Bethlehem Records was a record label based in New York and Hollywood founded by Gus Wildi in 1953. It was bought by King Records in the early 1960s.

The label is mainly remembered for its jazz releases during the 1950s. Sessions were produced variously by Creed Taylor and Teddy Charles, among others. Bethlehem released the first albums recorded by singers Chris Connor (the dual releases Chris Connor Sings Lullabys for Lovers and Chris Connor Sings Lullabys of Birdland) in 1954, Nina Simone (Little Girl Blue) in 1958 and singer/actress Julie London. London did not record a full album for the label, she recorded 4 songs that would later be released on the compilation LP Bethlehem's Girlfriends in 1955, which also featured Chris Connor and Carmen McRae. Marilyn Moore also recorded her debut album for Bethlehem. Bethlehem recorded many modern jazz musicians including Howard McGhee, Herbie Nichols and Oscar Pettiford.

The Bethlehem Label was purchased by the Cayre Brothers (of Salsoul Records fame), who initially intended to release its back catalog for inexpensive 8-track tapes in the 1970s. Salsoul and Bethlehem fall under the same corporate umbrella, with Bethlehem credited as the primary distributorship for North America.

References

See also

List of record labels

External links

"Both Sides Now" label discography

Category:American record labels Category:Defunct record labels Category:Jazz record labels

Name	Nina Simone
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Eunice Kathleen Waymon
Born	February 21, 1933Tryon, North Carolina, United States
Died	April 21, 2003Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Genre	Jazz, blues, soul, R&B;, folk, gospel
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, activist
Years active	1954–2003
Label	Bethlehem, Colpix, Philips, RCA Victor, CTI, Legacy Recordings
Url	www.ninasimone.com

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), also known by her stage name Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, R&B;, gospel, and pop.

Despite having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia, Simone recorded over 40 albums, mostly between 1958 — when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue — and 1974.

Life and career

Youth (1933–1954)

Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina. One of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at age three; the first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Meet Again". Demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church, but her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was twelve. Simone later claimed that during this performance her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. Simone said she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, the incident contributing to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.

Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (who lived into her late 90s), was a housemaid and also a strict Methodist minister. Simone's father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who at one time owned a dry-cleaning business, but who also suffered bouts of ill health. Mary Kate's employer, hearing of Nina's talent, provided funds for piano lessons. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Simone's continued education. With the assistance of this scholarship money, Simone moved to New York City, where she attended high school at the Juilliard School of Music.

After finishing high school, she studied for an interview with the help of a private tutor to further study piano at the Curtis Institute, but she was rejected. Simone believed that this rejection was related directly to her being black.

Early success (1954–1959)

To fund her private lessons Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano. In 1954 she adopted the stage name Nina Simone. "Nina" (from niña, meaning 'little girl' in Spanish) was a nickname a boyfriend had given to her, and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the movie Casque d'or. Simone's mixture at the bar of jazz, blues and classical music, earned her a small but loyal fan base.

After playing in small clubs, in 1958 she recorded a rendition of George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), which she learned from a Billie Holiday album and performed as a favor to a friend. It became her only Billboard top 40 success in the United States, and her debut album Little Girl Blue soon followed on Bethlehem Records. Simone missed out on more than $1 million in royalties (mainly because of the successful re-release of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" during the 1980s) and never benefited financially from the album, after selling its rights for $3,000.

Becoming popular (1959–1964)

After the success of Little Girl Blue, Simone signed a contract with the larger company Colpix Records, followed by a string of studio and live albums. Colpix relinquished all creative control, including the choice of material that would be recorded, to her in exchange for her contracting with them. Simone, who at this point only performed popular music to make money to continue her classical music studies, was bold with her demand for control over her music because she was indifferent about having a recording contract. She would keep this attitude towards the record industry for most of her career.

Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in 1961; Stroud later became her manager. With "Old Jim Crow" on the same album she reacts to the Jim Crow Laws.

From then on, a civil rights message was standard in Simone's recording repertoire, where it had already become a part of her live performances. Simone performed and spoke at many civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Simone advocated violent revolution during the civil rights period as opposed to Martin Luther King's non-violent approach, and hoped that African Americans could, by armed combat, form a separate state (Simone was not, however, a racist, and wrote in her autobiography that her family and indeed herself regarded all races as equal.

Together with Weldon Irvine, Simone turned the late Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished play "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" into a civil rights song. Lorraine Hansberry had been a personal friend whom Simone credited with cultivating her social and political consciousness. She performed the song live on the album Black Gold (1970). A studio recording was released as a single, and the song has been covered by Aretha Franklin (on 1972s Young, Gifted and Black) and Donny Hathaway. Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some time, and had a lengthy affair with the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, persuaded her to go to Liberia. After that she lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands, before settling in France during 1992.

She recorded her last album for RCA Records, It Is Finished, during 1974. Simone did not make another record until 1978, when she was persuaded to go into the studio by CTI Records owner Creed Taylor. The result was the album Baltimore, which, while not a commercial success, did get good reviews and marked a quiet artistic renaissance in Simone's recording output. Her choice of material retained its eclecticism, ranging from spiritual songs to Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl". Four years later Simone recorded Fodder On My Wings on a French label. During the 1980s Simone performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London, where the album Live at Ronnie Scott's was recorded during 1984. Though her on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her audiences by recounting sometimes humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and soliciting requests. In 1987, the original 1958 recording of "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was used in an advert for Chanel No. 5 perfume in the UK. This led to a re-release which stormed to number 5 in the UK singles chart giving her a brief surge in popularity in the UK. Her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, was published during 1992 and she recorded her last album, A Single Woman, in 1993.

In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She had been ill with breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti Labelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis and hundreds of others. Elton John sent a floral tribute with the message "You were the greatest and I love you". Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She left behind a daughter, Lisa Celeste, now an actress/singer who took on the stage name Simone and has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

Musical style

Simone standards

Throughout her career, Simone gathered a collection of songs that would become standards in her repertoire (apart from the civil rights songs). These songs were self-written tunes, cover versions (usually with a new arrangement by Simone), or songs written especially for Simone. Her first hit song in America was a cover of George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (1958). It peaked at number 18 in the pop singles chart and number 2 on the black singles chart. During that same period Simone recorded "My Baby Just Cares for Me", which would become her biggest success years later in 1987, when it was featured in a Chanel no. 5 perfume commercial. A music video was then created by Aardman Studios. !!DON'T put detailed cover/sample/soundtrack use of songs here, only the very basics. Put that sort of information on the ARTICLE ABOUT THE SONG OR ALBUM!! Well known songs from her Philips albums include "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" on Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964), "I Put a Spell on You", "Ne Me Quitte Pas" (a Jacques Brel cover) and "Feeling Good" on I Put A Spell On You (1965), "Lilac Wine" and "Wild Is the Wind" on Wild is the Wind (1966). Especially the songs "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Feeling Good" and "Sinnerman" (Pastel Blues, 1965) have great popularity today in terms of cover versions (most notably The Animals' version of the former song), sample usage and its use on various movie-, TV-series- and videogame soundtracks. "Sinnerman" in particular has been featured in the TV series Scrubs, on movies such as The Thomas Crown Affair, Miami Vice, and Inland Empire, and sampled by artists like Talib Kweli and Timbaland. The song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was sampled by Devo Springsteen on "Misunderstood" from Common's 2007 album Finding Forever, and by little-known producers Rodnae and Mousa for the song "Don't Get It" on Lil Wayne's 2008 album Tha Carter III. The song "See-Line Woman" was sampled by Kanye West for "Bad News" on his 808s and Heartbreak album.

Simone's years at RCA-Victor spawned a number of singles and album songs that were popular, particularly in Europe. In 1968, it was "Ain't Got No, I Got Life", a medley from the musical Hair from the album 'Nuff Said! (1968) that became a surprise hit for Simone, reaching number 2 on the UK pop charts and introducing her to a younger audience. In 2006, it returned to the UK Top 30 in a remixed version by Groovefinder. The following single, the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" also reached the UK top 10 in 1969. "House of the Rising Sun" featured on Nina Simone Sings The Blues in 1967, but Simone had recorded the song earlier in 1961 (featuring on Nina At The Village Gate, 1962), predating versions by Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan. It was later picked up by The Animals and became their signature hit.

Performing style

Simone's bearing and stage presence earned her the title "High Priestess of Soul". She was a piano player, singer and performer, "separately and simultaneously". On stage, Simone moved from gospel to blues, jazz and folk, to numbers with European classical styling, and Bach-style counterpoint fugues. She incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the program, and often used silence as a musical element. Simone compared it to "mass hypnosis. I use it all the time" Throughout most of her life and recording career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Fleming and guitarist and musical director Al Schackman.

Simone had a reputation in the music industry for her volatility. In 1995, she shot and wounded her neighbor's son with a pneumatic pistol after his laughter disturbed her concentration. She also fired a gun at a record company executive whom she accused of stealing royalties. Simone took medication for her condition from the mid-1960s on. John Lennon cited Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You" as a source of inspiration for the Beatles song "Michelle".

Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and is screened annually in New York City at an event called "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976," curated by Tom Blunt.

Plans for a Nina Simone biographical film were released at the end of 2005 to be based on Simone's autobiography I Put A Spell On You (1992) and to focus on her relationship in later life with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, who died in 2006. TV writer Cynthia Mort (Will & Grace, Roseanne) is working on the script, and singer Mary J. Blige will play the lead role. The movie is scheduled for 2012.

Honors

On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities from the University of Massachusetts and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her. Only two days before her death, Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute, the school that had turned her down at the start of her career.

