bergen.

Career

Dunham began performing for audiences as a teenager, in various venues such as school, church, and during his job at Six Flags. By his middle school years, he began to perform for banquets attended by local celebrities such as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, having developed his style of lampooning those he performed for, using the puppets to say things too risque for him to say without them.

Dunham's earliest television exposure was doing commercials for Datsun dealerships while in high school. During this period he became so associated with his craft that he and one of his dummies "cowrote" a column in the school paper, and he would pose with his dummies for yearbooks (Dunham notes in his autobiography that the latter was an inexpensive way to acquire professional photos of his act for promotional purposes). In college, he flew around the country on weekends to perform private shows for customers such as General Electric, whose CEO, Jack Welch, he mocked during his routine. After graduating from Baylor University in Waco, Texas in 1986, he moved to Los Angeles, California, never having, as he has commented, "a real job."

Dunham appeared in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in 1985, and at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. These early experiences, in which he used characters like José Jalapeño on a Stick, taught him the value of modifying his act regionally, as the jalapeño jokes that worked well in Texas were not as well received by audiences in Long Island.

Dunham made his debut on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1990. At the end of his act, he was invited to sit on Johnny Carson’s couch, considered a mark of approval. At the time, Dunham saw this as his big break, though he would toil in obscurity for another twelve years, continuing his stand up at venues such as The Improv chain, and appearing in small roles on TV. One of these was such as a 1996 episode of Ellen, in which he appeared with the character of Walter, whom he had begun using around this time. Dunham also appeared with Walter in a TV commercial for Hertz. His other appearances include 60 Minutes II, Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period, Hollywood Squares, Entertainment Tonight, Good Morning America and the WB's Blue Collar TV.

On July 18, 2003, Dunham appeared on Comedy Central Presents, his first solo appearance on Comedy Central. During his half hour piece, he showcased José Jalapeño on a Stick, Walter, an early version of Melvin the Superhero Guy and Peanut, whom Dunham had begun to merchandise into a line of dolls. The appearance was successful, but Comedy Central resisted giving Dunham more airtime, feeling that he was not a good fit for them. Dunham’s manager, Judi Brown-Marmel, lobbied the network, pointing to Dunham's drawing power and merchandising profits, and arguing that the network needed more diverse content. Surprised by the high ratings of the first Blue Collar Comics concert movie that same year, the network began to reconsider its brand. In 2006, it gave Dunham his first one hour special, Jeff Dunham: Arguing with Myself, which was taped in Santa Ana, California, and drew two million viewers when it aired, cementing Dunham's stardom. His second special, Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, was taped at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. in 2007. It was available at Redbox stands and on DVD in September 2007. Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special was taped at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2008, and premiered on Comedy Central on November 16, 2008, watched by 6.6 million people. It became available on DVD and Blu-ray on November 18, 2008. The special's premiere was the highest rated telecast in Comedy Central's history.

Dunham appeared as "The Amazing Ken" with José Jalapeño on a Stick in the 2007 Larry the Cable Guy movie Delta Farce.

In addition to his comedy specials, Dunham also released his first music album, Don't Come Home for Christmas, on November 4, 2008. It contains original Christmas songs as well as a parody of "Jingle Bells" by Achmed entitled "Jingle Bombs". All the songs, with the exception of "Jingle Bombs", were written and accompanied by Brian Haner, who has joined Dunham's act as "Guitar Guy". His first onscreen appearance was in Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special.

In March 2009, Dunham signed a multi-platform deal with Comedy Central. It included a fourth stand-up special to air in 2010, DVDs, a consumer products partnership, a 60-city tour beginning in September 2010, and an order for a television series called The Jeff Dunham Show that premiered on October 22, 2009. Despite having the most-watched premiere in Comedy Central history, and higher average ratings than other shows on that network, the show was canceled after only one season, amid poor reviews and higher production costs than other Comedy Central shows.

Dunham appeared in a guest role with Bubba J on NBC's sictom 30 Rock, playing a ventriloquist named Rick Wayne and his dummy Pumpkin from Stone Mountain, Georgia. In November 2009 Dunham also appeared with Walter in "Hart to Hart", an episode of the Disney Channel series Sonny With a Chance, as two security guards.

Dunham appeared in the 2010 Steve Carell/Paul Rudd comedy, Dinner for Schmucks, as Lewis, with a new puppet named Debbie.

Critical praise and controversy

In January 2008, Dunham was voted by fans the Top Comic in Comedy Central's “Stand-Up Showdown.” He is the only person ever to win the "Ventriloquist of the Year" Award twice, was nominated "Comedian of the Year" by the TNN Music City News Country Awards, and has drawn praise from the Dallas Morning News for his technique and timing.

Some have accused Dunham's characters of being racist caricatures, sexist, and homophobic. In 2008, a TV commercial for a ringtone featuring Dunham's character Achmed the Dead Terrorist (see Characters below) was banned by the South African Advertising Standards Authority after a complaint was filed by a citizen stating that the ad was offensive to Muslims, and portrayed all Muslims as terrorists. Dunham responded that "Achmed makes it clear in my act that he is not Muslim." However, the Advertising Standards Authority noted that the name Achmed was of Arab origin and was one of the names of Muhammad. Dunham responded, "I've skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech." He further commented, "I'm considering renaming Achmed, 'Bill.'" (Dunham has conceded that he does exhibit particular sensitivity to the "conservative country crowd," or those characterized by "basic Christian values," as they are one of his largest constituencies, and part of his upbringing.)

Dunham was heckled and criticized for mocking TV critics during a July 2009 press tour to promote his then-upcoming Comedy Central TV series, The Jeff Dunham Show, as well as Comedy Central programming chief Lauren Correo. In October 2009 The Jeff Dunham Show enjoyed good initial ratings, but was not well liked by critics, who did not find it funny, and either questioned the wisdom of translating his act into a series, or conceded a prejudice against Dunham, his previous specials, or ventriloquism itself.

J.P. Williams, the producer of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, has opined that Dunham's act is not funny on its own merits, and that his material gets a greater reaction because of the puppet characters that it would otherwise not garner by itself.

Books

In 2003, BRASMA Publications released Dear Walter, a collection of questions asked of Dunham's fictional curmudgeon at live performances, authored by Dunham, and Walter Cummings.

According to Dunham's website, his autobiography, All By My Selves: Walter, Peanut, Achmed and Me, was published by Dutton in November 2010.

Characters

Walter

Walter is a retired, grumpy old man with arms always crossed in discontent. He has a brash, negative and often sarcastic view on today's world. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a former welder, and "doesn't give a damn" about anyone, especially his own wife and certain audience members. Walter has appeared in all three Comedy Central specials. He's been married for several decades, and when Dunham asks him if he remembers the happiest moment of his life after Walter tells him he has been married for forty-six years, Walter responds, "Forty-seven years ago!" Dunham created the Walter puppet himself, including both the initial sculpture and the silicon mold, though he eventually began using professional effects companies for the latter stages with his subsequent puppets.

Peanut

Peanut is a hyperactive, purple-skinned "woozle" with white fur covering most of his body, a tuft of green hair on the top of his head, and one sneaker on his left foot. Dunham explains in Arguing with Myself that Peanut is from a small Micronesian island, and that they met in Florida. Peanut's humor is not based on a particular motif or stereotype, as those of the other characters, and has been described as "the bad kid". He often makes fun of Dunham, and torments and mocks José Jalapeño on a Stick. Touching upon his unusual appearance and personality, he asks Dunham in Arguing with Myself, after Dunham denies ever having done drugs, "Then how the hell did you come up with me?"

José Jalapeño on a Stick

José is a talking jalapeño pepper on a stick who wears a small sombrero. José, who speaks with a thick Latin accent, is typically paired with Peanut, who often makes fun of José, uses appeals to Latino stereotypes when doing so, and makes fun of his being on a stick. Although José was not Dunham's first puppet, it was the first that Dunham made himself.

Bubba J

Bubba J is a beer-drinking redneck that Dunham describes in Arguing with Myself and A Very Special Christmas Special as "white trash trailer park", and whom Dunham uses for humor centered on such stereotypes. To this end, he frequently does jokes involving Bubba J's love of drinking beer and NASCAR, and his low intelligence. Touching upon such stereotypes, Bubba mentions in Arguing with Myself that he met his wife at a family reunion, and remembers seeing her with a corn dog in one hand, a beer in another, and leaning against a ferris wheel, "making it tilt".

Sweet Daddy Dee

Dunham introduces Sweet Daddy Dee in Arguing with Myself as his "new manager". He calls himself a "pimp", which he says stands for "Player In the Management Profession." According to Sweet Daddy, because he is a pimp, that makes Jeff the "ho". When Dunham objects, Daddy Dee points out that Dunham makes people laugh and feel good for a living. When Dunham agrees that this is the case, Daddy Dee says, "You a ho." When Dunham asks what he would say if he told him that he was a comedian only because he enjoyed it, Daddy Dee responds, "You a dumb ho."

Melvin the Superhero Guy

Also referred to in Spark of Insanity as The Superhero: Melvin, Melvin wears a blue superhero costume, and is used to poke fun at superheroes. When asked about his superhuman powers, he indicates that he has X-ray vision, adding, "I love looking at boobies!" He appears to have no other powers, however: When Dunham asks how far he can fly, he responds, "How far can you throw me?", and when asked if he can stop a bullet like Superman, he responds, "Yeah. Once." Dunham portrays Melvin as unimpressed with other superheroes: When told Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound, Melvin dismisses him as a "showoff," arguing that he can simply walk around them, observes that Aquaman has the same powers as SpongeBob SquarePants, asserts that the Flash's super speed is derived from methamphetamine, that the Hulk's vaunted ability to get stronger as he gets angrier merely mirrors "every white trash guy on COPS," and makes innuendo about the questionable relationship between Batman and the underage Robin. Melvin's first onscreen appearance was in the July 2003 Comedy Central Presents episode, in which he had small, black, beady eyes. By his next appearance, in Spark of Insanity, he had been modified to have large, blue, crossed eyes. He also has an enormous nose, which he claims is his symbol, and whose similarity in shape to that of a penis is alluded to in the act. Dunham sculpted the current version of Melvin's head himself, and hired an effects company called Renegade Effects Groups to create the rubber mold and complete the puppet, before then installing the mechanics himself.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Achmed is the skeletal corpse of an incompetent suicide bomber, whom Dunham uses to satirize the contemporary issue of terrorism. He is known for yelling, "Silence! I kill you!" to Dunham and people laughing in the audience. Achmed first appeared in Spark of Insanity, and later made an appearance in the Very Special Christmas Special, singing a song called "Jingle Bombs". He also dubs the so-called Guitar Guy "You racist bastard"! for warming up with typical Arab chords. Most of the humor Dunham expresses with Achmed centers on this motif. When mentioning that Achmed appears to be dead because he's a skeleton, Achmed responds, "It's a flesh wound." When Dunham inquires as to how he died, Achmed explains his incompetence with explosives, while also casting aspersions on Dunham's sexual prowess, by saying that they both suffer from "premature detonation." Although he frequently mentions working for Osama Bin Laden, Achmed claims he does not think he's a Muslim ("look at my ass! It says 'Made in China'"). As of June 2009, the sketch in which Dunham introduced Achmed is the fourth most watched online video ever, having amassed nearly 200 million views.

Diane

Diane first appeared with Dunham in the 2010 film Dinner for Schmucks as "Debbie", his character's "wife". She made her stand-up debut in Dunham's Identity Crisis Tour 2010.

Achmed Junior

The son of Achmed who appeared during the Identity Crisis Tour 2010.

Others

Other characters that Dunham has voiced include a miniature puppet of Peanut's, which turns out to be a small version of Dunham himself, and an unseen worm inside a bottle of tequila, both of which he has used, for example, in his appearance on A&E;'s An Evening at The Improv. Dunham jokingly states in his autobiography that the tequila worm must have been somewhat "confused", as the prop Dunham used was actually an old Chianti bottle, with the visually identifiable "straw basket" (fiasco) design, filled with cranberry juice.

Personal life

In addition to building the dummies he uses in his act, Dunham also restores antique ones as a hobby, such as The Umpire, a mechanized dummy built in 1941 to work the plate at a girl's softball game, but which went unused and packed away for 50 years, before Dunham acquired it in early 2008.

Dunham, who says he has loved helicopters since childhood, is fond of building and flying his own kit helicopters from Rotorway helicopter kits, as depicted in his appearance on the CMT television magazine Fast Living.

In November 2008 Dunham separated from his wife of 14 years, Paige, with whom he has three daughters, Bree, Ashlyn and Kenna.

References

External links

Jeff Dunham's official website

Jeff Dunham at Comedy Central

Category:1962 births Category:American adoptees Category:American stand-up comedians Category:Baylor University alumni Category:Living people Category:People from Dallas, Texas Category:Ventriloquists

bg:Джеф Дънам cs:Jeff Dunham da:Jeff Dunham de:Jeff Dunham es:Jeff Dunham fr:Jeff Dunham it:Jeff Dunham he:ג'ף דנהאם hu:Jeff Dunham nl:Jeff Dunham no:Jeff Dunham pl:Jeff Dunham pt:Jeff Dunham ru:Данэм, Джефф sr:Џеф Данам fi:Jeff Dunham sv:Jeff Dunham

name	Mariah Carey
background	solo_singer
birth date	March 27, 1970
birth place	Huntington, New York, U.S.
genre	R&B;, pop, hip hop, soul, dance
years active	1988–present
associated acts	Brenda K. Starr, Trey Lorenz, Allure, Boyz II Men, Whitney Houston, Jermaine Dupri, Bone Thugs N Harmony
occupation	Singer-songwriter, model, record producer, actress, film producer
spouse
label	Columbia, Virgin, Island
website	}}

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American R&B;/pop singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, Carey enjoyed a series of hit records from the diamond certified albums Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995). She later released the holiday standard "All I Want For Christmas Is You" from her 1994 album, Merry Christmas, which helped to establish her position as Columbia Records' top-selling act.

