A duke (male) or duchess (female) is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy. The title comes from the Latin ''Dux'', 'leader', a term used in republican Rome to refer to a military commander without an official rank (particularly one of Germanic or Celtic origin), and later coming to mean the leading military commander of a province.

In the Middle Ages the title signified first among the Germanic monarchies. Dukes were the rulers of the provinces and the superiors of the counts in the cities and later, in the feudal monarchies, the highest-ranking peers of the king.

During the 19th century many of the smaller German and Italian states were ruled by Dukes or Grand Dukes. At present however, with the exception of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, there are no dukes who rule. Duke remains the highest titular peerage in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The Pope, as a temporal sovereign, has also but rarely granted the title of Duke and Duchess to persons for services to the Holy See.

A woman who holds in her own right the title to such duchy or dukedom, or is the wife of a duke, is normally styled duchess. However, Queen Elizabeth II is known as Duke of Normandy in the Channel Islands and Duke of Lancaster in Lancashire.

Duchy versus dukedom

A duchy is the territory or geopolitical entity ruled by a duke. The term implies a territorial domain, within which the duke has actual subjects and/or significant land holdings, both of which are ruled by the duke, either directly or as a vassal to a higher (i.e. royal or imperial) authority. A dukedom is the title of duke, a rank of nobility, and is not necessarily attached to a duchy. A few examples exist today: The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a fully independent state and its head, the Grand Duke, is a sovereign monarch ruling over his Luxembourgeois subjects. The Duke of Cornwall holds both the dukedom (title) and Duchy (estate holdings), the latter being the source of his personal income; both the Duke and those living in his estates are subjects of the British Sovereign. In Scotland the same person is always the Duke of Rothesay as well, but this is a dukedom (title) without a duchy (territorial ownership). Similarly, the British Sovereign rules and owns the Duchy of Lancaster as both Sovereign and Duke of Lancaster, with the income of the duchy estates providing the Sovereign's Privy Purse. He or she also rules the Channel Islands as Sovereign and Duke of Normandy, but without especial income therefrom.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages following the collapse of Roman power in Western Europe, the title was still employed in the Germanic kingdoms, most often to refer to the rulers of the old Roman provinces.

Visigoths

The Visigoths retained the Roman divisions of their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula and it seems that dukes ruled over these areas. They were the most powerful landowners and, along with the bishops, elected the king, usually from their own midst. They were the military commanders and in this capacity often acted independently from the king, most notably in the latter period before the Muslim invasions.

The army was structured decimally with the highest unit, the thiufa, probably corresponding to about one thousand people from each ''civitas'' (city district). The cities were commanded by counts, who were in turn answerable to the dukes, who called up the ''thiufae'' when need be.

Lombards

When the Lombards entered Italy, the Latin chroniclers called their war leaders ''duces'' in the old fashion. These leaders eventually became the provincial rulers, each with a recognized seat of government. Though nominally loyal to the king, the concept of kingship was new to the Lombards and the dukes were highly independent, especially in central and southern Italy, where the Duke of Spoleto and the Duke of Benevento were ''de facto'' sovereigns. In 575, when Cleph died, a period known as the Rule of the Dukes, in which the dukes governed without a king, commenced. It lasted only a decade before the disunited magnates, in order to defend the kingdom from external attacks, elected a new king and even diminished their own duchies to provide him with a handsome royal demesne.

The Lombard kings were usually drawn from the duke pool when the title was not hereditary. The dukes tried to make their own offices hereditary. Beneath them in the internal structure were the counts and gastalds, a uniquely Lombard title initially referring to judicial functions, similar to a count's, in provincial regions

Franks

The Franks employed dukes as the governors of Roman provinces, though they also led military expeditions far from their duchies. The dukes were the highest ranking officials in the realm, typically Frankish (whereas the counts were often Gallo-Roman), and formed the class from which the kings' generals were chosen in times of war. The dukes met with the king every May to discuss policy for the upcoming year, the so-called Mayfield.

In Burgundy and Provence, the titles of patrician and prefect were commonly employed instead of duke, probably for historical reasons relating to the greater Romanization of those provinces. The titles, however, were basically equivalent.

In late Merovingian Gaul, the mayors of the palace of the Arnulfing clan began to use the title ''dux et princeps Francorum'': "duke and prince of the Franks". In this title, "duke" implied supreme military control of the entire nation (''Francorum'', the Franks) and it was thus used until the end of the Carolingian dynasty in France in 987.

Stem duchies

See Stem duchy

England

Anglo-Saxon times

The highest political division beneath that of kingdom among the Anglo-Saxons was the ealdormanry and, while the title ealdorman was replaced by the Danish ''eorl'' (later earl) over time, the first ealdormen were referred to as ''duces'' (the plural of the original Latin ''dux'') in the chronicles. Thus, in Anglo-Saxon England, where the Roman political divisions were largely abandoned, the grade of duke was retained as supreme landlord after the king. However, following the Norman conquest, their power and regional jurisdiction was limited to that of the Norman counts.

Late medieval times

Edward III of England created the first three English dukedoms (Cornwall, Lancaster and Clarence) by naming his eldest son Edward, the Black Prince, as Duke of Cornwall in 1337. Upon the death of the Black Prince the duchy of Cornwall passed to his 9 year old son, who would eventually succeed his grandfather as Richard II.

The duchy of Lancaster was created by Edward III in 1351 for Henry of Grosmont, but became extinct upon the duke's death in 1361. The following year, Edward III bestowed the title (2nd creation) on his fourth son, John of Gaunt, who was also married to the first duke's daughter. On the same day Edward III also created his second son, Lionel of Antwerp, as Duke of Clarence.

All five of Edward III's surviving sons eventually became dukes. In 1385, ten years after their father's death, his heir Richard II created dukedoms for his last two uncles on the same day. Thomas of Woodstock was named Duke of Gloucester and Edmund of Langley became Duke of York, thereby founding the House of York, which later fought for the throne with John of Gaunt's Lancastrian descendants during the Wars of the Roses.

By 1483, a total of 16 ducal titles had been created: Cornwall, Lancaster, Clarence, Gloucester, York, Ireland, Hereford, Aumale, Exeter, Surrey, Norfolk, Bedford, Somerset, Buckingham, Warwick and Suffolk. Some became extinct, others had multiple creations, and some had merged with the crown upon the holder's accession to the throne. When the Plantagenet dynasty came to an end at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, only four ducal titles remained extant, of which two were now permanently associated with the crown. John de la Pole was Duke of Suffolk and John Howard was Duke of Norfolk (2nd creation), while the duchy of Cornwall was reserved as a title and source of income for the eldest son of the sovereign, and the duchy of Lancaster was now held by the monarch.

Norfolk perished alongside Richard III at Bosworth field, and the title was forfeit. It was restored to his son Thomas thirty years later by Henry VIII, as one of a number of dukes created or recreated by the Tudor dynasty over the ensuing century. England's premier ducal title, Norfolk, remains in the Howard family to this day.

The modern age

In the 19th century, the sovereign dukes of Parma and Modena in Italy, and of Anhalt, Brunswick-Lüneburg, Nassau, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen and Saxe-Altenburg in Germany survived Napoleon's reorganization.

Since the unification of Italy in 1870 and the end of monarchy in Germany in 1918, there have no longer been any reigning dukes in Europe; Luxembourg is ruled by a grand duke, a higher title, just below king.

In the United Kingdom, the inherited position of a duke along with its dignities, privileges, and rights is a dukedom. However, the title of ''duke'' has never been associated with independent rule in the British Isles: they hold dukedoms, not duchies (excepting the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster). Dukes in the United Kingdom are addressed as "Your Grace" and referred to as "His Grace". Currently, there are twenty-seven dukedoms in the Peerage of England, Peerage of Scotland, Peerage of Great Britain, Peerage of Ireland and Peerage of the United Kingdom, held by twenty-four different people (see List of Dukes in order of precedence).

Equivalents in other European languages

Royal dukes

Various royal houses traditionally awarded (mainly) dukedoms to the sons and in some cases, the daughters, of their respective sovereigns; others include at least one dukedom in a wider list of similarly granted titles, nominal dukedoms without any actual authority, often even without an estate. Such titles are still conferred on royal princes or princesses in the current European monarchies of Belgium, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Other historical cases occurred for example in Denmark, Finland (as a part of Sweden) and France, Portugal and some former colonial possessions such as Brazil and Haiti.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, ducal titles which have been given within the royal family include Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, Duke of York, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of Bedford, Duke of Cumberland, Duke of Cambridge, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Albany, Duke of Ross, Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Kent, Duke of Sussex, and Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.

List of dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

List of dukes in the peerages of the British Isles

Belgium

In Belgium, the title of Duke of Brabant (historically the most prestigious in the Low Countries, and containing the federal capital Brussels), if still vacant, has been awarded preferentially to the eldest son and heir presumptive of the king, other male dynasts receiving various lower historical titles (much older than Belgium, and in principle never fallen to the Belgian crown), such as Count of Flanders (King Leopold III's so-titled brother held the title when he became the realm's temporary head of state as prince-regent) and Prince of Liège (a secularised version of the historical prince-bishopric; e.g., the present King Albert II until he succeeded his older brother Baudouin I).

Denmark

Denmark's kings gave appanages in their twin-duchies of Schleswig-Holstein (now three-fourths of them is part of Germany, but then the Holstein half of it was part of the Holy Roman Empire in personal union with Denmark proper) to younger sons and/or their male-line descendants, with a specific though not sovereign title of Duke, e.g., Duke of Gottorp, Duke of Sonderburg, Duke of Augustenborg, Duke of Franzhagen, Duke of Beck, Duke of Glucksburg and Duke of Norburg.

Iberian peninsula

When the Christian Reconquista, sweeping the Moors from the former Caliphate of Córdoba and its taifa-remnants, transformed the territory of former Suevic and Visigothic realms into Catholic feudal principalities, none of these warlords was exactly styled Duke. A few (as Portugal itself) started as Count (even if the title of Dux was sometimes added), but soon all politically relevant princes were to use the royal style of King.

Portugal

Spain

Spanish infantes and infantas were usually given a dukedom upon marriage, excepting the heir apparent who is the Prince of Asturias. This title is nowadays not hereditary but carries a Grandeza de España. The current royal duchesses are: HRH the Duchess of Badajoz (Infanta Maria del Pilar), HRH the Duchess of Soria (Infanta Margarita) (although she inherited the title of Duchess of Hernani from her cousin and is second holder of that title), HRH the Duchess of Lugo (Infanta Elena) and HRH the Duchess of Palma de Mallorca (Infanta Cristina).

In Spain all the dukes hold the court rank of ''Grande'', i.e., Grandee of the realm, which had precedence over all other feudatories.

Finland and Sweden

Sweden had a history of making the sons of its kings real ruling princes of vast duchies, but this ceased in 1622. Title-wise, however, all Swedish princes since 1772, and princesses since 1980, are given a dukedom for life. Currently, there are one duke and three duchesses. The territorial designations of these dukedoms refer to five of the Provinces of Sweden.

Key parts of Finland were sometimes under a Duke of Finland during the Swedish reign.

France and other former monarchies

See appanage (mainly for the French kingdom) and the list in the geographical section below, which also treats special ducal titles in orders or national significance.

France

The highest precedence in the realm, attached to a feudal territory, was given to the twelve original pairies, which also had a traditional function in the royal coronation, comparable to the German imperial archoffices. Half of them were ducal: three ecclesiastical (the six prelates all ranked above the six secular peers of the realm) and three temporal, each time above three counts of the same social estate: The ''Prince-Bishops'' with ducal territories among them were:

The Archbishop of Reims, styled ''archevêque-duc pair de France'' (in Champagne; who crowns and anoints the king, traditionally in his cathedral)

Two suffragan bishops, styled ''evêque-duc pair de France'' :

*the bishop-duke of Laon (in Picardy; bears the 'Sainte Ampoule' containing the sacred ointment)

* the bishop-duc de Langres (in Burgundy; bears the scepter)

Later, the Archbishop of Paris was given the title of ''duc de Saint-Cloud'' with the dignity of peerage, but it was debated if he was an ecclesiastical peer or merely a bishop holding a lay peerage.

The secular dukes in the peerage of the realm were, again in order of precedence:

the duc de Bourgogne, i.e., Duke of Burgundy (known as ''Grand duc''; not a separate title at that time; just a description of the wealth and real clout of the 15th century Dukes, cousins of the Kings of France) (bears the crown, fastens the belt)

Duke of Normandy or duc de Normandie (holds the first square banner)

Duke of Aquitaine or duc d'Aquitaine or - de Guyenne (holds the second square banner)

It should be noted that the theory of the participation of the peers in the coronation was laid down in the late 13th century, when some of the peerage (the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Toulouse) had already been merged in the crown.

At the end of this same century, the king elevated some counties into duchies, a practice that increased up until the Revolution. Many of this duchies were also peerages (the so-called 'new peerages').

Italy, Germany and Austria

In Italy, Germany and Austria the title of "duke" (''duca'' in Italian, and ''Herzog'' in German) was quite common. As the Holy Roman Empire was until its dissolution a feudal structure, most of its Dukes were actually reigning in their lands. As the titles from the HRE were taken over after its dissolution, or in Italy after their territories became independent of the Empire, both countries also had a share of fully sovereign dukes. Also, in Germany in many ducal families every agnate would bear the ducal title of the family as a courtesy title.

In Italy some important sovereign ducal families were the Visconti and the Sforza, who ruled Milan; the Medici of Florence; the Farnese of Parma and Piacenza; the Cybo-Malaspina of Massa; the Gonzaga of Mantua; the Este of Modena and Ferrara.

In Germany, important ducal families were the Wittelsbachs in Bavaria, the Welfs in Hannover, the ducal family of Cleves, the Wettins in Saxony (with its Ernestine branch divided into several duchies), the Württembergs, the Mecklenburgs and finally of course also the Habsburgs in Austria as "Archdukes". In the German Confederation the Nassaus, the Ascanians of Anhalt, the Welf branch of Brunswick and the Ernestine lines of the Saxon duchies were the sovereign ducal families.

Elsewhere in Europe

Nordic countries

In Denmark, the longest-surviving duchy was Schleswig, i.e., Sonderjylland (part of which later was transferred to Germany). Its southern neighbour Holstein in personal union with the Danish crown was always a German principality. Ultimately both ended up joined as the German federation's ''Bundesland'' of Schleswig-Holstein.

* duchies of Laland, Halland, Jutland, Reval, and Osilia.

In Sweden, medieval duchies of Finland, Södermanland, Skåne, and Halland, and in modern times almost every province.

Hungary

In the Kingdom of Hungary no ducal principalities existed but duchies were often formed for members of the dynasty as appanages. During the rule of the Árpád dinasty dukes held territorial powers, some of them even minted coins, but later this title became more often nominal. These duchies usually were

the Duchy of Nitra

the Duchy of Bihar

the Duchy of Slavonia, or whole Slavonia (consisting of Slavonia and Croatia)

the Duchy of Transylvania (consisting of the voivodship of Transylvania and some other counties)

In the Jagellonian era (1490–1526) only two dukes did not belong to the royal dynasty: John Corvin (the illegitimate son of Matthias Corvinus) and Lőrinc Újlaki (whose father was the king of Bosnia), and both bore the title as royal dukes.

After the Battle of Mohács the Habsburg kings rewarded Hungarian aristocrats (like the Esterházys) with princely titles, but they created these titles as Holy Roman Emperors, not as kings of Hungary.

Greece

As the Catholic crusaders overran Orthodox Christian parts of the Byzantine empire, they installed several crusader states (see Frangokratia), some of which were of ducal rank:

the Duchy of Athens, to which the duchy of Neopatras was later linked

the Aegean insular Duchy of Naxos, officially the "Duchy of the Archipelago"

The Byzantines retained the title ''dux'', transcribed as ''doux'' in Greek. As in the later Roman Empire, it remained a military office. In the 10th century, it was given to the military commanders over several ''themata'' (also known as ''katepano''), and in the late 11th century it became used for the governor of a ''thema''.

In Italy and other western countries, the later Byzantine appanages of the Palaiologan period were sometimes translated as duchies: the Morea, Mesembria, Selymbria and Thessaloniki. However, as these had Greek holders, they were titled ''Archon'' ("magistrate") or ''Despotes''.

In the independent Kingdom of Greece, the style of Duke of Sparta was instituted in 1868 upon the birth of Constantine I as a distinct title for the crown prince of Greece.