Discography

References

Bibliography

External links

Nina Simone at Find a Grave

The Nina Simone Database – A comprehensive Nina Simone website

Nina Simone – Legacy Recordings Page

L'hommage: Nina Simone – Tribute and archival site

Nina Simone at The Music Box – A collection of reviews

Eunice Waymon-Nina Simone Memorial Project North Carolina-based scholarship, statue & music festival

Nina Simone Biography at About.com

Obituary from The Daily Telegraph

Nina Simone: The "Princess Noire" - audio report by NPR

Category:1933 births Category:2003 deaths Category:1950s singers Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:American Methodists Category:African American female singers Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American expatriates in France Category:American female singers Category:American jazz pianists Category:American jazz singers Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American soul musicians Category:Cancer deaths in France Category:Charly Records artists Category:Deaths from breast cancer Category:Jazz songwriters Category:Juilliard School of Music alumni Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:People from Polk County, North Carolina Category:People from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:Soul-jazz musicians Category:Torch singers Category:Women in jazz

Name	Lecrae
Background	solo_singer
Alias	Creezie, Crayola
Full name	Lecrae Moore
Origin	Houston, Texas, USA
Genre	Hip Hop, Christian rap
Years active	2004–present
Label	Reach RecordsCross Movement Records
Associated acts	116 Clique
Url	www.reachrecords.comwww.lecrae.net

Lecrae Moore is a Christian Hip Hop artist signed to Reach Records, the record label which he co-founded. Thus far Lecrae has released five solo studio albums, and his latest was released on January 11, 2011. He is also a member of the rap group 116 Clique, with which he collaborates frequently.

Early life

Born and raised by his mother in a poor community, Lecrae Moore moved around a lot, giving him his versatile background and cultural awareness. San Diego, Denver, and Dallas have all once been home to him and the street life he idolized and pursued. Along the way, like many in the inner city, he took to rapping as a way of communicating his thoughts. But it wasn’t until after high school that his hobby became a passion, and Jesus Christ redeemed his Hip-Hop background. The album was nominated for a Dove award as was the single "Jesus Muzik".

Rebel (2008–2009)

On October 8, 2008, Lecrae's third album, Rebel, entered the Billboard charts at #60 with 9,800 units sold. It also ranked #3 on the iTunes rap downloads, and topped the Billboard Christian album charts for two weeks, the first rap album to do so. The album gained some of the highest praise for Christian Hip hop yet; Jesusfreakhideout said, "Musically, it's easily as good as (if not better than) anything you will hear on mainstream rap stations. Lyrically, there's no comparison. Lecrae's message is better, and better for you." The album has of April 2010 maintained a 78 week run on the Billboard Gospel charts. It has sold 125,000 as of July 7.

Far Away (2010)

On February 5, 2010 a new single was released called "Far Away". The song is a tribute to those in Haiti and their struggles and Lecrae has promised that all proceeds from the single's sales will go directly to the Haiti relief effort. A music video was released for the song on February 10. The single peaked at #32 on the iTunes Hip hop singles chart, the first Christian Hip hop song to do so. On July 7, in a blog post on the Reach Records website, Lecrae announced that the title of his new album is Rehab. On August 5 a new song called "Amp It Up" was released via Rapzilla online. However, Lecrae clarified on his twitter account that the song is not a single off of Rehab, but rather a theme song that he wrote for camp Kanakuk which he writes theme songs for annually. On August 31; the tracklisting for Rehab was revealed, the album became available for preorder, and a promotional video for the album called "Idols" was released. The second promotional video, entitled "I Am Dust", was released on September 9. Rehab debut at #16 on Billboard 200 list, making it one of the highest selling Christian Rap/Hip Hop albums of all time. "Rehab" also became the top 5 album on the Best R&B;&Hip; Hop Album charts;shown in a October 2010 Issues of the magazine JET. It still maintains great success on the charts.

Rehab: The Overdose (2011)

On September 22, 2010; Rapzilla reported that the Rehab packaging comes with an advertisement encouraging buyers to purchase another upcoming album, which was released on January 11, 2011, called "Rehab: The Overdose" with 11 new songs. was released as planned. He has recently released a singles "Overdose", "Battle Song" featuring Suzy Rock, and "Blow Your High" featuring Canon.

The album peaked at No. 2 on iTunes and No. 1 on the Hip-Hop chart on its first day of release.

Personal life

A graduate of University of North Texas, Lecrae now resides in Memphis, TN, with his wife and children where his passion for impacting urban culture persists. With four successful albums to his name, touring worldwide along with the 116 Clique, and inspiring a generation of young believers across the globe, Lecrae is humbled by his position in leading others towards Christ. His hope is that Reach’s impact will spread far beyond simply the music and into the lives of individuals across the world, ultimately exalting Jesus Christ.

Discography

2005: Real Talk

2006: After the Music Stops

2008: Rebel

2010: Rehab

2011:

Awards and achievements

Nominated for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album for the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards for "Rehab" in 2010

Won Best Hip-Hop Music Video for GMC Music Video Awards Nominated for BEST RAP/HIP HOP ALBUM for 2009 GMA Dove Awards Nominated for BEST RAP/HIP HOP ALBUM for 2007 GMA Dove Awards Nominated for BEST RAP/HIP HOP RECORDED SONG for 2007 GMA Dove Awards Won Best Album for 2006 by Rapzilla

External links

Lecrae Lyrics, News, and Videos

Reach Records

Lecrae Rebel

Cross Movement Records

Official Lecrae Myspace

Video interview with Lecrae about his life and beliefs (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

The Reilly Band

Written and video interview

Category:1980 births Category:African American rappers Category:American Christians Category:American evangelicals Category:Religious activists Category:Hip hop singers Category:African American poets Category:African American record producers Category:American hip hop record producers Category:West Coast hip hop musicians Category:Living people Category:Performers of Christian hip hop music Category:Cross Movement Records Category:2000s rappers Category:2010s rappers

Sonny Thompson (August 22, 1916, — August 11, 1989) was an American R&B; bandleader and pianist, popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

Born Alfonso Thompson in Centreville, Mississippi, he began recording in 1946, and in 1948 achieved two #1 R&B; chart hits on the Miracle label - "Long Gone (Parts I and II)" and "Late Freight", both featuring saxophonist Eddie Chamblee. The follow-ups "Blue Dreams" and "Still Gone" were smaller hits.

By 1952 he had moved on to King Records. There, he had further R&B; Top 10 successes with the singer Lula Reed, the biggest hit being "I'll Drown In My Tears". He continued to work as a session musician, and to perform with Reed into the early 1960s. He also had success as a songwriter, often co-writing with blues guitarist, Freddie King.

Thompson died in 1989 in Chicago, at the age of 72.

References

Category:1916 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Songwriters from Mississippi Category:American bandleaders Category:American pianists Category:Rhythm and blues pianists Category:Musicians from Mississippi

Name	Sarah McLachlan
Background	solo_singer
Img alt	A 37 year-old Caucasian woman wearing a long brown dress sings into a microphone with her hands upraised and eyes closed.
Birth name	Sarah Ann McLachlan
Born	January 28, 1968 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Genre	Pop, adult contemporary
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, painter, executive producer
Voice type	Mezzo-soprano

External links

Official site

Interview with Sarah McLachlan

Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Arista Records artists Category:Musicians from British Columbia Category:Canadian adoptees Category:Canadian female singers Category:Canadian mezzo-sopranos Category:Canadian pop singers Category:Canadian singer-songwriters Category:Canadian pop guitarists Category:Canadian pop pianists Category:Canadian harpists Category:Canadian keyboardists Category:Canadian music video directors Category:Canadian female guitarists Category:Canadian multi-instrumentalists Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent Category:Feminist artists Category:Ballad musicians Category:Gemini Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Juno Award winners Category:Members of the Order of British Columbia Category:Musicians from Nova Scotia Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:People from Vancouver Category:People from Halifax, Nova Scotia Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:Animal rights advocates Category:Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University alumni

Name	Mariah Carey
Background	solo_singer
Birth date	March 27, 1970
Birth place	Huntington, New York, United States
Genre	R&B;, pop
Years active	1988–present
Associated acts	Boyz II Men, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, model, record producer, actress, film producer
Spouse
Label	Columbia, Virgin, Island
Url

Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American pop/R&B; singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut, in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola, in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia Records' highest-selling act.

Following her separation from Mottola, in 1997, she introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia, in 2001. She signed a record $80 million dollar deal with Virgin Records, only to be dropped from the label and bought out of her contract in the following year. This radical turn of events was due to the highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception that was given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and, after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music, in 2005, with her album, The Emancipation of Mimi.

In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million albums, singles and videos worldwide,according to Island Def Jam, which makes her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Carey was cited as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the 1998 World Music Awards and was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium by the same award-giving body in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of 63 million albums. In 2008, Carey earned her eighteenth number one single on the Hot 100, the most for any solo artist. Aside from her commercial accomplishments, she has earned five Grammy Awards and is known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and use of the whistle register.

Life and career

1970–87: Childhood and youth

Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer. Her mother is Irish American and her father is of Afro-Venezuelan and African American descent; her paternal grandfather, Roberto Nuñez, changed his surname to Carey to better assimilate upon moving to the United States from Venezuela. Carey has two sibilings, Morgan and Alison Carey. Carey was named after the song "They Call the Wind Mariah". Carey's parents divorced when she was three years old. While she lived in Huntington, racist neighbors allegedly poisoned the family dog and set fire to her family's car.