Following her separation from Mottola in 1997, she introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but when she left Columbia in 2001 her popularity was in decline. She signed an unprecedented $100 million deal with Virgin Records, only to be dropped from the label and bought out of her contract in the following year. This turn of events was due to the highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception that was given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002 Carey signed a $24 million deal with Island Records, and after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music in 2005 with her album The Emancipation of Mimi. The album became her best-selling album in the 2000s and its single, "We Belong Together", became the most successful solo single of her music career and was awarded "Song of the Decade" by Billboard. Ending the decade, Carey starred in the film Precious (2009), whose performance earned her a "Breakthrough Performance Award" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and a NAACP Image Award nomination.

In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million albums, singles, and videos worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Carey was cited as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards in 1998, and was named the best-selling female artist of the millennium by the same awards show in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of 63 million albums in the U.S. In April 2008, "Touch My Body" became Carey's eighteenth number one single on the Hot 100, the most by any solo artist. Aside from her commercial accomplishments, she has earned five Grammys, seventeen World Music Awards, and is known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and signature use of the whistle register.

Early life

Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer. Her mother is Irish American and her father is of Afro-Venezuelan and African American descent; her paternal grandfather, Roberto Nuñez, changed his surname to Carey to better assimilate upon moving to the United States from Venezuela. Carey has two siblings, Morgan and Alison Carey.

Carey was named after the song "They Call the Wind Mariah", by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. which was a favorite of her mother, Patricia Hickey Carey, a singer with the New York City Opera and vocal coach. Patricia had discovered that she was pregnant in the fall of 1969, around the time that the movie version of Paint Your Wagon premiered. Mariah Carey was born on March 27, 1970, when songs from the movie were very popular. Early in Mariah's career, her show began with a "taped overture" of the song.

Carey's parents divorced when she was three years old. While she lived in Huntington, racist neighbors allegedly poisoned the family dog and set fire to her family's car. After her parents' divorce, she had little contact with her father and her mother worked several jobs to support the family. Carey spent much of her time at home, alone, and turned to music to occupy herself. She began to sing at around the age of three, when her mother began to teach her, after Carey imitated her mother practicing Verdi's opera Rigoletto in Italian.

Carey graduated from Harborfields High School in 1987. She was frequently absent, because of her work as a demo singer for local recording studios; her classmates consequently gave her the nickname "Mirage." Her work in the Long Island music scene provided opportunities to work with musicians, such as Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies, with whom she co-wrote material for her demo tape. After she moved to New York City, she worked part-time jobs to pay the rent and she completed 500 hours of beauty school. Eventually, she became a backup singer for Puerto Rican freestyle singer Brenda K. Starr.

Career

1988–92: Early career

In 1988, Carey met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party, where Starr gave Carey's demo tape to him. Mottola played the tape when he left the party and was impressed. He returned to find Carey but she had left. Nevertheless, Mottola tracked her down and signed her to a recording contract. This Cinderella-like story became part of the standard publicity that surrounded Carey's entrance into the industry.

Carey co-wrote the tracks on her 1990 debut album Mariah Carey and she has co-written most of her material since. During the recording, she expressed dissatisfaction with the contributions of producers such as Ric Wake and Rhett Lawrence, whom the executives at Columbia had enlisted to help to make the album more commercially viable. Critics were generally enthusiastic (See critical reception section of the album article). Backed by a substantial promotional budget, the album reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, where it remained for several weeks. It yielded four number-one singles and made Carey a star in the United States but it was less successful in other countries. Critics rated the album highly, which assisted Carey's Grammy wins for Best New Artist, and—for her debut single, "Vision of Love"—Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Mariah Carey was also the best selling album of 1991 in the United States.

Carey conceived Emotions, her second album, as an homage to Motown soul music (see Motown Sound), and she worked with Walter Afanasieff and Clivillés & Cole (from the dance group C+C Music Factory) on the record. It was released soon after her debut album – in late 1991 – but was neither as critically or commercially successful (See promotion and reception section of the album article). Following the success of Carey's self-titled debut album, critics wondered whether or not she would tour in order to promote the album in the major worldwide music markets. However, Carey expressed in several interviews that due to the strenuous nature and the sheer difficulty of her songs, she feared a tour with back-to-back shows would not be possible, aside from the long travel times and constant travel. With the extra time, Carey began writing and producing material for Emotions around the same time that her debut's third single, "Someday", was released in December 1990. During this time period in music, it was traditional for an artist to release a studio album every two years in their prime, allowing the singles to fully promote the album through airwaves, as well as television appearances. Additionally, after a tour that would usually follow, as the next album would be released and would gain new fans, they would search the artist's catalog, and purchase the previous album in hopes of learning of their older work. Sony, however, chose to market Carey in a different fashion, leaning towards the traditional form in the 1960s, where acts would release an LP every year. They felt that Carey's reputation of being a "studio worm" and a songwriter from a young age would be captivating enough to deliver a new album more often than most.

As writing for the album came under way, Carey had a falling out with Ben Margulies, the man whom Carey had written seven of the eleven songs on Carey's debut. Together, the duo had written and produced seven songs for Carey's demo tape which she handed to Tommy Mottola. Their parting of ways was due to a contract Carey had signed prior to her signing with Columbia. Carey had agreed to split not only the songwriting royalties from the songs, but half of her earnings as well, something she never thought twice about while writing songs in his father's basement. However, when the time came to write music for Emotions, Sony officials made it clear he would only be paid the fair amount given to co-writers on an album. Following the discussion, Margulies filed a lawsuit against Sony, claiming that under contract, he would be entitled to work with Carey, as well as reap extra benefits. After an almost one year lawsuit, the judge settled that Margulies was to earn ten percent of Carey's direct earnings from her record sales, not including an income from any other ventures. While settled, their relationship remained ruined, damaged by what Carey considered treachery. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Carey said the following regarding the contract: "I signed blindly. Later, I tried to make it right so we could continue...but he wouldn't accept it." After the settlement, Margulies spoke of his feelings on the matter, claiming he would hope to one day write again with Carey, placing most of the blame on the record label and concluding "Hopefully one day, art will prevail over business." The title track "Emotions" made Carey into the only recording act whose first five singles have reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart, although the album's follow-up singles failed to match this feat. Carey had lobbied to produce her own songs and, beginning with Emotions, she has co-produced most of her material. "I didn't want [Emotions] to be somebody else's vision of me", she said. "There's more of me on this album."

Although Carey performed live occasionally, stage fright prevented her from embarking on a major tour. Her first widely seen appearance was featured on the television show MTV Unplugged in 1992, and she remarked that she felt that her performance that night proved her vocal abilities were not, as some had previously speculated, simulated with studio equipment. Alongside acoustic versions of some of her earlier songs, Carey premiered a cover of The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There", with her back-up singer Trey Lorenz. The duet was released as a single, reached number one in the U.S. and led to a record deal for Lorenz, whose debut album Carey later co-produced. Because of high ratings for the Unplugged television special, the concert's set list was released on the EP MTV Unplugged, which Entertainment Weekly called "the strongest, most genuinely musical record she has ever made [...] Did this live performance help her to take her first steps toward growing up?"

1993–96: First marriage, and international success

Carey and Tommy Mottola became romantically involved during the making of her debut album and were married in June of 1993. Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds consulted on the album Music Box, which was released later that year and became Carey's most successful worldwide. The album maintained a presence on the Billboard 200 for 128 weeks. It yielded her first UK Singles Chart number-one, a cover of Badfinger's "Without You", and the U.S. number-ones "Dreamlover" and "Hero."

After the success of Carey's previous albums Mariah Carey and Emotions, Sony wanted to take Music Box in a new direction, but not too far from her older releases. Sony began letting Carey take more control over the projects, as well as letting her produce her own material. On the album's first track "Dreamlover", Carey worked with Dave Hall throughout the song's entire production. However, after listening to the song, Tommy Mottola felt "Dreamlover" needed stronger tunes and a more "direct" sound. In order to help with some of the song's arrangements, Mottola enrolled the help of Walter Afanasieff, who took on the completed track and transformed it into a more commercial hit.

Aside from the changes on "Dreamlover", "Hero", the album's second single, also had its own story. While Carey and Afanasieff worked on Music Box, he was also working on the film Hero, starring Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis. As a result, he and Carey began working on a theme-song for the film, one that was intended for Gloria Estefan. After only two hours however, the finished product was perfect, surpassing both their expectations. When Mottola came for a final listen he was shocked as to what he heard, exclaiming, "Are you kidding me? You can't give this song to a movie. This is too good, Mariah, you have to take this song. You have to do it." After insisting, Carey and Afanasieff made some lyrical changes, and made it a very personal track, "especially for Carey."

The album's title track, Music Box, is described as one of Carey's more difficult compositions, due to its "softness." The song requires a great deal of legato, to keep "the tunes softness and sweetness, without resorting to volume." Carey's vocals on the track are defined as "soft and controlled", managing to maintain the delicate balance in a manner that seems effortless, floating easily over the keyboard and the shimmer of the guitar. One of the noticeable differences from Music Box and Carey's previous albums was its sound. The album was described by Afanasieff as a softer and more pop-oriented album, "filling the songs with air", and allowing far more space in the overall sound. Another noticeable change was in the album's production. When Mariah Carey was released, critics took notice of its "overly produced" and "studio perfect" quality, where in comparison, Emotions maintained a "raw, live sound." Music Box however, fell in between the two, a decision made by Carey during the album's production. She would layer each track with live backing vocals, so not to sound too overly produced, but still kept the inclusion of musical synthesizers.

Billboard magazine proclaimed it "heart-piercing [...] easily the most elemental of Carey's releases, her vocal eurythmics in natural sync with the songs", but TIME magazine's Christopher John Farley lamented Carey's attempt at a mellower work, "[Music Box] seems perfunctory and almost passionless [...] Carey could be a pop-soul great; instead, she has once again settled for Salieri-like mediocrity." AllMusic adds, "Carey sounds detached on several selections. She scored a couple of huge hits, "Hero" and "Dreamlover", where she did inject some personality and intensity into the leads. Most other times, Carey blended into the background and allowed the tracks guide her, instead of pushing and exploding through them. It was wise for Carey to display other elements of her approach but, sometimes, excessive spirit is preferable to an absence of passion," and Rolling Stone expressed mixed sentiments and said, "Some of the songs appear to be strongly influenced by other hits. "Hero", with its message of self-sufficiency, aims for the inspirational grandeur of "Greatest Love of All", while "Just to Hold You Once Again" and "All I've Ever Wanted" chase the tail of "I Will Always Love You." In fact, Music Box is so precisely calculated to be a blockbuster that its impact is ultimately a little unnerving." In response to such comments, Carey said, "As soon as you have a big success, a lot of people don't like that. There's nothing that I can do about it. All I can do is to make music that I believe in." Most critics slighted the opening of her subsequent U.S. Music Box Tour. Farley balanced his critique with some positive observations: "The gospel flavored 'Anytime You Need A Friend' demonstrates Carey's vocal power, although too fleetingly. And the title cut is one of Carey's loveliest songs to date..."

In late 1994, after her duet with Luther Vandross on a cover of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love" became a hit, Carey released the holiday album Merry Christmas. It contained cover material and original compositions, such as "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became Carey's biggest single in Japan and, in subsequent years, emerged as one of her most perennially popular songs on U.S. radio. Since her rise to fame in 1990, Carey has always claimed herself to be a religious and spiritual person. She always expressed her belief in God and her connection between music and spirituality, and felt the album was finally a way to portray her mysticism into music. After the success of Carey's previous effort, Music Box, there was speculation of a new project in the works; however it wasn't until October 1994, only one month before the album's release, that Billboard announced Carey would be releasing a holiday album for the Christmas season. Initially, critics were shocked; they didn't know how Carey would fare as an entertainer, as she had previously only been viewed as a pop star. Nevertheless, Carey, unaffected by the speculation, continued working on, and promoting the album in high spirits, confident in her work. The idea proved to be wise, earning Carey recognition in various markets including Christian radio and contemporary R&B; stations, as well as extended her fame in Japan, where the album experienced much of its success. Critical reception of Merry Christmas was mixed, with Allmusic calling it an "otherwise vanilla set [...] pretensions to high opera on 'O Holy Night' and a horrid danceclub take on 'Joy to the World'." It became one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.

In 1995, Columbia released Carey's fourth studio album, Daydream, which combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with downbeat R&B; and hip hop influences. A remix of "Fantasy", its first single, featured rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. Carey said that Columbia reacted negatively to her intentions for the album: "Everybody was like 'What, are you crazy?'. They're very nervous about breaking the formula." The New Yorker noted that "It became standard for R&B; stars, like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses." John Norris of MTV News has stated that the remix was "responsible for, I would argue, an entire wave of music that we've seen since and that is the R&B-hip-hop; collaboration. You could argue that the 'Fantasy' remix was the single most important recording that she's ever made." Norris echoed the sentiments of TLC's Lisa Lopes, who told MTV that it's because of Mariah that we have "R&B.;" Daydream became her biggest-selling album in the U.S. and its singles achieved similar success – "Fantasy" became the second single to debut at number one in the U.S. and topped the Canadian Singles Chart for twelve weeks; "One Sweet Day" (a duet with Boyz II Men) spent a record-holding sixteen weeks at number one in the U.S.; and "Always Be My Baby" (co-produced by Jermaine Dupri) was the most successful record on U.S. radio in 1996, according to Billboard magazine. The album also generated career-best reviews for Carey, and publications such as The New York Times named it as one of 1995's best albums; the Times wrote that its "best cuts bring R&B; candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement [...] Carey's songwriting has taken a leap forward and become more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding clichés." and AllMusic adds, "Daydream is her best record to date, and features a consistently strong selection of songs and a remarkably impassioned performance by Carey. A few of the songs are second-rate – particularly the cover of Journey's "Open Arms" – but Daydream demonstrates that Carey continues to perfect her craft and that she has earned her status as an R&B; diva." The short but profitable Daydream World Tour augmented sales of the album. The music industry took note of Carey's success – she won two awards at the American Music Awards for her solo efforts: Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B; Female Artist. Daydream and its tracks were respectively nominated for six categories in the 38th Grammy Awards. Carey, along with Boyz II Men, opened the event with a performance of "One Sweet Day", which was mightily applauded. Although many critics proclaimed Daydream as the best album of 1995, she ended that night with no awards. The cameras started to focus on Carey, whose disappointment was becoming obvious. Carey eventually was able to deal with this incident. "What can you do?. I will never be disappointed again. After I sat through the whole show and didn't win once, I can handle anything." In 1995, due to Daydream's enormous Japanese sales, Billboard declared Carey "Artist of the year" in Japan.

