Coordinates	49°17′02″N122°47′31″N
name	Jefferson Davis
office	President of the ConfederateStates of America
term start	February 18, 1861
term end	May 5, 1865
vicepresident	Alexander Stephens
predecessor	Office instituted
successor	Office abolished
order2	23rd United States Secretary of War
term start2	March 7, 1853
term end2	March 3, 1857
president2	Franklin Pierce
predecessor2	Charles Magill Conrad
successor2	John Buchanan Floyd
order3	United States Senatorfrom Mississippi
term start3	August 10, 1847
term end3	September 23, 1851
predecessor3	Jesse Speight
successor3	John J. McRae
term start4	March 4, 1857
term end4	January 21, 1861
predecessor4	Stephen Adams
successor4	Adelbert Ames (1870)
order5	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's At-large district
term start5	December 8, 1845
term end5	June 1, 1846
predecessor5	Tilghman M. Tucker
successor5	Henry T. Ellett
birth date	June 03, 1808
birth place	Christian County, Kentucky
death date	December 06, 1889
death place	New Orleans, Louisiana
nationality	American
citizenship	Confederate
party	Democratic
spouse	Sarah Knox TaylorVarina Howell
religion	Episcopal
alma mater	Jefferson CollegeTransylvania UniversityUnited States Military Academy
profession	Soldier, Politician
signature	Jefferson Davis Signature.svg
signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
allegiance
branch	United States ArmyMississippi Rifles
serviceyears	1828–1835, 1846–1847
rank	Colonel
battles	Mexican–American War }}

Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889), also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane (Cook) Davis. After attending Transylvania University, Davis graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican–American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment. He served as the United States Secretary of War under Democratic President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce administration, he served as a Democratic U.S. Senator representing the State of Mississippi. As a senator, he argued against secession, but did agree that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.

On February 9, 1861, after he resigned from the United States Senate, Davis was selected to be the provisional President of the Confederate States of America; he was elected without opposition to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis took charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to stop the larger, more powerful and better organized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and he paid little attention to the collapsing Confederate economy, printing more and more paper money to cover the war's expenses. Historians have criticized Davis for being a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln, which they attribute to Davis being overbearing, controlling, and overly meddlesome, as well as being out of touch with public opinion, and lacking support from a political party (since the Confederacy had no political parties). His preoccupation with detail, reluctance to delegate responsibility, lack of popular appeal, feuds with powerful state governors, inability to get along with people who disagreed with him, neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones—all these shortcomings worked against him.

After Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason. Although he was not tried, he was stripped of his eligibility to run for public office; Congress posthumously lifted this restriction in 1978. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by the leading Confederate general Robert E. Lee. However, many Southerners empathized with his defiance, refusal to accept defeat, and resistance to Reconstruction. Over time, admiration for his pride and ideals made him a Civil War hero to many Southerners, and his legacy became part of the foundation of the postwar New South. In spite of his former status as the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis began to encourage reconciliation by the late 1880s, telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union.

Early life and first military career

Davis' grandfather, Evan Davies, was born in Philadelphia in 1702; his father or grandfather had emigrated to North America from Wales. Evan married Lydia Emory Williams, also from Philadelphia. Samuel Emory Davis was born to them in 1756. Lydia had two sons from a previous marriage; along with his two half-brothers, Samuel served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He later married Jane Cook, who was born in Christian County, Kentucky in 1759 to William Cook and his wife Sarah Simpson. Samuel and Jane were married in 1783 and had 10 children. Jefferson was the last and was born on June 3, 1808. Samuel died on July 4, 1824, and Jane on October 3, 1845.

During Davis' youth, his family moved twice: in 1811 to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana and in 1812 to Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Three of Jefferson’s older brothers served during the War of 1812. In 1813 Davis began his education at the Wilkinson Academy, near the family plantation in the small town of Woodville. Two years later, Davis entered the Catholic school of Saint Thomas at St. Rose Priory, a school operated by the Dominican Order in Washington County, Kentucky. At the time, he was the only Protestant student at the school. Davis went on to Jefferson College at Washington, Mississippi in 1818, and then to Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky in 1821.

In 1824 Davis entered the United States Military Academy (West Point). While at West Point, Davis was placed under house arrest for his role in the Eggnog Riot in Christmas 1826, but graduated 23rd in a class of 33 in June 1828. Following graduation, Second Lieutenant Davis was assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment and was stationed at Fort Crawford, Wisconsin. Lt. Davis was home in Mississippi for the entire Black Hawk War of 1832, but was assigned by his colonel, Zachary Taylor, to escort Black Hawk himself to prison. It is said that the chief liked Davis because of the kind treatment he had shown.

Marriage, plantation life, and early political career

Davis served under Zachary Taylor starting in 1832. That same year, Taylor's family, including his daughter Sarah Knox Taylor, joined him at Fort Crawford, and Jefferson and Sarah became friends and fell in love. At first her father had nothing against Davis personally, but he did not want Sarah to be an army wife, having had first-hand experience with the combination of family and military life. Later, Taylor developed a dislike for Davis, but the couple continued to see each other and intended to marry. When Davis left Fort Crawford in 1833, he did not see Sarah for over two years. During this time he decided to leave the army and become a cotton planter with his brother Joseph; this may have been partly due to Zachary Taylor's concerns. Sarah and Jefferson were married on June 17, 1835, at the house of her aunt near Louisville, Kentucky. The newly weds settled at the groom's brother Joseph Davis' plantation at Davis Bend in Warren County, Mississippi, but the marriage proved to be short. While visiting Davis' oldest sister near Saint Francisville, Louisiana, both newlyweds contracted malaria, and Sarah died three months after the wedding on September 15, 1835.

Joseph gave his brother 900 acres of land adjoining his property where Davis built Brierfield Plantation. At the time Davis had only one slave, James Pemberton. Clearing the land and growing cotton required slave labor and by early 1836 Davis had purchased 16 slaves. The number increased to 40 by 1840 and 74 by 1845. Pemberton served as Davis' overseer, an unusual position for a slave in Mississippi.

For the next eight years, Davis was reclusive, studying government and history and engaging in private political discussions with his brother Joseph. In 1840 he attended a Democratic meeting in Vicksburg and, to his surprise, was chosen as a delegate to the party's state convention in Jackson. In 1842 he once again attended the Democratic convention, and in 1843 became a candidate for the state House of Representatives but lost his first election. The following year, 1844, Davis was sent to the party convention for a third time and his interest in politics deepened. He was selected as one of six presidential electors for the 1844 presidential election and campaigned effectively throughout Mississippi for the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk

That same year, Davis met Varina Howell, the granddaughter of the late New Jersey Governor Richard Howell. Within a month of their meeting, Davis had asked her to marry him. They married on February 26, 1845. His political activity continued. On July 8, 1845 he received the party's nomination for one of the at-large seats in United States House of Representatives and in November he was elected. He was sworn into office on December 8, 1845.

Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis had six children; three died before reaching adulthood. Their first son, Samuel Emory, was born July 30, 1852, and was named after his grandfather; he died June 30, 1854, of an undiagnosed disease at less than two years old. Margaret Howell was born the following year on February 25, 1855. She married Joel Addison Hayes Junior (1848–1919) and moved to Colorado Springs. They had five children; Margaret was the only child of Jefferson and Varina to marry and raise a family. She died on July 18, 1909 at the age of 54.

Their third child, Jefferson Davis Junior, was born on January 16, 1857. He died of yellow fever at age 21 on October 16, 1878, during an epidemic that swept the Mississippi river valley and claimed the lives of 20,000 people. Joseph Evan was born on April 18, 1859, and died at five years old as the result of an accidental fall on April 30, 1864. William Howell was born on December 6, 1861, and died of diphtheria on October 16, 1872, before reaching the age of 11. Varina Anne "Winnie" Davis was born on June 27, 1864, several months after Joseph's death. She died on September 18, 1898, at age 34.

Second military career

In 1846 the Mexican-American War began. Davis resigned his house seat in June and raised a volunteer regiment, the Mississippi Rifles, becoming its colonel. On July 21, 1846, they sailed from New Orleans for the Texas coast. Davis armed the regiment with the M1841 Mississippi Rifle and trained the regiment in its use, making it particularly effective in combat. In September 1846 Davis participated in the successful siege of Monterrey.

On February 22, 1847, Davis fought bravely at the Battle of Buena Vista and was shot in the foot, being carried to safety by Robert H. Chilton. In recognition of Davis' bravery and initiative, commanding general Zachary Taylor is reputed to have said, "My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was." On May 17, 1847, President James K. Polk offered Davis a Federal commission as a brigadier general and command of a brigade of militia. Davis declined the appointment arguing that the United States Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, and not to the Federal government of the United States.

Return to politics

Senator

Because of his war service, Governor Brown of Mississippi appointed Davis to fill out the senate term of the late Jesse Speight. He took his seat on December 5, 1847, and was elected to serve the remainder of his term in January 1848. The Smithsonian Institution appointed him a regent at the end of December 1847.

In 1848 Senator Davis introduced the first of several proposed amendments to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; this one would annex most of northeastern Mexico and failed with a vote of 44 to 11. Regarding Cuba, Davis declared that it "must be ours" to "increase the number of slaveholding constituencies." He also was concerned about the security implications of a Spanish holding lying a few miles off the coast of Florida.

A group of Cuban revolutionaries led by Narciso López intended to forcibly liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. In 1849, López visited Davis and asked him to lead his filibuster expedition to Cuba. He offered an immediate payment of $100,000, plus the same amount when Cuba was liberated. Davis turned down the offer, stating that it was inconsistent with his duty as a senator. When asked to recommend someone else, Davis suggested Robert E. Lee, then an army major in Baltimore; López approached Lee, who also declined on the grounds of his duty.

The senate made Davis chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. When his term expired he was elected to the same seat (by the Mississippi legislature, as the constitution mandated at the time). He had not served a year when he resigned (in September 1851) to run for the governorship of Mississippi on the issue of the Compromise of 1850, which Davis opposed. He was defeated by fellow Senator Henry Stuart Foote by 999 votes. Left without political office, Davis continued his political activity. He took part in a convention on states' rights, held at Jackson, Mississippi, in January 1852. In the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1852, he campaigned in numerous Southern states for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R. King.

Secretary of War

Franklin Pierce won the presidential election, and in 1853 he made Davis his Secretary of War. In this capacity, Davis gave Congress four annual reports (in December of each year), as well as an elaborate one (submitted on February 22, 1855) on various routes for the proposed Transcontinental Railroad. He promoted the Gadsden Purchase of today's southern Arizona from Mexico. He also increased the size of the regular army from 11,000 to 15,000 and introduced general usage of the improved guns which he had used successfully during the Mexican–American War.