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

1988–92: Early career

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

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

Carey conceived Emotions, her second album, as an homage to Motown soul music (see Motown Sound), and she worked with Walter Afanasieff and Clivillés & Cole (from the dance group C+C Music Factory) on the record. It was released soon after her debut album — in late 1991 — but was neither as critically or commercially successful (See Promotion and reception section of the album article). The title track "Emotions" made Carey into the only recording act whose first five singles have reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 chart, although the album's follow-up singles failed to match this feat. Carey had lobbied to produce her own songs and, beginning with Emotions, she has co-produced most of her material. "I didn't want [Emotions] to be somebody else's vision of me," she said. "There's more of me on this album."

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

1993–96: First marriage, and international success

Carey and Tommy Mottola became romantically involved during the making of her debut album and were married in June, 1993. Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds consulted on the album Music Box, which was released later that year and became Carey's most successful worldwide. The album maintained a presence on the Billboard 200 for a staggering 128 weeks. It yielded her first UK Singles Chart number-one, a cover of Badfinger's "Without You", and the U.S. number-ones "Dreamlover" and "Hero". Billboard magazine proclaimed it "heart-piercing [...] easily the most elemental of Carey's releases, her vocal eurythmics in natural sync with the songs", but TIME magazine's Christopher John Farley lamented Carey's attempt at a mellower work, "[Music Box] seems perfunctory and almost passionless [...] Carey could be a pop-soul great; instead, she has once again settled for Salieri-like mediocrity." AllMusic adds, "Carey sounds detached on several selections. She scored a couple of huge hits, "Hero" and "Dreamlover", where she did inject some personality and intensity into the leads. Most other times, Carey blended into the background and allowed the tracks guide her, instead of pushing and exploding through them. It was wise for Carey to display other elements of her approach but, sometimes, excessive spirit is preferable to an absence of passion", and Rolling Stone expressed mixed sentiments and said, "Some of the songs appear to be strongly influenced by other hits. "Hero," with its message of self-sufficiency, aims for the inspirational grandeur of "Greatest Love of All", while "Just to Hold You Once Again" and "All I've Ever Wanted" chase the tail of "I Will Always Love You." In fact, Music Box is so precisely calculated to be a blockbuster that its impact is ultimately a little unnerving." In response to such comments, Carey said, "As soon as you have a big success, a lot of people don't like that. There's nothing that I can do about it. All I can do is to make music that I believe in." Most critics slighted the opening of her subsequent U.S. Music Box Tour. Farley balanced his critique with some positive observations: "The gospel flavored 'Anytime You Need A Friend' demonstrates Carey's vocal power, although too fleetingly. And the title cut is one of Carey's loveliest songs to date..." and, in subsequent years, emerged as one of her most perennially popular songs on U.S. radio. Critical reception of Merry Christmas was mixed, with Allmusic calling it an "otherwise vanilla set [...] pretensions to high opera on 'O Holy Night' and a horrid danceclub take on 'Joy to the World'." It became one of the most successful Christmas albums of all time.

In 1995, Columbia released Carey's fourth studio album, Daydream, which combined the pop sensibilities of Music Box with downbeat R&B; and hip hop influences. A remix of "Fantasy", its first single, featured rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. Carey said that Columbia reacted negatively to her intentions for the album: "Everybody was like 'What, are you crazy?'. They're very nervous about breaking the formula." The New Yorker noted that "It became standard for R&B; stars, like Missy Eliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses." John Norris of MTV News has stated that the remix was "responsible for, I would argue, an entire wave of music that we've seen since and that is the R&B-hip-hop; collaboration. You could argue that the 'Fantasy' remix was the single most important recording that she's ever made." Norris echoed the sentiments of TLC's Lisa Lopes, who told MTV that it's because of Mariah that we have "R&B.;" Daydream became her biggest-selling album in the U.S. and its singles achieved similar success — "Fantasy" became the second single to debut at number one in the U.S. and topped the Canadian Singles Chart for twelve weeks; "One Sweet Day" (a duet with Boyz II Men) spent a record-holding sixteen weeks at number one in the U.S.; and "Always Be My Baby" (co-produced by Jermaine Dupri) was the most successful record on U.S. radio in 1996, according to Billboard magazine. The album also generated career-best reviews for Carey, and publications such as The New York Times named it as one of 1995's best albums; the Times wrote that its "best cuts bring R&B; candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement [...] Carey's songwriting has taken a leap forward and become more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding clichés." and AllMusic adds, "Daydream is her best record to date, and features a consistently strong selection of songs and a remarkably impassioned performance by Carey. A few of the songs are second-rate — particularly the cover of Journey's "Open Arms" — but Daydream demonstrates that Carey continues to perfect her craft and that she has earned her status as an R&B; diva." The short but profitable Daydream World Tour augmented sales of the album. The music industry took note of Carey's success — she won two awards at the American Music Awards for her solo efforts: Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B; Female Artist. Daydream and its tracks were respectively nominated for six categories in the 38th Grammy Awards. Carey, along with Boyz II Men, opened the event with a performance of "One Sweet Day," which was mightily applauded. In contrast, throughout the night, she was not called to the stage to receive even one Grammy. The cameras started to focus on Carey, revealing the fact that it was becoming harder for her to retain a smile. Her disappointment was becoming obvious.

1997–2000: New image, Butterfly and Rainbow

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

" video in 1998.]] Carey's next album, Butterfly (1997), yielded the number-one single "Honey", the lyrics and music video which presented a more overtly sexual image of her than had been previously seen. She stated that Butterfly marked the point when she attained full creative control over her music. However, she added, "I don't think that it's that much of a departure from what I've done in the past [...] It's not like I went psycho and thought I would be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do." Reviews were generally positive: Rolling Stone wrote, "Carey couldn't have wished for a better start than "Honey," [...] it's an undeniably catchy pop record that revamps her sound and image. It's not as if Carey has totally dispensed with her old saccharine, Houston-style balladry [...] but the predominant mood of Butterfly is one of coolly erotic reverie. [... Except "Outside" the album sounds] very 1997. [...] Carey has spread her wings and she's ready to fly", LAUNCHcast said Butterfly "pushes the envelope", a move that its critic thought "may prove disconcerting to more conservative fans" but praised as "a welcome change." The Los Angeles Times wrote, "[Butterfly] is easily the most personal, confessional-sounding record she's ever done [...] Carey-bashing just might become a thing of the past." and AllMusic adds "Carey's vocals are sultrier and more controlled than ever, and that helps "Butterfly," "Break Down," "Babydoll," and the Prince cover, "The Beautiful Ones," rank among her best; also, the ballads do have a stronger urban feel than before. Even though Butterfly doesn't have as many strong singles as Daydream, it's one of her best records and illustrates that Carey continues to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers." The album was a commercial success—although not to the degree of her previous three albums—and "My All" (her thirteenth Hot 100 number-one) gave her the record for the most U.S. number-ones by a female artist.

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

Rainbow, Carey's sixth studio album, was released in 1999 and comprised more R&B;/hip hop–oriented songs, with many of them co-created with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. "Heartbreaker" and "Thank God I Found You" (the former featuring Jay-Z, the latter featuring Joe and boy band 98 Degrees) reached number one in the U.S. VIBE magazine expressed similar sentiments, writing, "She pulls out all stops [...] Rainbow will garner even more adoration", but AllMusic states, "It's a bit ballad-heavy, which makes Rainbow seem a little samey. Yet, that's not the only reason why the record has a weird sense of déjà vu, since this follows the same formula as its two predecessors, distinguished primarily by her newfound fondness for flashing flesh. That repetition isn't necessarily a problem, because she does formula very well and manages to appeal to both housewives as well as b-boys. Rainbow proves that she can still pull off that difficult balancing act but it's hard not to be a little disappointed that she'd didn't shake the music up a little bit more — after all, it would have been a more effective album if the heartbreak, sorrow and joy that bubbles underneath the music were brought to the surface." and it became Carey's lowest-selling album up to that point,

2001–04: Glitter, Charmbracelet and personal struggles

After she received Billboard's Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, and her relationship with the Latin icon Luis Miguel ended. In an interview the following year, she said, "I was with people who didn't really know me and I had no personal assistant. I'd do interviews all day long and get two hours of sleep a night, if that." During an appearance on MTV's Total Request Live, to which she showed up unannounced and to the apparent bewilderment of host Carson Daly, Carey handed out popsicles to the audience and began what was later described as a "striptease". By the month's end, she had checked into a hospital and her publicist announced that Carey would take a break from public appearances.

Critics panned Glitter, Carey's much delayed semi-autobiographical film and it was a box office failure. The accompanying soundtrack album, Glitter, was inspired by the music of the 1980s and featured collaborations with Rick James and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis; it generated Carey's worst showing on the U.S. chart. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dismissed it as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful", while Blender magazine opined, "After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, Carey's left with almost no presence at all." The lead single, "Loverboy" (which features Cameo), reached number two on the Hot 100, due to the release of the physical single, Later that year, she signed a contract with Island Records, valued at more than $22.5 million, and launched the record label MonarC. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father, with whom she had little contact since childhood, died of cancer that year.