1997–2000: New image, Butterfly and Rainbow

Carey and Mottola officially separated in 1997. Although the public image of the marriage was a happy one, she said that, in reality, she had felt trapped by her relationship with Mottola, whom she often described as controlling. They officially announced their separation in 1997 and their divorce became final in the following year. Soon after the separation, Carey hired an independent publicist and a new attorney and manager. She continued to write and produce for other artists during this period and contributed to the debut albums of Allure and 7 Mile through her short-lived imprint Crave Records.

Carey's next album, Butterfly (1997), yielded the number-one single "Honey", the lyrics and music video which presented a more overtly sexual image of her than had been previously seen. She stated that Butterfly marked the point when she attained full creative control over her music. However, she added, "I don't think that it's that much of a departure from what I've done in the past [...] It's not like I went psycho and thought I would be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do." Throughout the development of the album, in a departure from her previous style, Carey worked with various rappers and hip-hop producers, including Sean "Puffy" Combs, Kamaal Fareed, Missy Elliott and Jean Claude Oliver and Samuel Barnes from Trackmasters. Critics saw Carey's new production team as a form of revenge on Mottola and Sony Music. Carey denied taking a radically new direction, and insisted that the musical style of her new album was of her own choosing. Nevertheless, Carey resented the control that Sony, whose president was Mottola, exercised over her music, preventing her making music about which she was passionate. In contrast, Sony were concerned Carey, their best-selling act, could jeopardize her future success through her actions.

The pressure of the separation and constant press attention began to take its toll of Carey. Growing creative differences with producer Walter Afanasieff ended their working relationship, after collaborating on most of Carey's previous output. The breaking point came after a heated argument during a long recording session, over the album's musical direction. Carey also faced media criticism over her choice of producers and several newspapers linked Carey romantically to several rappers, suggesting these relationships influenced her decisions. However, Carey denied the allegations, stating she had only slept with her husband.

Reviews for Butterfly were generally positive: Rolling Stone wrote, "Carey couldn't have wished for a better start than "Honey", [...] it's an undeniably catchy pop record that revamps her sound and image. It's not as if Carey has totally dispensed with her old saccharine, Houston-style balladry [...] but the predominant mood of Butterfly is one of coolly erotic reverie. [... Except "Outside" the album sounds] very 1997. [...] Carey has spread her wings and she's ready to fly", LAUNCHcast said Butterfly "pushes the envelope", a move that its critic thought "may prove disconcerting to more conservative fans" but praised as "a welcome change." The Los Angeles Times wrote, "[Butterfly] is easily the most personal, confessional-sounding record she's ever done [...] Carey-bashing just might become a thing of the past." and AllMusic adds "Carey's vocals are sultrier and more controlled than ever, and that helps "Butterfly", "Break Down", "Babydoll", and the Prince cover, "The Beautiful Ones", rank among her best; also, the ballads do have a stronger urban feel than before. Even though Butterfly doesn't have as many strong singles as Daydream, it's one of her best records and illustrates that Carey continues to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers." The album was a commercial success—although not to the degree of her previous three albums—and "My All" (her thirteenth Hot 100 number-one) gave her the record for the most U.S. number-ones by a female artist.

Toward the turn of the millennium, Carey developed the film project Glitter and wrote songs for the films Men in Black (1997) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). During the production of Butterfly, Carey became romantically involved with New York Yankees baseball star Derek Jeter. Their relationship ended in 1998, with both parties citing media interference as the main reason for the split. The same year, Columbia released the album #1's, a collection of Carey's U.S. number-one singles alongside new material, which, she said, was a way to reward her fans. The song "When You Believe", a duet with Whitney Houston, was recorded for the soundtrack of The Prince of Egypt (1998) and won an Academy Award. #1's sold above expectations but a review in NME labeled Carey "a purveyor of saccharine bilge like 'Hero', whose message seems wholesome enough: that if you vacate your mind of all intelligent thought, flutter your eyelashes and wish hard, sweet babies and honey will follow." Also that year, she appeared on the first televised VH1 Divas benefit concert program, although her alleged prima donna behavior had already led many to consider her a diva.

Rainbow, Carey's sixth studio album, was released in 1999 and comprised more R&B;/hip hop–oriented songs, with many of them co-created with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. "Heartbreaker" and "Thank God I Found You" (the former featuring Jay-Z, the latter featuring Joe and boy band 98 Degrees) reached number one in the U.S. and the success of the former made Carey the only act to have a number-one single in each year of the 1990s. A cover of Phil Collins's "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" went to number one in the UK, after Carey re-recorded it with boy band Westlife. Media reception of Rainbow was generally enthusiastic, with the Sunday Herald saying that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B; heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg, Usher [...] It's a polished collection of pop-soul." VIBE magazine expressed similar sentiments, writing, "She pulls out all stops [...] Rainbow will garner even more adoration", However, Rainbow became Carey's lowest-selling album up to that point, and there was a recurring criticism that the tracks were too alike. When the double A-side "Crybaby" (featuring Snoop Dogg)/"Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" became her first single to peak outside the U.S. top twenty, Carey accused Sony of underpromoting it: "The political situation in my professional career is not positive [...] I get a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people", she wrote, on her official website.

2001–04: Glitter, Charmbracelet and personal struggles

After she received Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, Carey parted from Columbia and signed a contract with EMI's Virgin Records worth a reported US$100 million. She often stated that Columbia had regarded her as a commodity, with her separation from Mottola exacerbating her relations with label executives. Just a few months later, in July, 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left messages on her website that complained of being overworked, and her relationship with the Latin icon Luis Miguel ended. In an interview the following year, she said, "I was with people who didn't really know me and I had no personal assistant. I'd do interviews all day long and get two hours of sleep a night, if that." During an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live, to which she showed up unannounced and to the apparent bewilderment of host Carson Daly, Carey handed out popsicles to the audience and began what was later described as a "striptease". By the month's end, she had checked into a hospital and her publicist announced that Carey would take a break from public appearances.

Critics panned Glitter, Carey's much delayed semi-autobiographical film and it was a box office failure. The accompanying soundtrack album, Glitter, was inspired by the music of the 1980s and featured collaborations with Rick James and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis; it generated Carey's worst showing on the U.S. chart. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissed it as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful", while Blender magazine opined, "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, Carey's left with almost no presence at all." The lead single, "Loverboy" (which features Cameo), reached number two on the Hot 100, due to the release of the physical single, but the album's follow-up singles failed to chart; however, a live rendition/medley of the single, "Never Too Far", made its way to number 81.

Later, in the year, Columbia released the low-charting compilation album Greatest Hits, shortly after the failure of Glitter, and, in early 2002, Virgin bought out Carey's contract for $28 million, and created further negative publicity. Carey later said that her time at Virgin was "a complete and total stress-fest [...] I made a total snap decision which was based on money and I never make decisions based on money. I learned a big lesson from that." Later that year, she signed a contract with Island Records, valued at more than $22.5 million, and launched the record label MonarC. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father, with whom she had little contact since childhood, died of cancer that year.

Carey, Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters co-starred as waitresses at a mobster-operated restaurant in the independent film WiseGirls (2002), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival but went straight to cable in the U.S. Critics commended Carey for her efforts – The Hollywood Reporter predicted, "Those scathing notices for Glitter will be a forgotten memory for the singer once people warm up to Raychel", and Roger Friedman, referring to her as "a Thelma Ritter for the new millennium", said, "Her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs". WiseGirls producer Anthony Esposito cast Carey in The Sweet Science (2006), a film about an unknown female boxer recruited by a boxing manager, but it never entered production.

In 2002, she performed the American national anthem in front of an audience at the Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Following a well-received supporting role in the 2002 film WiseGirls, Carey released the album Charmbracelet, which, she said, marked "a new lease on life" for her. Sales of Charmbracelet were moderate and the quality of Carey's vocals came under severe criticism. The Boston Globe declared the album "the worst of her career, and revealed a voice [that is] no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos", and Rolling Stone commented, "Carey needs bold songs that help her use the power and range for which she is famous. Charmbracelet is like a stream of watercolors that bleed into a puddle of brown." Allmusic expressed similar sentiments and said, "There are no good songs on this record, outside of Def Leppard's power ballad classic "Bringin on the Heartbreak", which isn't even covered all that well. What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. Whenever she sings, there's a raspy whistle behind her thin voice and she strains to make notes throughout the record. She cannot coo or softly croon nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs. Her voice is damaged and there's not a moment where it sounds strong or inviting." The magazine adds "the songs are formless and the production bland." The album's only charting single in America, "Through the Rain", was a failure on pop radio, which had become less open to maturing "diva" stylists, such as Celine Dion, or Carey, herself, in favor of younger singers such as Christina Aguilera, who had vocal styles very similar to Carey's.

"I Know What You Want", a 2003 Busta Rhymes single on which Carey guest starred, fared considerably better and reached the U.S. top five; it was also included on Columbia's release of The Remixes, a compilation of Carey's best remixes and some new tracks. That year, she embarked on the Charmbracelet World Tour and was awarded the Chopard Diamond award for selling more than 100 million albums worldwide. She was featured on rapper Jadakiss's 2004 single "U Make Me Wanna", which reached the top ten on Billboards R&B;/Hip-Hop chart. Carey was one of several musicians who appeared in the independently produced Damon Dash films Death of a Dynasty (2003) and State Property 2 (2005).

2005–07: Return to prominence with The Emancipation of Mimi

Carey's tenth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), contained contributions from producers such as The Neptunes, Kanye West and Carey's longtime collaborator, Jermaine Dupri. Carey said it was "very much like a party record [...] the process of putting on makeup and getting ready to go out [...] I wanted to make a record that was reflective of that." The Emancipation of Mimi became 2005's best-selling album in the U.S. The Guardian reviewer defined it as "cool, focused and urban [... some of] the first Mariah Carey tunes in years which I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again"., while Elysa Gardner writes on USA Today, "Breezy, playful tracks such as Say Somethin' (featuring Snoop Dogg) and Get Your Number (with Jermaine Dupri) prove the singer hasn't forsaken her passion for hip-hop. But it's the ballads and midtempo numbers that truly reflect the renewed confidence of a songbird who has taken her shots and kept on flying." On the other hand, Slant and AllMusic critized her vocals, writing, "Just as you start to hear the scratchiness in her voice (no doubt due to all that "purple"), the padded hook kicks in or the song fades. Where once Mariah's trademark high notes used to serve some purpose (structurally, melodically, texturally), they now seem random, existing just to convince us that The Voice is still there—and it is...kind of. More convincing would be a low note (remember those first 60 outrageously versatile seconds of '91's "You're So Cold"?), but mostly what we get here is midrange belting. As gratifying as that is on the surface, there's still the nagging feeling that Mariah has damaged her voice beyond repair." "Mariah's voice sounds as airy, thin, and damaged as it did on Charmbracelet. Mariah never sounds like herself on this record. When she's not sounding like Beyoncé, she sounds desperate to be part of the waning bling era. Disregarding these two rather sizeable problems, The Emancipation of Mimi still works, at least as a slick, highly crafted piece of dance-pop."

The Emancipation of Mimi earned a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B; Album and the single "We Belong Together" won Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance and Best R&B; Song. "We Belong Together" held the Hot 100's number-one position for fourteen weeks, her longest run at the top as a solo lead artist. Subsequently, the single "Shake It Off" reached number two for a week, which made Carey the first female lead vocalist to have simultaneously held the Hot 100's top two positions. (While it topped the charts in 2002, Ashanti was the "featured" singer on the number two single.) 2005 proved to be a good year for Carey, as "We Belong Together" reached number one on Billboard's year end chart for Hot 100 singles, and The Emancipation of Mimi is classed as the best selling album of 2005 by Nielsen SoundScan.

In mid-2006, Carey began The Adventures of Mimi Tour, which was the most successful of her career, although some dates had to be canceled. She appeared on the cover of the March, 2007, edition of Playboy magazine in a non-nude photo session. Around this time, she made a legal threat against porn star Mary Carey, believing their names were too similar.

In 2006, Carey joined the cast of the indie film Tennessee (2008), taking the role of an aspiring singer who flees her controlling husband and joins two brothers on a journey to find their long-lost father. The movie received mixed reviews, but some, like Reuters, praised Carey's performance as "understated and very effective."

2007–09: E=MC², second marriage, and Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel

By spring 2007, she had begun to work on her eleventh studio album, E=MC². Asked about the album title's meaning, Carey said "Einstein's theory? Physics? Me? Hello! ...Of course I'm poking fun." She characterized the project as "Emancipation of Mimi to the second power", and said that she was "freer" on this album than any other. Like her previous one, this album mainly concentrates on pop and R&B; but borrows hip hop, gospel and even reggae ("Cruise Control") elements. Although E=MC² was well received by most critics, some of them criticized it for being "a clone of The Emancipation of Mimi". Bleu Magazine's critic said that the "facsimiles aren't terrible, they're just boring and forgettable at this point." Two weeks before the album's release, on April 2, 2008, "Touch My Body", her first single from the album, became Carey's eighteenth number-one single on the Hot 100, pushing her past Elvis Presley into second place for the most number-one singles among all artists in the rock era, according to Billboard magazine's revised methodology. Carey is now second only to The Beatles, who have twenty number-one singles. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 463,000 copies sold, making it the biggest opening week sales of her career.