The Pierce administration ended in 1857 with the loss of the Democratic nomination to James Buchanan. Davis' term was to end with Pierce's, so he ran successfully for the Senate, and re-entered it on March 4, 1857.

Return to Senate

His renewed service in the senate was interrupted by an illness that threatened him with the loss of his left eye. Still nominally serving in the senate, Davis spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine. On the Fourth of July, he delivered an anti-secessionist speech on board a ship near Boston. He again urged the preservation of the Union on October 11 in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and returned to the senate soon after.

As Davis explained in his memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, he believed that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. He counseled delay among his fellow Southerners, because he did not think that the North would permit the peaceable exercise of the right to secession. Having served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, he also knew that the South lacked the military and naval resources necessary to defend itself if war were to break out. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, however, events accelerated. South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860, and Mississippi did so on January 9, 1861. Davis had expected this but waited until he received official notification; then on January 21, the day Davis called "the saddest day of my life", he delivered a farewell address to the United States Senate, resigned and returned to Mississippi.

President of the Confederate States of America

Anticipating a call for his services since Mississippi had seceded, Davis had sent a telegraph message to Governor Pettus saying, "Judge what Mississippi requires of me and place me accordingly." On January 23, 1861, Pettus made Davis a major general of the Army of Mississippi. On February 9, a constitutional convention at Montgomery, Alabama, considered Davis, Howell Cobb, Alexander Stephens, and Robert Toombs for the office of provisional president. Davis was unanimously elected and was inaugurated on February 18, 1861. He was chosen partly because he was a well-known and experienced moderate who had served in a president's cabinet. In meetings of his own Mississippi legislature, Davis had argued against secession; but when a majority of the delegates opposed him, he gave in. Davis wanted to serve as a general in the Confederate States Army and not as the president, but accepted the role for which he had been chosen.

Several forts in Confederate territory remained in Union hands. In February 1861, Davis sent a commission to Washington, D.C., with an offer to pay for any Federal property on Southern soil, as well as the Southern portion of the national debt. The Congress of the Confederate States passed a resolution supporting this. President Buchanan might have received the delegation; but by this time Lincoln had taken office, and he did not wish to meet. Informal discussions did take place with Secretary of State William Seward through Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, a Southerner; Seward indicated that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, but this did not occur.

On March 1, Davis appointed General P. G. T. Beauregard to command all Confederate troops in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina, where state officials chafed to take possession of Fort Sumter; Beauregard was to prepare his forces but avoid an attack on the fort. When Lincoln moved to resupply the fort, Davis and his cabinet directed Beauregard to demand its surrender or else take possession by force. Major Anderson did not surrender, Beauregard bombarded the fort, and the Civil War began.

When Virginia joined the Confederacy, Davis moved his government to Richmond in May 1861. He and his family took up his residence there at the White House of the Confederacy later that month. Having served since February as the provisional president, Davis was elected to a full six-year term on November 6, 1861 and was inaugurated on February 22, 1862.

In June 1862, in his most successful move, Davis assigned General Robert E. Lee to replace the wounded Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate army in the Eastern Theater. That December he made a tour of Confederate armies in the west of the country. Davis largely made the main strategic decisions on his own, or approved those suggested by Lee. He had a very small circle of military advisers. Davis evaluated the Confederacy's national resources and weaknesses and decided that in order to win its independence the Confederacy was going to have to fight mostly on the strategic defensive. Davis maintained mostly a defensive outlook throughout the war, paying special attention to the defense of his national capital at Richmond. He attempted strategic offensives when he felt that military success would shake Northern self-confidence and strengthen the peace movements there. The campaigns met defeat at Antietam (1862) and Gettysburg (1863).

Administration and Cabinet

Since the Confederacy was founded on states’ rights, one important factor in Davis’ choice of cabinet members was representation from the various states. He depended partly upon recommendations from congressmen and other prominent people, and this helped maintain good relations between the executive and legislative branches. As more states joined the Confederacy, though, this also led to complaints when there were more states than cabinet positions.

When Davis became the provisional president in 1861, he formed his first cabinet. Robert Toombs of Georgia was the first Secretary of State, and Christopher Memminger of South Carolina became Secretary of the Treasury. LeRoy Pope Walker of Alabama was made Secretary of War after being recommended for this post by Clement Clay and William Yancey (both of whom declined to accept cabinet positions themselves). John Reagan of Texas became Postmaster General, and Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana became Attorney General. Although Stephen Mallory was not put forward by the delegation from his state of Florida, Davis insisted that he was the best man for the job of Secretary of the Navy, and he was eventually confirmed.

Once the war began, there were frequent changes to the cabinet. Robert Hunter of Virginia replaced Toombs as Secretary of State on July 25, 1861. On September 17 Walker resigned as Secretary of War; Benjamin left the Attorney General position to take his place, and Thomas Bragg of North Carolina (brother of General Braxton Bragg) took Benjamin’s place.

Following the November 1861 election, Davis did not announce the permanent government’s cabinet until March 1862. Benjamin moved again, to Secretary of State; George W. Randolph of Virginia had been made the Secretary of War. Mallory continued as Secretary of the Navy and Reagan as Postmaster General; both men kept their positions throughout the war. Memminger was still Secretary of the Treasury, while Thomas Hill Watts of Alabama was made Attorney General.

In 1862, Randolph resigned from the War Department, and James Seddon of Virginia was appointed to replace him. In late 1863, Watts resigned as Attorney General to take office as the Governor of Alabama, and George Davis of North Carolina took his place. In 1864, Memminger withdrew from the treasury post due to opposition from the congress and was replaced by George Trenholm of South Carolina. In 1865, congressional opposition likewise caused Seddon to withdraw, and he was replaced by John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.

Strategic failures

Most historians sharply criticize Davis for his flawed military strategy, his selection of friends for military commands, and his neglect of the homefront crises. Until late in the war he resisted efforts to appoint a general-in-chief, essentially handling those duties himself. On January 31, 1865, Lee assumed this role, but it was far too late. Davis insisted on a strategy of trying to defend all Southern territory with ostensibly equal effort, which diluted the limited resources of the South and made it vulnerable to coordinated strategic thrusts by the Union into the vital Western Theater, such as the capture of New Orleans in early 1862. He made other controversial strategic choices, such as allowing Lee to invade the North in 1862 and 1863 while the Western armies were under very heavy pressure. Not only did Lee lose at Gettysburg but simultaneously Vicksburg fell and the Union took control of the Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy. At Vicksburg, the failure to coordinate multiple forces on both sides of the Mississippi River rested primarily on the inability of Davis to create a harmonious departmental arrangement or to force such commanders as generals Edmund Kirby Smith, Earl Van Dorn, and Theophilus H. Holmes to work together.

Davis has been faulted for poor coordination and management of his generals. This includes his reluctance to relieve his personal friend, Braxton Bragg, defeated in important battles and distrusted by his subordinates. He did relieve the cautious but capable Joseph E. Johnston and replaced him with the reckless John Bell Hood, resulting in the loss of Atlanta and the eventual loss of an army.

Davis gave speeches to soldiers and politicians but largely ignored the common people and thereby failed to harness Confederate nationalism by directing the energies of the people into winning the war. More and more, the plain folk resented the favoritism shown the rich and powerful. Davis did not use his presidential pulpit to rally the people with stirring rhetoric—he called instead for people to be fatalistic and to die for their new country. Apart from two month-long trips across the country where he met a few hundred people, Davis stayed in Richmond where few people saw him; newspapers had limited circulation and most Confederates had little favorable information about him. In April 1863, food shortages led to rioting in Richmond, as poor people robbed and looted numerous stores for food until Davis cracked down and restored order. Davis feuded bitterly with his vice president. Perhaps even more serious, he clashed with powerful state governors who used states' rights arguments to withhold their militia units from national service and otherwise blocked mobilization plans.

Final days of the Confederacy

On April 3, 1865, with Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant poised to capture Richmond, Davis escaped for Danville, Virginia, together with the Confederate Cabinet, leaving on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Lincoln sat in his Richmond office 40 hours after Davis' departure. On about April 12, he received Robert E. Lee's letter announcing surrender. Davis issued his last official proclamation as president of the Confederacy, and then went south to Greensboro, North Carolina.

After Lee's surrender, there was a public meeting in Shreveport, Louisiana, at which many speakers supported continuation of the war. Plans were developed for the Davis government to flee to Havana, Cuba. There, the leaders would regroup and head to the Confederate-controlled Trans-Mississippi area by way of the Rio Grande. None of these plans was put into practice.

President Jefferson Davis met with his Confederate Cabinet for the last time on May 5, 1865, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate government was officially dissolved. The meeting took place at the Heard house, the Georgia Branch Bank Building, with 14 officials present. Along with a hand-picked escort led by Given Campbell, Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, at Irwinville in Irwin County, Georgia. In the confusion, Davis put his wife's overcoat over his shoulders and attempted to flee the Union soldiers, leading to caricatures of him being captured while disguised as a woman. Meanwhile, Davis' belongings continued on the train bound for Cedar Key, Florida. They were first hidden at Senator David Levy Yulee's plantation in Florida, then placed in the care of a railroad agent in Waldo. On June 15, 1865, Union soldiers seized Davis' personal baggage, together with some of the Confederate government's records, from the agent. A historical marker now stands at this site.

Imprisonment and later years

On May 19, 1865, Davis was imprisoned in a casemate at Fortress Monroe, on the coast of Virginia. He was placed in irons for three days. Davis was indicted for treason a year later. While in prison, Davis arranged to sell his Mississippi estate to one of his former slaves, Ben Montgomery. While he was in prison, Pope Pius IX sent Davis a portrait of himself on which were written the Latin words "Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis, et ego reficiam vos, dicit Dominus", which comes from Matthew 11:28 and translates as, "Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy burdened and I will give you rest, sayeth the Lord." A hand-woven crown of thorns associated with the portrait is often said to have been made by the Pope himself, but in fact it may have woven by Varina Davis.

After two years of imprisonment, he was released on bail of $100,000 which was posted by prominent citizens of both Northern and Southern states, including Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith (a former member of the Secret Six who had supported John Brown). Davis visited Canada, Cuba and Europe. In December 1868 the court rejected a motion to nullify the indictment, but the prosecution dropped the case in February 1869. That same year, Davis became president of the Carolina Life Insurance Company in Memphis, Tennessee. He turned down the opportunity to become the first president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M; University).