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

In 2002, she performed the American national anthem in front of an audience at the Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Following a well-received supporting role in the 2002 film WiseGirls, Carey released the album Charmbracelet, which, she said, marked "a new lease on life" for her. and Rolling Stone commented, "Carey needs bold songs that help her use the power and range for which she is famous. Charmbracelet is like a stream of watercolors that bleed into a puddle of brown." Allmusic expressed similar sentiments and said, "There are no good songs on this record, outside of Def Leppard's power ballad classic "Bringin on the Heartbreak," which isn't even covered all that well. What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. Whenever she sings, there's a raspy whistle behind her thin voice and she strains to make notes throughout the record. She cannot coo or softly croon nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs. Her voice is damaged and there's not a moment where it sounds strong or inviting. That, alone, would be disturbing but, because the songs are formless and the production bland — another reason why the hip-hop announces itself, even though it's nowhere near as pronounced as it has been since Butterfly — her tired voice becomes the only thing to concentrate on and it's a sad, ugly thing, which makes an album - that would merely have been her worst - into something tragic." The album's only charting single in America, "Through the Rain", was a failure on pop radio, which had become less open to maturing "diva" stylists, such as Celine Dion, or Carey, herself, in favor of younger singers such as Christina Aguilera, who had vocal styles very similar to Carey's. She was featured on rapper Jadakiss's 2004 single "U Make Me Wanna", which reached the top ten on Billboard's R&B;/Hip-Hop chart.

Carey was one of several musicians who appeared in the independently produced Damon Dash films Death of a Dynasty (2003) and State Property 2 (2005).

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

, in Florida August 7, 2006.]] Carey's tenth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), contained contributions from producers such as The Neptunes, Kanye West and Carey's longtime collaborator, Jermaine Dupri. Carey said it was "very much like a party record [...] the process of putting on makeup and getting ready to go out [...] I wanted to make a record that was reflective of that." The Emancipation of Mimi became 2005's best-selling album in the U.S. The Guardian reviewer defined it as "cool, focused and urban [... some of] the first Mariah Carey tunes in years which I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again"., but New York Daily News states, "Carey has brought back that trademark dog-whistle that she exploited in the callow part of her career with a vengeance and used it on 11 of the CD's 14 tracks. For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening. If no one can question the scope of Carey's voice, it's too bad that she has again used it to say nothing." The album earned a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B; Album and the single "We Belong Together" won Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance and Best R&B; Song. "We Belong Together" held the Hot 100's number-one position for fourteen weeks, her longest run at the top as a solo lead artist. Subsequently, the single "Shake It Off" reached number two for a week, which made Carey the first female lead vocalist to have simultaneously held the Hot 100's top two positions. (While it topped the charts in 2002, Ashanti was the "featured" singer on the number two single.) 2005 proved to be a good year for Carey, as "We Belong Together" reached number one on Billboard's year end chart for Hot 100 singles, and The Emancipation of Mimi is classed as the best selling album of 2005 by Nielsen SoundScan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2010–present: Merry Christmas II You and pregnancy

on December 3, 2010]] Following the cancellation of the remix albums, it was announced that Carey will go back to the studio to start work on her second Christmas album and her 13th studio album. Fashion photographer David LaChapelle told The Times on April 24, 2010, that he shot the album's artwork. Long time collaborators for the project include Jermaine Dupri and Bryan-Michael Cox. Dupri stated that a single will be released by the end of 2010. Johntá Austin and Randy Jackson are also contributing to the project.

In May 2010, Carey, citing medical reasons, dropped out of her planned appearance in For Colored Girls, the film adaptation of the play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

During a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, in August 2010, Island Def Jam executive Matt Voss announced that the Christmas album would be out in November 2 and will include six new songs and a remix of her all time classic hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The album will be titled Merry Christmas II You, a follow-up to her 1994 multiplatinum album Merry Christmas. An accompanying DVD was released alongside the CD. Carey has produced and recorded tracks with the Broadway producer Marc Shaiman for the album. The album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 56,000 copies, surpassing the opening week sales of Carey's previous holiday album Merry Christmas of 45,000 copies 16 years prior, and making Merry Christmas II You Carey's 16th top 10 album. The album also debuted at #1 on the R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart, and also hit number #1 on the Holiday Albums Chart.

After much media spectulation, on October 28, 2010, Carey confirmed that she and Cannon are expecting a baby, and that it is due in the spring of 2011. Carey stated that she struggled to keep the news a secret. She also revealed that they have yet to find out the gender of the baby and that she conceived naturally. She added that she had been pregnant shortly after her wedding with Nick Cannon, but that she miscarried. Carey and Cannon decided to keep the matter private. Following allegations that Mariah accidentally revealed that the couple were expecting twins during an radio interview by referring to the child as 'they', Nick stated that Carey is due one child, not twins. However, Nick refused to say how many babies his wife was expecting to E! News, but admitted that by saying 'they', Mariah 'wasn't wrong'. On December 16, 2010, Nick Cannon announced that he and Mariah were in fact going to have twins.

On December 12, 2010, Carey was the featured performer on the annual television special Christmas in Washington, airing live on pay-per-view in select cities worldwide. The U.S. network television premiere was December 17 via the TNT network.

Artistry

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

Voice

Mariah Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range, and was ranked first in a 2003 MTV and Blender magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll, "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself." She also placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Regarding her voice, Carey states,

"I have nodules on my vocal cords. My mother says I've had them since I was a kid. That's why I have the high register and the belting register and I can still be husky. The only thing that really affects my voice is sleep. Sometimes if I'm exhausted, I can't hit the really high notes." "My doctors showed me my vocal cords and why I can hit those high notes. It's a certain part of the cord that not many people use—the very top. My natural voice is low. I have a raspy voice. I'm really more of an alto. But my airy voice can be high if I'm rested. [...] When I was little, I'd talk in this really high whisper, and my mom would be like, "You're being ridiculous." I thought if I can talk like that I can sing like that. So I started [she goes higher and higher and higher] just messing around with it. I'd practice and practice, and she'd be like, "You're gonna hurt yourself." I'd tell her, It doesn’t hurt/ If I were to try and belt two octaves lower than that, that would be a strain."

She also explains that it was Minnie Riperton who influenced her to use the whistle register. The medium is "pleasurable and possesses an ample vibrato." Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker adds her timbre possesses various colors, saying, "Carey's sound changes with nearly every line, mutating from a steely tone to a vibrating growl and then to a humid, breathy coo." Her wide vocal range allows Carey to take melodies from alto bottom notes to coloratura soprano upper register,

Voice experts praise Carey's vocal technique, like Stephen Holden who said, "[s]he can deliver very accurate staccatos as well as tricky melismas, and she possesses a beautiful and solid trill in upper register". Rolling Stone expressed similar sentiments, saying, "Carey has a remarkable vocal gift, but to date, unfortunately, her singing has been far more impressive than expressive", "She wails notes that don't need emphasizing, then whispers what would ordinarily be climactic phrases, and the outcome doesn't make emotional or musical sense." New York Daily News continues in the same direction, saying, "For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening. If no one can question the scope of Carey's voice it's too bad she has again used it to say nothing."

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

Carey began commissioning remixes of her material early in her career and helped to spearhead the practice of recording entirely new vocals for remixes. Disc jockey David Morales has collaborated with Carey several times, starting with "Dreamlover" (1993), which popularized the tradition of remixing R&B; songs into house records, and which Slant magazine named one of the greatest dance songs of all time. From "Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey enlisted both hip hop and house producers to re-imagine her album compositions. Entertainment Weekly included two remixes of "Fantasy" on a list of Carey's greatest recordings compiled in 2005: a National Dance Music Award-winning remix produced by Morales, and a Sean Combs production featuring rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. The latter has been credited with popularizing the R&B;/hip hop collaboration trend that has continued into the 2000s through artists such as Ashanti and Beyoncé. Combs said that Carey "knows the importance of mixes, so you feel like you're with an artist who appreciates your work—an artist who wants to come up with something with you". According to Rolling Stone, "Her mastery of melisma, the fluttering strings of notes that decorate songs like "Vision of Love," inspired the entire American Idol vocal school, for better or worse, and virtually every other female R&B; singer since the Nineties." Beyoncé Knowles credits Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love," as influencing her to begin practicing vocal "runs" as a child, as well as helping her pursue a career as a musician. Carey is also credited for introducing R&B; and hip-hop into mainstream pop culture, and for popularizing rap as a featuring act through her post-1995 songs. Philip Brasor, editor of "The Japan Times," expressed how Carey's vocal and melismatic style even influenced Asian singers. He wrote regarding Japanese superstar Utada Hikaru, "Utada sang what she heard, from the diaphragm and with her own take on the kind of melisma that became de rigueur in American pop after the ascendance of Mariah Carey."

" video in 1998.]] In a career spanning over 20 years, Carey has sold over 200 million albums, singles, and videos worldwide, making her one of the biggest-selling artists in music history. Carey is ranked as the best-selling female artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, with over 52 million copies sold. Possessing a five-octave vocal range, Carey was ranked first in MTV and Blender magazine's 2003 countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, and was placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Aside from her voice, she has become known for her songwriting. Yahoo Music editor, Jason Ankeny wrote, "She earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own material." According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. At the 2000 World Music Awards, Carey was given a Legend Award for being the "best-selling female pop artist of the millennium," as well as the "Best-selling artist of the 90s" in the United States, after releasing a series of albums of multi-platinum status in Asia and Europe, such as Music Box and Number 1's. She is also a recipient of the Chopard Diamond Award in 2003, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide. In Japan, Carey has the top four highest-selling albums of all time by a non-Asian artist.