Slavic countries

Generally, confusion reigns whether to translate the usual petty ruler titles, ''knyaz/ knez/ ksiaze'' etc. as Prince (analogous to the German Fürst) or as Duke;

in splintered Poland petty principalities generally ruled by branches of the earlier Polish Piast dynasty are regarded as duchies in translated titulary. Examples of such: Kujavia, Masovia, Sandomir, Greater Poland and Kalisz as well as various minor duchies, often short-lived and/or in personal union or merger, named after their capitals, mainly in the regions known as Little Poland and Greater Poland, including (there are often also important Latin and/or German forms) Kraków, Łęczyca and Sieradz.

In Pomerelia and Pomerania (inhabited by the Kashubians, different Slavic people from the Poles proper), branches of native ruling dynasties were usually recognized as dukes, quite similarly to the pattern in Poland.

in Russia, before the imperial unification from Muscovy; sometimes even as vassal, tributary to a Tartar Khan; later, in Peter the Great's autocratic empire, the russification gertsog was used as the Russian rendering of the German ducal title ''Herzog'', especially as (the last) part of the full official style of the Russian Emperor: ''Gertsog Shlesvig-Golstinskiy, Stormarnskiy, Ditmarsenskiy i Oldenburgskiy i prochaya, i prochaya, i prochaya'' "Duke of Schleswig-Holstein [see above], Stormarn, Dithmarschen and Oldenburg, and of other lands", in chief of German and Danish territories to which the Tsar was dynastically linked.

In Bohemia was Duchy of Krumlov, and short-lived Duchy of Reichstadt and Duchy of Friedland.

In Silesia were many petty duchies as Duchy of Brzeg, Duchy of Legnica, Duchy of Zator and Duchy of Racibórz. They were vassals of King of Bohemia.

Netherlands

After Belgium and the Netherlands separated in 1830, the title of duke no longer existed in the Netherlands. There is, however, one exception; the title ''Hertog van Limburg'' (''Duke of Limburg'') still exists. This title, however, is an exclusive title for the head of state (the monarch, i.e., the king or queen of the Netherlands).

Post-colonial non-European states

Brazilian empire

In this former Portuguese kingdom, ruled after separation by a branch of the Portuguese royal dynasty (House of Bragança), only three dukedoms were created, as the highest rank for people outside of the imperial dynasty. Two of these titles were for relatives of Peter I: an illegitimate daughter and a brother-in-law who received the title when married with Peter's daughter Mary II. The third, given to the most important Brazilian military man, Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, was the only dukedom created during the reign of Peter II. A fourth title was created for another illegitimate daughter of Peter I, but she died before receiving the title (and so it is seldom considered). None of these titles were hereditary, just like every other title in the Brazilian nobility system.

Haiti

The royal Christophe dynasty created eight hereditary dukedoms, in rank directly below the nominal princes. They were short-lived and only recognised in the country.

Equivalents

Like other major Western noble titles, Duke is sometimes used to render (translate) certain titles in non-western languages. "Duke" is used even though those titles are generally etymologically and often historically unrelated and thus hard to compare. However, they are considered roughly equivalent, especially in hierarchic aristocracies such as feudal Japan, useful as an indication of relative rank. The Indian cognate is Senapati (leader of an army).

China

During the era of feudalism in Ancient China (Spring and Autumn and the Warring States), the equivalent titles to Grand Marquis or Grand Duke were often granted to the nobility and governors of the individual kingdoms and principalities. Noble titles also existed in subsequent periods.

The Duke of Yansheng noble title was granted to the descendants of Confucius. In 1935, the Nationalist Government changed the title to Sacrificial Official to Confucius (大成至聖先師奉祀官), which still exists as an office of the Republic of China, de facto hereditary.

Nonhereditary dukedoms and other lesser titles were also awarded, sometimes posthumously (see posthumous names), during the imperial period of Chinese history to recognize distinguished civil and military officials without the burdens of supporting a feudal peerage. For example, Emperor Lizong of Song granted the posthumous, nonhereditary title Duke of Hui (徽国公) to the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi.

See also

List of Dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

List of dukes in the peerages of the British Isles

Duchy of Amalfi

Duchy of Gaeta

Duchy of Naples

Archduke

Notes

References

Chan, Wing-tsit, ''Chu Hsi New Studies''. University of Hawaii Press: 1989. ISBN 9780824812010

Crouch, David, ''The Normans'' (2002) ISBN 1-85285-387-5

Hodgkin, Thomas. ''Italy and her Invaders''. Clarendon Press: 1895.

Lewis, Archibald R. "The Dukes in the Regnum Francorum, A.D. 550-751." ''Speculum'', Vol. 51, No 3 (July 1976), pp 381–410.

Stenton, Sir Frank M. ''Anglo-Saxon England Third Edition''. Oxford University Press: 1971.

Thompson, E. A. ''The Goths in Spain''. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1969.

Category:Noble titles Category:Peerage Category:Feudalism Category:Men's social titles

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name edward ellington| image	Duke Ellington restored.jpg
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Edward Kennedy Ellington
born	April 29, 1899Washington, D.C., U.S.
died	May 24, 1974New York City, New York, U.S.
instrument	Piano
genre	Orchestral jazz, swing, big band
occupation	Bandleader, pianist, composer
years active	1914–74
website	Duke Ellington Official Website

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions. In the words of Bob Blumenthal of ''The Boston Globe'' "In the century since his birth, there has been no greater composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington."

A major figure in the history of jazz, Ellington's music stretched into various other genres, including blues, gospel, film scores, popular, and classical. His career spanned more than 50 years and included leading his orchestra, composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring for movies, composing stage musicals, and world tours. Several of his instrumental works were adapted into songs that became standards. Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence and extraordinary charisma, he is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other traditional genres of music. His reputation increased after his death and the Pulitzer Prize Board bestowed on him a special posthumous honor in 1999.

Ellington called his music "American Music" rather than jazz, and liked to describe those who impressed him as "beyond category." These included many of the musicians who were members of his orchestra, some of whom are considered among the best in jazz in their own right, but it was Ellington who melded them into one of the most well-known jazz orchestral units in the history of jazz. He often composed specifically for the style and skills of these individuals, such as "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Concerto for Cootie" for Cootie Williams, which later became "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me" with Bob Russell's lyrics, and "The Mooche" for Tricky Sam Nanton and Bubber Miley. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan" and "Perdido" which brought the 'Spanish Tinge' to big-band jazz. Several members of the orchestra remained there for several decades. After 1941, he frequently collaborated with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his "writing and arranging companion." Ellington recorded for many American record companies, and appeared in several films.

Ellington led his band from 1923 until his death in 1974. His son Mercer Ellington, who had already been handling all administrative aspects of his father's business for several decades, led the band until his own death in 1996. At that point, the original band dissolved. Paul Ellington, Mercer's youngest son and executor of the Duke Ellington estate, kept the Duke Ellington Orchestra going from Mercer's death onwards.

Early life

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 to James Edward Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington. Daisy and J.E. were both pianists. She primarily played parlor songs and he operatic airs. They lived with his maternal grandparents at 2129 Ida Place (now Ward Place), NW in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C. His father, James Edward Ellington was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina on April 15, 1879 and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1886 with his parents. Daisy Kennedy, was born in Washington, D.C. on January 4, 1879, and was the daughter of a former American slave. James Ellington made blueprints for the United States Navy. He also worked as a butler for Dr. Middleton F. Cuthbert, a prominent white physician, and occasionally worked as a White House caterer.

At the age of seven Ellington began taking piano lessons from Marietta Clinkscales. Daisy surrounded her son with dignified women to reinforce his manners and teach him to live elegantly. Ellington’s childhood friends noticed that "his casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman", and began calling him Duke. Ellington credited his "chum" Edgar McEntree for the nickname. "I think he felt that in order for me to be eligible for his constant companionship, I should have a title. So he called me Duke."

Though Ellington took piano lessons, he was more interested in baseball. "President Roosevelt (Teddy) would come by on his horse sometimes, and stop and watch us play," he recalled. Ellington went to Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. He got his first job selling peanuts at Washington Senators baseball games.

In the summer of 1914, while working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Cafe, he wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag" (also known as the "Poodle Dog Rag"). Ellington created "Soda Fountain Rag" by ear, because he had not yet learned to read and write music. "I would play the 'Soda Fountain Rag' as a one-step, two-step, waltz, tango, and fox trot," Ellington recalled. "Listeners never knew it was the same piece. I was established as having my own repertoire." In his autobiography, ''Music is my Mistress'' (1973), Ellington said he missed more lessons than he attended, feeling at the time that playing the piano was not his talent. Ellington started sneaking into Frank Holiday's Poolroom at the age of fourteen. Hearing the poolroom pianists play ignited Ellington's love for the instrument and he began to take his piano studies seriously. Among the many piano players he listened to, he listened to Doc Perry, Lester Dishman, Louis Brown, Turner Layton, Gertie Wells, Clarence Bowser, Sticky Mack, Blind Johnny, Cliff Jackson, Claude Hopkins, Phil Wurd, Caroline Thornton, Luckey Roberts, Eubie Blake, Joe Rochester, and Harvey Brooks.

Ellington began listening to, watching, and imitating ragtime pianists, not only in Washington, D.C., but in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, where he vacationed with his mother during the summer months. Dunbar High School music teacher Henry Lee Grant gave him private lessons in harmony. With the additional guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver "Doc" Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music, project a professional style, and improve his technique. Ellington was also inspired by his first encounters with stride pianists James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts. Later in New York he took advice from Will Marion Cook, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet. Ellington started to play gigs in cafés and clubs in and around Washington, D.C. and his attachment grew to be so strong that he turned down an art scholarship to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1916. Three months before graduating he dropped out of Armstrong Manual Training School, where he was studying commercial art.

From 1917 through 1919, Ellington launched his musical career, painting commercial signs by day and playing piano by night. Through his day job, Duke's entrepreneurial side came out: when a customer would ask him to make a sign for a dance or party, he would ask them if they had musical entertainment; if not, Ellington would ask if he could play for them. He also had a messenger job with the U.S. Navy and State Departments. Ellington moved out of his parents' home and bought his own as he became a successful pianist. At first, he played in other ensembles, and in late 1917 formed his first group, "The Duke’s Serenaders" ("Colored Syncopators", his telephone directory advertising proclaimed). He was not only a member, but also the booking agent. His first play date was at the True Reformer's Hall, where he took home 75 cents.

Ellington played throughout the Washington, D.C. area and into Virginia for private society balls and embassy parties. The band included Otto Hardwick, who switched from bass to saxophone; Arthur Whetsol on trumpet; Elmer Snowden on banjo; and Sonny Greer on drums. The band thrived, performing for both African-American and white audiences, a rarity during the racially divided times.

Music career

Early career

When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington made the fateful decision to leave behind his successful career in Washington, D.C., and move to Harlem, becoming one of the figures of the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes like the Charleston emerged in Harlem, as well as African-American musical theater, including Eubie Blake's ''Shuffle Along''. After the young musicians left the Sweatman Orchestra to strike out on their own, they found an emerging jazz scene that was highly competitive and hard to crack. They hustled pool by day and played whatever gigs they could find. The young band met Willie "The Lion" Smith who introduced them to the scene and gave them some money. They played at rent-house parties for income. After a few months the young musicians returned to Washington, D.C., feeling discouraged.

In June 1923 a gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey, led to a play date at the prestigious Exclusive Club in Harlem. This was followed in September 1923 by a move to the Hollywood Club – 49th and Broadway – and a four-year engagement, which gave Ellington a solid artistic base. He was known to play the bugle at the end of each performance. The group was called Elmer Snowden and his Black Sox Orchestra and had seven members, including James "Bubber" Miley. They renamed themselves "The Washingtonians". Snowden left the group in early 1924 and Ellington took over as bandleader. After a fire the club was re-opened as the Club Kentucky (often referred to as the "Kentucky Club"), an engagement which set the stage for the biggest opportunities in Ellington's life.

Ellington made eight records in 1924, receiving composing credit on three including ''Choo Choo''. In 1925 Ellington contributed four songs to ''Chocolate Kiddies'', an all-African-American revue which introduced European audiences to African-American styles and performers. "Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra" grew to a ten-piece organization; they developed their distinct sound by displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington’s arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members. For a short time soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet played with the group, imparting his propulsive swing and superior musicianship to the young band members. This helped attract the attention of some of the biggest names of jazz, including Paul Whiteman.

In 1927 King Oliver turned down a regular booking for his group as the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club; the offer passed to Ellington. With a weekly radio broadcast and famous white clientele nightly pouring in to see them, Ellington and his band thrived in the period from 1932 to 1942, a golden age for the band.

Ellington was joined in New York City by his wife, Edna Thompson, and son Mercer in the late twenties, but the couple soon permanently separated. According to her obituary in ''Jet'' magazine, she was "[h]omesick for Washington" and returned (she died in 1967).

Although trumpeter Bubber Miley was a member of the orchestra for only a short period, he had a major influence on Ellington's sound. An early exponent of growl trumpet, his style changed the "sweet" dance band sound of the group to one that was hotter, which contemporaries termed 'jungle' style. He also composed most of "Black and Tan Fantasy" and "Creole Love Call". An alcoholic, Miley had to leave the band before they gained wider fame. He died in 1932 at the age of 29. He was an important influence on Cootie Williams, who replaced him.

In 1927 Ellington made a career-advancing agreement with agent-publisher Irving Mills, giving Mills a 45% interest in Ellington's future. Mills had an eye for new talent and early on published compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Fields, and Harold Arlen. During the 1930s Ellington's popularity continued to increase – largely as a result of the promotional skills of Mills – who got more than his fair share of co-composer credits. Mills arranged recording sessions on the Brunswick, Victor, and Columbia labels which gave Ellington popular recognition. Mills lifted the management burden from Ellington's shoulders, allowing him to focus on his band's sound and his compositions. Ellington ended his association with Mills in 1937, although he continued to record under Mills' banner through to 1940.

At the Cotton Club, Ellington's group performed all the music for the revues, which mixed comedy, dance numbers, vaudeville, burlesque, music, and illegal alcohol. The musical numbers were composed by Jimmy McHugh and the lyrics by Dorothy Fields (later Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler), with some Ellington originals mixed in. Weekly radio broadcasts from the club gave Ellington national exposure. In 1929 Ellington appeared in his first movie, a nineteen-minute all-African-American RKO short, ''Black and Tan'', in which he played the hero "Duke". In the same year, The Cotton Club Orchestra appeared on stage for several months in Florenz Ziegfeld's ''Show Girl'', along with vaudeville stars Jimmy Durante, Eddie Foy, Jr., Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, and with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Gus Kahn. That feverish period also included numerous recordings, under the pseudonyms "Whoopee Makers", "The Jungle Band", "Harlem Footwarmers", and the "Ten Black Berries". In 1930 Ellington and his Orchestra connected with a whole different audience in a concert with Maurice Chevalier and they also performed at the Roseland Ballroom, "America's foremost ballroom". Noted composer Percy Grainger was also an early admirer and supporter.

In 1929, when Ellington conducted the orchestra for ''Show Girl'', he met Will Vodery, Ziegfeld’s musical supervisor. In his 1946 biography, ''Duke Ellington'', Barry Ulanov wrote:

As the Depression worsened, the recording industry was in crisis, dropping over 90% of its artists by 1933. Ellington and his orchestra survived the hard times by taking to the road in a series of tours. Radio exposure also helped maintain popularity. Ivie Anderson was hired as their featured vocalist. Sonny Greer had been providing occasional vocals and continued to do in a cross-talk feature with Anderson. Ellington, however, later had many different vocalists, including Herb Jeffries (until 1943) and Al Hibbler (who replaced Jeffries in 1943 and continued until 1951).

Ellington led the orchestra by conducting from the keyboard using piano cues and visual gestures; very rarely did he conduct using a baton. As a bandleader Ellington was not a strict disciplinarian; he maintained control of his orchestra with a crafty combination of charm, humor, flattery, and astute psychology. A complex, private person, he revealed his feelings to only his closest intimates and effectively used his public persona to deflect attention away from himself.

While the band's United States audience remained mainly African-American in this period, the Cotton Club had a near-exclusive white clientele and the Ellington orchestra had a huge following overseas, exemplified by the success of their trip to England in 1933 and their 1934 visit to the European mainland. The English visit saw Ellington win praise from members of the 'serious' music community, including composer Constant Lambert, which gave a boost to Ellington's aspiration to compose longer works. For agent Mills it was a publicity triumph, as Ellington was now internationally known. On the band's tour through the segregated South in 1934, they avoided some of the traveling difficulties of African-Americans by touring in private railcars. These provided easy accommodations, dining, and storage for equipment while avoiding the indignities of segregated facilities.