During Reconstruction, Davis remained silent; however, he privately expressed opinions that federal military rule and Republican authority over former Confederate states was unjustified. He considered "Yankee and Negroe" rule in the south oppressive. Davis held contemporary beliefs that African Americans were inferior to the white race. Historian William J. Cooper stated that Davis believed in southern social order that included "a democratic white polity based firmly on dominance of a controlled and excluded black caste." In 1876, Davis promoted a society for the stimulation of U.S. trade with South America. He visited England the next year, returning in 1878 to Beauvoir. Over the next three years there, Davis wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.

Davis' reputation in the South was restored by the book and by his warm reception on his tour of the region in 1886 and 1887. In numerous stops he attended "Lost Cause" ceremonies, where large crowds showered him with affection and local leaders presented emotional speeches honoring his sacrifices to the would-be nation. The Meriden Daily Journal stated that Davis, at a reception held in New Orleans in May, 1887, urged southerners to be loyal to the nation. He said, "United you are now, and if the Union is ever to be broken, let the other side break it." Davis stated that men in the Confederacy had successfully fought for their own rights with inferior numbers during the Civil War and that the northern historians ignored this view. Davis, however, firmly believed that Confederate secession was constitutional. The former Confederate president was optimistic concerning American prosperity and the next generation.

Davis completed A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October 1889. On November 6 he left Beauvoir to visit the plantation at Brierfield. On the steamboat trip upriver, he became ill; on the 13th he left Brierfield to return to New Orleans. Varina, who had taken another boat in order to reach Brierfield, met him on the river, and he finally received some medical care. They arrived in New Orleans on the 16th, and he was taken to the home of Charles Erasmus Fenner, an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. Though he remained in bed, he was stable for the next two weeks, but took a turn for the worse in early December. Just when he appeared to be improving, he lost consciousness on the evening of the 5th; he died at age 81 at 12:45 AM on Friday, December 6, 1889, in the presence of several friends and with his hand in Varina's.

His funeral was one of the largest in the South, and included a continuous cortège, day and night, from New Orleans to Richmond. Davis was first entombed at the Army of Northern Virginia tomb at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. In 1893, Mrs. Davis decided to transport his remains for burial at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. After the remains were exhumed in New Orleans, they lay for a day at Memorial Hall of the newly organized Louisiana Historical Association, with many mourners passing by the casket, including Governor Murphy J. Foster, Sr. The body was then placed on a Louisville and Nashville Railroad car and transported to Richmond.

Legacy

Many memorials to Jefferson Davis have been made throughout the United States. One notable example is the concrete obelisk located at the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site in Fairview, Kentucky, which marks the site of his birth (which was part of Christian County at that time). Construction on the monument began in 1917 and was finished in 1924. Another example is the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library at Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was dedicated in 1998, suffered heavy damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and reopened in 2008.

Based at Rice University in Houston, Texas, The Papers of Jefferson Davis is an editing project that has been gathering and publishing documents related to Jefferson Davis since the early 1960s and has published 12 volumes, the first in 1971 and the most recent in 2008; 3 more volumes are planned. The project has roughly 100,000 documents in its archives.

The birthday of Jefferson Davis is commemorated in several states. His actual birthday, June 3, is celebrated in Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee; in Alabama, it is celebrated on the first Monday in June. In Mississippi, the last Monday of May (Memorial Day) is celebrated as "National Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis' Birthday". In Texas, "Confederate Heroes Day" is celebrated on January 19, the birthday of Robert E. Lee; Jefferson Davis’ birthday had been officially celebrated on June 3 but was combined with Lee's birthday in 1973.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Secondary sources

Allen, Felicity (1999). Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart. Columbia: The University of Missouri Press.

Ballard, Michael B. (1986). Long Shadow: Jefferson Davis and the Final Days of the Confederacy. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Collins, Donald E. (2005). The Death and Resurrection of Jefferson Davis. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Cooper, William J. (2000). Jefferson Davis, American. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Cooper, William J. (2008). Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Current, Richard, et al. (1993). Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Davis, William C. (1991). Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. New York: HarperCollins.

Dodd, William E. (1907). Jefferson Davis. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs and Company.

Eaton, Clement (1977). Jefferson Davis. New York: The Free Press.

Escott, Paul (1978). After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Hattaway, Herman and Beringer, Richard E. (2002). Jefferson Davis, Confederate President. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Neely Jr., Mark E. (1993). Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.

Patrick, Rembert W. (1944). Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Rable, George C. (1994). The Confederate Republic: A Revolution against Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Stoker, Donald, "There Was No Offensive-Defensive Confederate Strategy," Journal of Military History, 73 (April 2009), 571–90.

Strode, Hudson (1955). Jefferson Davis, Volume I: American Patriot. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company.

Strode, Hudson (1959). Jefferson Davis, Volume II: Confederate President. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company.

Strode, Hudson (1964). Jefferson Davis, Volume III: Tragic Hero. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company.

Swanson, James L. (2010). Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse. New York: HarperCollins.

Thomas, Emory M. (1979). The Confederate Nation, 1861–1865. New York: Harper & Row.

Primary sources

External links

Jefferson Davis in Encyclopedia Virginia

Jefferson Davis's final resting place

{{U.S. Senator box|state=Mississippi|class=1|before=Jesse Speight|after=John J. McRae|alongside=Henry S. Foote|years=August 10, 1847 – September 23, 1851 }} {{U.S. Secretary box | before= Charles Magill Conrad | after= John Buchanan Floyd | years= March 7, 1853 – March 4, 1857 | president= Franklin Pierce | department= Secretary of War}}

Category:1808 births Category:1889 deaths Category:People from Christian County, Kentucky Category:19th-century American Episcopalians Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:Confederate States political leaders Category:Confederate States Army generals Category:American pro-slavery activists Category:Historians of the American Civil War Category:People of Mississippi in the American Civil War Category:People of the Black Hawk War Category:American military personnel of the Mexican–American War Category:Transylvania University alumni Category:United States Army officers Category:United States Military Academy alumni Category:United States Secretaries of War Category:United States Senators from Mississippi Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Mississippi Category:Mississippi Democrats Category:Burials at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond Category:Zachary Taylor family Category:Heads of state of the United States Category:Burials at Metairie Cemetery Category:Democratic Party United States Senators Category:Heads of state of unrecognized or largely unrecognized states Category:Recipients of American presidential pardons

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Coordinates	49°17′02″N122°47′31″N
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

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Coordinates	49°17′02″N122°47′31″N
Name	Jeff Hardy
Names	GalaxionGladiatorThe IcemanJeff HardyMean Jimmy JackWillow the WhispWolverine
Height
Weight
Birth date	August 31, 1977
Birth place	Cameron, North Carolina
Resides	Raleigh, North Carolina
Billed	Cameron, North Carolina
Trainer	Dory Funk, Jr.Michael Hayes
Debut	October 15, 1993
Retired	}}

Jeffrey Nero "Jeff" Hardy (born August 31, 1977) is an American professional wrestler, who is currently signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he is a former two–time TNA World Heavyweight Champion. He is best known for his stint with the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWE), where he was a two–time World Heavyweight Champion and a one–time WWE Champion.

Before gaining prominence in WWE, Hardy performed for the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts (OMEGA), a promotion he ran with his brother Matt. After being signed by WWE, the brothers worked as jobbers, before gaining notoriety in the tag team division, partly due to their participation in Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches. With the addition of Lita, the team became known as Team Xtreme and continued to rise in popularity. As a tag team wrestler, Hardy is a six-time World Tag Team Champion and a one-time WCW Tag Team Champion.

Hardy has also experienced success as a singles wrestler and is a five-time world champion, having held the WWE Championship once, the World Heavyweight Championship twice and the TNA World Heavyweight Championship twice, a four-time Intercontinental Champion, and has held the Light Heavyweight, and European Championships once each. He is also a former Hardcore Champion, having held the championship on three occasions. He received his first major main event push towards the end of 2007, including challenging for the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble in 2008, and eventually won the WWE Championship at the Armageddon pay-per-view in December 2008. Hardy went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship twice, before he left WWE in mid-2009. He returned to TNA in January 2010, and in October of that year, he won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time. Moreover, Hardy is involved in motocross, music, painting, and other artistic endeavors. He is currently a member of the band Peroxwhy?gen.

Early life

Hardy is the son of Gilbert and Ruby Moore Hardy, and the younger brother of Matt. Their mother died of brain cancer in 1986, when Hardy was nine. He developed an interest in motocross aged 12 and got his first bike, a Yamaha YZ-80, at age 13. He had his first race when he was in ninth grade. Hardy played baseball as a child, but had to stop after he crashed during a motocross race, injuring his arm. He also played football during high school as a fullback and linebacker. He briefly competed in amateur wrestling in high school. He had to stop playing sports in high school, after he was ordered to pick between professional wrestling and playing sports, and he chose wrestling. Hardy's favorite subjects in school were U.S. history and art, which he did for extra credit.

Professional wrestling career

Early career

Hardy cites Sting, The Ultimate Warrior, and Shawn Michaels as his childhood inspirations to wrestle. Hardy had been on World Wrestling Federation (WWF) television as a jobber—a wrestler who consistently loses to make his opponents look stronger—as early as age sixteen. His first WWF match was against Razor Ramon on May 24, 1994. The next day he wrestled against The 1-2-3 Kid, and the match aired on the June 25 episode of Superstars. He occasionally wrestled as a jobber as late as 1997 before beginning his first major run in 1998. Hardy, along with his brother Matt and friends, started their own federation, the Trampoline Wrestling Federation (TWF) and mimicked the moves they saw on television. Later on, the TWF went under several different names, eventually being integrated into a county fair in North Carolina. The brothers and their friends then began to work for other independent companies. They drove all over the East Coast of the United States, working for companies such as ACW and other small promotions.

Before arriving in the WWF, Matt formed his own wrestling promotion, the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts (OMEGA) with Thomas Simpson. The promotion was a more successful version of the original TWF and included talent such as both Hardy brothers, Shannon Moore, Gregory Helms, Joey Matthews, and Steve Corino, among others. In OMEGA, each of the brothers portrayed several different characters; Hardy portrayed such characters as Willow the Wisp, Iceman, Mean Jimmy Jack Tomkins, and The Masked Mountain. While there, Hardy held the New Frontier Championship as a singles competitor and the Tag Team Championship with Matt. The promotion folded in April 1998 when they signed contracts with the WWF.