Carey has spent a record 79 weeks at the number-one position on Billboard Hot 100, becoming the artist with the most weeks at number-one in U.S. chart history. On that same chart, she has accumulated 18 number-one singles, making her the solo artist with the most number-one singles in the chart's history. It also produced the successful single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became the only holiday song and ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the U.S. In Japan, Number 1's has sold over 3,250,000 copies and is the best-selling album of all time in Japan by a non-Asian artist. Her hit single "One Sweet Day", which featured Boyz II Men, spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the top of Billboards Hot 100 chart in 1996, setting the record for the most weeks atop the Hot 100 chart in history. In 2008, Billboard magazine listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard: All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs and the most successful song of the first decade of the 21st century. In 2009, Carey's song Obsessed became her 12th Platinum single, the most by any female artist. Also in 2009, Carey's cover of Foreigner's classic, "I Want to Know What Love Is" became the longest-running number-one song in Brazilian singles chart history, spending 27 consecutive weeks at number-one. Additionally, Carey has had three songs debut at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100: "Fantasy", "One Sweet Day" and "Honey", making her the artist with the most number-one debuts in the chart's 52 year history. Also, she is the first female artist to debut at number 1 in the U.S. with "Fantasy". In 2010, Careys 13th and second christmas album,Merry Christmas II You debuted at #1 on the R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart.

Philanthropy and other activities

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

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

Declining offers to appear in commercials in the United States during her early career, Carey was not involved in brand marketing initiatives until 2006, when she participated in endorsements for Intel Centrino personal computers and launched a jewelry and accessories line for teenagers, Glamorized, in American Claire's and Icing stores. During this period, as part of a partnership with Pepsi and Motorola, Carey recorded and promoted a series of exclusive ringtones, including "Time of Your Life". She signed a licensing deal with the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden, and in 2007, she released her own fragrance, "M". According to Forbes, Carey was the sixth richest woman in entertainment , with an estimated net worth of US $225 million. Carey directed or co-directed several of the music videos for her singles during the 1990s. Slant magazine named the video for "The Roof (Back in Time)", which Carey co-directed with Diane Martel, one of the twenty greatest music videos of all time. In 2008, Carey made Time's annual list of 100 most Influential people. In January 2010, Carey announced via Twitter that she is launching a new rosé champagne brand called Angel Champagne.Supporting Actress of the Year at the Capri Hollywood International Film FestivalNominated — Black Reel Award for Best Supporting Actress & Best Ensemble. Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion PictureNominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture. |}

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 2002 | Ally McBeal | Candy Cushnip | "" (Season 5, episode 8) |- | 2003 | The Proud Family | Herself | Voice role |}

Discography

1990: Mariah Carey

1991: Emotions

1993: Music Box

1994: Merry Christmas

1995: Daydream

1997: Butterfly

1999: Rainbow

2001: Glitter

2002: Charmbracelet

2005: The Emancipation of Mimi

2008: E=MC²

2009: Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel

2010: Merry Christmas II You

See also

List of best-selling music artists

List of best selling music artists in U.S.

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

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

List of awards received by Mariah Carey

List of Mariah Carey tours

Notes

References

External links

Official website

[ Mariah Carey] at Allmusic

Mariah Carey at Billboard.com

Mariah Carey at LAUNCHcast

}}

Category:1970 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:Actors from New York Category:African American actors Category:African American female singers Category:African American female singer-songwriters Category:African American musicians Category:African American songwriters Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American film actors Category:American female singers Category:American music video directors Category:American pop singers Category:American record producers Category:Hip hop singers Category:American dance musicians Category:American sopranos Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:Island Records artists Category:Musicians from New York Category:People from Long Island Category:Spanish-language singers Category:American people of Venezuelan descent Category:World Music Awards winners Category:American philanthropists

Name	Jimmy Ellis
Realname	James Albert Ellis
Weight	Heavyweight
Height
Reach
Nationality	American
Birth date	February 24, 1940
Birth place	Louisville, Kentucky
Home	Louisville, Kentucky
Style	Orthodox
Total	53
Wins	40
Losses	12
Draws	1
No contests	0
Ko	24

James Albert "Jimmy" Ellis (born February 24, 1940) is a retired boxer from Louisville, Kentucky. He fought in what some consider to be the greatest heavyweight era of all-time, which included Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, and George Chuvalo. Ellis held the WBA World Heavyweight Championship from 1968 to 1970.

Amateur career

Ellis got into boxing after watching fellow Louisville native Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, fight on a local amateur boxing television show called Tomorrow's Champions. "I had a friend of mine named Donnie Hall, and he fought Ali," Ellis said. "Donnie lost, and I thought I could maybe be a fighter then." Ellis went with Hall to Louisville's Columbia Gym, where the coach was a police officer named Joe Martin.

Ellis won 59 of 66 amateur bouts and was a Golden Gloves champion. He boxed Ali twice as an amateur, with Ali winning the first bout and Ellis winning the second.

Early Professional Career

Ellis turned professional in 1961. Early in his pro career, he was trained and managed by Bud Bruner. With Bruner, he compiled a record of 15-5 (6 KOs) and was ranked #10 in the world as a middleweight. His five losses were decisions to top middleweight contenders Holly Mims (whom he defeated in a rematch), Henry Hank, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Don Fullmer, and George Benton.

At the end of 1964, after losing three out of four fights, Ellis decided to leave Bruner. He later recalled Bruner fondly. "I liked him, and I fought a lot of top-rated fighters when I was with him, but eventually I had to move on," Ellis said. "He did me justice, and we always remained friends."

Ellis wrote a letter to Angelo Dundee, the trainer of Ali, and asked him to handle his career. Dundee agreed to be his manager and trainer. Ellis became a sparring partner for Ali and started to fight on his undercards. Six of his first eight fights with Dundee were on an Ali undercard.

WBA Heavyweight Champion

By 1966, Ellis was fighting as a heavyweight. When Ali was stripped of the world title for refusing to enter the military, the World Boxing Association staged an eight-man tournament that featured most of the top heavyweight contenders. Ellis, with eight consecutive wins, was invited to be in the tournament. Joe Frazier, the widely accepted #1 contender, chose not to participate in the tournament. Instead, Frazier fought and knocked out Buster Mathis for the vacant New York State Athletic Commission World Heavyweight Championship.

Ellis stopped Leotis Martin in nine rounds and easily outpointed Oscar Bonavena to reach the WBA tournament final. On April 27, 1968, Ellis defeated Jerry Quarry by a fifteen-round majority decision to win the vacant WBA World Heavyweight Championship.

In his only successful title defense, Ellis defeated Floyd Patterson via a controversial fifteen-round decision on September 14, 1968 in Stockholm, Sweden. Many in the crowd of 30,000 disagreed with the decision and started chanting, "Floyd champ!" The New York Times scored the fight seven rounds to six for Ellis, with two even.

Following the Patterson victory, Ellis was out of the ring for seventeen months. He was going to fight Henry Cooper in England, but Cooper was injured and pulled out of the fight. Ellis then planned to fight Bob Cleroux in Montreal, but Cleroux lost what was supposed to be a tune-up fight against the lightly regarded Billy Joiner. Finally, Ellis was going to fight Gregorio Peralta in Argentina, but promoters canceled the fight 24 hours before it was to take place because of poor ticket sales.

On February 16, 1970, Ellis fought Frazier to unify the World Heavyweight Championship. The undefeated Frazier knocked Ellis down twice in the fourth round, and Dundee stopped the fight before the start of the fifth round. It was the first knockout loss for Ellis.

Fighting Ali

After winning his next three fights, Ellis fought Ali in the Houston Astrodome on July 26, 1971. Being the manager and trainer of Ellis, but only Ali's trainer, Dundee chose to work with Ellis for the fight. It was one of the few fights in Ali's career in which Dundee was not in his corner. Ellis fought well over the first three rounds, but the fight turned after Ellis was hurt by a right hand in the fourth round. The right hand "hurt me so bad I couldn't really fight my best after that," Ellis said. "It ruined me." Ali went on to stop Ellis in the twelfth round.

Diminishing Skills

Ellis won his next eight fights by knockout and then fought Earnie Shavers, who was 44-2 (43 KOs). The fight took place on June 18, 1973 at Madison Square Garden. Ellis stunned Shavers with a chopping right to the jaw and backed him into a corner. Then, with a right uppercut, Shavers put Ellis down for the count. The time was 2:39 in the first round.

Ellis came back with a knockout of Memphis Al Jones, but with his skills in decline, he went winless in his next five fights. He lost a split decision to Boone Kirkman, fought a draw with Larry Middleton, dropped decisions to Ron Lyle and Joe Bugner, and was stopped in nine rounds in a rematch with Frazier.

On May 6, 1975, in what would be his last fight, Ellis knocked out journeyman Carl Baker in the first round. He retired after suffering a training injury that left him partially blind in his left eye. Ellis finished with a record of 40-12-1 (24 KOs). After retiring from boxing, Ellis trained boxers and worked for the Louisville Parks Department. He now suffers from dementia pugilistica.

References

External links

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:American boxers Category:Heavyweights Category:People from Louisville, Kentucky Category:Boxers from Kentucky Category:WBA Champions Category:World Heavyweight Champions

Name	Frances Faye
Birth date	November 4, 1912
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York, United States
Death date
Occupation	Singer, pianist
Partner	Teri Shepherd}}

Frances Faye (November 4, 1912 - November 8, 1991) was an American cabaret and show tune singer and pianist. She was born to a working-class Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City. She was a second cousin of actor Danny Kaye.