The death of Ellington's mother in 1935 led to a temporary hiatus in his career. Competition was also intensifying, as African-American and white swing bands began to receive popular attention, including those of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Chick Webb, and Count Basie. Swing dancing became a youth phenomenon, particularly with white college audiences, and "danceability" drove record sales and bookings. Jukeboxes proliferated nationwide, spreading the gospel of "swing". Ellington band could certainly swing, but Ellington's strengths were mood and nuance, and richness of composition; hence his statement "jazz is music; swing is business". Ellington countered with two developments. He made recordings of smaller groups (sextets, octets, and nonets) drawn from his then-15-man orchestra and he composed pieces intended to feature specific instrumentalist, as with "Jeep's Blues" for Johnny Hodges, "Yearning for Love" for Lawrence Brown, "Trumpet in Spades" for Rex Stewart, "Echoes of Harlem" for Cootie Williams and "Clarinet Lament" for Barney Bigard.

In 1937 Ellington returned to the Cotton Club which had relocated to the mid-town theater district. In the summer of that year, his father died, and due to many expenses, Ellington's finances were tight. Things improved in 1938 and he met and moved in with Cotton Club employee Beatrice "Evie" Ellis. After splitting with agent Irving Mills, he signed on with the William Morris Agency. The 1930s ended with a very successful European tour just as World War II loomed.

Ellington delivered some huge hits during the 1930s, which greatly helped to build his overall reputation. Some of them include: "Mood Indigo" (1930), "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933), "Solitude" (1934), "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935), "Caravan" (1937), "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart" (1938). "Take the "A" Train" which hit big in 1941, was written by Billy Strayhorn.

Strayhorn, originally hired as a lyricist, began his association with Ellington in 1939. Nicknamed "Swee' Pea" for his mild manner, Strayhorn soon became a vital member of the Ellington Organization. Ellington showed great fondness kept the Duke Ellington Orchestra going for Strayhorn and never failed to speak glowingly of the man and their collaborative working relationship, "my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine". Strayhorn, with his training in classical music, not only contributed his original lyrics and music, but also arranged and polished many of Ellington's works, becoming a second Ellington or "Duke's doppelganger". It was not uncommon for Strayhorn to fill in for Duke, whether in conducting or rehearsing the band, playing the piano, on stage, and in the recording studio.

Duke in the 1940s

The band reached a creative peak in the early 1940s, when Ellington and a small hand-picked group of his composers and arrangers wrote for an orchestra of distinctive voices who displayed tremendous creativity.

Some of the musicians created a sensation in their own right. The short-lived Jimmy Blanton transformed the use of double bass in jazz, allowing it to function as a solo rather than a rhythm instrument alone. Ben Webster, the Orchestra's first regular tenor saxophonist, started a rivalry with Johnny Hodges as the Orchestra's foremost voice in the sax section. Ray Nance joined, replacing Cootie Williams (who had "defected", contemporary wags claimed, to Benny Goodman). Nance, however, added violin to the instrumental colors Ellington had at his disposal.

Three-minute masterpieces flowed from the minds of Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's son Mercer Ellington, Mary Lou Williams and members of the Orchestra. "Cotton Tail", "Main Stem", "Harlem Airshaft", "Sidewalks of New York (East Side, West Side)", "Jack the bear", and dozens of others date from this period.

Privately made recordings of Nance's first concert date, at Fargo, North Dakota, on November 7, 1940 by Jack Towers and Dick Burris, are probably the most effective display of the band during this period. These recordings, later released as ''Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 Live'', are among the first of innumerable live performances which survive, made by enthusiasts or broadcasters, significantly expanding the Ellington discography.

Ellington's long-term aim became to extend the jazz form from the three-minute limit of the 78 rpm record side, of which he was an acknowledged master. He had composed and recorded ''Creole Rhapsody'' as early as 1931 (issued as both sides of 12" record for Victor and both sides of a 10" record for Brunswick), and his tribute to his mother, "Reminiscing in Tempo," had filled four 10" record sides in 1935; however, it was not until the 1940s that this became a regular feature of Ellington's work.

In this, he was helped by Strayhorn, who had enjoyed a more thorough training in the forms associated with classical music than Ellington. The first of these, "Black, Brown, and Beige" (1943), was dedicated to telling the story of African-Americans, and the place of slavery and the church in their history. Ellington debuted ''Black, Brown and Beige'' in Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943, beginning a series of concerts there suited to displaying Ellington's longer works. While some jazz musicians had played at Carnegie Hall before, few had performed anything as elaborate as Ellington’s work.

Unfortunately, starting a regular pattern, Ellington's longer works were generally not well-received. ''Jump for Joy'', a full-length musical based on themes of African-American identity, debuted on July 10, 1941 at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. Although it had the support of the Hollywood establishment, and received mostly positive reviews, its socio-political outlook provoked a negative reaction among some members of the public. It ran for 122 performances until September 29, 1941, with a brief revival in November of that year. Its subject matter did not make it appealing to Broadway, despite Ellington's plans to take it there.

The settlement of the first recording ban of 1942–43 had a serious effect on all the big bands because of the increase in royalty payments to musicians which resulted from it. The financial viability of Ellington's Orchestra came under threat, though Ellington's income as a songwriter ultimately subsidized it. Ellington always spent lavishly and although he drew a respectable income from the Orchestra's operations, the band's income often just covered expenses.

The music industry's focus shifted away from the Big Bands to the work of solo vocalists such as the young Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday and mainstream groups like The Andrews Sisters as World War II drew to a close. While Ellington had featured some of the most talented singers of the day fronting his orchestra, he and his band took a back seat to no one, which set him down a path that put him increasingly at odds with the growing recording industry which was profiting from celebrity singers who were cheaper to keep than a big band, and produced bigger revenues.

By the mid 1940s, artists were creatively changing. One of Ellington's composer-arrangers, Mary Lou Williams, left Ellington in 1943 and by 1945 was working with Dizzy Gillespie on a new form of jazz music, "Bebop."

Bebop rebelled against mainstream jazz and the strict forms of which Ellington was perhaps its most well known standard-bearer. The music, which had redefined the American sound over 35 years, was about to be shaken up.

It would take another ten years for Bebop to begin catching on with jazz aficionados world-wide, but it was an early hit with club owners of smaller venues who could draw the jazz form's growing audiences in New York City at a fraction of the cost of hosting a big band, particularly one of Ellington's caliber. Newer, smaller bands and splinter forms of music increasingly put pressure on the bigger clubs who paid out increasingly more to maintain their big bands. Ellington's elite band was a costly enterprise that, along with his excessive personal spending, always teetered on the brink of break-even. The new music trends eventually pushed it over the edge and put Ellington out on the road in search of venues that could afford to showcase his music.

Bebop was also a huge shift for young talent, from Charlie Parker to John Coltrane to Thelonious Monk who did not embrace Big Band and sought out new creative frontiers, redefining "modern" jazz music forever. Ellington did not recruit or embrace these new artists and change with the times.

In 1950, another emerging musical trend, the African-American popular music style known as Rhythm and Blues driven by a new generation of composers and musicians like Fats Domino drew away young audiences from both the African-American and white communities, and ultimately unified those audiences as R&B; morphed into Rock & Roll which expanded the cults of the singers from the Big Band era to the singer/songwriters from Domino to Elvis Presley to Buddy Holly. Again, Ellington did not embrace the new musical form, leaving him further in the growing dust cloud of musical history.

Ellington continued on his own course through these tectonic shifts in the music business. He did not wholly resist trends while trying to turn out major works. The Kay Davis vocal feature "Transblucency" was an attempt to cater to the singer-centric music world. He still performed major extended compositions such as ''Harlem'' (1950), whose score he presented to music-loving President Harry Truman, but these works were rapidly becoming reflections of his greatness in the 1930s and 1940s, and not ground-breaking works that rattled the music world back into the Big Band camp.

In 1951, Ellington suffered a major loss of personnel, with Sonny Greer, Lawrence Brown, and most significantly Johnny Hodges, leaving to pursue other ventures. Lacking overseas opportunities and motion picture appearances, Ellington's Orchestra survived on "one-nighters" and whatever else came their way.

By the summer of 1955 the band was performing for six weeks at the Aquacade in Flushing, New York, where Ellington is supposed to have "invented" a drink known as "The Tornado," the only alcoholic concoction that features his signature Coca-Cola and sugar.

Ellington's hope that television would provide a significant new outlet for his type of jazz was not fulfilled. Tastes and trends had moved on without him. The introduction of the 33 1/3 rpm LP record and hi-fi phonograph though, did give new life to many of his older compositions. However by 1955, after three years of recording for Capitol, Ellington no longer had a regular recording affiliation.

Career revival

The music business' increasing factionization into specific forms of rock-and-roll, country, bluegrass, or jazz broke down into even more sub-sets, and opened the door for the second act in Duke Ellington's career. An international fascination with Jazz re-opened the door at record labels to artists like Ellington and Louis Armstrong who had found themselves out of step with the times for the last half-decade. The Ellington who was too big or too proud to change would now appear with a variety of artists from the different jazz forms.

Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956 returned him to wider prominence and exposed him to new audiences. The feature "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue", with saxophonist Paul Gonsalves's six-minute saxophone solo, had been in the band's book since 1937, but on this occasion nearly created a riot. The revived attention should not have surprised anyone – Hodges had returned to the fold the previous year, and Ellington's collaboration with Strayhorn had been renewed around the same time, under terms more amenable to the younger man. ''Such Sweet Thunder'' (1957), based on Shakespeare's plays and characters, and ''The Queen's Suite'', dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II, were products of the renewed impetus which the Newport appearance helped to create.

A new record contract with Columbia produced Ellington's best-selling LP ''Ellington at Newport'' and yielded six years of recording stability under producer Irving Townsend, who coaxed both commercial and artistic productions from Ellington. In 1957, CBS (Columbia's parent corporation) aired a live television production of ''A Drum Is a Woman'', an allegorical suite which received mixed reviews. Festival appearances at the new Monterey Jazz Festival and elsewhere provided venues for live exposure, and a European tour in 1958 was wildly received.

After a 25-year gap, Ellington (with Strayhorn) returned to work on film scores, this time for ''Anatomy of a Murder'' (1959) and ''Paris Blues'' (1961). Ellington and Strayhorn, always looking for new musical territory, produced adaptations of John Steinbeck's novel ''Sweet Thursday'', Tchaikovsky's ''Nutcracker Suite'' and Edvard Grieg's ''Peer Gynt''. The late 1950s also saw Ella Fitzgerald record her ''Duke Ellington Songbook'' with Ellington and his orchestra—a recognition that Ellington's songs had now become part of the cultural canon known as the "Great American Songbook".

''Detroit Free Press'' music critic Mark Stryker concludes that the work of Billy Strayhorn and Ellington in ''Anatomy of a Murder'', the trial court drama film directed by Otto Preminger in 1959, is "indispensable, [although] . . . too sketchy to rank in the top echelon among Ellington-Strayhorn masterpiece suites like ''Such Sweet Thunder'' and ''The Far East Suite'', but its most inspired moments are their equal." Film historians have recognized the soundtrack "as a landmark – the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band." The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the ’60s".

In the early 1960s, Ellington embraced recording with artists who had been fierce rivals of the past, or who had been young artists from the Bebop beginnings whom he did not associate with. The Ellington and Count Basie orchestras recorded together. During a period when he was between recording contracts he made records with Louis Armstrong (Roulette), Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane (both for Impulse) and participated in a session with Charles Mingus and Max Roach which produced the ''Money Jungle'' (United Artists) album.

Ironically, the singer most responsible for setting off the changes that brought an end to the big band era became Ellington's salvation. He signed to Frank Sinatra's new Reprise label. Musicians who had previously worked with Ellington returned to the Orchestra as members: Lawrence Brown in 1960 and Cootie Williams in 1962.

The international mania for jazz reinstated Ellington as one of the highest earning artists in jazz. He performed all over the world; a significant part of each year was now spent making overseas tours.

He formed notable new working relationships with international artists from around the world, including the Swedish vocalist Alice Babs, and South African musicians Dollar Brand and Sathima Bea Benjamin (''A Morning in Paris'', 1963/1997).

His earlier hits became big sellers in the rediscovery of the music world-wide, earning Ellington impressive royalties.

"The writing and playing of music is a matter of intent.... You can't just throw a paint brush against the wall and call whatever happens art. My music fits the tonal personality of the player. I think too strongly in terms of altering my music to fit the performer to be impressed by accidental music. You can't take doodling seriously."

Last years

Ellington was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1965, but was turned down. His reaction at 67 years old: "Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be famous too young." In September of the same year, the first of his Sacred Concerts was given its premiere. It was an attempt to fuse Christian liturgy with jazz, and even though it received mixed reviews, Ellington was proud of the composition and performed it dozens of times. This concert was followed by two others of the same type in 1968 and 1973, known as the Second and Third Sacred Concerts. This caused controversy in what was already a tumultuous time in the United States. Many saw the Sacred Music suites as an attempt to reinforce commercial support for organized religion, though Ellington simply said it was, "the most important thing I've done." The Steinway piano upon which the Sacred Concerts were composed is part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Like Haydn and Mozart, Ellington conducted his orchestra from the piano - he always played the keyboard parts when the Sacred Concerts were performed.

Ellington continued to make vital and innovative recordings, including ''The Far East Suite'' (1966), the ''New Orleans Suite'' (1970), and ''The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse'' (1971), much of it inspired by his world tours. It was during this time that Ellington recorded his only album with Frank Sinatra, entitled ''Francis A. & Edward K.'' (1967).

Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, an Honorary PhD from the Berklee College of Music in 1971, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country.

Work in films and the theater

Ellington's film work began in 1929 with the short film ''Black and Tan''. ''Symphony in Black'' (1935) featured his extended piece 'A Rhapsody of Negro Life'. It introduced Billie Holiday, and won an Academy Award as the best musical short subject. He also appeared in the Amos 'n' Andy film ''Check and Double Check'' (1930). Ellington and his Orchestra continued to appear in films through the 1930s and 1940s, both in short films and in features such as ''Murder at the Vanities'' and ''Belle of the Nineties'' (1934), and ''Cabin in the Sky'' (1943). In the late 1950s, his work in films took the shape of scoring for soundtracks, notably ''Anatomy of a Murder'' (1959), with James Stewart, in which he appeared fronting a roadhouse combo, and ''Paris Blues'' (1961), which featured Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as jazz musicians.

He wrote an original score for director Michael Langham's production of Shakespeare's ''Timon of Athens'' at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada which opened on July 29, 1963. Langham has used it for several subsequent productions, most recently in an adaptation by Stanley Silverman which expands the score with some of Ellington's best-known works.

Ellington composed the score for the musical ''Jump For Joy'', which was performed in Los Angeles during 1941. Ellington's sole book musical, ''Beggar's Holiday'', was staged on Broadway in 1946. ''Sophisticated Ladies'', an award-winning 1981 musical revue, incorporated many tunes from his repertoire.

Personal life

Ellington married his high school sweetheart, Edna Thompson, on July 2, 1918, when he was 19. Shortly after their marriage, on March 11, 1919 Edna gave birth to their only son, Mercer Kennedy Ellington. Mercer played trumpet, led his own band and worked as his father's business manager, eventually taking full control of the band after Duke's death. He was an important archivist of his father's musical life.

Ellington's sister Ruth (1915–2004) later ran Tempo Music, Ellington's music publishing company. Ruth's second husband was the bass-baritone McHenry Boatwright, whom she met when he sang at her brother's funeral.

Ellington's eldest grandson Edward Kennedy Ellington II also is a musician and maintains a small salaried band known as the Duke Ellington Legacy, which frequently comprises the core of the big band operated by The Duke Ellington Center for the Arts.

Death

Ellington died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City. At his funeral attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day. A genius has passed." Mercer Ellington picked up the reins of the orchestra immediately after Duke's death. Ellington's last words were, "Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered."

Legacy

Duke Ellington's work has come to be recognized as a cornerstone of American culture and heritage. He is widely regarded as the most important composer in jazz; he was also a galvanizing bandleader who inspired many of his musicians to produce their best work, whilst himself being a significant exponent of jazz piano. His works have been revisited by artists and musicians around the world both as a source of inspiration and a bedrock of their own performing careers. Ellington's compositions are now the staple of the repertoire of music conservatories, and even high school band programs that have embraced his music continue to give it life and voice.

His son, Mercer Ellington kept his big band alive after his passing. When Mercer died, Paul Ellington kept the Duke Ellington Orchestra going. It plays in concert halls around the world to this day.

Discography

Awards, honors and recognitions

Memorials

Numerous memorials have been dedicated to Duke Ellington, in cities from New York and Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles.