In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked her at number six on the "Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists", making Carey the second most successful female artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Carey has also had notable success on international charts, though not to the same degree as in the United States. Thus far, she has had two number-one singles in Britain, two in Australia, and six in Canada. Her highest-charting single in Japan peaked at number two. Carey and actor/comedian/rapper Nick Cannon met while they shot Carey's music video for her second single "Bye Bye" on a private island of the coast of Antigua. On April 30, 2008, Carey married Cannon at her private estate on Windermere Island in The Bahamas. In October 2008, Carey was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. Carey had a cameo appearance in Adam Sandler's 2008 film You Don't Mess with the Zohan, playing herself.

Carey performed "Hero" at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball after Barack Obama was sworn in as America's first African-American president on January 20, 2009. On July 7, 2009, Carey – alongside Trey Lorenz – performed her version of the Jackson 5 hit "I'll Be There" at the memorial service for Michael Jackson in the Los Angeles Staples Center. Carey was featured on "My Love", the second single from singer-songwriter The-Dream's album Love vs. Money. In 2009, she appeared as a social worker in Precious, the movie adaptation of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film has garnered mostly positive reviews from critics, as has Carey's performance. Variety described her acting as "pitch-perfect". So far Precious has won awards at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, receiving top awards there. In January 2010, Carey won the Breakthrough Actress Performance award for her role in Precious at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Carey's twelfth studio album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel was released on September 25, 2009. The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called it "her most interesting album in a decade", while Jon Caramanica from The New York Times criticized Carey's vocal performances, decrying her overuse of her softer vocal registers at the expense of her more powerful lower and mid registers. Commercially, the album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and became the lowest-selling studio album of her career. The album's lead single, "Obsessed", became her 40th entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and her highest debut on the chart since "My All" in 1998. The song debuted at number eleven and peaked at number seven on the chart and became Carey's 27th US top-ten hit, tying her with Elton John and Janet Jackson as the fifth most top-ten hits. Within hours after the song's release, various outlets speculated that its target was rapper Eminem, in response to his song "Bagpipes from Baghdad", in which he taunted Carey's husband, Nick Cannon by telling him to back off and that Carey is his. According to MTV, Carey alludes to drug problems in "Obsessed", which Eminem opened up about on his sixth studio album, Relapse. The album's follow-up singles failed to achieve commercial success. The second single, a cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is", peaked at number 60 and the third single, "H.A.T.E.U.", failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100. On December 31, 2009, Carey embarked her seventh concert tour, Angels Advocate Tour, which visited the United States and Canada. Later it was announced that Carey would release two remix albums of Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel; titled Angels Advocate (an R&B; remix album featuring a collection of newly remixed duets with some of Carey's favorite artists) and MC vs JS (a dance album entirely remixed by the Jump Smokers). In January 2010, "Up Out My Face" featuring Nicki Minaj and "Angels Cry" featuring Ne-Yo were released as the lead singles from Angels Advocate. Both albums were slated for a March 2010 release, but were eventually cancelled. On February 9, 2011, Carey released 100% to iTunes, a song originally from motion picture Precious. It was later used on the AT&T; Team USA Soundtrack for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

2010–present: Merry Christmas II You, motherhood, and new studio album

Following the cancellation of the remix albums, it was announced that Carey will go back to the studio to start work on her second Christmas album and her 13th studio album. Long time collaborators for the project include Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox. Dupri stated that a single will be released by the end of 2010. Johntá Austin and Randy Jackson are also contributing to the project.

During a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, in August 2010, Island Def Jam executive Matt Voss announced that the Christmas album would be out on November 2 and will include six new songs and a remix of her classic hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The album will be titled Merry Christmas II You, a follow-up to her 1994 multiplatinum album Merry Christmas. An accompanying DVD was released alongside the CD. Carey has produced and recorded tracks with the Broadway producer Marc Shaiman for the album. The album debuted at No.4 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 56,000 copies, surpassing the opening week sales of Carey's previous holiday album Merry Christmas of 45,000 copies 16 years prior, and making Merry Christmas II You Carey's 16th top 10 album. The album debuted at No.1 on the R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart, and also hit number No.1 on the Holiday Albums Chart.

In May 2010, Carey cited medical reasons and dropped out of her planned appearance in For Colored Girls, the film adaptation of the play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. After much media speculation, on October 28, 2010, Carey confirmed that she and Cannon are expecting a baby, and that it is due in the spring of 2011. Carey also revealed that she had conceived naturally. She added that she had been pregnant shortly after her wedding with Nick Cannon, but that she miscarried. Carey and Cannon decided to keep the matter private. On April 30, 2011, the couple's third wedding anniversary, Carey gave birth to fraternal twins via C-section. The twins were named Monroe, after Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan Scott, after Cannon proposed to Carey in her Moroccan-style room; Scott is Cannon's middle name and his grandmother's maiden name.

Carey said on Friday, February 11 on HSN, that she recorded a duet with Tony Bennett for his upcoming "Duets" album. The song is to be called 'When Do The Bells Ring For Me'. Jermaine Dupri and Mariah worked on a charity song which was to be called, 'Save the Day', and was to feature vocals from Carey, Taylor Swift, Mary J. Blige and R. Kelly. Following the birth of their children, Cannon revealed during an interview with Billboard that Carey had already begun working on a new record. Cannon said "She's been working away, and we have a studio in the crib, and [the pregnancy] has totally inspired her on so many different levels. You're definitely gonna see some new phenomenal music from Mariah" and assured Carey would plan on releasing it by the end of the year.

Artistry

Musical style

Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has written about themes such as racism, social alienation, death, world hunger, and spirituality. She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical, but TIME magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial—NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict." Jim Faber, of New York Daily News, makes a similar comment, according to him, "For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening." The Village Voice wrote in 2001 that, in that respect, Carey compared unfavorably with singers such as Mary J. Blige, saying "Carey's Strawberry Shortcake soul still provides the template with which teen-pop cuties draw curlicues around those centerless [Diane] Warren ballads [...] it's largely because of [Blige] that the new R&B; demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it's the Christina Aguileras and Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands."

Carey's output makes use of electronic instruments such as drum machines, keyboards and synthesizers. Many of her songs contain piano music, and she was given piano lessons when she was six years old. Carey said that she cannot read sheet music and prefers to collaborate with a pianist when composing her material, but feels that it is easier to experiment with faster and less conventional melodies and chord progressions using this technique. Some of her arrangements have been inspired by the work of musicians such as Stevie Wonder, a soul pianist to whom Carey once referred as "the genius of the [twentieth] century", but she has said, "My voice is my instrument; it always has been."

Carey began commissioning remixes of her material early in her career and helped to spearhead the practice of recording entirely new vocals for remixes. Disc jockey David Morales has collaborated with Carey several times, starting with "Dreamlover" (1993), which popularized the tradition of remixing R&B; songs into house records, and which Slant magazine named one of the greatest dance songs of all time. From "Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey enlisted both hip hop and house producers to re-imagine her album compositions. Entertainment Weekly included two remixes of "Fantasy" on a list of Carey's greatest recordings compiled in 2005: a National Dance Music Award-winning remix produced by Morales, and a Sean Combs production featuring rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. The latter has been credited with popularizing the R&B;/hip hop collaboration trend that has continued into the 2000s through artists such as Ashanti and Beyoncé. Combs said that Carey "knows the importance of mixes, so you feel like you're with an artist who appreciates your work—an artist who wants to come up with something with you". She continues to consult on remixes by producers such as Morales, Jermaine Dupri, Junior Vasquez and DJ Clue, and guest performers contribute frequently to them.

Voice and timbre

Mariah Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range, and was ranked first in a 2003 MTV and Blender magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll, "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself." She also placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Regarding her voice, Carey has stated, My doctors showed me my vocal cords and why I can hit those high notes. It's a certain part of the cord that not many people use—the very top. My natural voice is low. I have a raspy voice. I'm really more of an alto. But my airy voice can be high if I'm rested. [...] When I was little, I'd talk in this really high whisper, and my mom would be like, "You're being ridiculous." I thought if I can talk like that I can sing like that. So I started [she goes higher and higher and higher] just messing around with it. I'd practice and practice, and she'd be like, "You're gonna hurt yourself." I'd tell her, It doesn’t hurt. If I were to try and belt two octaves lower than that, that would be a strain. She also explains that it was Minnie Riperton who influenced her to use the whistle register.

Regarding her voice type, Carey said that she is alto, while French-American baritone and singing teacher in the Conservatoire de Paris Malcolm Walker states that she is light lyric soprano, "because the upper register is much more healthier [sic] than the lower register." However, within contemporary forms of music, singers are classified by the style of music they sing. There is currently no authoritative voice classification system within non-classical music. Attempts have been made to adopt classical voice type terms to other forms of singing, but they are controversial, because the development of classic voice categorizations were made with the understanding that the singer would amplify his or her voice with their natural resonators, without a microphone.

Baritone Malcolm Walker and vocal pedagogue Jeannette Lo Vetri describes Carey's voice as "pure, full, rounded and warm", adding that belting and head voices has a great brightness. Malcolm Walker praise her belting voice, saying it "works very well" and states that Carey "passes easily in head voice. It's her true voice." on the other hand, Walker,

Voice experts praise Carey's vocal technique, stating that she can deliver very fast and controlled staccatos "always keeps a neutral larynx position—except sometimes in her lower register" and "glides effortlessly from bottom to top and vice versa." Her mastery of melismas and legato is also very praised. Malcolm Walker adds her vocal lines are "very well led, especially in piano register." Jon Pareles also praise her musicianship, writing, "she can linger over sensual turns, ... syncopate like a scat singer [and sing] with startlingly exact pitch."

Influences

Carey has said that from childhood she has been influenced by R&B; and soul musicians such as Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. Her music contains strong influences of gospel music, she attends an Episcopal church and her favorite gospel singers include The Clark Sisters, Shirley Caesar and Edwin Hawkins. In She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (2002), writer Lucy O'Brien attributed the comeback of Barbra Streisand's "old-fashioned showgirl" to Carey and Dion, and described them and Houston as "groomed, airbrushed and overblown to perfection". Carey's musical transition and use of more revealing clothing during the late 1990s were, in part, initiated to distance herself from this image, and she subsequently said that most of her early work was "schmaltzy MOR". Some have noted that unlike Houston and Dion, Carey co-writes her own songs, and the Guinness Rockopedia (1998) classified her as the "songbird supreme". Despite the fact that Carey is often credited with co-writing her material, she has also been accused of plagiarism on several occasions. Many of these cases were eventually settled out of court.

Legacy

Carey's vocal style and singing ability have significantly impacted popular and contemporary music. Music critic G. Brown from The Denver Post wrote, "For better or worse, Mariah Carey's five-octave range and melismatic style have influenced a generation of pop singers." According to Rolling Stone, "Her mastery of melisma, the fluttering strings of notes that decorate songs like "Vision of Love", inspired the entire American Idol vocal school, for better or worse, and virtually every other female R&B; singer since the Nineties." Jody Rosen of Slate Magazine wrote of Carey's influence in music saying "Carey is the most influential vocal stylist of the last two decades, the person who made rococo melismatic singing—the trick of embroidering syllables with multiple no-o-o-o-o-o-tes—the ubiquitous pop style." Rosen further commented on Carey's proof of influence saying "Exhibit A is American Idol, which has often played out as a clash of melisma-mad Mariah wannabes. And, today, nearly 20 years after Carey's debut, major labels continue to bet the farm on young stars such as the winner of Britain's X Factor show, Leona Lewis, with her Generation Next gloss on Mariah's big voice and big hair." Sean Daly of St. Petersburg Times wrote, "Depending on how you feel about public humiliation, the best/worst parts of American Idol are the audition shows, which normally break down into three distinct parts:(1) The Talented Kids.(2) The Weird Kids.(3) The Mariahs." Daly further commented, "The Mariahs are the hardest ones to watch, mainly because most of them think they're reeeaaally good. The poor, disillusioned hopefuls plant themselves in front of judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson – then proceed to stretch, break and mutilate every note of a song, often Mariah's Hero, a tune that has ruined more throats than smoker's cough." New York Magazine's editor Roger Deckker said that in regarding Carey as an influential artist in music, he commented that "Whitney Houston may have introduced melisma (the vocally acrobatic style of lending a word an extra syllable or twenty) to the charts, but it was Mariah—with her jaw-dropping range—who made it into America’s default sound." Deckker also added that "Every time you turn on American Idol, you are watching her children". Despite her vocal prowess, Carey's vocal technique particularly with the use of melisma and belting, has been subject to public scrutiny mainly because of young singers such as from talent shows have been overly imitating her singing technique in which critics commented "Mariah Carey is, without a doubt, the worst thing to happen to amateur singing since the karaoke machine".

Carey has influenced numerous singers throughout her career. Her work continues to influence numerous hip hop, pop and R&B; artists, including Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Nelly Furtado, Leona Lewis and Missy Elliot, among others. Beyoncé Knowles credits Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal "runs" as a child, as well as helping her pursue a career as a musician. Rihanna has stated that Carey is one of her major influences and idol. Christina Aguilera has cited in her early stages of her career that Carey is a big influence in her singing career and being one of her idols. According to Pier Dominguez, author of Christina Aguilera: a star is made : the unauthorized biography, Aguilera has stated how she loved listening to Whitney Houston, but it was Carey who had the biggest influence on her vocal styling. Carey's carefully choreographed image of a grown woman's image struck a chord on Aguilera. Her influence on Aguilera also grew from the fact that both were of mixed heritage. Philip Brasor, editor of "The Japan Times", expressed how Carey's vocal and melismatic style even influenced Asian singers. He wrote regarding Japanese superstar Utada Hikaru, "Utada sang what she heard, from the diaphragm and with her own take on the kind of melisma that became de rigueur in American pop after the ascendance of Mariah Carey." In an article called "Out With Mariah's Melisma, In With Kesha's Kick", writer David Browne of The New York Times discusses how the ubiquitous melisma pop style has suddenly fall down from pop culture in favor of young stars who uses the now ubiquitous autotune in which the first mentioned was heavily popularized into mainstream pop culture with the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Browne had commented "But beginning two decades ago, melisma overtook pop in a way it hadn’t before. Mariah Carey’s debut hit from 1990, “Vision of Love,” followed two years later by Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” set the bar insanely high for notes stretched louder, longer and knottier than most pop fans had ever heard." Browne further added "A subsequent generation of singers, including Ms. Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, built their careers around melisma. (Men like Brian McKnight and Tyrese also indulged in it, but women tended to dominate the form.)"