World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment

The Hardy Boyz (1998–2002)

The Hardy brothers eventually caught the eyes of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). After being signed to a contract in 1998, they were trained by Dory Funk, Jr. in his Funkin' Dojo with other notable wrestlers such as Kurt Angle, Christian, Test, and A-Train. When the team was finally brought up to WWF television, after months of 'jobbing' and live events, they formed the acrobatic tag team called the Hardy Boyz. While feuding with The Brood in mid-1999, they added Michael Hayes as their manager. On July 5, they won their first WWF Tag Team Championship by defeating the Acolytes, but lost it back to them a month later. After the dissolution of the Brood, the Hardys joined forces with Gangrel as The New Brood and feuded with Edge and Christian. This stable did not last long, however, and on October 17, 1999 at No Mercy, the Hardy Boyz won the managerial services of Terri Runnels in the finals of the Terri Invitational Tournament in the WWF's first ever tag team ladder match against Edge and Christian.

In 2000, the Hardy Boyz found a new manager in their real-life friend Lita. Together, the three became known as "Team Xtreme". They continued their feud with Edge and Christian throughout 2000, defeating them for the WWF Tag Team Championship on two occasions. At SummerSlam the Hardy Boyz competed in the first ever Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match (TLC match), for the Tag Team Championship against the Dudley Boyz and Edge and Christian, but were unsuccessful.

Hardy gained attention for his high risk stunts in the TLC matches in the year 2000, 2001, and 2002. He made a name for himself as one of the most seemingly reckless and unorthodox WWF performers of his time. In 2001, Hardy received a push as a singles competitor, and he held the WWF Intercontinental (defeating Triple H), Light Heavyweight (defeating Jerry Lynn) and Hardcore Championships (defeating Mike Awesome and Van Dam on two separate occasions). At the end of 2001, the Hardys began a storyline in which they began to fight, which led to Matt demanding a match at Vengeance, with Lita as the special guest referee. After Hardy beat Matt at Vengeance, while Matt's foot was on the ropes, Hardy and Lita began feuding against Matt. In the middle of the feud, however, Hardy faced The Undertaker in a Hardcore Championship match and lost. After the match, the Undertaker was scripted to attack both Hardy and Lita, injuring them. On the next episode of SmackDown!, the Undertaker also attacked Matt, also injuring him, in storyline. The Hardys and Lita were not seen again until the Royal Rumble, because WWE did not have another storyline for their characters. The Hardys later came back as a team, and there was never any mention of their previous storyline split. At Backlash, Hardy faced-off against Lesnar in his first televised match. Lesnar dominated Hardy and won the match by knockout. Lesnar and the Hardys continued to feud over the next few weeks, with the Hardys coming out victorious only once by disqualification. At Judgment Day, Lesnar gained the upper hand on the Hardy Boyz before tagging his partner, Paul Heyman, in to claim the win for the team. In July 2002, Hardy won his third Hardcore Championship by defeating Bradshaw.

Singles competition (2002–2003)

After years in the tag team division, Hardy took on The Undertaker in a ladder match for the Undisputed Championship. Hardy came up short, but earned the Undertaker's respect. Hardy competed for singles titles on several occasions and defeated William Regal for the WWE European Championship. Hardy was defeated a few weeks later by Rob Van Dam in a match to unify the European Championship and the Intercontinental Championship, and the European Championship was dropped. Finally, the Hardy Boyz split apart, as Hardy continued to pursue his singles ambitions on Raw and his brother, Matt was drafted to the SmackDown! brand.

In January 2003, he briefly turned into a heel (villain) after he attacked Van Dam and Shawn Michaels. It ended a month later when he saved Stacy Keibler from an attack by then-villain, Christian. In February, he had a brief program with Michaels, which saw the two team up. Then, in storyline, Hardy began dating Trish Stratus after saving her from Steven Richards and Victoria in March. Hardy and Stratus had a brief on-screen relationship that saw the duo talking backstage, kissing, and teaming together in matches. Hardy, however, was released from WWE on April 22, 2003. The reasons given for the release were Hardy's erratic behavior, drug use, refusal to go to rehab, deteriorating ring performance, as well as constant tardiness and no-showing events. Hardy also cites "burn out" and the need for time off as reasons for leaving WWE.

Time off and independent circuit (2003)

Hardy made his first wrestling appearance after being released from WWE at an OMEGA show, on May 24. Using his old gimmick, "Willow the Wisp", Hardy challenged Krazy K for the OMEGA Cruiserweight Championship, but lost the match. Hardy performed with the Ring of Honor (ROH) promotion on one occasion. Hardy appeared at ROH's 2003 show, Death Before Dishonor, under his "Willow the Wisp" gimmick, wearing a mask and trench coat. Hardy was quickly unmasked and lost his jacket, wearing attire similar to that he wore in WWE. Hardy was booed and heckled before, during, and after the match by the ROH audience, who chanted "We want Matt!" and "You were fired!" during his match with Joey Matthews and Krazy K, which Hardy won. Hardy then took a whole year off of wrestling to concentrate on motocross and finish his motocross track.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2004–2006)

Hardy debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) on June 23, 2004, at the Second Anniversary Show, in a match against TNA X Division Champion A.J. Styles, for the title. He also debuted his new entrance theme "Modest", a song performed by Hardy himself, and a new nickname, "The Charismatic Enigma". The match ended in a no contest when Kid Kash and Dallas interfered. Hardy returned to TNA on July 21 and was awarded a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Hardy challenged for the title on September 8, losing to NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett. In October 2004, he won a tournament, earning a shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on November 7 at Victory Road, TNA's first monthly pay-per-view. Hardy was defeated by Jarrett once again in a ladder match at Victory Road following interference from Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. One month later at Turning Point, Hardy, Styles and Randy Savage defeated Jarrett, Hall and Nash (collectively known as the Kings of Wrestling). Hardy went on to defeat Hall in a singles match, substituting for Héctor Garza at Final Resolution on January 16, 2005.

At Against All Odds in February 2005, Hardy lost to Abyss in a "Full Metal Mayhem" match for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Hardy returned the favor by defeating Abyss in a Falls Count Anywhere match at Destination X in March. Hardy then went on to feud with Raven, with Hardy booked to defeat Raven in a steel cage match at Lockdown in April. Hardy was suspended from TNA after no-showing his "Clockwork Orange House of Fun" rematch with Raven at Hard Justice on May 15, allegedly due to travel difficulties. Hardy's suspension was lifted on August 5, and he returned at Sacrifice approximately a week later, attacking Jeff Jarrett. He wrestled his first TNA match in four months at Unbreakable on September 11, losing to Bobby Roode following interference from Jarrett. Throughout October 2005, Hardy became embroiled in a feud with Abyss, Rhino and Sabu. The four way feud culminated in a Monster's Ball match at Bound for Glory on October 23, which Rhino won after delivering a second rope Rhino Driver to Hardy. In the course of the match, Hardy delivered a Swanton Bomb to Abyss from a height of approximately . Later that night, Hardy competed in a ten-man battle royal for the number one contendership to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, which Rhino also won. At Genesis in November, Hardy lost to Monty Brown in another number one contender match.

Hardy was scheduled to wrestle on the pre-show of Turning Point in December 2005, but once again no-showed the event, again citing traveling problems. Hardy was suspended as a result and did not appear on TNA television again. In March, April, and May 2006, Hardy appeared on several live events promoted by TNA in conjunction with Dave Hebner and the United Wrestling Federation.

Return to World Wrestling Entertainment

Raw (2006)

On August 4, 2006, WWE announced that Hardy had re-signed with the company. In the following weeks, vignettes aired hyping his return on the August 21 episode of Raw. On the day of his return, Hardy received a push and defeated then-WWE Champion Edge by disqualification when Lita pulled Edge out of the ring. After failing to capture the Intercontinental Championship from Johnny Nitro over the next few weeks, including at Unforgiven, Hardy finally defeated Nitro to win his second Intercontinental Championship on the October 2 episode of Raw. On the November 6 episode of Raw, Hardy lost the Intercontinental Championship back to Nitro, after Nitro hit him with the Intercontinental Championship title belt. One week later, Hardy regained it on the November 13 episode of Raw, with a crucifix pin. This marked Hardy's third reign as Intercontinental Champion.

The Hardys reunion (2006–2007)

On the November 21 episode of ECW on Sci Fi Hardy teamed with his brother, Matt, for the first time in almost five years to defeat the Full Blooded Italians. At Survivor Series, they both were a part of Team D-Generation X, which gained the victory over Team Rated-RKO with a clean sweep. The brothers then received their first opportunity since Hardy's return to win a tag team championship at Armageddon. They competed in a four-team ladder match for the WWE Tag Team Championship, but they came up short in their attempt. In the course of the match, however, they inadvertently legitimately injured Joey Mercury's face.

With Hardy still feuding with Johnny Nitro and the other members of MNM into 2007, he was challenged once again by Nitro at New Year's Revolution in a steel cage match for the Intercontinental Championship. Hardy once again defeated Nitro. Hardy then teamed with Matt to defeat MNM at both the Royal Rumble and No Way Out pay-per-views. The next night on Raw, February 19, Hardy was defeated for the Intercontinental Championship by Umaga. In April 2007, Hardy competed in the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 23. During the match, Matt threw Edge onto a ladder and encouraged Hardy, who was close to the winning briefcase, to finish him off. Hardy then leaped off the ladder, drove Edge through the ladder with a leg drop, seemingly injuring both Edge and himself. The two were unable to continue the match and were removed from ringside on stretchers.

The next night on Raw, April 2, the Hardys competed in a 10-team battle royal for the World Tag Team Championship. They won the titles after eliminating Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch. They then began a feud with Cade and Murdoch, with the Hardys retaining the Championship in their first title defense against them at Backlash and again at Judgment Day. The Hardys, however, dropped the titles to Cade and Murdoch on June 4 on Raw. The Hardys earned a rematch at Vengeance: Night of Champions but were defeated.

Main event status (2007–2009)

In the midst of feuding with Umaga, who defeated Hardy at The Great American Bash to retain the Intercontinental Championship in late July, Hardy was abruptly taken off WWE programming. He posted on his own website and in the forums of TheHardyShow.com that it was time off to heal, stemming from a bad fall taken in a match against Mr. Kennedy on the July 23 episode of Raw. He made his return on the August 27 episode of Raw beating Kennedy by disqualification after Umaga interfered. The following week, on September 3, Hardy successfully captured his fourth Intercontinental Championship by defeating Umaga for the title.