In Ellington's birthplace of Washington, D.C., there is a school dedicated to his honor and memory as well as one of the bridges over Rock Creek Park. The Duke Ellington School of the Arts educates talented students, who are considering careers in the arts, by providing intensive arts instruction and strong academic programs that prepare students for post-secondary education and professional careers. The Calvert Street Bridge was renamed the Duke Ellington Bridge; built in 1935, it connects Woodley Park to Adams Morgan.

On February 24, 2009, the United States Mint launched a new coin featuring Duke Ellington, making him the first African-American to appear by himself on a circulating U.S. coin. Ellington appears on the reverse ("tails") side of the District of Columbia quarter. The coin is part of the U.S. Mint's program honoring the District and the U.S. territories and celebrates Ellington's birthplace in the District of Columbia. Ellington is depicted on the quarter seated at a piano, sheet music in hand, along with the inscription "Justice for All", which is the District's motto.

Ellington lived for years in a townhouse on the corner of Manhattan's Riverside Drive and West 106th Street. After his death, West 106th Street was officially renamed Duke Ellington Boulevard. A large memorial to Ellington, created by sculptor Robert Graham, was dedicated in 1997 in New York's Central Park, near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, an intersection named Duke Ellington Circle.

Although he made two more stage appearances before his death, Ellington performed what is considered his final "full" concert in a ballroom at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974. The hall was renamed the Duke Ellington Ballroom in 1980.

A statue of Ellington at a piano is featured at the entrance to UCLA's Schoenberg Hall. According to ''UCLA Magazine'':

He is one of only five jazz musicians ever to have been featured on the cover of ''Time'' (the other four being Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Wynton Marsalis, and Dave Brubeck).

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival is a nationally renowned annual competition for prestigious high school bands. Started in 1996 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the festival is named after Ellington because of the large focus that the festival places on his works.

Tributes

Sathima Bea Benjamin - the South African vocalist wrote "Gift of Love", in memory of Duke Ellington, for her 1987 album ''Love Light''.

Dave Brubeck - dedicated "The Duke" (1954) to Ellington and it became a standard covered by others, both during Ellington's lifetime (such as by Miles Davis on ''Miles Ahead'', 1957) and posthumously (such as George Shearing on ''I Hear a Rhapsody: Live at the Blue Note'', 1992). The album The Real Ambassadors has a vocal version of this piece, ''You Swing Baby (The Duke)'', with lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave's wife. It is performed as a duet between Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. It is also dedicated to Duke Ellington.

Tony Bennett frequently altered the lyrics to "Lullaby of Broadway" in live performance, to sing, "You rock-a-bye your baby 'round/to Ellington or Basie," as a personal tribute to the two jazz masters.

Judy Collins - wrote "Song For Duke" in 1975, and included it on her album ''Judith''.

Miles Davis - one month after Ellington's death, created his half-hour dedicated dirge "He Loved Him Madly" (1974) collected on ''Get Up with It''.

The jazz-influenced band Steely Dan recorded a note-for-note version of an early Ellington standard, "East St. Louis Toodle-oo," on their album ''Pretzel Logic'', released in 1974, using treated slide guitars to re-create the plunger-muted "jungle sound" of the original Ellington horns.

Stevie Wonder - wrote the song "Sir Duke" as a tribute to Ellington in 1976.

Charles Mingus - composed "Open Letter to Duke" and "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love"

Lorraine Feather - has composed lyrics to many of Ellington's instrumental compositions,recorded on CD's including "Dooji Wooji" and "Such Sweet Thunder."

The Modern Jazz Quartet composed two original Ellington tributes for their album ''For Ellington''.

There are hundreds of albums dedicated to the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn by artists famous and obscure. The more notable artists include Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett, Claude Bolling, Oscar Peterson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Dick Hyman, Joe Pass, Milt Jackson, Earl Hines, André Previn, World Saxophone Quartet, Ben Webster, Zoot Sims, Kenny Burrell, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Martial Solal, Clark Terry and Randy Weston.

Homage from critics

Gunther Schuller wrote, "Ellington composed incessantly to the very last days of his life. Music was indeed his mistress; it was his total life and his commitment to it was incomparable and unalterable. In jazz he was a giant among giants. And in twentieth century music, he may yet one day be recognized as one of the half-dozen greatest masters of our time."

Martin Williams said "Duke Ellington lived long enough to hear himself named among our best composers. And since his death in 1974, it has become not at all uncommon to see him named, along with Charles Ives, as the greatest composer we have produced, regardless of category."

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Duke Ellington on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Andre Previn said, "You know, Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, ‘‘Oh, yes, that’s done like this.’’ But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don’t know what it is!"

Awards

Grammy Awards

Ellington earned 12 Grammy awards from 1959 to 2000, nine while he was alive. {| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Duke Ellington Grammy Award History |- ! Year ! Category ! Title ! Genre ! Result |- align=center | 1999 | Historical Album | The Duke Ellington Centennial EditionRCA Victor Recordings (1927–1973) | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1979 | Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band | Duke Ellington At Fargo, 1940 Live | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1976 | Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band | ''The Ellington Suites'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1972 | Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band | ''Togo Brava Suite'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1971 | Best Jazz Performance By A Big Band | ''New Orleans Suite'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1968 | Best Instrumental Jazz Performance - Large GroupOr Soloist With Large Group | ''...And His Mother Called Him Bill'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1967 | Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Large GroupOr Soloist With Large Group | ''Far East Suite'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1966 | Best Original Jazz Composition | "In The Beginning God" | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1965 | Best Instrumental Jazz Performance -Large Group Or Soloist With Large Group | ''Ellington '66'' | Jazz | Winner |- align=center | 1959 | Best Performance By A Dance Band | ''Anatomy of a Murder'' | Pop | Winner |- align=center | 1959 | Best Musical Composition First RecordedAnd Released In 1959(More Than 5 Minutes Duration) | ''Anatomy of a Murder'' | Composing | Winner |- align=center | 1959 | Best Sound Track Album - Background ScoreFrom A Motion Picture Or Television | ''Anatomy of a Murder'' | Composing | Winner |- align=center |}

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Duke Ellington were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Duke Ellington: Grammy Hall of Fame Award |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Year Inducted |- align=center | 1932 | "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" | Jazz (Single) | Brunswick | 2008 |- align=center | 1934 | "Cocktails for Two" | Jazz (Single) | Victor | 2007 |- align=center | 1957 | ''Ellington at Newport'' | Jazz (Album) | Columbia | 2004 |- align=center | 1956 | "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" | Jazz (Single) | Columbia | 1999 |- align=center | 1967 | ''Far East Suite'' | Jazz (Album) | RCA | 1999 |- align=center | 1944 | ''Black, Brown and Beige'' | Jazz (Single) | RCA Victor | 1990 |- align=center | 1928 | "Black and Tan Fantasy" | Jazz (Single) | Victor | 1981 |- align=center | 1941 | "Take the "A" Train" | Jazz (Single) | Victor | 1976 |- align=center | 1931 | "Mood Indigo" | Jazz (Single) | Brunswick |1975 |- align=center |}

Honors and inductions

{| class=wikitable |- ! Year ! Category ! Notes |- align=center | 2009 | Commemorative U.S. quarter | D.C. and U.S. Territories Quarters Program. |- align=center | 2008 | Gennett Records Walk of Fame |- align=center | 2004 | Nesuhi Ertegün Jazz Hall of Fameat Jazz at Lincoln Center |- align=center | 1999 | Pulitzer Prize | Special Citation |- align=center | 1986 | 22¢ commemorative U.S. stamp | Issued April 29, 1986 |- align=center | 1978 | Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame |- align=center | 1973 | French Legion of Honor | July 6, 1973 |- align=center | 1973 | Honorary Degree in Music from Columbia University | May 16, 1973 |- align=center | 1971 | Honorary Doctorate Degree from Berklee College of Music |- align=center | 1971 | Songwriters Hall of Fame |- align=center | 1969 | Presidential Medal of Freedom |- align=center | 1956 | Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame inductee |- align=center | 1968 | Grammy Trustees Award | Special Merit Award |- align=center | 1966 | Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award |- align=center | 1959 | NAACP Spingarn Medal |}

Notes

Bibliography (further reading)

Cohen, Harvey G. ''Duke Ellington's America.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-226-11263-3

Collier, James Lincoln. ''Duke Ellington''. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-19-503770-7

Dailey, Raleigh. "Ellington as a Composer for the Piano," in ''Jazz Research Proceedings Yearbook,'' #31 (Jan.2001), pp. 151–156.

Dance, Stanley. ''The World Of Duke Ellington''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970. ISBN 0-306-80136-1

Ellington, Duke. ''Music Is My Mistress''. New York: Da Capo, 1976 ISBN 0-7043-3090-3

Ellington, Mercer. ''Duke Ellington In Person''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. ISBN 0-395-27511-5.

Hajdu, David, ''Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn''. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1996. ISBN 978-0-86547-512-0.

Hasse, John Edward. ''Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington''. New York: Da Capo, 1995. ISBN 0-306-80614-2

Lawrence, A. H. ''Duke Ellington and His World: A Biography''. New York: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0-415-93012-X

Schuller, Gunther. ''Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0-19-504043-2. Especially pp. 318–357.

Schuller, Gunther. ''The Swing Era: The Development Of Jazz, 1930-1945''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780195072405. Esp. pp. 46–157.

Gilles Tordjman, François Billard, ''Duke Ellington'', Le Seuil, Paris, 1994. ISBN 978-2-02-013700-3

Terkel, Studs (2002), Giants of Jazz (2nd ed.), New York: The New Press, ISBN 978-1-56584-769-9.

Tucker, Mark. ''Ellington, The Early Years'', University of Illinois Press, 1991. ISBN 0-252-01425-1

Tucker, Mark. ''The Duke Ellington Reader''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 ISBN 978-0-19-509391-9 .

Ulanov, Barry. ''Duke Ellington'', Creative Age Press, 1946.

Weisbard, Eric, ed.. ''This Is Pop: In Search of the Elusive at Experience Music Project''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-674-01344-1.

Reference works (discographies, filmographies, etc.)

Massagli, Luciano and Volonté, Giovanni. ''The New Desor: Duke Ellington's Story on Records Parts One and Two'', 1999, Milan, Italy. Privately published two part discography with no ISBN number. The most comprehensive Ellington discography for sessions and record issues.

Stratemann, Dr. Klaus. ''Duke Ellington: Day by Day and Film by Film''. Copenhagen: JazzMedia, 1992. ISBN 87-88043-34-7 Covers all of Duke's travels and films from the 1929 short film ''Black and Tan'' onwards

Timner, W.E.. ''Ellingtonia: The Recorded Music of Duke Ellington and His Sidemen''. 5^th ed. Lanham, Md. & Toronto: Scarecrow Press, 2007. ISBN 0-8108-5889-4 Has a unique discography of Ellington's sidemen.

External links

Official website

Official family website

Symphony In Black (discussion and film)

Duke Ellington Biography, in ''Down Beat Magazine''.

Duke Ellington Collection: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Archive Center.

A Duke Ellington Panorama; including detailed discography.

The Duke Ellington Society, TDES, Inc

Duke Ellington: 20th International Conference. May 2008, London.

Duke Ellington Orchestra at Wenig-LaMonica Associates

Category:1899 births Category:1974 deaths Category:African American musicians Category:American autobiographers Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz pianists Category:Big band bandleaders Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Decca Records artists Category:Gennett recording artists Category:Red Baron Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Musicians from Washington, D.C. Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Swing pianists Category:American Episcopalians Category:Cancer deaths in New York Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (The Bronx) Category:Spingarn Medal winners Category:American pianists Category:Jazz record producers

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Stevie Wonder
background	solo_singer
birth name	Stevland Hardaway Judkins
alias	Stevland Hardaway Morris, Little Stevie Wonder, Eivets Rednow
born	May 13, 1950Saginaw, Michigan, United States
origin	Detroit, Michigan, United States
instrument	Vocals, synthesizer, piano, keyboards, harmonica, clavinet, drums, bass guitar, congas, bongos, melodica, keytar, accordion
genre	Soul, pop, R&B;, funk, jazz
occupation	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, activist
years active	1961–present
label	Tamla, Motown
website	}}

Stevland Hardaway Morris (previously Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown Records' Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.

Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include ''Talking Book'', ''Innervisions'' and ''Songs in the Key of Life''. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2008, ''Billboard'' magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.

Early life

Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950, the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway. Owing to his being born six weeks premature, the blood vessels at the back of his eyes had not yet reached the front and their aborted growth caused the retinas to detach. The medical term for this condition is retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, and while it may have been exacerbated by the oxygen pumped into his incubator, this was not the primary cause of his blindness.

When Stevie Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved herself and her children to Detroit. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives. Morris has remained Stevie Wonder's legal name ever since. He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica, drums and bass. During childhood he was active in his church choir.

Discovery and early Motown recordings

Ronnie White of The Miracles gives credit to his brother Gerald White for persistently nagging him to come to his friend's house in 1961 to check out Stevie Wonder. Afterward, White brought Wonder and his mother to Motown Records. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla label with the name Little Stevie Wonder. Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave Wonder his trademark name after stating "we can't keep calling him the eighth wonder of the world". He then recorded the regional Detroit single, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues", which was released on Tamla in late 1961. Wonder released his first two albums, ''The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie'' and ''Tribute to Uncle Ray'', in 1962, to little success.

Music career

Early success: 1963–1971

By age 13, Wonder had a major hit, "Fingertips (Pt. 2)", a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance, issued on the album ''Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius''. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the U.S. pop and R&B; charts and launched him into the public consciousness.

In 1964, Stevie Wonder made his film debut in ''Muscle Beach Party'' as himself, credited as "Little Stevie Wonder". He returned in the sequel released five months later, ''Bikini Beach''. He performed on-screen in both films, singing "Happy Street," and "Happy Feelin' (Dance and Shout)," respectively.

Dropping the "Little" from his name, Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", "With a Child's Heart", and "Blowin' in the Wind", a Bob Dylan cover, co-sung by his mentor, producer Clarence Paul. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including "Tears of a Clown", a number one hit performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.

In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the pseudonym (and title) ''Eivets Rednow'', which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her"; "For Once in My Life" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder co-wrote the songs on the next album, ''Where I'm Coming From'', which did not succeed in the charts. Reaching his twenty-first birthday on May 13, 1971, he allowed his Motown contract to expire.

In 1970, Wonder co-wrote, and played numerous instruments on the hit "It's a Shame" for fellow Motown act The Spinners. His contribution was meant to be a showcase of his talent and thus a weapon in his ongoing negotiations with Gordy about creative autonomy.

Classic period: 1972–1976

Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a bargaining tool while negotiating with Motown. Eventually the label agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to his own songs. The 120-page contract was a precedent at Motown and gave Wonder a much higher royalty rate. Wonder returned to Motown in March 1972 with ''Music of My Mind''. Unlike most previous albums on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, ''Music of My Mind'' was a full-length artistic statement with songs flowing together thematically. Wonder's lyrics dealt with social, political, and mystical themes as well as standard romantic ones, while musically Wonder began exploring overdubbing and recording most of the instrumental parts himself. ''Music of My Mind'' marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Tonto's Expanding Head Band (Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil).

Released in late 1972, ''Talking Book'' featured the No. 1 hit "Superstition", which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner clavinet keyboard. The song features a rocking groove that garnered Wonder an additional audience on rock radio stations. ''Talking Book'' also featured "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", which also peaked at No. 1. During the same time as the album's release, Stevie Wonder began touring with the Rolling Stones to alleviate the negative effects from pigeon-holing as a result of being an R&B; artist in America. Between them, the two songs won three Grammy Awards. On an episode of the children's television show ''Sesame Street'' that aired in April 1973, Wonder and his band performed "Superstition", as well as an original song called "Sesame Street Song", which demonstrated his abilities with the "talk box".

''Innervisions'', released in 1973, featured "Higher Ground" (#4 on the pop charts) as well as the trenchant "Living for the City" (#8). Both songs reached No. 1 on the R&B; charts. Popular ballads such as "Golden Lady" and "All in Love Is Fair" were also present, in a mixture of moods that nevertheless held together as a unified whole. ''Innervisions'' generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The album is ranked #23 on ''Rolling Stone Magazine's'' 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Wonder had become the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early 1970s.

On August 6, 1973, Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour in North Carolina, when a car in which he was riding hit the back of a truck. This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a partial loss of his sense of smell and a temporary loss of sense of taste. Despite the setback, Wonder re-appeared in concert at Madison Square Garden in March 1974 with a performance that highlighted both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on mid-tempo songs such as "Living for the City". The album ''Fulfillingness' First Finale'' appeared in July 1974 and set two hits high on the pop charts: the #1 "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and the Top Ten "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys won.