Career

Born as Frances Cohen, Faye's showbiz career began at the age of 15 in nightclubs where she first became a star. She appeared in one Bing Crosby film; Double or Nothing singing "After You". She wrote the song "Well All Right" recorded by the Andrews Sisters. Faye made her solo recording debut in 1936. Her act became famous for including double entendres and references to homosexuality and lesbianism. Faye herself was bisexual and hinted at this frequently in her act; she would often playfully alter pronouns in love songs or weave her girlfriend's name into lyrics of song. For instance, she inserted "it's a Teri, Teri day" into "The Man I Love" and on national television sang "why do all the boys treat Teri so right" in "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate."

She recorded about a dozen albums for many different record labels, including Capitol Records and Imperial Records and jazz labels Verve Records and Bethlehem Records.

Personal life

Faye was married twice in the 1940s. In the late 1950s, a woman named Teri Shepherd became her manager and lifelong partner.

Arrest

Faye was arrested in 1955 on a narcotics charge in Los Angeles; police asserted that she and the three men arrested at the same time possessed marijuana.

During in the 1960s, Faye suffered a number of health related problems brought on by a hip accident in 1958. She nevertheless continued to tour into the early 1980s. Peter Allen credited her as a major influence and had Faye sing the vocals on the track "Just a Gigolo (Schoner Gigolo)" on his 1974 album, Continental American.

She returned to film in 1978, playing a madam in the Louis Malle film Pretty Baby. Faye retired shortly afterward. At the time of her death in 1991, Faye was living with Teri Shepherd.

Influence and cultural significance

Shepherd discussed her relationship with Faye in Bruce Weber's 2001 film Chop Suey.

Discography

Singles

"No Regrets" / "You're Not the Kind of a Boy" (Decca - 1936)

"Boogie Woogie Washer Woman" / "Return to Sorrento" (International - 1946)

"Personality" / "Drunk with Love & Purple Wine" / "Well All Right" (International - 1946)

"All That Glitters Is Not Gold" / "I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me" (International - 1946)

"Night and Day" / "Tweet Tweet Tweetheart" (Capitol #2224 - ca. 1953)

"She Looks" / "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" (Capitol #2278 - ca. 1953)

"My Last Affair" / "On a Raft in the Middle of an Ocean" (Capitol #2347 - ca. 1954)

"There's a Bell That Rings in My Heart" / "A Fool in Love" (Capitol #2390 - ca. 1954)

"Sometimes I'm Happy" / "I Was Wrong About You" (Capitol #2472 - ca. 1954)

"The Dummy Song" / "Uh-Huh" (Capitol #2542 - ca. 1954)

"Hey, Mister" / "Sorry Baby" (Capitol #2604 - ca. 1954)

"Summertime" / "Mad About the Boy" (Capitol #2842 - ca. 1955)

"Somebody Loves Me" / "Lonesome Road" (Bethlehem 45-11002 - 1958)

"It's You I Love" / "My Blue Heaven" (Imperial #5546 - 1959)

"Sweet Georgia Brown" / "You're Heavenly" (Regina R-1322)

Albums

Frances Faye (International, 1946)

No Reservations (Capitol, T522 - 1953)

I'm Wild Again (Bethlehem BCP, 23 - 1955)

Relaxin' With Frances Faye (Bethlehem BCP, 62 - 1956)

Porgy and Bess (Bethlehem 3-LP Set with Mel Torme, 1956)

Frances Faye Sings Folk Songs (Bethlehem BCP, 6017 -1957)

Frances Faye Swings Fats Domino (Imperial LP, 9059 -1959)

Frances Faye Sings the Blues (Imperial LP, 9158 - 1960)

Caught in the Act (GNP 41, 1959) Live recording at the Crescendo with Jack Costanzo

Caught in the Act, Vol. 2 (GNP, 1959) Live recording at the Thunderbird, Las Vegas

Frances Faye in Frenzy (Verve, 1961)

Swinging All the Way With Frances Faye (Verve V-2147, 1962)

You Gotta Go! Go! Go! (Regina LP R 315 - 1964)

Bad, Bad Frances Faye (Bethlehem - 1976; reissue I'm Wild Again with cover art from Relaxin' With Frances Faye'')

Filmography

Double or Nothing (1937)

Pretty Baby (1978)

Chop Suey Club (2001) archival clips and interviews

References

External links

The New Fabulous Frances Faye Archive

Frances Faye on glbtq.com

Category:1912 births Category:1991 deaths Category:American female singers Category:Ashkenazi Jews Category:Bisexual actors Category:Bisexual musicians Category:Imperial Records artists Category:Jewish American musicians Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Traditional pop music singers Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Women comedians

Name	Charles Mingus
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	Charles Mingus Jr.
Born	April 22, 1922 US Army Base in Nogales, Arizona
Died	January 05, 1979Cuernavaca, Mexico
Origin	Los Angeles, California
Instrument	Double bass, Piano, Cello, Trombone
Genre	Bebop, avant-garde jazz, post-bop, third stream
Occupation	Bassist, Composer, Bandleader
Years active	1943–1979
Label	Atlantic, Candid, Columbia, Debut, Impulse!, Mercury, United Artists
Url	MingusMingusMingus.com

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.

Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz.

Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans Jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, he was a pioneer in double bass technique.

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus' often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz." His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many on-stage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals.

Because of his brilliant writing for mid-size ensembles—and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups—Mingus is often considered the heir apparent to Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed unqualified admiration. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke", citing their shared "organizational genius."

Although Mingus' music was once believed to be too difficult to play without Mingus' leadership, many musicians play Mingus compositions today, from those who play with the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition.

In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library for public use. In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".

Biography

Early life and career

Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. He was raised largely in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California. His mother's paternal heritage was Chinese and English, while historical records indicate that his father was the illegitimate offspring of a black farmhand and his Swedish employer's white granddaughter.

His mother allowed only church-related music in their home, but Mingus developed an early love for jazz, especially the music of Duke Ellington. He studied trombone and later cello. Much of the cello technique he learned was applicable to double bass when he took up the instrument in high school. He studied five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with Lloyd Reese.

Beginning in his teen years, Mingus was writing quite advanced pieces; many are similar to Third Stream because they incorporate elements of classical music. A number of them were recorded in 1960 with conductor Gunther Schuller, and released as Pre-Bird, referring to Charlie "Bird" Parker; Mingus was one of many musicians whose perspectives on music were altered by Parker into "pre- and post-Bird" eras.

Mingus gained a reputation as something of a bass prodigy. His first major professional job was playing with former Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard. He toured with Louis Armstrong in 1943, and by early 1945 was recording in Los Angeles in a band led by Russell Jacquet and which also included Teddy Edwards, Maurice Simon, Bill Davis and Chico Hamilton, and in May that year, in Hollywood, again with Teddy Edwards, in a band led by Howard McGhee. He then played with Lionel Hampton's band in the late 1940s; Hampton performed and recorded several of Mingus's pieces. A popular trio of Mingus, Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in 1950 and 1951 received considerable acclaim, but Mingus' mixed origin caused problems with club owners and he left the group. Mingus was briefly a member of Ellington's band in 1953, as a substitute for bassist Wendell Marshall. Mingus's notorious temper led to him being one of the few musicians personally fired by Ellington (Bubber Miley and drummer Bobby Durham are among the others), after an on-stage fight between Mingus and Juan Tizol.

Also in the early 1950s, before attaining commercial recognition as a bandleader, Mingus played gigs with Charlie Parker, whose compositions and improvisations greatly inspired and influenced him. Mingus considered Parker the greatest genius and innovator in jazz history, but he had a love-hate relationship with Parker's legacy. Mingus blamed the Parker mythology for a derivative crop of pretenders to Parker's throne. He was also conflicted and sometimes disgusted by Parker's self-destructive habits and the romanticized lure of drug addiction they offered to other jazz musicians. In response to the many sax players who imitated Parker, Mingus titled a song, "If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" (released on Mingus Dynasty as "Gunslinging Bird").

Based in New York

In 1952 Mingus co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach, in order to conduct his recording career as he saw fit; the name originated with a desire to document unrecorded young musicians. Despite this, the best-known recording the company issued was of the most prominent figures in bebop. On May 15, 1953, Mingus joined Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, and Roach for a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which is the last recorded documentation of the two lead instrumentalists playing together. After the event, Mingus chose to overdub his barely audible bass part back in New York; the original version was issued later. The two 10" albums of the Massey Hall concert (one featured the trio of Powell, Mingus and Roach) were among Debut Records' earliest releases. Mingus may have objected to the way the major record companies treated musicians, but Gillespie once commented that he did not receive any royalties "for years and years" for his Massey Hall appearance. The records though, are often regarded as among the finest live jazz recordings.

In 1955, Mingus was involved in a notorious incident while playing a club date billed as a "reunion" with Parker, Powell, and Roach. Powell, who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness (possibly exacerbated by a severe police beating and electroshock treatments), had to be helped from the stage, unable to play or speak coherently. As Powell's incapacitation became apparent, Parker stood in one spot at a microphone, chanting "Bud Powell...Bud Powell..." as if beseeching Powell's return. Allegedly, Parker continued this incantation for several minutes after Powell's departure, to his own amusement and Mingus' exasperation. Mingus took another microphone and announced to the crowd, "Ladies and gentlemen, please don't associate me with any of this. This is not jazz. These are sick people." This was Parker's last public performance; about a week later he died after years of substance abuse.

Mingus often worked with a mid-sized ensemble (around 8–10 members) of rotating musicians known as the Jazz Workshop. Mingus broke new ground, constantly demanding that his musicians be able to explore and develop their perceptions on the spot. Those who joined the Workshop (or Sweatshops as they were colorfully dubbed by the musicians) included Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Jimmy Knepper, Charles McPherson and Horace Parlan. Mingus shaped these musicians into a cohesive improvisational machine that in many ways anticipated free jazz. Some musicians dubbed the workshop a "university" for jazz.