This was the start of a push for Hardy, and at Survivor Series, Hardy and Triple H were the last two standing to win the traditional elimination match. Hardy began an on and off tag team with Triple H, which eventually led to a respectful feud between the two. The scripted rivalry continued at Armageddon, when Hardy defeated Triple H to become the number one contender for the WWE Championship. In the weeks leading up to the Royal Rumble, Hardy and Randy Orton engaged in a personal feud, which began when Orton kicked Hardy's brother, Matt, in the head in the storyline. Hardy, in retaliation, performed a Swanton Bomb on Orton from the top of the Raw set and seemed to have all the momentum after coming out on top in their encounters. Hardy, however, lost the title match at the Royal Rumble, but was named as one of six men to compete in an Elimination Chamber match at No Way Out, where he survived to the final two before being eliminated by the eventual winner, Triple H.

During the March 3 episode of Raw, Hardy appeared on Chris Jericho's "Highlight Reel" segment as a special guest, but ended up attacking Jericho. This led to an Intercontinental title match on the following Raw where Hardy dropped the title to Jericho. Off-screen, Hardy dropped the title after he was suspended for sixty days, as of March 11, for his second violation of the company's Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy. Hardy was also removed from the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania XXIV after the suspension was announced. Hardy returned on the May 12 episode of Raw, defeating Umaga. This reignited the rivalry between the two, and they met in a Falls Count Anywhere match at One Night Stand, which Hardy won.

On June 23, 2008, Hardy was drafted from the Raw brand to the SmackDown brand, as a part of the 2008 WWE Draft. Hardy made his SmackDown debut on the July 4 episode, defeating John Morrison. Hardy participated in the WWE Championship Scramble match at Unforgiven and also challenged for the Championship at No Mercy and Cyber Sunday, but failed to win each time. He was originally scheduled to be in the WWE Championship match at Survivor Series, but, in storyline, was found unconscious in his hotel, allowing the returning Edge to replace him in the match and win the title. At Armageddon in December 2008, Hardy defeated the defending champion Edge and Triple H in a triple threat match to capture the WWE Championship, his first world heavyweight championship.

In January 2009, Hardy's next storyline led to his involvement in scripted accidents, including a hit-and-run automobile accident and an accident involving his ring entrance pyrotechnics. At the 2009 Royal Rumble, Hardy lost his WWE Championship to Edge after Hardy's brother, Matt, interfered on Edge's behalf and hit Hardy with a steel chair. The buildup to this feud involved Matt implying that he was responsible for all of Hardy's accidents over the past few months, and at WrestleMania XXV, Hardy was defeated by Matt in an Extreme Rules match. In a rematch at Backlash, however, Hardy defeated Matt in an "I Quit" match.

At Extreme Rules, Hardy defeated Edge to win the World Heavyweight Championship in a ladder match. Immediately after the match, however, CM Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase, which gave him a guaranteed world championship match at any time he wanted, and defeated Hardy to win the championship. Hardy received his rematch at The Bash, and won the match via disqualification, with Punk still retaining the title. At Night of Champions, however, Hardy won the championship for the second time, by defeating Punk. At the SummerSlam pay-per-view in August, Hardy lost the title back to Punk in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match. On the August 28 episode of SmackDown, Punk defeated Hardy in a steel cage rematch for the World Heavyweight Championship, resulting in Hardy being forced to leave WWE, in storyline, per the pre-match stipulation. This storyline was put in place to allow Hardy to leave WWE to heal his injuries, including a neck injury. Hardy also had two herniated discs in his lower back and was suffering from Restless legs syndrome.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling return

Early storylines (2010)

On TNA's first live Monday edition of Impact! on January 4, 2010, Hardy made his return to TNA, along with Shannon Moore. He was attacked by Homicide after emerging from the crowd, but hit Homicide with a steel chair and performed the Twist of Fate on the Impact! Zone ramp. He later appeared in backstage segments throughout the evening. The following day, it was reported that Hardy had signed a new contract with TNA. Hardy would make his next appearance for the company on the March 8 episode of Impact!, saving D'Angelo Dinero, Abyss and Hulk Hogan from A.J. Styles, Ric Flair and Desmond Wolfe. The following week Hardy defeated the TNA World Heavyweight Champion A.J. Styles in a non-title match. On the April 5 episode of Impact! Hardy was introduced as a member of Team Hogan for the annual Lethal Lockdown match, where they would face Team Flair. At Lockdown Team Hogan (Hardy, Abyss, Jeff Jarrett and Rob Van Dam) defeated Team Flair (Sting, Desmond Wolfe, Robert Roode and James Storm). At Sacrifice Hardy defeated Mr. Anderson. After the event, Anderson turned face and eventually managed to convince the skeptical Hardy that he really had changed, after which the two went on to form a tag team. At Slammiversary VIII Hardy and Anderson, now known as Enigmatic Assholes, defeated Beer Money, Inc. (Robert Roode and James Storm) in a tag team match.

Immortal and World Heavyweight Champion (2010–2011)

On the August 19 episode of Impact! the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was vacated and Hardy was entered into an eight man tournament for the championship, defeating Rob Terry in his first round match. At the semifinals at No Surrender Hardy first wrestled Kurt Angle to a twenty minute time-limit draw, after which Eric Bischoff ordered a five minute period of extra time. After that and a second five minute extra time period also ended in draws, it was ruled that Angle was unable to continue and the match ended in a no contest. After wrestling a draw on the September 16 episode of Impact!, it was announced that both Hardy and Angle would advance to the finals at Bound for Glory, where they would compete with Mr. Anderson in a three–way match.

At Bound for Glory, Hardy turned heel with Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff and with their help defeated Angle and Anderson to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time. They were then joined by Jeff Jarrett and Abyss, revealing the group that Abyss had been referring to as "they" for several months. On the following edition of Impact! the stable was named Immortal, as it formed an alliance with Ric Flair's Fortune. Meanwhile, Hardy debuted a new dark character, using cryptic messages as he explained the reasons behind his turn. At Turning Point Hardy retained his title in a defense against Matt Morgan, a replacement for Mr. Anderson, who was sidelined after suffering a concussion during an attack by Hardy. On the following episode of Impact! Hogan presented Hardy with a new design of the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, which he dubbed the TNA Immortal Championship. At Final Resolution in December, Hardy successfully defended the championship in a rematch against Morgan after incapacitating the special guest referee Mr. Anderson and having a replacement referee count the pinfall. On January 4, 2011, Hardy made his debut for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) at Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome, where he successfully defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Tetsuya Naitō.

On January 9 at Genesis, Hardy's brother, Matt, made his TNA debut as a surprise member of Immortal and defeated Rob Van Dam to prevent him from receiving a match at Hardy's championship. That same night Hardy gave Anderson a match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, immediately following Anderson's victory in a number one contender's match. Despite Matt, Flair, and Bischoff interfering in an attempt to help Hardy, Anderson defeated Hardy for the championship. On the January 13 episode of Impact! the Hardy Boyz reunited and defeated Anderson and Van Dam in a tag team match, following interference from Beer Money, Inc.. On the February 3 episode of Impact!, Hardy received his rematch for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. The rest of Immortal interfered in the match, but were stopped by Fortune, which led to Anderson retaining the championship. On February 13 at Against All Odds Hardy defeated Anderson in a ladder match to regain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Hardy held the championship for less than two weeks, defending it once against Rob Van Dam, before losing it to Sting on February 24, at the tapings of the March 3 edition of Impact!. On March 13 at Victory Road, Hardy received a rematch for the title under No Disqualification rules, but was defeated in ninety seconds. TNA had made the decision to cut the match short after deeming that Hardy was in no condition to wrestle. The following day it was reported that TNA had sent Hardy home from the week's Impact! tapings. On the March 17 episode of Impact!, Immortal severed their ties with Hardy.

Return (2011–present)

On August 23, 2011, TNA announced that Hardy would be making his return to the promotion at the Impact Wrestling tapings on August 25 in Huntsville, Alabama. The return would take place only five days after Matt Hardy was released from his TNA contract. In his return, which was taped for the September 8 edition of Impact Wrestling, Hardy spoke to the audience as a face, acknowledging that he had hit rock bottom at Victory Road in March, before asking the fans for "one more shot".

Other media

Hardy appeared on the February 7, 1999 episode of That '70s Show entitled "That Wrestling Show", along with Matt, as an uncredited wrestler. Hardy and Matt also appeared on Tough Enough in early 2001, talking to and wrestling the contestants. He appeared on the February 25, 2002 episode of Fear Factor competing against five other World Wrestling Federation wrestlers. He was eliminated in the first round. In September 2009, Hardy signed a deal with Fox 21 studios to appear in a reality television show.

In 2001, Hardy, Matt and Lita appeared in Rolling Stone magazine's 2001 Sports Hall of Fame issue. In 2003, Hardy and Matt, with the help of Michael Krugman, wrote and published their autobiography The Hardy Boyz: Exist 2 Inspire.

As part of WWE, Hardy has appeared in several of their DVDs, including The Hardy Boyz: Leap of Faith (2001) and The Ladder Match (2007). He is also featured in the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling release Enigma: The Best of Jeff Hardy (2005) and Pro Wrestling's Ultimate Insiders: Hardy Boys – From the Backyard to the Big Time (2005). On April 29, 2008, WWE released "Twist of Fate: The Matt and Jeff Hardy Story". The DVD features footage of the brothers in OMEGA and WWE, and also briefly mentions Hardy's first run with TNA. In December 2009, WWE released a DVD about Hardy entitled Jeff Hardy: My Life, My Rules.

Artistic pursuits

Hardy has an eclectic set of interests outside of wrestling. He calls his artistic side "The Imag-I-Nation". At one stage, Hardy constructed a statue of an "aluminummy" named "Neroameee" out of tin foil outside of his recording studio (a spray painted trailer). On another occasion, he created an artificial volcano in his front yard, which he then jumped over on his motocross dirtbike. On another occasion Hardy created a large sculpture of his brother Matt's hand signal "V1", which was seen on "The Hardy Show", an Internet web show which features both the Hardys, Shannon Moore and many of their friends. Hardy is also an artist and poet.

Hardy taught himself how to play guitar and later bought a drum kit. In 2003, Hardy formed a band, Peroxwhy?gen, with members of the band Burnside 6, and Moore, who later left. He also converted a trailer into a recording studio. The band recorded two songs; One song was "September Day", a song Jeff wrote in reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Rumors arose that Peroxwhy?gen split up in 2004 shortly after recording the second song, "Modest", which Hardy later used as his entrance music in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. On the official Peroxwhy?gen MySpace, however, the rumors were denounced. Currently, Peroxwhy?gen only has two members, Hardy and JR Merrill.