The same year Wonder took part in a Los Angeles jam session which would become known by the bootleg album ''A Toot and a Snore in '74''. He also co-wrote and produced the Syreeta Wright album ''Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta''.

On October 4, 1975, Wonder performed at the historical "Wonder Dream Concert" in Kingston, Jamaica, a benefit for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind.

By 1975, in his 25th year, Stevie Wonder had won two consecutive Grammy Awards: in 1974 for ''Innervisions'' and in 1975 for ''Fulfillingness' First Finale''. In 1975 he featured on the album ''It's My Pleasure'' by Billy Preston, playing harmonica on two tracks.

The double album-with-extra-EP ''Songs in the Key of Life'', was released in September 1976. Sprawling in style, unlimited in ambition, and sometimes lyrically difficult to fathom, the album was hard for some listeners to assimilate, yet is regarded by many as Wonder's crowning achievement and one of the most recognizable and accomplished albums in pop music history. The album became the first of an American artist to debut straight at #1 in the ''Billboard'' charts, where it remained for 14 non-consecutive weeks. Two tracks, became #1 Pop/R&B; hits "I Wish" and "Sir Duke". The baby-celebratory "Isn't She Lovely?" was written about his newborn daughter Aisha, while songs such as "Love's in Need of Love Today" (which years later Wonder would perform at the post-September 11, 2001 ''America: A Tribute to Heroes'' telethon) and "Village Ghetto Land" reflected a far more pensive mood. ''Songs in the Key of Life'' won Album of the Year and two other Grammys. The album ranks 56th on ''Rolling Stone Magazine'''s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

After such a concentrated and sustained level of creativity, Wonder stopped recording for three years, releasing only the 3 LP ''Looking Back'', an anthology of his first Motown period. The albums Wonder released during this period were very influential on the music world: the 1983 ''Rolling Stone Record Guide'' said they "pioneered stylistic approaches that helped to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade"; ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included four of the five albums, with three in the top 90; and in 2005, Kanye West said of his own work, "I'm not trying to compete with what's out there now. I'm really trying to compete with ''Innervisions'' and ''Songs in the Key of Life''. It sounds musically blasphemous to say something like that, but why not set that as your bar?"

Commercial period: 1979–1990

It was in Wonder's next phase that he began to commercially reap the rewards of his legendary classic period. The '80s saw Wonder scoring his biggest hits and reaching an unprecedented level of fame evidenced by increased album sales, charity participation, high-profile collaborations, political impact, and television appearances.

When Wonder did return, it was with the soundtrack album ''Journey through the Secret Life of Plants'' (1979), featured in the film ''The Secret Life of Plants''. Mostly instrumental, the album was composed using the Computer Music Melodian, an early sampler. Wonder toured briefly in support of the album, and used a Fairlight CMI sampler on stage. In this year Wonder also wrote and produced the dance hit "Let's Get Serious", performed by Jermaine Jackson and (ranked by ''Billboard'' as the #1 R&B; single of 1980).

''Hotter than July'' (1980) became Wonder's first platinum-selling single album, and its single "Happy Birthday" was a successful vehicle for his campaign to establish Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday. The album also included "Master Blaster (Jammin')", "I Ain't Gonna Stand for It", and the sentimental ballad, "Lately", which was later covered by Jodeci and S Club 7.

In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his '70s work with ''Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium'', which included four new songs: the ten-minute funk classic "Do I Do" (which featured Dizzy Gillespie), "That Girl" (one of the year's biggest singles to chart on the R&B; side), "Front Line", a narrative about a soldier in the Vietnam War that Stevie Wonder wrote and sang in the 1st person, and "Ribbon in the Sky", one of his many classic compositions. Wonder also gained a #1 hit that year in collaboration with Paul McCartney in their paean to racial harmony, "Ebony and Ivory".

In 1983, Wonder performed the song "Stay Gold", the theme to Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel ''The Outsiders''. Wonder wrote the lyrics.

In 1983, Wonder scheduled an album to be entitled "People Work, Human Play." The album never surfaced and instead 1984 saw the release of Wonder's soundtrack album for ''The Woman in Red''. The lead single, "I Just Called to Say I Love You", was a #1 pop and R&B; hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was placed 13th in the list of best-selling singles in the UK published in 2002. It went on to win an Academy Award for "Best Song" in 1985. The album also featured a guest appearance by Dionne Warwick, singing the duet "It's You" with Stevie and a few songs of her own. The following year's ''In Square Circle'' featured the #1 pop hit "Part-Time Lover". The album also has a Top 10 Hit with "Go Home." It also featured the ballad "Overjoyed" which was originally written for ''Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants'', but didn't make the album. He performed "Overjoyed" on ''Saturday Night Live'' when he was the host. He was also featured in Chaka Khan's cover of Prince's "I Feel For You", alongside Melle Mel, playing his signature harmonica. In roughly the same period he was also featured on harmonica on Eurythmics' single, "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" and Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues".

By 1985, Stevie Wonder was an American icon, the subject of good-humored jokes about blindness and affectionately impersonated by Eddie Murphy on ''Saturday Night Live''. Wonder sometimes joined in the jokes himself such as in ''The Motown Revue'' with Smokey Robinson. He was in a featured duet with Bruce Springsteen on the all-star charity single for African Famine Relief, "We Are the World", and he was part of another charity single the following year (1986), the AIDS-inspired "That's What Friends Are For". He also played the harmonica on the album ''Dreamland Express'' by John Denver in the song "If Ever", a song Wonder co-wrote with Stephanie Andrews. He also wrote the track "I Do Love You" for The Beach Boys' 1985 self-titled album. Stevie Wonder also played the harmonica on a track called "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" from "Showboat" on "The Broadway Album" by Barbra Streisand.

In 1986, Stevie Wonder appeared on ''The Cosby Show'', as himself, in the episode "A Touch of Wonder".

In 1987, Wonder appeared on Michael Jackson's ''Bad'' album on the duet "Just Good Friends". Michael Jackson also sang a duet with him titled "Get It" on Wonder's 1987 album ''Characters''. This was a minor hit single, as were "Skeletons" and "You Will Know". In the fall of 1988, Wonder dueted with Julio Iglesias on the hit single "My Love", which appeared on Iglesias' album ''Non Stop''.

Later career: 1991–2001

thumb|Stevie Wonder at the Grammy Awards of 1990 After 1987's ''Characters'' LP, Wonder continued to release new material, but at a slower pace. He recorded a soundtrack album for Spike Lee's film ''Jungle Fever'' in 1991. From this album, singles and videos were released for "Gotta Have You" and "These Three Words". The B-side to the "Gotta Have You" single was "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land", which was played during the end credits of the movie ''Jungle Fever'' but was not included on the soundtrack. A piano and vocal version of "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was also released on the ''Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal'' compilation. It is rumored that "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was originally intended for release on ''Fulfillingness' First Finale Volume Two'', a project that has never been confirmed as completed.

''Conversation Peace'' and the live album ''Natural Wonder'' were also released in the 1990s. The former received its European launch at a high-profile March 1995 press conference in Paris, where Stevie mentioned how the tearing down of The Wall between East and West Berlin and the desire for a united Europe had played a significant part in the inspiration behind the album.

In 1994, Wonder made a guest appearance on the KISS cover album ''KISS My Ass: Classic KISS Regrooved'', playing harmonica and supplying background vocals for the song "Deuce", performed by Lenny Kravitz.

In 1996, Stevie Wonder's ''Songs in the Key of Life'' was selected as a documentary subject for the Classic Albums documentary series. This series dedicates 60 minutes to one groundbreaking record per feature. The same year, he performed John Lennon's song "Imagine" in the closing ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games. The same year, Wonder performed in a remix of "Seasons of Love" from the Jonathan Larson musical ''Rent''.

In 1997, Wonder collaborated with Babyface for a song about abuse (domestic violence) called "How Come, How Long" which was nominated for an award.

In December 1999, Wonder announced that he was interested in pursuing an intraocular retinal prosthesis to partially restore his sight. That same year, Wonder was featured on harmonica in the Sting song "Brand New Day".

In 2000, Stevie Wonder contributed two new songs to the soundtrack for Spike Lee's ''Bamboozled'' album ("Misrepresented People" and "Some Years Ago").

Current career: 2002–present

In March 2002, Wonder performed at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City.

On July 2, 2005, Wonder performed in the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia.

Wonder's first new album in ten years, ''A Time to Love'', was released on October 18, 2005, after having been pushed back from first a May, and then a June release. The album was released electronically on September 27, 2005, exclusively on Apple's iTunes Music Store. The first single, "So What the Fuss", was released in April. A second single, "From the Bottom of My Heart" was a hit on adult-contemporary R&B; radio. The album also featured a duet with India.Arie on the title track "A Time to Love".

Wonder performed at the pre-game show for Super Bowl XL in Detroit in early 2006, singing various hit singles (with his four-year-old son on drums) and accompanying Aretha Franklin during "The Star Spangled Banner".

In March 2006, Wonder received new national exposure on the top-rated ''American Idol'' television program. Wonder performed "My Love Is on Fire" (from ''A Time To Love'') live on the show itself. In June 2006, Stevie Wonder made a guest appearance on Busta Rhymes' new album, ''The Big Bang'' on the track "Been through the Storm". He sings the refrain and plays the piano on the Dr. Dre and Sha Money XL produced track. He appeared again on the last track of Snoop Dogg's new album ''Tha Blue Carpet Treatment'', "Conversations". The song is a remake of "Have a Talk with God" from ''Songs in the Key of Life''.

In 2006, Wonder staged a duet with Andrea Bocelli on the latter's album ''Amore'', offering harmonica and additional vocals on "Canzoni Stonate". Stevie Wonder also performed at Washington, D.C.'s 2006 "A Capitol Fourth" celebration.

On August 2, 2007, Stevie Wonder announced the A Wonder Summer's Night 13 concert tour—his first U.S. tour in over ten years. This tour was inspired by the recent passing of his mother, as he stated at the conclusion of the tour on December 9 at the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

On August 28, 2008, Wonder performed at the Democratic National Convention at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado. Songs included a previously unreleased song, "Fear Can't Put Dreams to Sleep," and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours".

On September 8, 2008, Wonder started the European leg of his Wonder Summer's Night Tour, the first time he had toured Europe in over a decade. His opening show was at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. During the tour, Wonder played eight UK gigs; four at The O2 Arena in London, two in Birmingham and two at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester. Stevie Wonder's other stops in the tour's European leg also found him performing in Holland (Rotterdam), Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Cologne, Mannheim and Munich), Norway (Hamar), France (Paris), Italy (Milan) and Denmark (Aalborg). Wonder also toured Australia (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) and New Zealand (Christchurch, Auckland and New Plymouth) in October and November.

By June 2008, Wonder was working on two projects simultaneously: a new album titled ''The Gospel Inspired By Lula'' which will deal with the various spiritual and cultural crises facing the world, and ''Through The Eyes Of Wonder'', an album which Wonder has described as a performance piece that will reflect his experience as a blind man. Wonder was also keeping the door open for a collaboration with Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones concerning a rumored jazz album. If Wonder was to join forces with Bennett, it would not be for the first time; Their rendition of "For Once in My Life" earned them a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals in 2006. Wonder's harmonica playing can be heard on the 2009 Grammy-nominated "Never Give You Up" featuring CJ Hilton and Raphael Saadiq.

Wonder performed on January 18, 2009 at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, Wonder performed the song "Brand New Day" with musician Sting. He performed his new song "All About the Love Again" and, with other musical artists, "Signed, Sealed & Delivered". On February 23, 2009, Wonder became the second recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for pop music, honored by President Barack Obama at the White House.

On July 7, 2009, Wonder performed "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer" and "They Won't Go When I Go" at the Staples Center for Michael Jackson's memorial service. On October 29, 2009, Wonder performed at the 25th anniversary concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Among performing songs with B.B. King, Wonder performed Michael Jackson's 'The Way You Make Me Feel', during which he became emotionally distraught and was unable to perform until he regained his composure.

On January 22, 2010, Wonder performed Bridge Over Troubled Water for the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief event to help victims of the earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010.

On March 6, 2010, Wonder was awarded the Commander of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand. Wonder had been due to receive this award in 1981, but scheduling problems prevented this from happening. A lifetime achievement award was also given to Wonder on the same day, at France's biggest music awards.

His 2010 tour included a two-hour set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, a stop at London's "Hard Rock Calling" in Hyde Park, and appearances at England's Glastonbury Festival, Rotterdam's North Sea Jazz Festival, and a concert in Bergen, Norway and a concert in Dublin, Ireland at the O2 Arena on June 24.

In February 2011, the Apollo Theater announced that Stevie Wonder will be the next in line for the Apollo Legends Hall of Fame. The theater said that the singer will be inducted into the New York City institution's Hall of Fame in five months.

On June 25, 2011, Wonder performed at the opening ceremony of the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece.

Legacy

A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and won twenty-two Grammy Awards (the most ever won by a solo artist) as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song, and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame. He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize. American music magazine Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer of all time. In June 2009 he became the fourth artist to receive the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award.

He has ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts as well as 20 R&B; number one hits, and album sales totaling more than 100 million units. Wonder has recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and writes and produces songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as well. Wonder plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bass guitar, bongos, organ, melodica, and clavinet. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. Wonder was the first Motown artist and second African American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his 1984 hit single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie ''The Woman in Red''.

Classic period

Wonder's "classic period" is generally agreed to consist of the concept albums he created in the early- to mid-1970s, peaking in 1976. Some observers see in 1971's ''Where I'm Coming From'' certain indications of the beginning of the classic period, such as its new funky keyboard style which Wonder used throughout the classic period. Some determine Wonder's first "classic" album to be 1972's ''Music of My Mind'', on which he attained personal control of production, and on which he programmed a series of songs integrated with one another to make a concept album. Others skip over early 1972 and determine the beginning of the classic period to be ''Talking Book'' in late 1972, the album in which Wonder "hit his stride".

Impact

Wonder's songs are renowned for being quite difficult to sing. He has a very developed sense of harmony and uses many extended chords utilizing extensions such as ninths, elevenths, thirteenths, diminished fifths, etc. in his compositions. Many of his melodies make abrupt, unpredictable changes. Many of his vocal melodies are also melismatic, meaning that a syllable is sung over several notes. Some of his best known and most frequently covered songs are played in keys which are more often found in jazz than in pop and rock. For example, "Superstition", "Higher Ground" and "I Wish" are in the key of E flat minor, and feature distinctive riffs in the E flat minor pentatonic scale (i.e. largely on the black notes of the keyboard).

Wonder played a large role in bringing synthesizers to the forefront of popular music. He developed many new textures and sounds never heard before. In 1981, Wonder became the first owner of an E-mu Emulator.

Songs sampled by other musicians

Wonder has recorded with Jon Gibson, a Christian Soul musician, on a remake of his own song, "Have a Talk With God" (from the 1989 album ''Body & Soul''), covered by Gibson in which Wonder plays harmonica. The two men met in the early 1980s through a shared music agent (Bill Wolfer).

Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "Higher Ground" in 1989 on their ''Mother's Milk'' album. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble covered "Superstition" and Wonder made a cameo appearance in the official music video for the song.

De La Soul sampled "Hey Love" in their song "Talkin' Bout Hey Love" on their 1991 album De La Soul Is Dead.

"Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" was rendered by English band Incognito in 1992 and John Legend covered this song for the 2005 film, ''Hitch''. George Michael and Mary J. Blige covered "As" in the late 1990s. In 1999, Salome De Bahia made a Brazilian version of "Another Star". Tupac Shakur sampled "That Girl" for his hit song "So Many Tears".

"Pastime Paradise" would become an interpolation for Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" while Will Smith would use "I Wish" as the basis for the theme song to his movie, ''Wild Wild West''. The elements of "Love's In Need of Love Today" were used by 50 Cent in the song "Ryder Music", and Warren G sampled "Village Ghetto Land" for his song "Ghetto Village".

Mary Mary, did a cover of his song, "You Will Know" on their 2002 album, ''Incredible''. Australian soul artist Guy Sebastian recorded a cover of "I Wish" on his ''Beautiful Life'' album. In 2003, Raven-Symoné recorded a cover of "Superstition" for the soundtrack to Disney's ''The Haunted Mansion''. In 2005, Canadian singer Dave Moffatt, from the group The Moffatts, sang the song "Overjoyed" from the ''In Square Circle'' album on ''Canadian Idol''. Clay Aiken performed "Isn't She Lovely?" in the episode "My Life in Four Cameras" of ''Scrubs''.

Personal life

Wonder has been married twice: to Motown singer Syreeta Wright from 1970 until their divorce in 1972; and since 2001, to fashion designer Kai Milla Morris. He has seven children from his two marriages and several relationships.