Pithecanthropus Erectus among other creations

The decade which followed is generally regarded as Mingus's most productive and fertile period. Impressive new compositions and albums appeared at an astonishing rate: some thirty records in ten years, for a number of record labels (Atlantic Records, Candid, Columbia Records, Impulse! Records and others), a pace perhaps unmatched by any other musician except Ellington.

Mingus had already recorded around ten albums as a bandleader, but 1956 was a breakthrough year for him, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus, arguably his first major work as both a bandleader and composer. Like Ellington, Mingus wrote songs with specific musicians in mind, and his band for Erectus included adventurous, though distinctly blues-oriented musicians, piano player Mal Waldron, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and the Sonny Rollins-influenced tenor of J. R. Monterose. The title song is a ten-minute tone poem, depicting the rise of man from his hominid roots (Pithecanthropus erectus) to an eventual downfall. A section of the piece was free improvisation, free of structure or theme.

Another album from this period, The Clown (1957 also on Atlantic Records), with an improvised story on the title track by humorist Jean Shepherd, was the first to feature drummer Dannie Richmond. Richmond would be his preferred drummer until Mingus's death in 1979. The two men formed one of the most impressive and versatile rhythm sections in jazz. Both were accomplished performers seeking to stretch the boundaries of their music while staying true to its roots. When joined by pianist Jaki Byard, they were dubbed "The Almighty Three".

Mingus Ah Um and other works

Mingus witnessed Ornette Coleman's legendary—and controversial—1960 appearances at New York City's Five Spot jazz club. Though he initially expressed rather mixed feelings for Coleman's innovative music: "...if the free-form guys could play the same tune twice, then I would say they were playing something...Most of the time they use their fingers on the saxophone and they don't even know what's going to come out. They're experimenting." Mingus was in fact a prime influence of the early free jazz era. He formed a quartet with Richmond, trumpeter Ted Curson and saxophonist Eric Dolphy. This ensemble featured the same instruments as Coleman's quartet, and is often regarded as Mingus rising to the challenging new standard established by Coleman. Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus was the quartet's only album.

Only one misstep occurred in this era: 1962's Town Hall Concert. An ambitious program, it was unfortunately plagued with troubles from its inception. Mingus's vision, now known as Epitaph, was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller in a concert in 1989, 10 years after Mingus's death.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady and the other Impulse! albums

In 1963, Mingus released The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, a sprawling, multi-section masterpiece, described as "one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history." The album was also unique in that Mingus asked his psychotherapist to provide notes for the record.

1963 also saw the release of an unaccompanied album Mingus Plays Piano. A few pieces were entirely improvised and drew on classical music as much as jazz, preceding Keith Jarrett's landmark The Köln Concert in those respects by some twelve years.

In 1964 Mingus put together one of his best-known groups, a sextet including Dannie Richmond, Jaki Byard, Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, and tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan. The group was recorded frequently during its short existence; Coles fell ill during a European tour. On June 28, 1964 Dolphy died while in Berlin. 1964 was also the year that Mingus met his future wife, Sue Graham Ungaro. The couple were married in 1966 by Allen Ginsberg. Facing financial hardship, Mingus was evicted from his New York home in 1966.

Changes

Mingus's pace slowed somewhat in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1974 he formed a quintet with Richmond, pianist Don Pullen, trumpeter Jack Walrath and saxophonist George Adams. They recorded two well-received albums, Changes One and Changes Two. Mingus also played with Charles McPherson in many of his groups during this time. Cumbia and Jazz Fusion in 1976 sought to blend Colombian music (the "Cumbia" of the title) with more traditional jazz forms. In 1971, Mingus taught for a semester at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York as the Slee Professor of Music.

Later career and death

By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a wastage of the musculature. His once formidable bass technique suffered, until he could no longer play the instrument. He continued composing, however, and supervised a number of recordings before his death.

He did not complete his final project of an album named after him with singer Joni Mitchell, which included lyrics added by Mitchell to Mingus compositions, including "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", among Mitchell originals and short, spoken word duets and home recordings of Mitchell and Mingus. The album featured the talents of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and another influential bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius. Mingus died aged 56 in Cuernavaca, Mexico where he had traveled for treatment and convalescence. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.

Legacy

The Mingus Big Band

The music of Charles Mingus is currently being performed and reinterpreted by the Mingus Big Band, which, starting October 2008, plays every Monday at Jazz Standard in New York City, and often tours the rest of the U.S. and Europe. Elvis Costello has written lyrics for a few Mingus pieces. He had once sung lyrics for one piece, "Invisible Lady", being backed by the Mingus Big Band on the album, Tonight at Noon: Three of Four Shades of Love.

In addition to the Mingus Big Band, there is the Mingus Orchestra and the Mingus Dynasty, each of which are managed by Jazz Workshop, Inc., and run by Mingus's widow Sue Graham Mingus.

Epitaph

Epitaph is considered to be one of Charles Mingus' masterpieces. The composition is 4,235 measures long, requires two hours to perform, and is one of the longest jazz pieces ever written. Epitaph was only completely discovered during the cataloging process after his death by musicologist Andrew Homzy. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller. This concert was produced by Mingus's widow, Sue Graham Mingus, at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after his death. It was performed again at several concerts in 2007. The performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall is available on NPR. The complete score was published in 2008 by Hal Leonard.

Autobiography

Written throughout the 1960s, Mingus's sprawling, exaggerated, quasi-autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World as composed by Mingus., was published in 1971. Written in a "stream of consciousness" style, it covered several aspects of Mingus's life that had previously been off-record.

In addition to his musical and intellectual proliferation, Mingus goes into great detail about his perhaps overstated sexual exploits. He claims to have had over 31 affairs over the course of his life (including 26 prostitutes in one sitting). This does not include any of his five wives (he claims to have been married to two of them simultaneously). In addition, he asserts that he held a brief career as a pimp. This has never been confirmed.

Mingus's autobiography also serves as an insight into his psyche, as well as his attitudes about race and society. Autobiographic accounts of abuse at the hands of his father from an early age, being bullied as a child, his removal from a white musician's union, and grappling with disapproval while married to white women and other examples of the hardship and prejudice.

Cover versions

Considering the number of compositions that Charles Mingus has written, his works have not been recorded as often as comparable jazz composers. About the only Mingus tribute album recorded in his lifetime was baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams's album, Pepper Adams Plays Charlie Mingus in 1963. Of all his works, his elegant elegy for Lester Young, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (from Mingus Ah Um) has probably had the most recordings.

Besides recordings from the expected jazz artists, the song has also been recorded by musicians as disparate as Jeff Beck, Andy Summers, Eugene Chadbourne, and Bert Jansch and John Renbourn with and without Pentangle. Joni Mitchell sang a version with lyrics that she wrote for the song. Elvis Costello has recorded "Hora Decubitus" (from Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus) on My Flame Burns Blue (2006). "Better Git It in Your Soul" was covered by Davey Graham on his album "Folk, Blues, and Beyond." Trumpeter Ron Miles performs a version of "Pithecanthropus Erectus" on his EP "Witness." New York Ska Jazz Ensemble has done a cover of Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song", as have Pentangle and others. Hal Willner's 1992 tribute album Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus (Columbia Records) contains idiosyncratic renditions of Mingus's works involving numerous popular musicians including Chuck D, Keith Richards, Henry Rollins and Dr. John. The Italian band Quintorigo recorded an entire album devoted to Mingus' music, titled Play Mingus.

Gunther Schuller's edition of Mingus' "Epitaph" which premiered at Lincoln Center in 1989 was subsequently released on Columbia/Sony Records.

One of the ultimate tributes to Mingus came on September 29, 1969 at a festival honoring him. Duke Ellington performed The Clown at the festival. Duke himself did Jean Shepherd's naration. As of this date, this recording has not been issued.

Personality and temper

As respected as Mingus was for his musical talents, he was sometimes feared for his occasional violent onstage temper, which was at times directed at members of his band, and other times aimed at the audience. He was physically large, prone to obesity (especially in his later years), and was by all accounts often intimidating and frightening when expressing anger or displeasure. Mingus was prone to clinical depression. He tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity, intermixed with fairly long periods of greatly decreased output.

When confronted with a nightclub audience talking and clinking ice in their glasses while he performed, Mingus stopped his band and loudly chastised the audience, stating "Isaac Stern doesn't have to put up with this shit." He once played a prank on a similar group of nightclub chatterers by silencing his band for several seconds, allowing the loud audience members to be clearly heard, then continuing as the rest of the audience snickered at the oblivious "soloists". Mingus reportedly destroyed a $20,000 bass in response to audience heckling at New York's Five Spot.

Guitarist and singer Jackie Paris was a first-hand witness to Mingus's irascibility. Paris recalls his time in the Jazz Workshop: "He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me... The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back."

On October 12, 1962, Mingus punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus's apartment on a score for his upcoming concert at New York Town Hall and Knepper refused to take on more work. The blow from Mingus broke off a crowned tooth and its underlying stub. According to Knepper, this ruined his embouchure and resulted in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone - a significant handicap for any professional trombonist. This attack temporarily ended their working relationship and Knepper was unable to perform at the concert. Charged with assault, Mingus appeared in court in January, 1963 and was given a suspended sentence. Knepper would again work with Mingus in 1977 and played extensively with the Mingus Dynasty, formed after Mingus' death in 1979.