Carey is also credited for introducing R&B; and hip hop into mainstream pop culture, and for popularizing rap as a featuring act through her post-1995 songs. Sasha Frere-Jones, editor of The New Yorker commented, "It became standard for R&B;/hip-hop stars like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including Britney Spears, 'N Sync, and Christina Aguilera—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R&B.;" Moreover Jones concludes that "Her idea of pairing a female songbird with the leading male MCs of hip-hop changed R&B; and, eventually, all of pop. Although now anyone is free to use this idea, the success of “Mimi” suggests that it still belongs to Carey." Judnick Mayard, writer of TheFader, wrote that in regarding of R&B; and hip hop collaboration, "The champion of this movement is Mariah Carey." Mayard also expressed that "To this day ODB and Mariah may still be the best and most random hip hop collaboration of all time", citing that due to the record "Fantasy", "R&B; and Hip Hop were the best of step siblings." Kelfa Sanneh of The New York Times wrote, "In the mid-1990's Ms. Carey pioneered a subgenre that some people call the thug-love duet. Nowadays clean-cut pop stars are expected to collaborate with roughneck rappers, but when Ms. Carey teamed up with Ol' Dirty Bastard, of the Wu-Tang Clan, for the 1995 hit "Fantasy (Remix)", it was a surprise, and a smash." Aside from her pop culture and musical influence, Carey is credited for releasing a classic Christmas song called "All I Want For Christmas Is You". In a retrospective look at Carey's career, Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker said, the "charming" song was one of Carey's biggest accomplishments, calling it "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon". Rolling Stone ranked "All I Want for Christmas Is You" fourth on its Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs list, calling it a "holiday standard." Following the release of her Greatest Hits album, Devon Powers of Popmatters has said in his review that "She has influenced countless female vocalists after her. At 32, she is already a living legend—even if she never sings another note."

Honors and awards

Throughout Carey's career, she has collected many honors and awards, including the World Music Awards' Best Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, the Grammy's Best New Artist in 1991, Billboard's Special Achievement Award for the Artist of the Decade during the 1990's. In a career spanning over 20 years, Carey has sold over 200 million albums, singles, and videos worldwide, making her one of the biggest-selling artists in music history. Carey is ranked as the best-selling female artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, with over 52 million copies sold. Possessing a five-octave vocal range, Carey was ranked first in MTV and Blender magazine's 2003 countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, and was placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Aside from her voice, she has become known for her songwriting. Yahoo Music editor Jason Ankeny wrote, "She earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own material." According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. At the 2000 World Music Awards, Carey was given a Legend Award for being the "best-selling female pop artist of the millennium", as well as the "Best-selling artist of the 90s" in the United States, after releasing a series of albums of multi-platinum status in Asia and Europe, such as Music Box and Number 1's. She is also a recipient of the Chopard Diamond Award in 2003, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide. Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lists Carey as the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of over 63 million units in the U.S. In Japan, Carey has the top four highest-selling albums of all time by a non-Asian artist.

Carey has spent a record 79 weeks at the number-one position on Billboard Hot 100, becoming the artist with the most weeks at number-one in U.S. chart history. On that same chart, she has accumulated 18 number-one singles, which ties her with Elvis Presley for the second most number-one singles in the chart's history (after only The Beatles). In 1994, Carey released her holiday album Merry Christmas, which became the best selling Christmas album of all time, selling over 15 million copies worldwide. It also produced the successful single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became the only holiday song and ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the U.S. In Japan, Number 1's has sold over 3,250,000 copies and is the best-selling album of all time in Japan by a non-Asian artist. Her hit single "One Sweet Day", which featured Boyz II Men, spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the top of Billboards Hot 100 chart in 1996, setting the record for the most weeks atop the Hot 100 chart in history. After Carey's success in Asia with Merry Christmas, Billboard estimated Carey as the all-time best-selling international artist in Japan. In 2008, Billboard magazine listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard: All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs and the most successful song of the first decade of the 21st century. In 2009, Carey's song "Obsessed" became her 12th Platinum single, the most by any female artist. Also in 2009, Carey's cover of Foreigner's song "I Want to Know What Love Is" became the longest-running number-one song in Brazilian singles chart history, spending 27 consecutive weeks at number-one. Additionally, Carey has had three songs debut at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100: "Fantasy", "One Sweet Day" and "Honey", making her the artist with the most number-one debuts in the chart's 52-year history. Also, she is the first female artist to debut at number 1 in the U.S. with "Fantasy". In 2010, Carey's 13th album and second Christmas album, Merry Christmas II You, debuted at No.1 on the R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top that chart. On November 19, 2010, Billboard magazine named Carey in their "Top 50 R&B;/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" chart at number four.

Philanthropy and other activities

Carey is a philanthropist who has donated time and money to organizations such as the Fresh Air Fund. She became associated with the Fund in the early 1990s, and is the co-founder of a camp located in Fishkill, New York, that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts and introduces them to career opportunities. The camp was called Camp Mariah "for her generous support and dedication to Fresh Air children", and she received a Congressional Horizon Award for her youth-related charity work. She is well-known nationally for her work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses, and in November 2006 she was awarded the Foundation's Wish Idol for her "extraordinary generosity and her many wish granting achievements". Carey has volunteered for the New York City Police Athletic League and contributed to the obstetrics department of New York Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Medical Center. A percentage of the sales of MTV Unplugged was donated to various other charities. In 2008, Carey was named Hunger Ambassador of the World Hunger Relief Movement. She is giving a free download of her song, "Love Story", to customers who donate to the organization at participating restaurants. In February 2010, the song, "100%", which was originally written and recorded for the film, Precious, was used as one of the theme songs for the 2010 Winter Olympics, with all money proceeds going to Team USA.

One of Carey's most high-profile benefit concert appearances was on VH1's 1998 Divas Live special, during which she performed alongside other female singers in support of the Save the Music Foundation. The concert was a ratings success, and Carey participated in the Divas 2000 special. In 2007, the Save the Music Foundation honored Carey at their tenth gala event for her support towards the foundation since its inception. She appeared at the America: A Tribute to Heroes nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and in December 2001, she performed before peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. Carey hosted the CBS television special At Home for the Holidays, which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families, and she has worked with the New York City Administration for Children's Services. In 2005, Carey performed for Live 8 in London and at the Hurricane Katrina relief telethon "Shelter from the Storm". In August 2008, Carey and other singers recorded the charity single, "Just Stand Up" produced by Babyface and L. A. Reid, to support "Stand Up to Cancer". On September 5, the singers performed it live on TV.

Declining offers to appear in commercials in the United States during her early career, Carey was not involved in brand marketing initiatives until 2006, when she participated in endorsements for Intel Centrino personal computers and launched a jewelry and accessories line for teenagers, Glamorized, in American Claire's and Icing stores. During this period, as part of a partnership with Pepsi and Motorola, Carey recorded and promoted a series of exclusive ringtones, including "Time of Your Life". She signed a licensing deal with the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden, and in 2007, she released her own fragrance, "M". According to Forbes, Carey was the sixth richest woman in entertainment , with an estimated net worth of US $225 million. Carey directed or co-directed several of the music videos for her singles during the 1990s. Slant magazine named the video for "The Roof (Back in Time)", which Carey co-directed with Diane Martel, one of the twenty greatest music videos of all time. In 2008, Carey made Time's annual list of 100 most Influential people. In January 2010, Carey announced via Twitter that she is launching a new rosé champagne brand called Angel Champagne. On November 29, 2010, Mariah debuted a collection on HSN, the collection range included jewelry, shoes and fragrances. She returned on Friday, February 11, 2011 with newly released products.

Filmography

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1999		Ilana
2001		Billie Frank
2002	WiseGirls	Raychel
2003	Death of a Dynasty	Herself	Cameo appearance
2005	State Property 2	Dame's Wifey
2008	You Don't Mess with the Zohan	Herself	Cameo appearance
2009		Krystal
2009		Mrs. Weiss	Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film FestivalSupporting Actress of the Year at the Capri Hollywood International Film FestivalNominated –
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2002	[[Ally McBeal">Black Reel Awards

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
2002	[[Ally McBeal	Candy Cushnip
2003	The Proud Family	Herself	Voice role

Discography

Mariah Carey (1990)

Emotions (1991)

Music Box (1993)

Merry Christmas (1994)

Daydream (1995)

Butterfly (1997)

Rainbow (1999)

Glitter (2001)

Charmbracelet (2002)

The Emancipation of Mimi (2005)

E=MC² (2008)

Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (2009)

Merry Christmas II You (2010)

See also

List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)

List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart

List of awards received by Mariah Carey

List of best-selling music artists

List of best selling music artists in U.S.

List of Mariah Carey tours

Notes

References

Hardy, Phil. The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music: Fully Revised Third Edition (2001). pg. 156–157. UK: Faber and Faber Limited. ISBN 0-571-19608-X.

Mulholland, Garry. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (2003). pg. 57. UK: Flame Tree Publishing. ISBN 1-904041-70-1.

Guinness Rockopedia (1998). pg. 74. UK: Guinness Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-85112-072-5.

Larkin, Colin. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Volume II: 3rd Edition (1998). pg. 934. UK: Muze UK Ltd. ISBN 0-333-74134-X.

O'Brien, Lucy. She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (2002). pg. 29, 476–481. UK: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-5776-2 (paperback).

[ Mariah Carey – Credits]. Allmusic. Retrieved April 22, 2006.

U.S. charts and sales compiled by Billboard magazine and Nielsen SoundScan ; see http://web.archive.org/web/20080409233339/http://www.mariahdaily.com/corantofiles/news-archive-1-2006.shtml. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

"Mariah Carey – Artist Chart History". Billboard. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

UK charts compiled by The Official UK Charts Company ; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/UKTop40.htm. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

Canadian charts compiled by Jam Canoe and Nielsen SoundScan; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/Canada.htm. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

Australian charts compiled by the Australian Recording Industry Association ; see http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/Australia.htm.

Japanese charts compiled by Oricon; see http://www.oricon.co.jp/artists/163336/. Retrieved February 7, 2007.

People in the News. CNN. Airdate: April 30, 2005. Larry King Live. CNN. Airdate: December 19, 2002.

"Mariah Carey to Receive Congressional Award for Charity Efforts". MTV.com. April 13, 1999. Retrieved April 22, 2006.

Duffy, Mike. "Mariah Carey leads heartfelt holiday special to promote adoption". Detroit Free Press. December 21, 2001. Retrieved from the Wayback Machine on April 22, 2006.

"The fall and rise of Mariah Carey". Bbc.co.uk. February 8, 2006. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

Norris, John. "Mariah: Remixes, Reunions and Russia". MTV.com. October 2003. Retrieved March 12, 2006.

Frere-Jones, Sasha. "On Top: Mariah Carey's record-breaking career". The New Yorker. April 3, 2006.

"Awards". MariahCarey.com. Retrieved April 22, 2006.

Fred Bronson's Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition (ISBN 0-8230-7677-6)

Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties (ISBN 0-89820-074-1)

Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Nineties (ISBN 0-89820-137-3)

Additional information concerning Carey's chart history can be retrieved and verified in Billboard's online archive services and print editions of the magazine.

External links

Official website

[ Mariah Carey] at Allmusic

Mariah Carey at LAUNCHcast

}}

Category:1970 births Category:Actors from New York Category:African American actors Category:African American female singers Category:African American female singer-songwriters Category:African American musicians Category:African American songwriters Category:American dance musicians Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American music video directors Category:American people of Venezuelan descent Category:American philanthropists Category:American pop singers Category:American record producers Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American sopranos Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hip hop singers Category:Island Records artists Category:Living people Category:Musicians from New York Category:People from Long Island Category:Singers with a five octave vocal range Category:Spanish-language singers Category:World Music Awards winners

af:Mariah Carey ar:ماريا كاري an:Mariah Carey zh-min-nan:Mariah Carey bg:Марая Кери cs:Mariah Carey cbk-zam:Mariah Carey cy:Mariah Carey da:Mariah Carey de:Mariah Carey et:Mariah Carey el:Μαράια Κάρεϊ es:Mariah Carey eo:Mariah Carey eu:Mariah Carey fa:ماریا کری fr:Mariah Carey ga:Mariah Carey gl:Mariah Carey ko:머라이어 캐리 hy:Մրայա Քերի hsb:Mariah Carey hr:Mariah Carey id:Mariah Carey it:Mariah Carey he:מאריה קארי jv:Mariah Carey kl:Mariah Carey ka:მერაია კერი sw:Mariah Carey la:Maria Carey lv:Meraija Kerija lt:Mariah Carey hu:Mariah Carey mk:Мараја Кери ml:മറായ കേറി ms:Mariah Carey nl:Mariah Carey ja:マライア・キャリー no:Mariah Carey pl:Mariah Carey pt:Mariah Carey ro:Mariah Carey ru:Кэри, Мэрайя sc:Mariah Carey sq:Mariah Carey simple:Mariah Carey sk:Mariah Careyová sl:Mariah Carey sr:Мараја Кери fi:Mariah Carey sv:Mariah Carey tl:Mariah Carey th:มารายห์ แครี tr:Mariah Carey uk:Мерая Кері vi:Mariah Carey bat-smg:Marajė Kerė zh:瑪麗亞·凱莉

background	solo_singer
alias	The Boss
born	September 23, 1949Long Branch, New Jersey,United States
instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano
genre	Rock, folk rock, heartland rock, hard rock, roots rock
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter
years active	1972–present
label	Columbia
associated acts	E Street Band, Steel Mill, Miami Horns, The Sessions Band, U2
website	www.BruceSpringsteen.net
notable instruments	Fender TelecasterFender EsquireTakamine GuitarsHohner Marine Band Harmonica }}

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949 in Long Branch, New Jersey), nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential songwriters of the twentieth century, and in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him as the 23rd greatest artist of all time in its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list.