Personal life

He has a tattoo of roots that starts on his head, behind his ear, and finishes at his hand. He also has a few other signature designed tattoos, one of which, a dragon, he hid from his father. It was also the first tattoo he got in 1998. He later got tattoos of the Chinese symbols for "Peace" and "Health", as well as tattoos of fire and a wave. Hardy regards his tattoos as his "artistic impulses". Hardy is very good friends with Shannon Moore, who he has known since around 1987. He is also good friends with Marty Garner and Jason Arhndt. He regards Vanilla Ice as a big influence on him, and he was even nicknamed "Ice" by Scott Hall.

Hardy met his girlfriend Beth Britt in 1999, shortly after the Hardy Boyz had won the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time. Hardy and his brother Matt went to a club in Southern Pines, North Carolina, where Hardy met her. On March 15, 2008, it was reported that Hardy's house had burned to the ground in a fire. Hardy and his girlfriend were not home at the time, but his dog, Jack, was killed in the fire. It is believed that the fire was started by faulty electrical wiring. In October 2008, Hardy was building a new home in the same area, which was expected to be completed by early 2009. In August 2010, Hardy announced that Britt was pregnant with the couple's first child, a daughter, who was born on October 28. Hardy married Britt on March 9, 2011.

On September 17, 2008, Hardy was involved in an incident at the Nashville International Airport's Southwest gate. A Southwest Airline employee reported that Hardy appeared to be intoxicated and therefore, he was not allowed to board the flight. He was not, however, arrested as he was said to be "calm" and "co-operative", and he made other arrangements to get home.

On September 11, 2009 Hardy was arrested on charges of trafficking in controlled prescription pills and possession of anabolic steroids, after a search of his house yielded 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine, and drug paraphernalia. Over a year later, the district attorney announced that Hardy would likely plead guilty to the charges, though the court hearing is still pending.

In wrestling

Finishing moves

*450° splash - WWE; 1999-2001

Reverse of Fate (Inverted facelock neckbreaker slam)

Spine Line (Armlock cloverleaf) – OMEGA; used as a regular move in TNA

Swanton Bomb / The Swanton (High-angle senton bomb)

Twist of Hate (TNA; 2010–2011) / Twist of Fate (180° facelock cutter)

Signature moves

Baseball slide

Diving clothesline from off a barricade

Double leg drop to an opponent's midsection

Hardyac Arrest (Rope-aided corner dropkick)

Mule kick

Plancha

Positioned at the top rope or on another ladder, Hardy performs a diving leg drop after leapfrogging over a ladder

Sitout inverted suplex slam

Sitout jawbreaker

Whisper in the Wind (Turnbuckle climb into a rebounded corkscrew senton to a standing opponent)

Managers

Gangrel

Michael Hayes

Lita

*Trish Stratus

Terri

Nicknames

"The Charismatic Enigma" (TNA / WWE)

"The Legend Thriller" (WWE)

"The Rainbow–Haired Warrior" (WWE)

"The anti-Christ of professional wrestling" (TNA)

Entrance themes

"Loaded" by Zack Tempest (WWF / WWE; 1999–2003, 2006–2008)

"Tourniquet" by Marilyn Manson (ROH; 2003)

"Modest" by Peroxwhy?gen (TNA; 2004–2006, 2010)

"No More Words" by EndeverafteR (WWE; 2008–2009)

"Another Me" by Jeff Hardy and Dale Oliver (TNA; 2010–present)

"Immortal Theme" by Dale Oliver

Championships and accomplishments

National Championship Wrestling

NCW Light Heavyweight Championship (2 times)

New Dimension Wrestling

NDW Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

NDW Tag Team Championship (1 time)¹ – with Matt Hardy

New Frontier Wrestling Association

NFWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

North East Wrestling

NEW Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

NWA 2000

NWA 2000 Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Matt Hardy

Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts

OMEGA New Frontiers Championship (1 time)

OMEGA Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Matt Hardy

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

PWI Comeback of the Year (2007)

PWI Match of the Year (2000) with Matt Hardy vs. The Dudley Boyz and Edge and Christian in a Triangle Ladder match at WrestleMania 2000

PWI Match of the Year (2001) with Matt Hardy vs. The Dudley Boyz and Edge and Christian in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match at WrestleMania X-Seven

PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (2008, 2009)

PWI Tag Team of the Year (2000) with Matt Hardy

PWI ranked him #13 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2009

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

TNA World Heavyweight Championship (2 times)

Universal Wrestling Association

UWA World Middleweight Championship (1 time)

World Wrestling Federation / World Wrestling Entertainment

World Heavyweight Championship (2 times)

WWE Championship (1 time)

WWE European Championship (1 time)

WWF Hardcore Championship (3 times)

WCW Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Matt Hardy

WWF/E Intercontinental Championship (4 times)

WWF Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

WWF/E World Tag Team Championship (6 times) – with Matt Hardy

Terri Invitational Tournament – with Matt Hardy

*Ninth Grand Slam Champion

*Eighteenth Triple Crown Champion

Slammy Award for Extreme Moment of the Year (2008) Swanton Bomb to Randy Orton from the top of the Raw set (Raw, January 14)

*Slammy Award for Extreme Moment of the Year (2009) Jumping from ladder onto CM Punk at SummerSlam

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

Best Flying Wrestler (2000)

*Feud of the Year (2009) vs. CM Punk

Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic (2008) Hardy attacked in stairwell before Survivor Series

¹The titles have been vacant since 1999 due to the Hardy Boys signing contracts with the WWF and have been declared inactive until they defend the titles again.

Notes

References

External links

TNA Wrestling profile

Professional wrestling record for Jeff Hardy from The Internet Wrestling Database

The Hardy Show

Slam! Sports bio and story archive

Online World of Wrestling profile

Category:1977 births Category:American musicians Category:American poets Category:American professional wrestlers Category:American sculptors Category:Artists from North Carolina Category:Living people Category:People from Raleigh, North Carolina

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Coordinates	49°17′02″N122°47′31″N
background	solo_singer
birth name	Geoffrey Arnold Beck
born	June 24, 1944Wallington, England
instrument	Guitar, bass, talk box, vocals, trumpet, drums, flute, contrabass
genre	Blues rock, jazz fusion, instrumental rock, hard rock, electronica, progressive rock
occupation	Musician, songwriter, actor
years active	1964-present
label	EMI, Epic (punch)
associated acts	The Yardbirds, The Jeff Beck Group, The Honeydrippers, Beck, Bogert & Appice, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Big Town Playboys, Upp, Eric Clapton, Duff McKagan
website
notable instruments	Fender Jeff Beck Signature Model StratocasterJeff Beck 1954 Les Paul Oxblood }}

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists, to have played with The Yardbirds. (Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are the other two.) Beck also formed The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice.

Much of Beck's recorded output has been instrumental, with a focus on innovative sound and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues-rock, heavy metal, jazz fusion and most recently, an additional blend of guitar-rock and electronica. Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not established or maintained a broad following or the sustained commercial success of many of his collaborators and bandmates. Beck appears on albums by Mick Jagger, Kate Bush, Roger Waters, Stevie Wonder, Les Paul, Zucchero, Cyndi Lauper, Brian May and ZZ Top. In 1988, he made a cameo appearance in the movie Twins.

He was ranked 14th in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and the magazine has described him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". He was also ranked second greatest rock guitarist of all time in Digital Dream Door, a site that ranks movies and music. MSNBC has called him a "guitarist's guitarist". Beck has earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of The Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).

Biography

Early life

}} Beck was born in 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, England. As a ten year old Beck sang in a church choir. As a teenager he learned to play a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-post for the neck with model aircraft control-lines and frets simply painted on. When fabricating a neck for his next try he attempted to use measurements for a bass guitar.

Beck has cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps was an early musical influence, followed by B.B. King and Steve Cropper.

Upon leaving school he attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course and a car paint-sprayer. Beck's sister introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.

Early career

Beck began his career in the 1960s. He joined "The Rumbles" a Croydon band in 1963 for a short period as lead guitarist, playing Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly songs, displaying a talent for mimicking guitar styles. His first appearance on vinyl was as a session guitarist on a 1964 Parlophone single by The Fitz and Startz entitled 'I'm Not Running Away' c/w 'So Sweet'.

In March 1965 Beck was recruited by The Yardbirds to replace Eric Clapton on the recommendation of fellow session man Jimmy Page, who had been their initial choice. The Yardbirds recorded most of their Top 40 hit songs during Beck's time with the band, which was short (but significant), allowing him only one full album, Yardbirds which became known as Roger the Engineer, released in 1966. From September to November 1966 he shared lead guitar duties with Page, who initially joined as bass player in June of that year.

In February 1967, after recording the one-off "Beck's Bolero" (with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins and Keith Moon) and two solo hit singles in the UK, "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman", Beck formed The Jeff Beck Group, which featured Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano and, after a series of drummers, eventually Micky Waller.

The group produced two albums for Columbia Records (Epic in the US): Truth (August 1968) and Beck-Ola (July 1969). Truth, released five months before the first Led Zeppelin album, features "You Shook Me", a song written and first recorded by Willie Dixon that was also covered on the Led Zeppelin debut. It sold well (reaching number 15 on the Billboard charts). Beck-Ola, while well-received, saw drummer Micky Waller replaced by Tony Newman, and was less successful both commercially and critically. Resentment, coupled with touring incidents, led the group to dissolve in July 1969.

Nick Mason recalls in his autobiography that during 1967 Pink Floyd had wanted to recruit Beck to be their guitarist after the departure of Syd Barrett but "None of us had the nerve to ask him".

After the break-up of his group Beck took part in the Music From Free Creek "super session" project, billed as "A.N. Other" and contributed lead guitar on four songs, including one co-written by him. Next he teamed up with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, the rhythm section of Vanilla Fudge in September 1969, when Bogert and Appice came to England to resolve contractual issues, but when Beck fractured his skull in a car accident near Maidstone in December the plan was postponed for two-and-a-half years, during which time Bogert and Appice formed Cactus. Beck later remarked on the 1960s period of his life: "Everyone thinks of the 1960s as something they really weren't. It was the frustration period of my life. The electronic equipment just wasn't up to the sounds I had in my head.''

In 1970, when Beck had regained his health, he set about forming a band with drummer Cozy Powell. Beck, Powell and producer Mickie Most flew to the US and recorded several tracks at Motown Studios with Motown session men, but the results remained unreleased. By April 1971 Beck had completed the line-up of this new group with guitarist/vocalist Bobby Tench, keyboard player Max Middleton and bassist Clive Chaman. The new band performed as the "Jeff Beck Group" but had a substantially different sound from the first line-up. Rough and Ready (October 1971), the first album they recorded, on which Beck wrote or co-wrote six of the album's seven tracks (the exception being written by Middleton), included elements of soul, rhythm-and-blues and jazz, foreshadowing the direction Beck's music would take later in the decade.