His daughter Aisha Morris (born on February 2, 1975, with Yolanda Simmons as mother) was the inspiration for his hit single "Isn't She Lovely." Aisha Morris is a singer who has toured with her father and accompanied him on recordings, including his 2005 album, ''A Time 2 Love''. Wonder has two sons with Kai Milla Morris; the older is named Kailand and he occasionally performs as a drummer on stage with his father. The younger son, Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris, was born May 13, 2005, his father's 55th birthday. In May 2006, Wonder's mother died in Los Angeles, at the age of 76. During his September 8, 2008 UK concert in Birmingham, he spoke of his decision to begin touring again following his loss. "I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around".

Wonder's Taxi Productions owns Los Angeles radio station KJLH.

Charting discography

Top 40 singles

style="width:28px;" rowspan="2"	Year	Title	Chart positions
! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"	! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"		! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"	! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"	! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"
	1963	"Fingertips	Fingertips – Pt. 2"
	"Uptight (Everything's Alright)"
"Blowin' in the Wind"
	1967	"I Was Made to Love Her (song)	I Was Made to Love Her"
	"For Once in My Life"
"Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day"
"Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday"
	"Never Had a Dream Come True"
"Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours"
"Heaven Help Us All"
	"We Can Work It Out"
"If You Really Love Me"
	"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)"
	"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
"Living for the City"
	"He's Misstra Know It All"
"You Haven't Done Nothin'" (with The Jackson 5)
"Boogie On Reggae Woman"
"Sir Duke"
"Another Star"
	1979	"Send One Your Love"
	"Master Blaster (Jammin')"
"I Ain't Gonna Stand for It"
	"Do I Do"
"Ebony and Ivory" (with Paul McCartney)
"Ribbon in the Sky"
	1984	"I Just Called to Say I Love You"
	"Part-Time Lover"
"That's What Friends Are For" (with Dionne Warwick, Elton John and Gladys Knight)
"Love Light in Flight"
	"Go Home"
"Land of La La"
	1987	"Skeletons (Stevie Wonder song)	Skeletons"
"My Eyes Don't Cry"
"You Will Know"
	1989	"With Each Beat of My Heart"
	1990	"Keep Our Love Alive"
	1992	"These Three Words"
	1995
	"So What the Fuss"
"From the Bottom of My Heart"

U.S. and UK albums

{|class="wikitable" |- ! style="width:28px;" rowspan="2"| Year ! style="width:250px;" rowspan="2"| Album ! colspan="3"| Chart positions |- ! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"| US ! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"| US R&B; ! style="vertical-align:top; width:30px;"| UK |- |1963 |''Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius'' | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1966 |''Up-Tight'' | style="text-align:center;"| 33 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1966 |''Down to Earth'' | style="text-align:center;"| 72 | style="text-align:center;"| 8 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1967 |''I Was Made to Love Her'' | style="text-align:center;"| 45 | style="text-align:center;"| 7 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1968 |''For Once in My Life'' | style="text-align:center;"| 50 | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1969 |''My Cherie Amour'' | style="text-align:center;"| 34 | style="text-align:center;"| 3 | style="text-align:center;"| 17 |- |1970 |''Signed, Sealed, and Delivered'' | style="text-align:center;"| 25 | style="text-align:center;"| 7 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1971 |''Where I'm Coming From'' | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| 7 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1972 |''Music of My Mind'' | style="text-align:center;"| 21 | style="text-align:center;"| 6 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1972 |''Talking Book'' | style="text-align:center;"| 3 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 16 |- |1973 |''Innervisions'' | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 6 |- |1974 |''Fulfillingness' First Finale'' | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 5 |- |1976 |''Songs in the Key of Life | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 |- |1979 |''Journey through the Secret Life of Plants'' | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| 7 |- |1980 |''Hotter than July'' | style="text-align:center;"| 2 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 |- |1982 |''Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 8 |- |1984 |''The Woman in Red'' | style="text-align:center;"| 4 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 |- |1985 |''In Square Circle'' | style="text-align:center;"| 5 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 5 |- |1987 |''Characters'' | style="text-align:center;"| 17 | style="text-align:center;"| 1 | style="text-align:center;"| 33 |- |1995 |''Conversation Peace'' | style="text-align:center;"| 17 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 | style="text-align:center;"| 8 |- |1996 |''Natural Wonder'' | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| 88 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |1996 |''Song Review A Greatest Hits Collection'' | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| 100 | style="text-align:center;"| 19 |- |2000 |''At the Close of a Century'' | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| 100 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |2002 |''The Definitive Collection'' | style="text-align:center;"| 35 | style="text-align:center;"| 28 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |2004 |''Best Of Stevie Wonder: 20th Century Masters Christmas Collection'' | style="text-align:center;"| – | style="text-align:center;"| 90 | style="text-align:center;"| – |- |2005 |''A Time to Love'' | style="text-align:center;"| 5 | style="text-align:center;"| 2 | style="text-align:center;"| 24 |- |2007 |''Number 1's'' | style="text-align:center;"| 171 | style="text-align:center;"| 40 | style="text-align:center;"| 23 |}

Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards

Wonder has received 25 Grammy Awards: including a Lifetime Achievement Award

!Year

|	Award	Title
1973	Grammy Award for Best R&B; Song>Best Rhythm & Blues Song
1973	Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance>Best R&B; Vocal Performance, Male
1973	Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance>Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male
1973	Grammy Award for Album of the Year>Album of the Year
1973	Best Producer*
1974	Best Rhythm & Blues Song
1974	Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance
1974	Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
1974	Grammy Award for Album of the Year>Album of the Year
1974	Best Producer*
1976	Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance
1976	Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
1976	Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical>Best Producer of the Year*
1976	Album of the Year
1985	Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance
1986	Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal>Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal ''(awarded to Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Wonder)
1995	Best Rhythm & Blues Song
1995	Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance
1996	Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
1998	Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)>Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocal(s) ''(awarded to Herbie Hancock, Robert Sadin, and Wonder)
1998	Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance
2002	Grammy Award for Best R&B; Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals>Best R&B; Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals ''(awarded to Wonder and Take 6)
2005	Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
2005	''(awarded to Beyoncé Knowles>Beyoncé and Wonder)
2006	Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals ''(awarded to Tony Bennett and Wonder)

Between 1965 and 1980, a self-produced artist won an additional Grammy as a producer as well as an artist.

Other awards and recognition

1983: inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 1984: received an Academy Award for Best Song for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie ''The Woman in Red''. 1989: inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 1996: received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. 1999: received the Polar Music Prize and Kennedy Center Honors. 2002: received the George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Achievement Award at UCLA's Spring Sing. The same year, Wonder received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 2004: received the Billboard Century Award. Also in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock and Roll Artists of All Time. 2006: was inducted, as one of the first inductees, into the Michigan Walk of Fame. The same year, Wonder received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. 2008: Ranked at number five on "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists", making him as the third most successful male artist in the history of ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. 2009: Recipient of the second Gershwin Prize For Popular Song. 2009: Recipient of the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award. This special award underlines a popular artist’s extraordinary contribution to the musical world. The Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award is in bronze. 2009: Named a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations.

See also

Best selling music artists

List of number-one hits (United States)

List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones

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

References

External links

Official site

Never That Simple: Stevie Wonder—By Robert Christgau

Category:1950 births Category:African American drummers Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:African American pianists Category:African American record producers Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American child singers Category:American composers Category:American funk drummers Category:American funk keyboardists Category:American funk singers Category:American harmonica players Category:American male singers Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American rhythm and blues keyboardists Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American soul keyboardists Category:American soul singers Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:Blind musicians Category:Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Living people Category:Motown artists Category:Musicians from Detroit, Michigan Category:Musicians from Michigan Category:People from Saginaw, Michigan Category:Rhythm and blues pianists Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Soul drummers Category:United Nations Messengers of Peace

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Catherine
title	Duchess of Cambridge (more)
imgw	200px
full name	Catherine Elizabeth
house	House of Windsor
spouse	Prince William, Duke of Cambridge
father	Michael Francis Middleton
mother	Carole Elizabeth (née Goldsmith)
birth date	January 09, 1982
birth place	Reading, Berkshire, England
religion	Anglican (Church of England) }}

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (Catherine Elizabeth; ''née'' Middleton; born 9 January 1982), popularly known as "Kate", is the wife of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. William is second in line to the thrones of the sixteen Commonwealth realms, and when he becomes king, she will become queen consort. Catherine grew up in Chapel Row at Bucklebury, a village near Newbury, Berkshire, England. She studied in Scotland at the University of St Andrews, where she met William in 2001. They started a romantic relationship that continued until a break-up lasting for several months in 2007. However, they continued to be friends and rekindled their relationship later that year.

Prior to the wedding, Catherine attended many high-profile royal events. Once their relationship became public, Catherine received widespread media attention and there was much speculation that she and William would eventually marry. Their engagement was announced on 16 November 2010, and they married on 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey.

Biography

Early life and family

Catherine was born at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading on 9 January 1982 and christened at St Andrew's Bradfield, Berkshire on 20 June 1982. She is the eldest of three children born to Carole Elizabeth Middleton (née Goldsmith), a former flight attendant and now part-owner of Party Pieces, a private company with an estimated worth of £30 million, and Michael Francis Middleton, who also worked as a flight attendant prior to becoming a flight dispatcher for British Airways, currently also an owner of Party Pieces. Her parents married on 21 June 1980, at the Parish Church of Dorney, Buckinghamshire, and in 1987, founded Party Pieces, a mail order company that sells party supplies and decorations. Her siblings are Philippa "Pippa" Charlotte and James Middleton. The family has complained about press harassment of Pippa and their mother since Catherine's engagement.

Catherine's paternal family came from Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, and her great-grandmother Olivia was a member of the Lupton family, who were active for generations in Leeds in commercial and municipal work. Her ancestors include The Rev. Thomas Davis, a Church of England hymn-writer. Carole Middleton's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working class labourers and miners from Sunderland and County Durham.

Catherine's parents were based in Amman, Jordan, working for British Airways from May 1984, to September 1986, where Catherine went to an English language nursery school, before returning to their home in Berkshire. After her return from Amman, Catherine was educated at St Andrew's School near the village of Pangbourne in Berkshire, then briefly at Downe House. She continued her studies at Marlborough College, a co-educational independent boarding school in Wiltshire, followed by the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland where she met William. She graduated with an MA (2:1 Hons) in the History of Art.

Career

In November 2006, Catherine accepted a position as an accessory buyer with the clothing chain Jigsaw. She also worked part-time until January 2011 as a catalogue photographer, webpage designer and marketing officer for her parents' firm "Party Pieces". In 2008, it was reported that she had quit her job at Jigsaw to become a professional photographer, intending to take private classes with photographer Mario Testino, who had taken several well-known photographs of Diana, Princess of Wales and her sons. Testino later denied that Catherine was going to be working for him.

Public image and style

Catherine is admired for her fashion sense and has been placed on numerous "best dressed" lists. She was selected by ''The Daily Telegraph'' as the "Most Promising Newcomer" in its 2006 list of style winners and losers. ''Tatler'' placed her at number 8 on its yearly listing of the top ten style icons in 2007. She was featured in ''People'' magazine's 2007 and 2010 best-dressed lists. Catherine was named as one of Richard Blackwell's ten "Fabulous Fashion Independents" of 2007. In June 2008, Style.com selected Catherine as its monthly beauty icon. In July 2008, Catherine was included in ''Vanity Fair''s international best-dressed list. In February 2011, Catherine was named the Top Fashion Buzzword of the 2011 season by the Global Language Monitor.

Relationship with Prince William

Catherine's status as the undeclared girlfriend of William brought her widespread media coverage in Britain and abroad and she was often photographed on her daily outings. On 17 October 2005, she complained through her lawyer about harassment from the media, stating that she had done nothing significant to warrant such publicity. In February 2006, it was announced that Catherine would receive her own 24-hour security detail supplied by the Royalty Protection branch (SO14). This fuelled further speculation that she and William would soon be engaged, since she would not otherwise be entitled to this service.

No engagement was forthcoming and Catherine was not granted an allowance to fund this security. Media attention increased around the time of Catherine's 25th birthday in January 2007, prompting warnings from both Charles and William and from Catherine's lawyers, who threatened legal action. Two newspaper groups, News International, which publishes ''The Times'' and ''The Sun'', and the Guardian Media Group, publishers of ''The Guardian'', decided to refrain from publishing paparazzi photographs of her. Catherine attended at least one event as an official royal guest, William's Passing Out Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 15 December 2006. In December 2007, it was reported that Catherine had moved in with Prince William at Clarence House, the residence of the Prince of Wales in London. Clarence House later denied this.

On 17 May 2008, Catherine attended the wedding of William's cousin Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly, which the prince did not attend. On 19 July 2008, she was a guest at the wedding of Lady Rose Windsor and George Gilman. William was away on military operations in the Caribbean, serving aboard the HMS ''Iron Duke''. In 2010, Catherine pursued an invasion of privacy claim against two agencies and photographer Niraj Tanna, who took pictures of her over Christmas 2009. Catherine obtained a public apology, £5,000 in damages, and legal costs.

Breakup and reconciliation

On 14 April 2007, ''The Sun'' newspaper broke a "world exclusive" suggesting that Prince William and Catherine had split up. Other media outlets, such as the BBC, confirmed the story as the day progressed. The couple decided to break up during a holiday in the Swiss resort of Zermatt. Clarence House made only one comment about the relationship's end, according to ''The Times'', stating, "We don't comment on Prince William's private life". Newspapers speculated about the reasons for the split, although these reports relied on anonymous sources.

The original report in ''The Sun'' quoted a "close friend of the couple" as saying that Catherine felt William had not been paying her enough attention. The paper highlighted reports that William had been spending time with other young women and said the Prince, aged 24 at the time of the split, felt he was too young to marry. A report in the ''Daily Mail'' blamed a desire by royal courtiers not to "hurry along" a marriage announcement, and William's desire to enjoy his bachelor status within his Army career. The ''Mail'' also suggested that a friend of William encouraged the Prince to take a "careless approach" to relationships. The same article suggested that Catherine had "expected too much" in wanting William to demonstrate his commitment to her.

In June 2007, Catherine and William insisted they were "just good friends" following reports of a reconciliation. Catherine and her family attended the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium, where she and William sat two rows apart. The couple were subsequently seen together in public on a number of occasions and several news sources, including the BBC and the ''Daily Mail'', stated that they had "rekindled their relationship". Catherine also joined William and Charles on a deerstalking expedition at Balmoral and attended the wedding of William's cousin, Peter Phillips, even though William, due to a prior commitment, did not. In April 2008, Catherine accompanied William when he was awarded his RAF wings at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell. On 16 June 2008, Catherine attended William's investiture into the Order of the Garter, along with the Royal Family.

Engagement and wedding

Prince William and Catherine Middleton became engaged in October 2010 in Kenya, East Africa, during a 10-day trip to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to celebrate William passing his RAF helicopter search and rescue course. Clarence House announced the engagement on 16 November 2010. The couple married in Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011, (St. Catherine's Day) with the day declared a bank holiday in the United Kingdom. Estimates of the global audience for the wedding range from 300 million to two billion people, whilst 24.5 million watched the event live in the United Kingdom.

Royal duties

Public appearances

Catherine was formally introduced to public life on 24 February 2011, two months before the wedding, when she and William attended a lifeboat naming ceremony in Trearddur, Anglesey in North Wales. A day later they appeared in St Andrews and launched the university's 600th anniversary celebrations. On 16 February 2011, Clarence House announced that the Duke and Duchess's first royal tour of Canada would take place in July 2011.

In May 2011, shortly after the wedding, and while Prince Charles was in official visit to the United States, Clarence House announced that the Duke and Duchess would visit California after their Canadian tour. It was the Duchess of Cambridge's first visit to the United States.

She recently handed out medals to the members of the Irish Guards. Catherine visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization to attend a citizenship ceremony, on 1 July 2011 in Gatineau, Canada. The newly married Royal Couple were on the second day of their first joint overseas tour. They were joined by thousands of Canadians taking part in the Canada Day celebrations, which mark Canada’s 144th Birthday.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

name	The Duchess of Cambridge
dipstyle	Her Royal Highness
offstyle	Your Royal Highness
altstyle	Ma'am }}

9 January 1982 29 April 2011: ''Miss'' Catherine Elizabeth Middleton 29 April 2011 present: ''Her Royal Highness'' The Duchess of Cambridge

Catherine's full title and style is ''Her Royal Highness Princess William Arthur Philip Louis, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, Baroness Carrickfergus''.