Early life

Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Borough. He lived on South Street in Freehold Borough and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry and worked, among other vocations, as a bus driver; his surname is Dutch for jump stone. His mother, Adele Ann (née Zirilli), was a legal secretary and was of Italian ancestry. Overall, his heritage is 50% Italian, 37% Irish and 13% Dutch. His maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a city near Naples. He has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time; she took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums.

Raised a Roman Catholic, Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough, where he was at odds with the nuns and rejected the strictures imposed upon him, even though some of his later music reflects a Catholic ethos and included a few rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.

In ninth grade, he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there, either. Old teachers have said he was a "loner, who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar." He completed high school, but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony. He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out.

Career history

1962–1972: Early years

Springsteen had been inspired to take up music at the age of seven after seeing Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show. At 13, his mother bought him his first guitar for $18; later, she took out a loan to buy the 16-year-old Springsteen a $60 Kent guitar, as he later memorialized in his song "The Wish".

In 1965, he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town. They helped him become lead guitarist and subsequently the lead singer of The Castiles. The Castiles recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township and played a variety of venues, including Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. Marion Vinyard said that she believed the young Springsteen when he promised he would make it big.

Called for induction when he was 18, Springsteen failed his physical examination and did not serve in Vietnam. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984, he said, "When I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain't goin'." He had suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and this together with his "crazy" behaviour at induction and not taking the tests, was enough to get him a 4F.

In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey. Springsteen acquired the nickname "The Boss" during this period as when he played club gigs with a band he took on the task of collecting the band's nightly pay and distributing it amongst his bandmates. Springsteen is not fond of this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses, but seems to have since given it a tacit acceptance. Previously he had the nickname "Doctor". From 1969 through early 1971, Springsteen performed with Steel Mill, which also featured Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin and later Steve Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson. They went on to play the mid-Atlantic college circuit, and also briefly in California. In January 1970 well-known San Francisco Examiner music critic Philip Elwood gave Springsteen credibility in his glowing assessment of Steel Mill: "I have never been so overwhelmed by totally unknown talent." Elwood went on to praise their "cohesive musicality" and, in particular, singled out Springsteen as "a most impressive composer." During this time Springsteen also performed regularly at small clubs in Canton, Massachusetts, Richmond, Virginia, Asbury Park and along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Other acts followed over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style: Dr Zoom & the Sonic Boom (early–mid 1971), Sundance Blues Band (mid 1971), and The Bruce Springsteen Band (mid 1971–mid 1972). With the addition of pianist David Sancious, the core of what would later become the E Street Band was formed, with occasional temporary additions such as horn sections, "The Zoomettes" (a group of female backing vocalists for "Dr. Zoom") and Southside Johnny Lyon on harmonica. Musical genres explored included blues, R&B;, jazz, church music, early rock'n'roll, and soul. His prolific songwriting ability, with "More words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums", as his future record label would describe it in early publicity campaigns, brought his skill to the attention of several people who were about to change his life: new managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, and legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond, who, under Appel's pressure, auditioned Springsteen in May 1972.

Even after Springsteen gained international acclaim, his New Jersey roots showed through in his music, and he often praised "the great state of New Jersey" in his live shows. Drawing on his extensive local appeal, he routinely sold out consecutive nights in major New Jersey and Philadelphia venues. He also made many surprise appearances at The Stone Pony and other shore nightclubs over the years, becoming the foremost exponent of the Jersey Shore sound.

1972–1974: Initial struggle for success

Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same label a decade earlier. Springsteen brought many of his New Jersey–based colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named as such for several more years). His debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite, though sales were slow. Because of Springsteen's lyrical poeticism and folk rock–rooted music exemplified on tracks like "Blinded by the Light", (which would later be a hit for Manfred Mann and go to number one, making it the only time Springsteen had a number one single as a songwriter), and "For You", as well as the Columbia and Hammond connections, critics initially compared Springsteen to Bob Dylan. "He sings with a freshness and urgency I haven't heard since I was rocked by 'Like a Rolling Stone,'" wrote Crawdaddy magazine editor Peter Knobler in Springsteen's first interview/profile, in March 1973. Crawdaddy discovered Springsteen in the rock press and was his earliest champion. (Springsteen and the E Street Band acknowledged by giving a private performance at the Crawdaddy 10th Anniversary Party in New York City in June 1976.) Music critic Lester Bangs wrote in Creem in 1975 that when Springsteen's first album was released "... many of us dismissed it: he wrote like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, sang like Van Morrison and Robbie Robertson, and led a band that sounded like Van Morrison's." The track "Spirit in the Night" especially showed Morrison's influence, while "Lost in the Flood" was the first of many portraits of Vietnam veterans and "Growin' Up", his first take on the recurring theme of adolescence.

In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, was released, again to critical acclaim but no commercial success. Springsteen's songs became grander in form and scope, with the E Street Band providing a less folky, more R&B; vibe and the lyrics often romanticized teenage street life. "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" and "Incident on 57th Street" would become fan favorites, and the long, rousing "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" continues to rank among Springsteen's most beloved concert numbers.

In the May 22, 1974, issue of Boston's The Real Paper, music critic Jon Landau wrote after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time." Landau subsequently became Springsteen's manager and producer, helping to finish the epic new album, Born to Run. Given an enormous budget in a last-ditch effort at a commercially viable record, Springsteen became bogged down in the recording process while striving for a wall of sound production. But, fed by the release of an early mix of "Born to Run" to progressive rock radio, anticipation built toward the album's release. All in all the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song "Born To Run" During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard "sounds in [his] head" that he could not explain to the others in the studio. It was during these recording sessions that "Miami" Steve Van Zandt would stumble into the studio just in time to help Springsteen organize the horn section on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (it is his only written contribution to the album), and eventually led to his joining the E Street Band. Van Zandt had been a long-time friend of Springsteen, as well as a collaborator on earlier musical projects, and understood where he was coming from, which helped him to translate some of the sounds Springsteen was hearing. Still, by the end of the grueling recording sessions, Springsteen was not satisfied, and, upon first hearing the finished album, threw the record into the alley and told Jon Landau he would rather just cut the album live at The Bottom Line, a place he often played.

1975–1983: Breakthrough

On August 13, 1975, Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five-night, 10-show stand at New York's Bottom Line club. The engagement attracted major media attention, was broadcast live on WNEW-FM, and convinced many skeptics that Springsteen was for real. (Decades later, Rolling Stone magazine would name the stand as one of the 50 Moments That Changed Rock and Roll.) With the release of Born to Run on August 25, 1975, Springsteen finally found success. The album peaked at number 3 on the Billboard 200, and while there were no hit singles, "Born to Run" (Billboard #23), "Thunder Road", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (Billboard #83), and "Jungleland" all received massive album-oriented rock airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations. The songwriting and recording was more disciplined than before, while still maintaining an epic feel. With its panoramic imagery, thundering production and desperate optimism, Born to Run is considered by some fans to be among the best rock and roll albums of all time and Springsteen's finest work. It established him as a sincere and dynamic rock and roll personality who spoke for and in the voice of a large part of the rock audience. To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year. So great did the wave of publicity become that Springsteen eventually rebelled against it during his first venture overseas, tearing down promotional posters before a concert appearance in London.

A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for nearly a year, during which time he kept the E Street Band together through extensive touring across the U.S. Despite the optimistic fervor with which he often performed, his new songs had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point in Springsteen's career. Gone were the raw, rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first two albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen's growing intellectual and political awareness. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity and length of its shows. By the late 1970s, Springsteen had earned a reputation in the pop world as a songwriter whose material could provide hits for other bands. Manfred Mann's Earth Band had achieved a U.S. number one pop hit with a heavily rearranged version of Greetings' "Blinded by the Light" in early 1977. Patti Smith reached number 13 with her take on Springsteen's unreleased "Because the Night" (with revised lyrics by Smith) in 1978, while The Pointer Sisters hit number two in 1979 with Springsteen's also unreleased "Fire".

In September 1979, Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights, playing an abbreviated set while premiering two songs from his upcoming album. The subsequent No Nukes live album, as well as the following summer's No Nukes documentary film, represented the first official recordings and footage of Springsteen's fabled live act, as well as Springsteen's first tentative dip into political involvement.

Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the 20-song double album The River in 1980, which included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads, and finally yielded his first hit Top Ten single as a performer, "Hungry Heart". This album marked a shift in Springsteen's music toward a pop-rock sound that was all but missing from any of his earlier work. This is apparent in the stylistic adoption of certain eighties pop-rock hallmarks like the reverberating-tenor drums, very basic percussion/guitar and repetitive lyrics apparent in many of the tracks. The title song pointed to Springsteen's intellectual direction, while a couple of the lesser-known tracks presaged his musical direction. The album sold well, becoming his first topper on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, and a long tour in 1980 and 1981 followed, featuring Springsteen's first extended playing of Europe and ending with a series of multi-night arena stands in major cities in the U.S.

The River was followed in 1982 by the stark solo acoustic Nebraska. Recording sessions had been held to expand on a demo tape Springsteen had made at his home on a simple, low-tech four-track tape deck. However during the recording process Springsteen and producer Landau realized the songs worked better as solo acoustic numbers than full band renditions and the original demo tape was released as the album. Although the recordings of the E Street Band were shelved, other songs from these sessions would later be released, including "Born in the U.S.A." and "Glory Days". According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. While Nebraska did not sell as well as Springsteen's two previous albums, it garnered widespread critical praise (including being named "Album of the Year" by Rolling Stone magazine's critics) and influenced later significant works by other major artists, including U2's album The Joshua Tree. It helped inspire the musical genre known as lo-fi music, becoming a cult favorite among indie-rockers. Springsteen did not tour in conjunction with Nebraska's release.

1984–1991: Commercial and popular phenomenon

Springsteen probably is best known for his album Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. and became one of the best-selling albums of all time, with seven singles hitting the Top 10, and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans, some of whom were Springsteen's friends and bandmates. The lyrics in the verses were entirely unambiguous when listened to, but the anthemic music and the title of the song made it hard for many, from politicians to the common person, to get the lyrics—except those in the chorus, which could be read many ways. The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. Springsteen also turned down several million dollars offered by the Chrysler Corporation to use the song in a car commercial. (In later years, to eliminate the bombast and make the song's original meaning more explicitly clear, Springsteen performed the song accompanied only by acoustic guitar. An acoustic version also appeared on Tracks, a later album.) "Dancing in the Dark" was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at number 2 on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen, an appearance which helped kickstart the actress's career. The song "Cover Me" was written by Springsteen for Donna Summer, but his record company persuaded him to keep it for the new album. A big fan of Summer's work, Springsteen wrote another song for her, "Protection". Videos for the album were made by noted film directors Brian De Palma and John Sayles. Springsteen was featured on the "We Are the World" song and album in 1985. His live single "Trapped" from that album received moderate airplay on U.S. Top 40 stations as well as reaching #1 on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart.

During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, Springsteen met actress Julianne Phillips, whom he would marry in 1985.

The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen's visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (aided by the release of Arthur Baker's dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/1975–85, a five-record box set (also on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and became the first box set to debut at number 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the most commercially successful live albums of all time, ultimately selling 13 million units in the U.S. Live/1975–85 summed up Springsteen's career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen's difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to "Racing in the Street". Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album's song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.

During the 1980s, several Springsteen fanzines were launched, including Backstreets magazine, which started in Seattle and continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen's management and official website.

After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love album (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered, which only selectively used the E Street Band. It presaged the breakup of his marriage to Julianne Phillips and described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship. Reflecting the challenges of love in "Brilliant Disguise", Springsteen sang:

The subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour shook up fans with changes to the stage layout, favorites dropped from the set list, and horn-based arrangements. During the European leg in 1988, Springsteen's relationship with backup singer Patti Scialfa became public and Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988. Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International. In the fall of 1989 he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California, marrying in 1991.

1992–2001: Artistic and commercial ups and downs

In 1992, after risking charges of "going Hollywood" by moving to Los Angeles (a radical move for someone so linked to the blue-collar life of the Jersey Shore) and working with session musicians, Springsteen released two albums at once. Human Touch and Lucky Town were even more introspective than any of his previous work and displayed a newly revealed confidence. As opposed to his first two albums, which dreamed of happiness, and his next four, which showed him growing to fear it, at points during the Lucky Town album, Springsteen actually claims happiness for himself.

An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (later released as In Concert/MTV Plugged) was poorly received and further cemented fan dissatisfaction. Springsteen seemed to realize this a few years hence when he spoke humorously of his late father during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech: }}

A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song "Streets of Philadelphia", which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. The song, along with the film, was applauded by many for its sympathetic portrayal of a gay man dying of AIDS. The music video for the song shows Springsteen's actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track. This technique was developed on the "Brilliant Disguise" video.

In 1995, after temporarily re-organizing the E Street Band for a few new songs recorded for his first Greatest Hits album (a recording session that was chronicled in the documentary Blood Brothers), he released his second (mostly) solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, inspired by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and by Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winners author Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael Williamson. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and political nature of most of the songs, although some praised it for giving voice to immigrants and others who rarely have one in American culture. The lengthy, worldwide, small-venue solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour that followed successfully featured many of his older songs in drastically reshaped acoustic form, although Springsteen had to explicitly remind his audiences to be quiet and not to clap during the performances.

Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family. In 1998, Springsteen released the sprawling, four-disc box set of out-takes, Tracks. Subsequently, Springsteen would acknowledge that the 1990s were a "lost period" for him: "I didn't do a lot of work. Some people would say I didn't do my best work."

Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by Bono of U2, a favor he returned in 2005.

In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey and a ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City's Madison Square Garden which ended the tour. The final two shows were recorded for an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City. A new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)", about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo which was played at these shows proved controversial.

In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.

On Labor day 2001 Bruce Springsteen played at Donovan's Reef in Sea Bright NJ surprising a local cover band named Brian Kirk and the Jerks and performed Rosalita with them showing his support and love.

2002–2007: Return to success

In 2002, Springsteen released his first studio effort with the full band in 18 years, The Rising, produced by Brendan O'Brien. The album, mostly a reflection on the September 11 attacks, was a critical and popular success. (Many of the songs were influenced by phone conversations Springsteen had with family members of victims of the attacks who in their obituaries had mentioned how his music touched their lives.) The title track gained airplay in several radio formats, and the record became Springsteen's best-selling album of new material in 15 years. Kicked off by an early-morning Asbury Park appearance on The Today Show, The Rising Tour commenced, barnstorming through a series of single-night arena stands in the U.S. and Europe to promote the album in 2002, then returning for large-scale, multiple-night stadium shows in 2003. While Springsteen had maintained a loyal hardcore fan base everywhere (and particularly in Europe), his general popularity had dipped over the years in some southern and midwestern regions of the U.S. But it was still strong in Europe and along the U.S. coasts, and he played an unprecedented 10 nights in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a ticket-selling feat to which no other musical act has come close. During these shows Springsteen thanked those fans who were attending multiple shows and those who were coming from long distances or another country; the advent of robust Bruce-oriented online communities had made such practices more common. The Rising Tour came to a final conclusion with three nights in Shea Stadium, highlighted by renewed controversy over "American Skin" and a guest appearance by Bob Dylan.

During the early 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations, and causes. These shows were explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the E Street Shuffle outtake "Thundercrack", a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows. The song "My City of Ruins" was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for a post-Sept. 11 benefit concert honoring New York City, he selected "My City of Ruins", which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to "Rise up!" The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close The Rising album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.

At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash's "London Calling" along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and No Doubt's bassist, Tony Kanal, in tribute to Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!. In 2004, Springsteen and the E Street Band participated in the "Vote for Change" tour, along with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, the Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne, and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit the liberalism political organization group America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed – against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International, and the Christic Institute – he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan "Born in the U.S.A." flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen's "No Surrender" became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies.

Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released. The title track concerns an ordinary soldier's feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen's anti-corporate politics. The album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album's release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar, and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar, and percussion were also used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of "Reason to Believe", "The Promised Land", and Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.

In November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called E Street Radio. This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews, and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.

In April 2006, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed The Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to The Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews, but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance. By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.

Springsteen's next album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus "Long Walk Home", performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), "Terry's Song", a tribute to Springsteen's long-time assistant Terry Magovern, who died on July 30, 2007. The first single, "Radio Nowhere", was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at number 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at number 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted E Street Radio on Channel 10 on September 27, 2007, in anticipation of Magic. Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications was alleged to have sent an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material. However, Clear Channel Adult Alternative (or "AAA") station KBCO did play tracks from the album, undermining the allegations of a corporate blackout. The Springsteen and E Street Band Magic Tour began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album's release and was routed through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live on NBC's Today Show in advance of the opener. Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici left the tour in November 2007 to pursue treatment for melanoma from which he would die in 2008

2008–present: Recent events

Springsteen supported Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, announcing his endorsement in April 2008 and going on to appear at several Obama rallies as well as performing several solo acoustic performances in support of Obama's campaign throughout 2008, culminating with a November 2 rally where he debuted "Working On A Dream" in a duet with Scialfa. At an Ohio rally, Springsteen discussed the importance of "truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and a life filled with the dignity of work, the promise and the sanctity of home...But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally-adrift administration."

Following Obama's electoral victory on November 4, Springsteen's song "The Rising" was the first song played over the loudspeakers after Obama's victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. Springsteen was the musical opener for the Obama Inaugural Celebration on January 18, 2009 which was attended by over 400,000. He performed "The Rising" with an all-female choir. Later he performed Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" with Pete Seeger.

On June 18, 2008, Springsteen appeared live from Europe at the Tim Russert tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to play one of Russert's favorite songs, "Thunder Road". Springsteen dedicated the song to Russert, who was "one of Springsteen's biggest fans."

On January 11, 2009, Springsteen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Song for "The Wrestler", from the Mickey Rourke film by the same name. After receiving a heartfelt letter from Mickey Rourke, Springsteen supplied the song for the film for free.

Springsteen performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, agreeing to do it after many previous offers A few days before the game, Springsteen gave a rare press conference, where he promised a "twelve-minute party." His 12:45 set, with the E Street Band and the Miami Horns, included abbreviated renditions of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"", "Born to Run", "Working on a Dream, and "Glory Days", the latter complete with football references. The set of appearances and promotional activities led Springsteen to say, "This has probably been the busiest month of my life."

Springsteen's Working on a Dream album was released in late January 2009 and the supporting Working on a Dream Tour ran from April 2009 until November 2009. The tour featured few songs from the new album, with instead set lists dominated by classics and selections reflecting the ongoing late-2000s recession. The tour also featured Springsteen playing songs requested by audience members holding up signs as on the final stages of the Magic Tour. Drummer Max Weinberg was replaced for some shows by his 18-year-old son Jay Weinberg, so that the former could serve his role as bandleader on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. During this tour, Springsteen and the band made their first real foray in the world of music festivals, headlining nights at the Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands, Festival des Vieilles Charrues in France, the Bonnaroo Music Festival in the United States and the Glastonbury Festival in the UK and Hard Rock Calling in the UK. Several shows on the tour featured full album presentations of Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, or Born in the U.S.A. The band performed a stretch of five final shows at his homestate Giants Stadium, opening with a new song highlighting the historic stadium, and his Jersey roots, named "Wrecking Ball". The tour ended as scheduled in Buffalo, NY in November 2009 amid speculation that it was the last performance ever by the E Street Band, but during the show Springsteen said it was goodbye “for a little while.” A DVD from the Working of a Dream Tour entitled London Calling: Live in Hyde Park was released in 2010.

In addition to his own touring, Springsteen made a number of appearances at tribute and benefit concerts during 2009, including The Clearwater Concert, a celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary benefit concert, a benefit for the charity Autism Speaks at Carnegie Hall. On January 22, 2010, he joined many well-known artists to perform on Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief‎, organized by George Clooney to raise money to help the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

In 2009, Springsteen performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".

Springsteen was among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award to figures from the world of arts for their contribution to American culture, in December 2009. President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about how Springsteen has incorporated the life of regular Americans in his expansive pallette of songs and how his concerts are beyond the typical rock-and-roll concerts, how, apart from being high-energy concerts, they are "communions". He ended the remark "while I am the president, he is The Boss". Tributes were paid by several well-known celebrities including Jon Stewart (who described Springsteen's "unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy"). A musical tribute featured John Mellencamp, Ben Harper and Jennifer Nettles, Melissa Etheridge, Eddie Vedder and Sting.

The 2000s ended with Springsteen being named one of eight Artists of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine and with Springsteen's tours ranking him fourth among artists in total concert grosses for the decade.

In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness on The Edge of Town" was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, was included in a box set reissue of the album, entitled The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, released in November 2010. Also airing on HBO, the documentary explored Springsteen's making of the acclaimed album, and his role in the production and development of the tracks.

Springsteen is working on his next studio album with Ron Aniello, who also co-produced the 2007 album "Play It As It Lays", by Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa. Ron Aniello also produced "Children's Song" early in 2011, a duet with Bruce and Patti, which was done for a charity project.

Musical style

Bruce Springsteen draws on many musical influences from the reservoir of traditional American popular music, folk, blues and country. From the beginning, rock and roll has been the dominant influence. On his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey, the folk-influence is clear to hear. An example of the influence of this music genre to Springsteen's music is his song "This Hard Land" which demonstrates a clear influence of the style of Woody Guthrie.

He expanded the range of his musical compositions on his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. Elements of Latin American music, jazz, soul, and funk influences can be heard; the song "New York City Serenade" is even reminiscent of the music of George Gershwin. These two records prominently featured pianist David Sancious, who left the band shortly into the recording of Springsteen's third album, Born To Run. This album, however, also emphasized the piano, the responsibility now of Roy Bittan.

Earlier in his career, Springsteen has focused more on the rock elements of his music. He initially compressed the sound and developed Darkness On The Edge Of Town just as straightforward as concise musical idiom, for the simple riffs and clearly recognizable song structures are dominant. His music has been categorized as heartland rock, a style typified by Springsteen, John Fogerty, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp. This music has a lyrical reference to the U.S. everyday and the music is kept rather simple and straightforward. This development culminated with Springsteen's hit album Born in the U.S.A., the title song of which has a constantly repeating, fanfare-like keyboard riff and a pounding drum beat. These sounds fit with Springsteen's voice: it cries to the listener the unsentimental story of a disenchanted angry figure. Even songs that can be argued to be album tracks proved to be singles that enjoyed some chart success, such as "My Hometown" and "I'm on Fire", in which the drum line is formed from subtle hi-hat and rim-clicks-shock (shock at the edge of the snare drum).

In recent years, Springsteen has changed his music further. There are more folk elements up to the gospel to be heard. His last solo album, Devils and Dust, drew rave reviews not only for Springsteen's complex songwriting, but also for his expressive and sensitive singing.

On the album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions Springsteen performs folk classics with a folk band, rather than his usual E Street Band. On his ensuing tour he also interpreted some of his own rock songs in a folk style.

The 2007 album Magic was a reflection on the old stadium rock attitude and with its lush arrangements was almost designed to be performed at large stadiums, which also succeeded on the corresponding tour.

Lyrical themes

}}

Often described as cinematographic in their scope, Springsteen's lyrics frequently explore highly personal themes such as individual commitment, dissatisfaction and dismay with life in a context of every day situations.

It has been recognized that there was a shift in his lyrical approach starting with the album Darkness on the Edge of Town, in which he focused on the emotional struggles of working class life.

Politics and activism

Springsteen's music has often contained political themes, and he has publicly campaigned for several causes, including his opposition to the Iraq War and support for Democratic presidential campaigns, including Senator John Kerry and President Barack Obama. He is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11 attacks in 2001, on which his album The Rising reflects.

In 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International.

Springsteen has been associated with various local food banks, particularly with the New Jersey Food bank for many years. During concerts, he usually breaks the routine to announce his support and later matches the total collection during the concert with his own money. During his Charlotte, North Carolina concert on November 3, 2009, he started with a $10,000 donation for the local food bank to start the collections process – which he again matched later.

He has made substantial financial contributions to various workers' unions both in America and in Europe.

Personal life

Springsteen had a short marriage to Julianne Phillips (born May 6, 1960) from May 13, 1985 to May 1988, when they separated. The two were opposites in background and his traveling took its toll on their relationship. The final blow came when Bruce began an affair with Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953), whom he had dated briefly in 1984 shortly after she joined the band. Phillips and Springsteen separated in the spring of 1988, and on August 30, 1988, Julianne filed for divorce. The Springsteen/Phillips divorce was finalized on March 1, 1989.

After the separation in 1988 Bruce began living with Scialfa. Springsteen received press criticism for the hastiness in which he and Scialfa took up their relationship. In a 1995 interview with The Advocate, Springsteen spoke about the negative publicity the couple subsequently received. "It's a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn't. But the truth is, I basically ignored the entire thing as much as I could. I said, 'Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going here in some fashion, but that's life.'" He also noted that, "I went through a divorce, and it was really difficult and painful and I was very frightened about getting married again. So part of me said, 'Hey, what does it matter?' But it does matter. It's very different than just living together. First of all, stepping up publicly- which is what you do: You get your license, you do all the social rituals- is a part of your place in society and in some way part of society's acceptance of you...Patti and I both found that it did mean something."

On July 25, 1990 Scialfa gave birth to the couple's first child, Evan James Springsteen. On June 8, 1991 Springsteen and Scialfa married at their Beverly Hills home. Their second child, Jessica Rae Springsteen, was born on December 30, 1991; and their third child, Samuel Ryan Springsteen, was born on January 5, 1994. The family owns and lives on a horse farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey. They also own homes in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy horse community near West Palm Beach, Los Angeles and Rumson, New Jersey. Their eldest son, Evan, attends Boston College. Their daughter Jessica is a nationally ranked champion equestrian, and attends Duke University.

Since 1991, Springsteen has led a relatively quiet life for a well-known popular performer and artist. He moved from Los Angeles to New Jersey in the early 1990s specifically to raise a family in a non-paparazzi environment. It has been reported that the press conference regarding the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII half-time show was his first press conference for more than 25 years. However, he has appeared in a few radio interviews, most notably on NPR and BBC. 60 minutes aired his last extensive interview on TV before his tour to support his album, Magic.

Bands

Bruce Springsteen has been a member of, or has been backed by, several bands during his career, most notably The E Street Band.

His earliest known band is The Castiles.

Prior to signing his first record deal in 1972, Springsteen was a member of several bands including Steel Mill. In October 1972 he formed a new band for the recording of his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., which became known as The E Street Band, although the name was not officially introduced until September 1974. The E Street Band performed on all of Springsteen's recorded works from his debut until 1982's Nebraska, a solo album on which Springsteen himself played all the instruments. The full band returned for the next album Born in the USA, but there then followed a period from 1988 to 1999 in which albums were recorded with session musicians. The E Street band were briefly reunited in 1995 for new contributions to the Greatest Hits compilation, and on a more permanent basis from 1999, since which time they have recorded 3 albums together (The Rising, Magic and Working on a Dream) and performed a number of high profile tours.

The 2005 album Devils & Dust was largely a solo recording, with some contribution from session musicians and the 2006 folk rock We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album was recorded and toured with another band, known as The Sessions Band.