A second album Jeff Beck Group (July 1972) was recorded at TMI studios in Memphis, Tennessee with the same personnel. Beck employed Steve Cropper as producer and the album displayed a strong soul influence, five of the nine tracks being covers of songs by American artists. One, "I Got To Have A Song", was the first of four Stevie Wonder compositions covered by Beck. Shortly after the release of the Jeff Beck Group album the band was dissolved and Beck's management put out the statement that: "The fusion of the musical styles of the various members has been successful within the terms of individual musicians, but they didn't feel it had led to the creation of a new musical style with the strength they had originally sought."

Beck then started collaborating with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, who became available following the demise of Cactus but continued touring as Jeff Beck Group in August 1972, to fulfil contractual obligations with his promoter, with a line-up including Bogert, Appice, Max Middleton and vocalist Kim Milford. After six appearances Milford was replaced by Bobby Tench, who was flown in from the UK for the Arie Crown Theatre Chicago performance and the rest of the tour, which concluded at the Paramount North West Theatre, Seattle. After the tour Tench and Middleton left the band and the power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice appeared: Appice took on the role of vocalist with Bogert and Beck contributing occasionally. They were included on the bill for Rock at The Oval in September 1972, still as the "Jeff Beck Group", which marked the start of a tour schedule of UK, the Netherlands and Germany. Another US tour began in October 1972, starting at the Hollywood Sportatorium Florida and concluding on 11 November 1972 at The Warehouse, New Orleans. In April 1973 the album Beck, Bogert & Appice was released (on Epic Records). While critics acknowledged the band's instrumental prowess the album was not commercially well received except for its cover of Stevie Wonder's hit "Superstition".

On 3 July 1973 Beck joined David Bowie on-stage to perform "The Jean Genie"/"Love Me Do" and "Around and Around". The show was recorded and filmed but none of the released editions included Beck. During October 1973 Beck recorded tracks for Michael Fennelly's album Lane Changer and attended sessions with Hummingbird, a band derived from The Jeff Beck Group, but did not to contribute to their eponymous first album

Early in January 1974 the band played at the Rainbow Theatre, as part of a European tour. The concert was broadcast in full on the US show Rock Around the World in September of the same year. This last recorded work by the band previewed material intended for a second studio album, included on the bootleg At Last Rainbow. The tracks Blues Deluxe and BBA Boogie from this concert were later included on the Jeff Beck compilation Beckology (1991). Beck, Bogert & Appice dissolved in April 1974 before their second studio album (produced by Jimmy Miller) was finished. Their live album Beck, Bogert & Appice Live in Japan, recorded during their 1973 tour of Japan, was not released until February 1975 by Epic/Sony.

After a few months Beck entered Underhill Studio and met with the group Upp, whom he recruited as backing band for his appearance on the BBC TV programme Guitar Workshop in August 1974. Beck produced and played on their self-titled debut album and their second album This Way Upp, though his contributions to the second album went uncredited. In October Beck began to record instrumentals at AIR Studios with Max Middleton, bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey, using George Martin as producer and arranger. Blow by Blow (March 1975) evolved from these sessions and showcased Beck's technical prowess in jazz-rock. The album reached number four in the charts and is Beck's most commercially-successful release. Beck, fastidious about overdubs and often dissatisfied with his solos, often returned to AIR Studios until he was satisfied. A couple of months after the sessions had finished Martin received a telephone call from Beck, who wanted to record a solo section again. Bemused, Martin replied: "I'm sorry, Jeff, but the record is in the shops!"

Beck put together a live band for a US tour, preceded by a small and unannounced gig at The Newlands Tavern in Peckham, London. He toured through April and May 1975, mostly supporting the Mahavishnu Orchestra, retaining Max Middleton on keyboards but with the new rhythm section of Wilbur Bascomb (bass) and noted session drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. In a May 1975 show in Cleveland, Ohio (Music Hall), he became frustrated with an early version of a "talk box" he used on his arrangement of The Beatles "She's A Woman," and after breaking a string, tossed his legendary Yardbirds-era Stratocaster off the stage. He did the same with the talk box and finished the show playing a Les Paul and without the box. During this tour he performed at Yuya Uchida's "World Rock Festival," playing a total of eight songs with Purdie. In addition he performed a guitar and drum instrumental with Johnny Yoshinaga and, at the end of the festival, joined in a live jam with bassist Felix Pappalardi of Mountain and vocalist Akira "Joe" Yamanaka from the Flower Travellin' Band. Only his set with Purdie was recorded and released.

He returned to the studio and recorded Wired (1976), which paired the drummer and composer Narada Michael Walden and keyboardist Jan Hammer. The album used a jazz-rock fusion style which sounded similar to the work of his two collaborators. To promote the album, Beck joined forces with the Jan Hammer Group, playing a show supporting Alvin Lee at The Roundhouse in May 1976, before embarking on a seven-month long world tour. This resulted in the live album Jeff Beck with The Jan Hammer Group - Live (1977).

At this point, Beck was a tax exile and took up residency in the US, remaining there until his return to the UK in the autumn of 1977. In the spring of 1978, he began rehearsing with bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Gerry Brown towards a projected appearance at the Knebworth Festival, but this was cancelled after Brown dropped out. Beck toured Japan for three weeks in November 1978 with an ad-hoc group consisting of Clarke and newcomers Tony Hymas (keyboards) and Simon Phillips (drums) from Jack Bruce's band. Work then began on a new studio album at The Who's Ramport Studios in London and continued sporadically throughout 1979, resulting in There and Back in June 1980. It featured three tracks composed and recorded with Jan Hammer, while five were written with Hymas. Stanley Clarke was replaced by Mo Foster on bass, both on the album and the subsequent tours. Its release was followed by extensive touring in the USA, Japan and the UK.

1980s

In 1981 Beck made a series of historic live appearances with his Yardbirds predecessor Eric Clapton at the Amnesty International-sponsored benefit concerts dubbed The Secret Policeman's Other Ball shows. He appeared with Clapton on "Crossroads", "Further On Up The Road", and his own arrangement of Stevie Wonder's "Cause We've Ended As Lovers". Beck also featured prominently in an all-star band finale performance of "I Shall Be Released" with Clapton, Sting, Phil Collins, Donovan and Bob Geldof. Beck's contributions were seen and heard in the resulting album and film, both of which achieved worldwide success in 1982. Another benefit show, the ARMS Concert for Multiple Sclerosis featured a jam with Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. They performed "Tulsa Time" and "Layla". This is the only time all of the Yardbirds lead guitarists appeared on stage together.

In 1985 Beck released Flash, featurng a variety of vocalists, but most notably former bandmate Rod Stewart on a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready".

After a four year break, Jeff made a return to instrumental music with the album Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop (1989), the first album to feature Beck as a fingerstyle guitarist, leaving the plectrum playing style. It was only his 3rd album to be released in the 1980s. Much of Beck's sparse and sporadic recording schedule was due in part to a long battle with noise-induced tinnitus.

1990s

In the 1990s, Beck had a higher musical output. He is featured on lead guitar on Roger Waters' 1992 concept album Amused to Death, and on Kate Bush's 1993 album The Red Shoes.

He recorded the instrumental soundtrack album Frankie's House (1992), as well as Crazy Legs (1993), a tribute album to 50's rockabilly group Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps and their influential guitarist Cliff Gallup.

Beck rehearsed with Guns N' Roses for their concert in Paris in 1992, but did not play in the actual concert due to ear damage caused by a Matt Sorum cymbal crash, causing Beck to become temporarily deaf. The Yardbirds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. In Beck's acceptance speech he humorously noted that:

}} He accompanied Paul Rodgers of Bad Company on the album Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters in 1993. Jeff's next release would not be until 1999, his first foray into guitar based electronica, Who Else! The album also marked Beck's first collaboration with a female musician, Jennifer Batten, in touring, writing, and recording as well as the first time he had worked with another guitarist on his own material since playing in The Yardbirds. Beck continued to work with Batten through the post-release tour of You Had It Coming in 2001.

2000s

Jeff Beck won his third Grammy Award, this one for 'Best Rock Instrumental Performance' for the track "Dirty Mind" from You Had It Coming (2001).

The song "Plan B," from the 2003 release Jeff, earned Beck his fourth Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and was proof that the new electro-guitar style he used for the two earlier albums would continue to dominate. Jeff Beck was the opening act for B.B. King in the summer of 2003 and appeared at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2004.

In 2007, he accompanied Kelly Clarkson for her cover of Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)", during the Idol Gives Back episode of American Idol. The performance was recorded live and afterwards was immediately released for sale. In the same year, he appeared once again at Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, performing with Vinnie Colaiuta, Jason Rebello, and the then 21-year-old bassist Tal Wilkenfeld.

Beck announced a world tour in early 2009 and remained faithful to the same lineup of musicians as in his tour two years before, playing and recording at Ronnie Scott's in London to a sold out audience. Beck played on the song "Black Cloud" on the 2009 Morrissey album Years of Refusal and later that year, Harvey Goldsmith became Beck's Manager.

Beck was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 4 April 2009, as a solo artist. The award was presented by Jimmy Page. On 4 July 2009, David Gilmour joined Beck onstage at the Albert Hall. Beck and Gilmour traded solos on "Jerusalem" and closed the show with "Hi Ho Silver Lining".

Beck's latest album, Emotion & Commotion, was released in April 2010. It features a mixture of original songs and covers such as "Over the Rainbow" and "Nessun Dorma". Joss Stone provides some of the guest vocals. Two tracks from Emotion & Commotion won Grammys in 2011: "Nessun Dorms" won the Best Pop Instrumental Performance and "Hammerhead" won the Best Rock Instrumental Performance".

Beck's 2010 World Tour band features Grammy winning musician Narada Michael Walden on drums, Rhonda Smith on bass and Jason Rebello on keyboards. Beck collaborated on "Imagine" for the 2010 Herbie Hancock album, The Imagine Project along with Seal, P!nk, India.Arie, Konono N°1, Oumou Sangare and others. He has also released a live album titled Live and Exclusive from the Grammy Museum on October 25, 2010.

In 2011, Beck received two honorary degrees from British universities. On 18 July 2011, he was honoured with a fellowship from University of the Arts London in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to the field of Music". He was also presented with an honorary doctorate from University of Sussex by Sanjeev Bhaskar, the university's chancellor for “an outstanding musical career and celebrated the relationship between the university and the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM)" on 21 July 2011.