Unlike the majority of royal brides, and in contrast to most previous consorts-in-waiting for over 350 years, Catherine does not come from a royal or aristocratic background. On the morning of their wedding day on 29 April 2011, at 8:00 am, officials at Buckingham Palace announced that in accordance with royal tradition and on recognition of the day by the Queen, Prince William was created Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus.

Honours

Honorary military appointments

; Canada 5 July 2011 present: Canadian Ranger

Honorific eponyms

;Awards : Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Award, University of Waterloo, Waterloo

Coat of arms

Notes	The Duchess bears the arms of her husband, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, impaled with her own arms. Catherine's coat of arms is based on those of her father Michael Middleton, which was granted to him by the College of Arms on the 19 April 2011. Thomas Woodcock, Garter King of Arms, the senior officer of the College of Arms, helped the family with the design.
Adopted	19 April 2011
Coronet	Coronet of a child of the Heir Apparent
Escutcheon	Quarterly 1st and 4th Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langed Azure (England), 2nd Or a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure within a double tressure flory counterflory of the second (Scotland), 3rd Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (Ireland), the whole differenced with a label of three points Argent with the central point charged with an escallop Gules (Prince William); Impaled with a shield per pale Azure and Gules, a chevron Or, cotised Argent, between three acorns slipped and leaved Or (Middleton).
Symbolism	right|100px The dividing line (between two colours) down the centre is a canting of the name 'Middle-ton'. The acorns (from the oak tree) are a traditional symbol of England and a feature of west Berkshire, where the family have lived for 30 years. The three acorns also denote the family's three children. The gold chevron in the centre of the arms is an allusion to Carole Middleton's maiden name of Goldsmith. The two white chevronels (narrow chevrons above and below the gold chevron) symbolise peaks and mountains, and the family's love of the Lake District and skiing.
Previous versions	Her previous coat of arms depicted a lozenge shaped shield of arms which hangs from a blue ribbon, this symbolised her unmarried state. This version of the arms is now used only by her sister Pippa as it denotes an unmarried daughter of their father Michael Middleton. }}

Ancestry

In a study of the ancestry of Catherine, William Addams Reitwiesner uncovered that she shares ancestors with her husband Prince William; the closest relationship is via William's mother and Catherine's father through a common descent from Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife Agnes (or Anne) Gascoigne, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne and his wife, née Lady Margaret Percy. This makes the couple fifteenth cousins. Sir Thomas Fairfax and Agnes Gascoigne are through Catherine's great-grandmother Olive Lupton, daughter of a Leeds cloth merchant Francis Lupton and his wife Harriet (née Davis) – Fairfax being an ancestor of Lupton. In turn Lady Margaret Percy is descended from Edward III.

In his original publication of Middleton's ancestry, Reitwiesner uncovered circumstantial evidence, that has since been disproved, suggesting that Catherine and William were twelfth cousins once removed with common descent from Sir Thomas Leighton and Elizabeth Knollys, the latter a cousin once removed of Elizabeth I.

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Popular culture

Following international attention regarding the wedding, Lifetime aired a TV movie entitled ''William & Kate'' on 18 April 2011, in the US. The film premiered in the UK on 24 April 2011. Catherine was played by Camilla Luddington and William by Nico Evers-Swindell. TV programmes were also shown in the UK prior to the wedding which provided deeper insights into the couple's relationship and backgrounds, including ''When Kate Met William'' and Channel 4's ''Meet the Middletons''.

A second TV Movie is also being produced that covers much the same ground as "William & Kate". That movie titled ''William & Catherine: A Royal Romance'' stars Alice St. Clair as Kate Middleton and Dan Amboyer as Prince William. Of note in this second television movie is the appearance of Jane Alexander as Queen Elizabeth and ''Alias'' alum Victor Garber as Prince Charles. According to The Hollywood Reporter the movie is scheduled to air August 27, 2011 in the United States on the Hallmark Channel. The movie was filmed in Bucharest.

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

}}

External links

The Duchess of Cambridge The British Monarchy official website

Engaged! Prince William and Kate, LIFE, 25 April 2011

"Popular girl who caught royal eye", ''BBC News'', 31 March 2005

"Royal wedding: Family tree", ''BBC News'', 13 April 2011

Cracroft's Peerage

in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland

Category:1982 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of the University of St Andrews Category:British baronesses Category:British countesses Category:British duchesses by marriage Category:British princesses by marriage Category:English Anglicans Category:English socialites Category:House of Windsor Category:Mountbatten-Windsor family Category:Old Marlburians Category:Old St Andrews Category:People from Bucklebury Category:Prince William, Duke of Cambridge

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	David Duke
State house	Louisiana
District	81st
Term start	1990
Term end	1992
Preceded	Charles Cusimano
Succeeded	David Vitter
Residence	Mandeville, Louisiana, U.S.
Birth name	David Ernest Duke
Birth date	July 01, 1950
Birth place	Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Occupation	Author, political activist
Party	Republican since 1989, Democratic until December, 1988
Religion	Christianity
Spouse	Chloê Eleanor Hardin (m. 1974 – divorced 1984); 2 daughters
Website	http://www.davidduke.com
Education	Ph.D. History (2005) Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP) }}

David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American white nationalist activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988. Duke has unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana State Senate, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Governor of Louisiana.

A former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Duke describes himself as a racial realist, asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage." He is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a racist and white supremacist. He is a strong advocate of opposition to Zionism as well as what he asserts to be Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the federal government and the media. Duke supports anti-immigration, both legal and illegal, preservation of what he labels Western culture and traditionalist Christian "family values", strict Constitutionalism, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, ardent anti-communism and white separatism.

Youth and early adulthood

Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to David H. Duke and Alice Maxine Crick. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil, Duke frequently moved with his family around the world. They lived a short time in the Netherlands, before settling in Louisiana. In the late 1960s, Duke met the leader of the white supremacist National Alliance, William Pierce, who would remain a life-long influence. Duke joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.

Duke studied at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, and in 1970, he formed a white student group called the White Youth Alliance; it was affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. The same year, to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University in New Orleans, Duke appeared at a demonstration in Nazi uniform. Picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, he became notorious on the LSU campus for wearing a Nazi uniform.

Duke claimed to have spent nine months in Laos, calling that a "normal tour of duty". He actually went there to join his father who was working there and had asked him to visit during the summer of 1971. His father got him a job teaching English to Laotian military officers from which he was dismissed after six weeks when he drew a Molotov Cocktail on the blackboard. He also claimed to have gone behind enemy lines twenty times at night to drop rice to anti-Communist insurgents in planes flying ten feet off the ground, narrowly avoiding receiving a shrapnel wound. Two Air America pilots who were in Laos at that time said that flights were during the day and flew no less than 500 feet from the ground. One suggested that it might have been possible for Duke to have gone on a safe "milk run" once or twice but no more than that. Duke was also unable to recall the name of the airfield used.

He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1974 after enrolling in 1968. During this time he spent what would have been his senior year organising the National Party.

Family and personal life

While working in the White Youth Alliance, Duke met Chloê Hardin, who became active in the group. They remained companions throughout college and married in 1974. Hardin is the mother of Duke's two daughters, Erika and Kristin. It's claimed that in 1977, David Duke, then a married man with two children, pursued female sex partners so avidly and so openly that it embarrassed many of his closest colleagues. Metzger, then Duke's state leader in southern California, became livid when Duke showed up for a Klan anti-immigrant "border watch" stunt and immediately started hitting on women. Duke divorced in 1984—arguably because Chloe was fed up with Duke's womanizing—and Chloe moved to West Palm Beach to be near her parents. There she became involved with Duke's Klan friend, Don Black, whom she later married. Duke also developed a life-long weakness for gambling

As of 2009 it was confirmed that David Duke was living in Zell am See in Salzburg, Austria. From there he ran the Internet business "Art by Ernst", taking and selling photographs of rare birds, mountain scenery and wildlife under the pseudonym "Ernst Duke" (his middle-name "Ernest" germanized). Local authorities have stated that as long as he does not break any laws, Duke is allowed to stay in Austria if he wishes. Duke has stated: ''"I'm not in Austria for any political activities. I just come to Austria to relax – the mountains are beautiful. The Austrian Alps are just beautiful. There's beauty all over the world."'' In May 2009, Duke issued a statement denying that he resides in Austria and saying that he is a resident of Mandeville, Louisiana, and is registered as a taxpayer in his city, state and on the national level.

Political activities

Early campaigns

Duke first ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from a Baton Rouge district in 1975. In 1979, he ran as a Democrat for the 10th District Senate seat and finished second in a three-candidate race with 9,897 votes (26 percent). Duke allegedly conducted a direct-mail appeal in 1987, using the identity and mailing-list of the Georgia Forsyth County Defense League without permission. League officials described it as a fund-raising scam. Duke was accused by several Klan officials of stealing his organization's money. "Duke is nothing but a con artist," Jack Gregory, Duke's Florida state leader, told the ''Clearwater Sun'' (of Florida) after David Duke allegedly refused to turn over proceeds from a series of 1979 Klan rallies to the Knights. Another Klan official under Duke, Jerry Dutton, told reporters that Duke had used Klan funds to purchase and refurbish his home in Metairie. Duke later justified the repairs by saying most of his home was used by the Klan. In 1979, after his first, abortive run for president (as a Democrat) and a series of highly publicized violent Klan incidents, Duke quietly incorporated the nonprofit National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) in an attempt to leave the baggage of the Klan behind.

1988 Democratic presidential campaign

In 1988, Duke ran initially in the Democratic presidential primaries. His campaign failed to make much of an impact, with the one notable exemption of winning the little known New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary. Duke, having failed to gain much traction as a Democrat, then successfully sought the Presidential nomination of the Populist Party. He appeared on the ballot for President in eleven states and was a write-in candidate in some other states, some with Trenton Stokes of Arkansas for Vice President, and on other state ballots with Floyd Parker for Vice President. He received just 47,047 votes, for 0.04 percent of the combined, national popular vote.

1989: Successful run in special election for Louisiana House seat

In December 1988, Duke changed his political affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

In 1988, Republican State Representative Charles Cusimano of Metairie resigned his District 89 seat to become a 24th Judicial District Court judge, and a special election was called early in 1989 to select a successor. Duke entered the race to succeed Cusimano and faced several opponents, including fellow Republicans, John Spier Treen, a brother of former Governor David C. Treen, Delton Charles, a school board member, and Roger F. Villere, Jr., who operates Villere's Florist in Metairie. Duke finished first in the primary with 3,995 votes (33.1%). As no one received a majority of the vote in the first round, a runoff election was required between Duke and Treen, who polled 2,277 votes (18.9%) in the first round of balloting. John Treen's candidacy was endorsed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other notable Republicans, as well as the Democrat Victor Bussie (president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO) and Edward J. Steimel (president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and former director of the "good government" think tank, the Public Affairs Research Council). Duke, however, hammered Treen on a statement the latter had made indicating a willingness to entertain higher property taxes, anathema in that suburban district. Duke with 8,459 votes (50.7%) defeated Treen, who polled 8,232 votes (49.3%). He served in the House from 1990 until 1992.

As a short-term legislator, Duke was, in the words of a colleague, Ron Gomez of Lafayette, "so single minded, he never really became involved in the nuts and bolts of House rules and parliamentary procedure. It was just that shortcoming that led to the demise of most of his attempts at lawmaking."

One legislative issue pushed by Duke was the requirement that welfare recipients be tested for the use of narcotics. The recipients had to show themselves drug-free to receive state and federal benefits under his proposal.

Gomez recalls having met and interviewed Duke in the middle 1970s when Duke was a state senate candidate: "He was still in his mid-20s and very non-descript. Tall and slimly built, he had a very prominent nose, flat cheek bones, a slightly receding chin and straight dark brown hair. The interview turned out to be quite innocuous, and I hadn't thought about it again until Duke came to my legislative desk, and we shook hands. Who was this guy? Tall and well-built with a perfect nose, a model's cheek bones, prominent chin, blue eyes and freshly coiffed blond hair, he looked like a movie star. He obviously didn't remember from the radio encounter, and I was content to leave it at that."

Consistent with Gomez's observation, Duke in the latter 1980s reportedly had his nose thinned and chin augmented. Following his election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, he shaved his mustache.

Gomez continued: "He once presented a bill on the floor, one of the few which he had managed to get out of committee. He finished his opening presentation and strolled with great self-satisfaction back up the aisle to his seat. In his mind, he had spoken, made his presentation and that was that. Before he had even reached his desk and re-focused on the proceedings, another first-term member had been recognized for the floor and immediately moved to table the bill. The House voted for the motions effectively killing the bill. That and similar procedures were used against him many times." Gomez said that he recalls Duke obtaining the passage of only a single bill, legislation which prohibited movie producers or book publishers from compensating jurors for accounts of their court experiences.

Gomez added that Duke's "tenure in the House was short and uninspired. Never has anyone parlayed an election by such a narrow margin to such a minor position to such international prominence. He has run for numerous other positions without success but has always had some effect, usually negative, on the outcome."

Gomez continued: Duke's "new message was that he had left the Klan, shed the Nazi uniform he had proudly worn in many previous appearances and only wanted to serve the people. He eliminated his high-octane anti-Semitic rhetoric. He was particularly concerned with the plight of 'European-Americans.' He never blatantly spoke of race as a factor but referred to the 'growing underclass.' He used the tried and true demagoguery of class envy to sell his message: excessive taxpayers' money spent on welfare, school busing practices, affirmative action... and set-aside programs. He also embraced a subject near and dear to every Jefferson Parish voter, protection of the homestead exemption."

Duke launched unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1990 and governor in 1991. Villere did not again seek office but instead concentrated his political activity within the Republican organization.

1990 campaign for U.S. Senate

In 1990, in the October 6 primary, Duke ran as a Republican against three Democrats including incumbent Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.

The Republican Party endorsed state Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans, but national GOP officials anticipated that Bagert could not win and was fragmenting Johnston's support; so funding for Bagert's campaign was halted, and he dropped out two days before the election, though his name remained on the ballot.

Duke's views prompted some of his critics (including Republicans) to form the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, which directed media attention to Duke's statements of hostility to blacks and Jews. Duke received 43.51 percent (607,391 votes) of the vote to Johnston's 53.93 percent (752,902 votes).

In a 2006 editorial, Gideon Rachman (''The Economist'', the ''Financial Times'') recalled interviewing Duke's campaign manager (from his 1990 campaign) who said, "The Jews just aren't a big issue in Louisiana. We keep telling David, stick to attacking the blacks. There's no point in going after the Jews, you just piss them off and nobody here cares about them anyway."

1991 campaign for Governor of Louisiana

Despite repudiation by the Republican Party, Duke ran for Louisiana Governor in 1991. In the open primary, Duke was second to former governor Edwin Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32% of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27% of the vote. Duke effectively killed Roemer's bid for re-election. While Duke had a sizable core constituency of devoted supporters, many voted for him as a "protest vote" to register dissatisfaction with Louisiana's establishment politicians. Duke said he was the spokesman for the "White majority."

The interest group, the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism, rallied against the election of Duke as governor. Among its leaders was Beth Rickey, a moderate member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee and a Ph.D. student at Tulane University, who began to follow Duke to record his speeches and expose what she saw as instances of racist and neo-Nazi remarks. For a time, Duke took Rickey to lunch, introduced her to his daughters, telephoned her late at night, and tried to convince her that he was a mainstream conservative in the Reagan mold.

Between the primary and the runoff, called the "general election" under Louisiana election rules (in which all candidates run on one ballot, regardless of party), white supremacist organizations from around the country contributed to his campaign fund. Duke was endorsed by James Meredith, a black civil rights figure.

Duke's success garnered national media attention. While Duke gained the backing of the quixotic former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, he won few serious endorsements in Louisiana. Celebrities and organizations donated thousands to Edwards' campaign. Referencing Edwards' long-standing problem with accusations of corruption, popular bumper stickers read: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important," and "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard." When a reporter asked Edwards what he needed to do to triumph over Duke, Edwards replied with a smile: "Stay alive."

Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%). Duke's 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke claimed victory, saying: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." Exit polls confirmed that he had.

1992 Republican Party presidential candidate

In 1992 Duke ran for the nomination. Republican Party officials tried to block his participation. He received 119,115 (0.94%) votes in the primaries, but no delegates to the national convention. His presidential campaign inspired a song by Skankin' Pickle.

In 1992 a film was released that investigated Duke's appeal among some white voters. ''Backlash: Race and the American Dream'' explored the demagogic issues of Duke's platform, examining his use of black crime, welfare, affirmative action and white supremacy and tied Duke to a legacy of other white backlash politicians, such as Lester G. Maddox and George C. Wallace, Jr., and the use in the 1988 Presidential campaign of Pres. George H.W. Bush of these same racially themed hot buttons.