Earlier Bands: The Castiles, Earth, Child, Steel Mill, Sundance Blues Band, Dr Zoom and the Sonic Boom, Bruce Springsteen Band.

E Street Band

Current members:

Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, harmonica, piano

Patti Scialfa – backing and duet vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion

Max Weinberg – drums, percussion

Garry Tallent – bass guitar, tuba

Roy Bittan – piano, keyboards

Steven Van Zandt – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals, mandolin

Nils Lofgren – lead and rhythm guitar, pedal steel guitar, backing vocals

With: Soozie Tyrell – violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals Charles Giordano – organ, accordion, glockenspiel

Former Members:

1973–2011 Clarence Clemons (deceased) – tenor, baritone and soprano saxophones, backing vocals, percussion

1973–2008 Danny Federici (deceased) – organ, accordion, backing vocals

Film

Music used in films

Springsteen's music has been used in many films and he has also written and performed several works specifically for films, examples include Philadelphia, Dead Man Walking, Jerry Maguire, and The Wrestler.

1983 1983 1987 1989 1992 1992 1993 1995 1995 1996 1997 1998 1998 1999 1999 2000 2000 2002 2003 2004 2007 2007 2007 2007 2008 2009

Film !! Year of film release !! Song(s) !! Notes
Dead End Street	1982	"Point Blank", "Hungry Heart" and "Jungleland"
Risky Business	|	Hungry Heart
Baby, It's You (film)	Baby, It's You	|	"It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City", "The E Street Shuffle", "She's The One" and "Adam Raised A Cain"	Film directed by John Sayles who later directed music videos for songs from Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love.
Light of Day	|	"(Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day"	Song written for the film.
In Country	|	"I'm On Fire"	Film also contained many Springsteen references.
Thunderheart	|	"Badlands" (instrumental version)
Honeymoon in Vegas	|	Viva Las Vegas (song)>Viva Las Vegas"	A 1964 song recorded by Elvis Presley.
Philadelphia (film)	Philadelphia	|	"Streets of Philadelphia"	Song written for film. Won an Oscar.
Dead Man Walking (film)	Dead Man Walking	|	"Dead Man Walkin'"	Song written for film. Nominated for a Oscar.
The Crossing Guard	|	"Missing"	Song was later released in 2003 on The Essential Bruce Springsteen.
Jerry Maguire	|	Secret Garden (Bruce Springsteen song)>Secret Garden"
Cop Land	|	Stolen Car (Bruce Springsteen song)>Stolen Car"	Sylvester Stallone's character plays the songs on his turntable.
The Wedding Singer	|	"Hungry Heart"
A Night at the Roxbury	|	"Secret Garden"
Big Daddy (film)	Big Daddy	|	"Growin' Up"	Played over a montage near the end of the film.
Limbo (film)	Limbo	|	"Lift Me Up"	Another John Sayles film.
High Fidelity (film)	High Fidelity	|	"The River" and Blues Guitar Riff	Blues riff played by Springsteen, on-screen during his cameo appearance. "The River" played from vinyl on turntable.
The Perfect Storm (film)	The Perfect Storm	|	"Hungry Heart"
25th Hour	|	"The Fuse"
Grand Theft Parsons	|	"Blood Brothers"
Jersey Girl	|	"Jersey Girl"	Cover of the Tom Waits version
Reign Over Me	|	"Drive All Night" and "Out In The Street"	The River (album)>The River was also well mentioned in the movie.
In the Land of Women	|	"Iceman"
The Heartbreak Kid (2007 film)	The Heartbreak Kid	|	"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"
Lucky You (film)	Lucky You	|	"Lucky Town"
The Wrestler (2008 film)	The Wrestler	|	The Wrestler (song)>The Wrestler"	Written for the film. The song was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and nominated for the MTV Movie Award as "Best Song From a Movie".
Food, Inc.	|	"This Land Is Your Land"	Live version, Bruce Springsteen's performance of the Woody Guthrie song.

Films inspired by music

In turn, films have been inspired by his music, including The Indian Runner, written and directed by Sean Penn, which Penn has specifically noted as being inspired by Springsteen's song "Highway Patrolman".

In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness on The Edge of Town" was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Kevin Smith is an admitted "big fan" of fellow New Jersey native Springsteen and named his film Jersey Girl after the Tom Waits song which Springsteen made famous. The song was also used on the soundtrack.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant said Springsteen's "Thunder Road" to have been a heavy influence on their 2010 film "Cemetery Junction," employing the song's themes of escape and optimism into their story of 1970s England.

In 2011, Springsteen appears in an independent film made by a local musician Chris Vaughn from New Jersey entitled "Jerseyboy Hero" where the songwriter/filmmaker documents his journey to get his music out to the world by attempting to reach one of his two local New Jersey legends, Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi.

Acting

Springsteen made his first on-screen appearance in a brief cameo as himself in High Fidelity in 2000 and it was voted "Best Cameo in a Movie" at the MTV Movie Awards.

Discography

Major studio albums (along with their chart positions in the U.S. Billboard 200 at the time of release):

1973: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (#60)

1973: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (#59)

1975: Born to Run (#3)

1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town (#5)

1980: The River (#1)

1982: Nebraska (#3)

1984: Born in the U.S.A. (#1)

1987: Tunnel of Love (#1)

1992: Human Touch (#2)

1992: Lucky Town (#3)

1995: The Ghost of Tom Joad (#11)

1998: Tracks (#64)

2002: The Rising (#1)

2005: Devils & Dust (#1)

2006: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (#3)

2007: Magic (#1)

2009: Working on a Dream (#1)

2010: The Promise (#16)

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards

:Springsteen has won 20 Grammy Awards, as follows (years shown are the year the award was given for, not the year in which the ceremony was held):

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1984, "Dancing in the Dark"

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, 1987, "Tunnel of Love"

Song of the Year, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Best Rock Song, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, 1994, "Streets of Philadelphia"

Best Contemporary Folk Album, 1996, The Ghost of Tom Joad

Best Rock Album, 2002, The Rising

Best Rock Song, 2002, "The Rising"

Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, 2002, "The Rising"

Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 2003, "Disorder in the House" (with Warren Zevon)

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2004, "Code of Silence"

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2005, "Devils & Dust"

Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome

Best Long Form Music Video, 2006, Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born to Run

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2007, "Radio Nowhere"

Best Rock Song, 2007, "Radio Nowhere"

Best Rock Instrumental Performance, 2007, "Once Upon a Time in the West"

Best Rock Song, 2008, "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, 2009, "Working on a Dream"

Only one of these awards has been one of the cross-genre "major" ones (Song, Record, or Album of the Year); he has been nominated a number of other times for the majors, but failed to win.

Golden Globe Awards

Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "Streets of Philadelphia" in 1994. Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Wrestler" in 2009.

Academy Awards

Academy Award for Best Original Song, 1993, "Streets of Philadelphia" from Philadelphia.

Emmy Awards

The Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City HBO special won two technical Emmy Awards in 2001.

Other recognition

October 27, 1975: Bruce Springsteen appears simultaneously on the covers of 'Newsweek' and 'Time'

Polar Music Prize in 1997. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999. Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007. "Born to Run" named "The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey" by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song "is about leaving New Jersey". The minor planet 23990, discovered Sept. 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor. Ranked #23 on Rolling Stone magazines 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Ranked #36 on Rolling Stone magazines 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time. Made Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list. Won Critic's Choice Award for Best Song with "The Wrestler" in 2009.

Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.

Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.

Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen's studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Born to Run and Thunder Road in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.

Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100 in 2009

John Steinbeck Award

Influence

In addition to his noted influence on music in his native New Jersey, Springsteen is also cited as an influence by , Bon Jovi, Arcade Fire, The Gaslight Anthem, The Constantines, The Hold Steady, The National, Kings of Leon, The Killers, U2, Willy DeVille, Johnny Cash',Lady Gaga in his later recordings, and countless others. His songs have been covered by diverse artists such as David Bowie, The Pointer Sisters, John Mayer, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Melissa Etheridge, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Automatic 7, Vampire Weekend, McFly, Tegan and Sara, Damien Jurado, Free Energy, Aimee Mann, Dropkick Murphys, Social Distortion, Rage Against The Machine, Ben Harper, Eric Bachmann, Josh Ritter, Frank Turner, Hank Williams III, Roger_Meddows-Taylor (covered "Racing In The Streets" on Strange Frontier), Madrugada. For Springsteen's influence on academic writers, see "Library of Hope and Dreams":a comprehensive annotated bibliography of published Springsteen scholarship in English. Note, bibliography is indexed by song, album, author and subject keywords.

See also

List of best selling music artists

List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart

Notes

References

Sources

Alterman, Eric. It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive : The Promise of Bruce Springsteen. Little Brown, 1999. ISBN 0-316-03885-7.

Coles, Robert. Bruce Springsteen's America: The People Listening, a Poet Singing. Random House, 2005. ISBN 0-375-50559-8.

Cross, Charles R. Backstreets: Springsteen – the man and his music Harmony Books, New York 1989/1992. ISBN 0-517-58929-X. Contains 15+ interviews and a complete list of all Springsteen songs including unreleased compositions. Complete lising of all concerts 1965–1990 – most of them with tracklists. Hundreds of previously unreleased high quality color pictures.

Cullen, Jim. Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition. 1997; Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. New edition of 1997 study book places Springsteen's work in the broader context of American history and culture. ISBN 0-8195-6761-2

Eliot, Marc with Appel, Mike. Down Thunder Road. Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 0-671-86898-5.

Graff, Gary. The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z. Visible Ink, 2005. ISBN 1-57859-151-1.

Guterman, Jimmy. Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce Springsteen. Da Capo, 2005. ISBN 0-306-81397-1.

Hilburn, Robert. Springsteen. Rolling Stone Press, 1985. ISBN 0-684-18456-7.

Knobler, Peter with special assistance from Greg Mitchell. "Who Is Bruce Springsteen and Why Are We Saying All These Wonderful Things About Him?", Crawdaddy, March 1973.

Marsh, Dave. Bruce Springsteen: Two Hearts : The Definitive Biography, 1972–2003. Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-96928-X. (Consolidation of two previous Marsh biographies, Born to Run (1981) and Glory Days (1987).)

Wolff, Daniel. July 4, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land. Bloomsbury, 2005. ISBN 1-58234-509-0.

Further reading

Greetings from E Street: The Story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Chronicle Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8118-5348-9.

Days of Hope and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen. Billboard Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8230-8387-X.

Racing in the Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader. Penguin, 2004. ISBN 0-14-200354-9.

Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce Springsteen. Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-306-81397-1.

The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z. Visible Ink Press, 2005. ISBN 1-57859-157-0.

Bruce Springsteen: "Talking". Omnibus Press, 2004. ISBN 1-84449-403-9.

The Songs of Bruce Springsteen : 1965-2010". by Steve Rowland. printondemand.co.uk, 2011.

For You: Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans. LKC Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9784156-0-0.

Bruce Springsteen on Tour: 1968–2005. by Dave Marsh Bloomsbury USA, 2006. ISBN 978-1-59691-282-3.

The Gospel according to Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Redemption from Asbury Park to Magic. by Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-664-23169-9.

Magic in the Night: The Words and Music of Bruce Springsteen by Rob Kirkpatrick. St. Martin's Griffin, 2009. ISBN 0-312-53380-2.

Land of Hope and Dreams: Celebrating 25 Years of Bruce Springsteen In Ireland by Greg Lewis and Moira Sharkey. Magic Rat Books. ISBN 978-0-9562722-0-1

External links

Bruce Springsteen – official website

Bruce Springsteen at Idiomag 21 12 10

in 2005

Highlights of Springsteen at Glastonbury 2009.

Bruce Springsteen at NPR Music

"Library of Hope and Dreams":bibliography of published Springsteen scholarship in English.

Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:American baritones Category:American folk singers Category:American male singer-songwriters Category:American people of Dutch descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singers Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:Jersey Shore musicians Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:New Jersey Democrats Category:People from Colts Neck Township, New Jersey Category:People from Rumson, New Jersey Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:The E Street Band members Category:Songwriters from New Jersey

ar:بروس سبرينغستين an:Bruce Springsteen bg:Брус Спрингстийн ca:Bruce Springsteen cs:Bruce Springsteen co:Bruce Springsteen da:Bruce Springsteen de:Bruce Springsteen et:Bruce Springsteen el:Μπρους Σπρίνγκστιν es:Bruce Springsteen eo:Bruce Springsteen eu:Bruce Springsteen fa:بروس اسپرینگستین fr:Bruce Springsteen ga:Bruce Springsteen gd:Bruce Springsteen gl:Bruce Springsteen gu:બ્રુસ સ્પ્રિન્ગસ્ટીન ko:브루스 스프링스틴 hy:Բրուս Սպրինգստին hi:ब्रूस स्प्रिंगस्टीन hr:Bruce Springsteen io:Bruce Springsteen id:Bruce Springsteen it:Bruce Springsteen he:ברוס ספרינגסטין kn:ಬ್ರೂಸ್‌ ಸ್ಪ್ರಿಂಗ್‌ಸ್ಟೀನ್‌‌ ka:ბრიუს სპრინგსტინი sw:Bruce Springsteen la:Bruce Springsteen lv:Brūss Springstīns lt:Bruce Springsteen hu:Bruce Springsteen mk:Брус Спрингстин mr:ब्रुस स्प्रिंग्स्टीन nl:Bruce Springsteen ja:ブルース・スプリングスティーン no:Bruce Springsteen nn:Bruce Springsteen pms:Bruce Springsteen pl:Bruce Springsteen pt:Bruce Springsteen ru:Спрингстин, Брюс simple:Bruce Springsteen sk:Bruce Springsteen sr:Брус Спрингстин fi:Bruce Springsteen sv:Bruce Springsteen te:బ్రూస్ స్ప్రింగ్‌స్టీన్ th:บรูซ สปริงส์ทีน tr:Bruce Springsteen bug:Bruce Springsteen uk:Брюс Спрінґстін vi:Bruce Springsteen zh:布鲁斯·斯普林斯廷