Influences

One of the most influential guitarists in the history of rock music, Jeff Beck has cited his major influences as Les Paul, The Shadows, Cliff Gallup, Ravi Shankar, Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Steve Cropper and Lonnie Mack. Of John McLaughlin, he said: "he has given us so many different facets of the guitar and introduced thousands of us to world music, by blending Indian music with jazz and classical. I'd say he was the best guitarist alive."

While Beck was not the first rock guitarist to experiment with electronic distortion, he nonetheless helped to redefine the sound and role of the electric guitar in rock music. Beck's work with The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album Truth were seminal influences on heavy metal music, which emerged in full force in the early 1970s.

Technique and equipment

Beck stopped regular use of a pick (plectrum) in the 1980s. He produces a wide variety of sounds by using his fingers and the vibrato bar on his signature Fender Stratocaster, although he frequently uses a wah-wah pedal both live and in the studio. As Eric Clapton once said, "With Jeff, it’s all in his hands". Along with Fender Stratocasters, Beck occasionally plays Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul models as well. His amplifiers are primarily Fender and Marshall. In his earlier days with the Yardbirds, Beck also used a 1954 Fender Esquire guitar (now owned by Seymour W. Duncan, and housed in the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) through Vox AC30s. He has also played through a variety of fuzz pedals and echo-units along with this set-up and has used the Pro Co RAT distortion pedal.

He is noted for changes of musical style and direction throughout his career. Ritchie Blackmore once praised this aspect of Jeff in an interview to Martin K. Webb, when the interviewer asked him what he means by "chance music", he replied:

During the ARMS Charity Concerts in 1983 Beck used his battered Fender Esquire along with a 1954 Fender Stratocaster and a Jackson Soloist. On the Crazy Legs (1993) he played a Gretsch Duo Jet, his signature Fender Stratocaster and various other guitars. Recently Fender created a Custom Shop Tribute series version of his beat-up Fender Esquire as well as his Artist Signature series Stratocaster.

Personal life

Beck has been married to Sandra Cash since 2005. Beck describes himself as a vegetarian. He has an interest in classic Ford hot rods, performing much of the work on the exteriors and engines of the cars by himself.

Discography

See also

List of rock instrumentals

Bibliography

Carson, Annette. Jeff Beck: Crazy Fingers. Backbeat books (2002). ISBN 0-87930-632-7

Horjt, Chris and Hinman, Doug. Jeff's book : A chronology of Jeff Beck's career 1965-1980 : from the Yardbirds to Jazz-Rock. Rock 'n' Roll Research Press, (2000). ISBN 0-9641005-3-3

Foster, Mo.17 watts?: The Birth of British Rock Guitar. Sanctuary (1997 and 2000). ISBN 978-1-86074-267-5

References

External links

Press conference and master class by Jeff Beck in Moscow 2010

Jeff Beck Official Site

Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame: Jeff Beck FuseTV

Jeff Beck at Epic Records

Jeff Beck 1954 Les Paul Oxblood

Jeff Beck unofficial website

Category:English blues guitarists Category:English songwriters Category:English rock guitarists Category:Lead guitarists Category:English vegetarians Category:Musicians from London Category:People from Wallington, London Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:The Yardbirds members Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Fingerstyle guitarists Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Blues rock musicians Category:Musicians from Tunbridge Wells Category:British rhythm and blues boom musicians

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Coordinates	49°17′02″N122°47′31″N
Name	Jeff Healey
Background	solo_singer
Birth date	March 25, 1966
birth place	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Death date	March 02, 2008
death place	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genre	Blues-rock, blues, jazz, rock
Occupation	Musician, songwriter, DJ, actor
Instrument	Guitar, vocals, trumpet
Years active	1983–2008
Label	Arista, RCA, BMG, Eagle, Stony Plain, CBC, Arbor, Sony
Associated acts	The Jeff Healey Band, Blue Direction, The Jazz Wizards
Website
Notable instruments	Squier JV Series Stratocaster }}

Norman Jeffrey "Jeff" Healey (March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008) was a blind Canadian jazz and blues-rock vocalist and guitarist who attained musical and personal popularity, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s.

Early life

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Healey was raised in the city's west end. He was adopted as an infant; his adoptive father was a firefighter. When he was eight months old, Healey lost his sight to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the eyes. His eyes had to be surgically removed, and he was given artificial replacements.

Early career and success

Healey began playing guitar when he was three, developing his unique style of playing the instrument flat on his lap. When he was 17, he formed the band Blue Direction, a four-piece band which primarily played bar-band cover tunes. Among the other musicians were bassist Jeremy Littler, drummer Graydon Chapman, and a schoolmate, Rob Quail on second guitar. This band played various local clubs in Toronto, including the Colonial Tavern.

Healey began hosting a jazz and blues show on radio station CIUT-FM where he became known for playing from his massive collection of vintage 78 rpm gramophone records.

Shortly thereafter he was introduced to two musicians, bassist Joe Rockman and drummer Tom Stephen, with whom he formed a trio, "The Jeff Healey Band". This band made their first public appearance at the Birds Nest, located upstairs at Chicago's Diner on Queen Street West in Toronto. They received a write-up in Toronto's NOW magazine, and soon were playing almost nightly in local clubs, such as Grossman's Tavern and the famed blues club Albert's Hall (where Jeff Healey was discovered by guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins).

After being signed to Arista Records in 1988, the band released the album See the Light, featuring the hit single "Angel Eyes" and the song "Hideaway", which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. While the band was recording See the Light, they were also filming (and recording for the soundtrack of) the Patrick Swayze film Road House. Healey had numerous acting scenes in the movie with Swayze, as his band was the house cover band for the bar featured in the movie. In 1990, the band won the Juno Award for Canadian Entertainer of the Year. The albums Hell to Pay and Feel This gave Healey 10 charting singles in Canada between 1990 and 1994, including a cover of The Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps which featured George Harrison and Jeff Lynne on backing vocals and acoustic guitar.

Later work and life

By the release of the 2000 album Get Me Some, Healey began to concentrate his talent in another direction closer to his heart, which was the appreciation for another original American music form, jazz.

He went on to release three CDs of music of traditional American jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. He had been sitting in with these types of bands around Toronto since the beginning of his music career. Though known primarily as a guitarist, Healey also played trumpet during live performances.

Healey was an avid record collector and amassed a collection of well over 30,000 78 rpm records. He had, from time to time, hosted a CBC Radio program entitled My Kind of Jazz, in which he played records from his vast vintage jazz collection. He hosted a program with a similar name on Toronto jazz station CJRT-FM; as of 2010, the latter program continues to air in repeats.

He had also been touring with his other group, The Jazz Wizards, playing American hot jazz. (At the time of his death, they had been planning to perform a series of shows in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands in April 2008.)

For many years, Healey performed at his club, "Healey's" on Bathurst Street in Toronto, where he played with "The Healey's House Band" on Thursday nights and with his jazz group on Saturday afternoons. The club moved to a bigger location at 56 Blue Jays Way and was rechristened "Jeff Healey's Roadhouse." Though he had lent his name to the club and often played there, Jeff Healey did not own or manage the bar. (The name came from the 1989 film, Road House, in which Healey appeared.)

Over the years, Healey toured and sat-in with many legendary performers, including Dire Straits, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, BB King, ZZ Top, Steve Lukather, Eric Clapton and many more. In 2006, Healey appeared on Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan's CD/DVD Gillan's Inn.

Healey discovered and helped develop the careers of other musical artists, including Terra Hazelton and Amanda Marshall.

In early 2009, Healey's album Mess of Blues won in The 8th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Blues Album.

Illness and death

On January 11, 2007, Healey underwent surgery to remove metastatic tissue from both lungs. In the previous eighteen months, he had two sarcomas removed from his legs.

On March 2, 2008, Healey died of cancer at St. Joseph's Health Centre in his home town of Toronto. His death came a month before the release of Mess of Blues, which was his first rock/blues album in eight years.

Healey is survived by his wife, Cristie, and two children. A tribute concert was held on May 3, 2008, to benefit Daisy's Eye Cancer Fund, which, according to Cristie Healey, had helped make major strides in research and future advances for people born with the same genetically inherited retinoblastoma which had plagued her husband since he was one year of age. Cristie and Jeff Healey's son was also born with the same disability.

In 2009, he was inducted into the Terry Fox Hall of Fame.

Discography

Jeff Healey/Jeff Healey Band

1986: Adrianna/See the Light (Private Press)

1988: See the Light (Arista) 1989: Road House Soundtrack

1990: Hell to Pay (Arista)

1992: Feel This (Arista)

1995: Cover to Cover (Arista)

2000: Get Me Some (Eagle)

2002: Among Friends 2003: Live at Healey's (Bolder) 2004: Adventures in Jazzland (Healeyophonic)

2005: The Jeff Healey Band Live at Montreux 1999 (Eagle)

2006: It's Tight Like That (Stony Plain)

2008: Mess of Blues

2009: Songs From The Road (Stony Plain)

2010: Last Call (Stony Plain Records)

2011: Live At Grossman's 1994 (Eagle Rock North/Convexe)

Compilations

1998 The Very Best of Jeff Healey (RCA) 1998 The Very Best of Jeff Healey (MSI Music Distribution)

1999 Master Hits (Arista)

2004 The Platinum and Gold Collection (Arista)

2008 Super Hits (Sony)

2009 Legacy, Volume 1 (Arbor)

Compilation Inclusions

2002 While My Guitar Gently Weeps

2004 What's Love? A Tribute to Tina Turner (Versailles) 2006 Ruf Records Anthology: 12 Years of Where Blues Crosses Over (Ruf Records) 2006 Saturday Night Blues: 20 Years (CBC)

Music videos

! Year	! Video	! Director
	"See the Light"	John Goodhue
"Angel Eyes"	Marc Ball

Film, DVD

1989 Roadhouse

1999 Live At Montreux 2004 See The Light (BMG) 2009 Legacy, Volume 1 (Arbor)

See also

Canadian blues

Canadian rock

Music of Canada

References

External links

Jeff Healey official website

Jeff Healey biography at CanadianBands.com

NY Times Obituary

BBC News Item announcing Healey's death

Obituary in The Times

Category:1966 births Category:2008 deaths Category:Blues rock musicians Category:Blind musicians Category:Electric blues musicians Category:Canadian adoptees Category:Canadian blues guitarists Category:Canadian rock guitarists Category:Lead guitarists Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:Blind bluesmen Category:Juno Award winners Category:People from Etobicoke Category:Slide guitarists Category:Cancer deaths in Ontario Category:Canadian people with disabilities Category:Terry Fox Hall of Fame Category:Arista Records artists Category:RCA Records artists Category:Independent Music Awards winners

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