Late 1990s campaigns

When Johnston announced his retirement in 1996, Duke ran again for the U.S. Senate. He polled 141,489 votes (11.5%). Former Republican state representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge and Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, the former state treasurer, went into the general election contest. Duke was fourth in the nine-person, jungle primary race.

Because of the sudden resignation of powerful Republican incumbent Bob Livingston in 1999, a special election was held in Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke sought the seat as a Republican and received 19% of the vote. He finished a close third, thus failing to make the runoff. His candidacy was repudiated by the Republicans. Republican Party Chairman Jim Nicholson remarked: "There is no room in the party of Lincoln for a Klansman like David Duke." Republican state representative David Vitter (now a U.S. Senator) went on to defeat Republican ex-Governor David C. Treen. Also in the race was the New Orleans Republican leader Rob Couhig.

In 1999 Duke ran for Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke finished third in the May 1, 1999 election with 28,059 votes (19.15%).

In 2004, Duke's bodyguard, roommate, and longtime associate Roy Armstrong made a bid for the United States House of Representatives to serve Louisiana's First Congressional District. In the open primary Armstrong finished second in the six candidate field with 6.69% of the vote but Republican Bobby Jindal received 78.40% winning the seat. Duke was the head advisor of Armstrong's campaign.

Affiliations

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

In 1974, David Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK), a Louisiana Ku Klux Klan organization, shortly after graduating from LSU. He became Grand Wizard of the KKKK. A follower of Duke, Thomas Robb, changed the title of Grand Wizard to National Director, and replaced the Klan's white robes with business suits. Duke first received broad public attention during this time, as he endeavored to market himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman: well-groomed, engaged, and professional. Duke also reformed the organization, promoting nonviolence and legality, and, for the first time in the Klan's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership. Duke would repeatedly insist that the Klan was "not anti-black", but rather "pro-white" and "pro-Christian."

NAAWP

In 1980, Duke left the Klan and formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP).

On May 20, 2004, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became outraged when it discovered that David Duke had chosen New Orleans to host his International NAAWP Conference during the NAACP's Big Easy Rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' decision.

Ernst Zündel and the Zundelsite

Duke has expressed his support for Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, a German who lived in Canada. Duke made a number of statements in support of Zündel and his Holocaust denial campaign. After the aging Zündel was deported from Canada to Germany and imprisoned in Germany on charges of inciting the masses to ethnic hatred, Duke referred to him as a "political prisoner".

Interregional Academy of Personnel Management

In September 2005, Duke received a Kandidat Nauk degree in History from the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP).

His doctoral thesis was titled "Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism." Prior to earning his Ph.D., Duke had received an honorary doctorate. Anti-Defamation League claims that MAUP is the main source of antisemitic activity and publishing in Ukraine, and its "anti-Semitic actions" were "strongly condemned" by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and various organizations. The Anti-Defamation League describes it as a "University of Hate". Duke has taught an international relations and a history course at MAUP.

New Orleans Protocol

Shortly after his release from prison for tax fraud in 2004, Duke organized a weekend gathering of "European Nationalists", in the vein of white nationalism, in Kenner, Louisiana. In an attempt to overcome the splintering and division that had followed the death of William Pierce in 2002, he presented a unity proposal for peace within the movement and a better image amongst outsiders. His proposal was accepted and is now known as the ''New Orleans Protocol'' (NOP). It pledges adherents to a pan-European outlook, recognizing national and ethnic allegiance, but stressing the value of all European peoples. It has three provisions: #"Zero tolerance for violence." #"Honorable and ethical behavior in relations with other signatory groups. This includes not denouncing others who have signed this protocol. In other words, no enemies on the right." #"Maintaining a high tone in our arguments and public presentations." Those who signed the pact on May 29, 2004 include Duke, Paul Fromm, Don Black, Willis Carto, Kevin Alfred Strom, and John Tyndall (signing as an individual, not on behalf of his British National Party).

Publications

Finders-Keepers

Duke wrote a self-help book for women to raise money under the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt and James Konrad, titled ''Finders-Keepers – Finding and Keeping the Man You Want'' which contains sexual, diet, fashion, cosmetic and relationship advice, published by Arlington Place Books in 1976. Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who read a rare copy of the book given to him by Patsy Sims, wrote that it includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex. The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, ''The Times-Picayune'' obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.

My Awakening

Duke published his autobiography ''My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding'' in 1998. The book details Duke's social philosophies, especially his reasoning behind racial separation. In the book, Duke says:

We (Whites) desire to live in our own neighborhoods, go to our own schools, work in our own cities and towns, and ultimately live as one extended family in our own nation. We shall end the racial genocide of integration. We shall work for the eventual establishment of a separate homeland for African Americans, so each race will be free to pursue its own destiny without racial conflicts and ill will.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) book review refers to it as containing racist, antisemitic, sexist and homophobic views.

To raise the money to re-publish a new, updated edition of ''My Awakening'', Duke instigated a 21-day fundraising drive on November 26, 2007 where he had to raise "$25,344 by a December 17 deadline for the printers." Duke states this drive is necessary because the work "has become the most important book in the entire world in the effort to awaken our people for our heritage and freedom."

Jewish Supremacism

In 2002, Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, ''Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question'' in Russia in 2003. The book purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times." The book is dedicated to Israel Shahak, a critical author of what Shahak saw as supremacist religious teachings in Jewish culture. Former Boris Yeltsin administration official and politician Boris Mironov wrote an introduction for the Russian edition, called ''The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American''.

The ADL office in Moscow urged the Moscow prosecutor to open an investigation of Mironov. The ADL office initiated a letter from a prominent Duma member to Russia’s Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, urging a criminal case be opened against the author and the Russian publisher of Duke's book. The letter by Aleksandr Fedulov described the book as antisemitic and as violating Russian anti-hate crime laws. Around December 2001 Prosecutor's office closed the investigation of Boris Mironov and Jewish Supremacism. In a public letter, Yury Biryukov, First Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, stated that a socially-psychological examination, which was conducted as a part of the investigation, concluded that the book and the actions of Boris Mironov did not break Russian hate-crime laws.

Duke says his views had been "vindicated" with the publication of ''The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy'' by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and said he was "surprised how excellent [the paper] is". Duke dedicated several radio webcasts to the book and the authors comparing it to his work ''Jewish Supremacism'', although Walt stated: "I have always found Mr. Duke's views reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with his view of the world".

Duke says that his books "have become two of the two most influential and important books in the world." The ADL refer to the book as antisemitic, though Duke had denied the book is motivated by antisemitism. At one time, the book was sold in the main lobby of the building of Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament). The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out in several weeks.

In 2004, the book was published in the United States. Originally published in English and Russian, the book has subsequently been translated internationally into Swedish, Ukrainian, Persian, Hungarian, Spanish. and most recently (2010) into Finnish (ISBN 978-952-92-8137-4). In 2007, an updated edition was published which Duke purports to be a "fine quality hardback edition with full color dust jacket and it has a new index and a number of timely additions".

Internet commentary and Stormfront

In 1995, Don Black and Chloê Hardin, Duke's ex-wife, began a small bulletin board system (BBS) called Stormfront. Today, Stormfront has become a prominent online forum for white nationalism, Neo-Nazism, hate speech, racism, and antisemitism. Duke has an account on Stormfront which he uses to post articles from his own website, www.davidduke.com, as well as polling forum members for opinions and questions, in particular during his internet broadcasts. Duke has worked with Don Black on numerous projects including Operation Red Dog in 1980.

On February 5, 2002, Duke said, on his Internet radio show, that Ariel Sharon was "the world's worst terrorist" and that Mossad was involved in the September 11 attacks. The broadcast said that Zionists were behind the attacks in order to reduce sympathy for Muslim nations in the West, and that the number of Israelis killed in the attack was lower than it would be under normal circumstances, citing early assessments by ''The Jerusalem Post'' and "the legendary involvement of Israeli nationals in businesses at the World Trade Center". According to Duke, this indicated that Israeli security services had prior knowledge of the attack.

On August 5, 2005, Duke published an article stating support for Cindy Sheehan, saying that:

The Iraq war and her son's death did not defend America from hatred or terrorism ... In fact, the war is massively increasing hatred and terrorism. For every one terrorist killed in Iraq, we are creating thousands more who hate and want to hurt America and Americans. This is the surest way to lose the war on terror, not win it.

On February 4, 2009, Duke repeatedly called MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann "untermensch" on his radio show in response to being labeled "Worst Person in the World" on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Public appearances

Public address in Syria

On November 24, 2005, Duke visited Damascus, Syria, addressing a rally which was broadcast on Syrian television, and later giving an interview. During the rally, he referred to Israel as a "war-mongering country" and stated that Zionists "occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government…It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington D.C. and New York and London and many other capitals of the world.” He concluded by stating: "Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.” After speaking at the rally, Duke gave an interview where he said that Israel "makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate." Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash later stated that Duke's visit gave Syrians a "new and very positive view of the average American."

Comments in the media

Since 2005, Duke has appeared three times on ''Current Issues'', a Lafayette, Louisiana–based television show hosted and produced by Palestinian-American Hesham Tillawi, which has recently been picked up by Bridges TV. Show host Tillawi gave Duke the opportunity to discourse at length about his beliefs about Jewish supremacism. On a show in October 2005, Duke claimed that Jewish extremists are responsible for undermining the morality of America and are attempting to "wash the world in blood."

After John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper on the Israel Lobby appeared in March 2006, Duke praised the paper in a number of articles on his website, on his March 18 Live Web Radio Broadcast, and on MSNBC's March 21 ''Scarborough Country'' program. According to ''The New York Sun'', Duke said in an email, "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." Duke added that "the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons that seek to lead us into what they expectantly call World War IV."

Conferences

Duke organized a gathering of European Nationalists who signed the New Orleans Protocol on May 29, 2004. The signatories agreed to avoid infighting among far-right racialists.

On June 3, 2005, Duke co-chaired a conference named "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization" in Ukraine, sponsored by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. The conference was attended by several notable Ukrainian public figures and politicians, and writer Israel Shamir.

Duke claims that Swedish police thwarted an attempted assassination against him, in August 2005, while Duke was speaking in Sweden.

On the weekend of June 8–10, 2006, Duke attended as a speaker at the international "White World's Future" conference in Moscow, which was coordinated and hosted by Pavel Tulaev. From December 11–13, he Duke attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, opened by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating "The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder."

Duke attended the conference, along with Gazi Hussein (Syria); Dr Rahmandost (conference chair, Society for Supporting People of Palestine); Jan Bernhoff, a Swedish computer science teacher who maintains that 300,000 Jews died during the Holocaust; and Fredrick Töben, director of the Adelaide Institute, Australia.

Criticism and legal difficulties

Plastic surgery claims

In 1990 syndicated columnist Jack Anderson argued Duke has done "everything to make himself look better to the voters, including plastic surgery".

Duke explained in ''My Awakening'' that he had had reconstructive surgery on his nose, which had been broken many times.

Critical publications

In ''Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust and David Duke's Louisiana'' by Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who teaches at Tulane University history department and was a founding member of Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, "connects the prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors to the lives they built in the United States" and depicts"story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of reputed neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke." The book won three awards.

Tax fraud conviction

David Duke pleaded guilty to the felony charge of filing a false tax return under and mail fraud under in December 2002.

Four months later, Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison, and he served the time in Big Spring, Texas. He was also fined US$10,000, ordered to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service, and to pay money still owed for his 1998 taxes. Following his release in May 2004, he stated that his decision to take the plea bargain was motivated by the bias that he perceived in the United States federal court system and not his guilt. He said he felt the charges were contrived to derail his political career and discredit him to his followers, and that he took the safe route by pleading guilty and receiving a mitigated sentence, rather than pleading not guilty and potentially receiving the full sentence.

Duke pled guilty to what prosecutors described as a six-year scheme to dupe thousands of his followers by asking for donations. Through postal mail, Duke later appealed to his supporters that he was about to lose his house and his life savings. Prosecutors claimed that Duke raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in this campaign. Prosecutors also claimed he sold his home at a hefty profit, had multiple investment accounts, and spent much of his money gambling at casinos.

The entire file of court documents related to this case can be found at The Smoking Gun website, including details on the December 12, 2002 guilty plea to federal charges that he filed a false tax return and committed mail fraud.

Don Black claims that Duke was targeted in this way by the government to discredit him.

Arrest in the Czech Republic

On April 24, 2009, Duke, who had arrived in the Czech Republic on invitation by a Czech neo-Nazi Group known as ''Národní Odpor'' ("National Resistance") to deliver three lectures in Prague and Brno to promote the translation of his book ''My Awakening'' into Czech language, was arrested on suspicion of "denying or approving of the Nazi genocide and other Nazi crimes" and "promotion of movements seeking suppression of human rights," which are crimes in the Czech Republic punishable by up to three years' imprisonment. At the time of his arrest, Duke was reportedly guarded by members of the ''Národní Odpor''.

The Czech police accused Duke of promoting movements suppressing human rights. The police released him early on April 25, 2009, on condition that he leave the country by midnight that same day.

Duke's first lecture had been scheduled at Charles University in Prague, but it was canceled after university officials learned that neo-Nazis were planning to attend. Some Czech politicians, including Interior Minister Ivan Langer and Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb, had previously expressed opposition to Duke's being allowed into the country.

In September 2009, the office of the District Prosecutor for Prague dropped all charges, explaining that there was no evidence that David Duke had committed any crime.

Election history

''See Electoral history of David Duke''

Possible 2012 presidential campaign

Duke has claimed that thousands of Tea Party movement activists have urged him to run for president in 2012 and he is seriously considering entering the Republican Party primaries. Duke has also released a video detailing his platform. In the video pledges that as president he would stop all immigration to the US, including legal immigration, and says that he "will not let Israel or any nation dictate our foreign policy". Duke claimed that he would be "willing to risk life and limb, endure the barbs of the media” to mount "the most honest campaign for president since the time of our Founding Fathers". However, Duke has been legally disqualified from running for public office since 2002 as part of his guilty plea for tax evasion.

References

Works and filmography

David Duke's official web site

David Duke's account at YouTube with his videos about US and world politics

Duke, David "Jewish Supremacism " (Free Speech Pr, 2003; 350 pages) ISBN 1-892796-05-8

Duke, David "My Awakening" (Free Speech Books, 1998; 736 pages) ISBN 1-892796-00-7

European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), White Civil Rights

"The truth about David Duke" by one of Duke's European Friends

"The Federal Persecution of David Duke" by Duke's childhood friend Don Black

Federal Indictment of David Duke on mail fraud and filing false tax return

"Ex-Klan Leader Is Popular in Europe, Mideast, Even as He Heads to Jail Here" Times-Picayune, New Orleans April 13, 2003 by John McQuaid

Attitudes of Mississippi college students toward David Duke before and after seeing the film 'Who Is David Duke?'

David Duke in Damascus to express solidarity with Syria Arabic News, November 22, 2005

Bridges, Tyler "The Rise of David Duke" (Mississippi University Press, 1995; 300 pages) ISBN 0-87805-678-5

Rose; Douglas D. ''The Emergence of David Duke and the Politics of Race'' University of North Carolina Press. 1992

Zatarain, Michael "David Duke: Evolution of a Klansman" (Pelican Publishing Company, 1990; Gretna, Louisiana; 304 pages) ISBN 0-88289-817-5

Interviews with Dutch nationalist Alfred Vierling

Further reading

External links

Official website

David Duke speaks in his Presidential campaign in Washington 1991 on C-SPAN

David Duke speaks in his Presidential campaign in Massachusetts 1992 on C-SPAN

David Duke withdraws his Presidential campaign, April 1992

David Duke interview on "My Awakening" on C-SPAN

Interviews

The Nationalist Report: Interview with David Duke

The Sunic Journal: Interview with David Duke

Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:American anti-communists Category:American anti–illegal immigration activists Category:American Christians Category:American expatriates Category:American government officials convicted of crimes Category:American people convicted of fraud Category:American people convicted of tax crimes Category:American self-help writers Category:American white nationalists Category:Antisemitism in the United States Category:Far-right politics in the United States Category:Holocaust deniers Category:Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragons Category:Louisiana Republicans Category:Louisiana State University alumni Category:Male authors who wrote under female pseudonyms Category:Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives Category:People from New Orleans, Louisiana Category:People from Salzburg Category:People from Tulsa, Oklahoma Category:Politics and race Category:Populist Party (United States, 1984) politicians Category:Racism in the United States Category:United States presidential candidates, 1988 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1992 Category:Writers from Louisiana Category:Writers from Oklahoma Category:American politicians convicted of crimes

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