Mingus was evicted from his apartment at 5 Great Jones Street in New York City for nonpayment of rent, captured in the film Mingus: 1968, by Thomas Reichman, which also features Mingus performing in clubs and in the apartment, shooting a shotgun, composing at the piano, and discussing love, art, and politics and the music school he had hoped to create.

Awards and honors

1971 Guggenheim Fellowship (Music Composition)

1971: Inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

1988: The National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus nonprofit called "Let My Children Hear Music" which cataloged all of Mingus' works. The microfilms of these works were given to the Music Division of the New York Public Library where they are currently available for study.

1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.

1997: Was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

1999: The album Mingus Dynasty (1959) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

2005: Inducted in the Jazz at Lincoln Center, Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Discography

As bandleader

Baron Mingus - West Coast 1945–49 (1949, Uptown)

Strings and Keys (duo with Spaulding Givens) (1951, Debut)

The Young Rebel (1952, Swingtime)

The Charles Mingus Duo and Trio (1953, Fantasy)

Charles Mingus Octet (1953, Debut)

The Moods of Mingus (1954, Savoy)

Jazzical Moods (1954, Bethlehem), later reissued as The Jazz Experiments of Charles Mingus

Mingus at the Bohemia (1955, Debut)

The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach (1955, Debut)

Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956, Atlantic)

The Clown (1957, Atlantic)

Mingus Three (1957, Jubilee)

East Coasting (1957, Bethlehem)

A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry (1957, Bethlehem)

Blues & Roots (1959, Atlantic)

Mingus Ah Um (1959, Columbia)

Mingus Dynasty (1959, Columbia)

(1959, United Artists)

Pre-Bird (aka Mingus Revisited) (1960, Mercury)

Mingus at Antibes (1960, Atlantic)

Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1960, Candid)

Reincarnation of a Lovebird (1960, Candid)

Tonight at Noon (1961, Atlantic)

Vital Savage Horizons (1962, Alto)

Tempo di Jazz (1962, Tempo di Jazz)

Town Hall Concert (1962, Blue Note)

Oh Yeah (1962, Atlantic)

Tijuana Moods (1962, RCA)

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963, Impulse!)

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963, Impulse!; sometimes referred to as Five Mingus)

Mingus Plays Piano (1963, Impulse!)

Soul Fusion (1963, Pickwick live)

Revenge! (live 1964 performance with Eric Dolphy, 32 Jazz; previously issued by Prestige as The Great Paris Concert)

Town Hall Concert (1964, Fantasy)

Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Vol. 1 (1964, Ulysse Musique)

Charles Mingus Live In Oslo 1964 Featuring Eric Dolphy (1964, Jazz Up)

Charles Mingus Sextet Live In Stockholm 1964 (1964, Royal Jazz)

Charles Mingus Sextet Live In Europe (1964, Unique Jazz)

The Great Concert of Charles Mingus (1964, America)

Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy Cornell 1964 (2007, Blue Note)

Mingus In Europe (1964, Enja)

Mingus In Stuttgart, April 28, 1964 Concert (1964, Unique Jazz)

(1964, Fantasy)

Mingus At Monterey (1964, Mingus JWS)

Music Written For Monterey 1965. Not Heard... Played In Its Entirety At UCLA, Vol. 1&2 (1965, Mingus JWS)

Charles Mingus - Cecil Taylor (1966, Ozone)

Statements (1969, Joker)

Paris TNP (1970, Ulysse Musique)

Charles Mingus Sextet In Berlin (1970, Beppo)

Charles Mingus (1971, Columbia)

Charles Mingus and Friends In Concert (1972, Columbia)

Charles Mingus Quintet Featuring Dexter Gordon (1972, White Label)

Let My Children Hear Music (1972, Columbia)

Passions of a Man (1973, Atlantic)

Mingus at Carnegie Hall (1974, Atlantic)

Changes One (1974, Atlantic)

Changes Two (1974, Atlantic)

Mingus Moves (1974, Atlantic)

Village Vanguard 1975 (1975, Blue Mark Music)

The Music Of Charles Mingus (1977, Bayside)

Stormy & Funky Blues (1977)

Cumbia & Jazz Fusion (1977, Atlantic)

Three or Four Shades of Blues (1977)

His Final Work (1977)

Something Like a Bird (1979, Atlantic) (Mingus does not play on this session)

Me, Myself An Eye (1979, Atlantic) (Mingus does not play on this session)

Epitaph (1990, Columbia) (Mingus does not play on this session)

Mingus Mysterious Blues (1990, Candid) (Mingus does not play on this session)

As a sideman

Robbins' Nest (with Illinois Jacquet) (1945, Toho)

Mellow Mama (with Dinah Washington) (1945, Delmark)

Hot Piano (with Wilbert Baranco) (1946, Tops)

Ivie Anderson and Her All Stars (with Ivie Anderson) (1946, Storyville)

Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra 1948 (with Lionel Hampton) (1948, Weka)

Lionel Hampton in Concert (with Lionel Hampton) (1948, Cicala Jazz)

The Red Norvo Trio (with Red Norvo) (1951, Savoy)

Move (with Red Norvo) (1951, Savoy)

Miles Davis at Birdland 1951 (with Miles Davis) (1951, Beppo)

Jazz in Storyville (with Billy Taylor) (1951, Roost)

The George Wallington Trios Featuring Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Max Roach (1952, Prestige)

Spring Broadcasts 1953 (with Bud Powell) (1953, ESP)

Inner Fires (with Bud Powell) (1953, Electra/Musician)

Jazz at Massey Hall (aka. The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever) (with Charlie Parker) (1953, Debut)

Introducing Paul Bley (with Paul Bley) (1953, Debut)

Explorations (with Teo Macero) (1953, Debut)

The New Oscar Pettiford Sextet (with Oscar Pettiford) (1953, Debut)

Ada Moore (with Ada Moore) (1954, Debut)

Mad Bebop (with J.J. Johnson) (1954, Savoy)

The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volume 2 (with J.J. Johnson) (1954, Blue Note)

Evolution (with Teddy Charles) (1955, Prestige)

Relaxed Piano Moods (with Hazel Scott) (1955, Debut)

The John Mehegan Trio/Quartet (with John Mehegan) (1955, Savoy)

Very Truly Yours (with Jimmy Scott) (1955, Savoy)

The Fabulous Thad Jones (with Thad Jones) (1955, Debut)

New Piano Expressions (with John Dennis) (1955, Debut)

Easy Jazz (with Ralph Sharon) (1955, London)

Blue Moods (with Miles Davis) (1955, Prestige)

The Word from Bird (with Teddy Charles) (1956, Atlantic)

New Faces (with Jimmy Knepper) (1957, Debut)

Money Jungle (with Duke Ellington and Max Roach) (1962, Blue Note)

Filmography

1959, Mingus contributed most of the music for John Cassavetes's gritty New York City film, Shadows.

1961, Mingus appeared as a bassist and actor in the British film All Night Long.

1968, Thomas Reichman directed the documentary Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968.

1991, Ray Davies produced a documentary entitled Weird Nightmare. It contains footage of Mingus and interviews with artists making Hal Willner's tribute album of the same name, including Elvis Costello, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, and Vernon Reid.

Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog is a 78 minute long documentary film on Charles Mingus directed by Don McGlynn and released in 1998.

References

Further reading

External links

Official website

What Is a Jazz Composer—Liner notes from Let My Children Hear Music by Charles Mingus.

Charles Mingus by Nat Hentoff

MINGUS!—sonic.net

Charles Mingus multimedia directory - Kerouac Alley

Charles Mingus: Requiem for the Underdog by Alan Goldsher

Mingus Music

Category:1922 births Category:1979 deaths Category:African American musicians Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz double-bassists Category:American jazz pianists Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Avant-garde jazz double-bassists Category:Bebop double-bassists Category:Candid Records artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Deaths from motor neurone disease Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Musicians from Arizona Category:People from Cuernavaca Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Nogales, Arizona Category:Post-bop double-bassists Category:Progressive big band bandleaders Category:Savoy Records artists Category:Third Stream musicians Category:University at Buffalo faculty

Name	Annie Lennox
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Ann Lennox
Born	December 25, 1954
Origin	Aberdeen, Scotland
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, activist, humanitarian ambassador
Genre	Pop, rock, blue-eyed soul, R&B;
Instrument	Vocals, piano, keyboards, organ, harmonium, dulcimer, flute, percussion
Years active	1975–present
Associated acts	The Catch, The Tourists, Eurythmics
Label	RCA, Arista (1992–2009)Island, Decca (2010–)
Url	www.annielennox.com

Annie Lennox, OBE (born 25 December 1954), born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish recording artist. After achieving minor success in the band The Tourists in the late 1970s, Lennox went on to major international success in the 1980s as part of the duo Eurythmics, which she formed with former Tourists' member David A. Stewart.

In the 1990s, Lennox embarked on a solo career beginning with her debut album Diva (1992), which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". She has released five solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection, in 2009. She is the recipient of eight BRIT Awards, more than any other female artist. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film .

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, notable for raising money and awareness for HIV charities in Africa. She also objected to the unauthorized use of the 1999 Eurythmics song "I Saved the World Today" in an election broadcast for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Known as a pop culture icon for her distinctive contralto vocals and visual performances, Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. She has earned the distinction of "most successful female British artist in UK music history" because of her global commercial success since the early 1980s. Including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox is one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 80 million records worldwide.

Early life

Lennox was born on Christmas Day, 1954, in Torry, Aberdeen. Her father worked at the shipyard, and her mother was a cook until she became a housewife. Lennox was an only child and the family lived in a small two-bedroomed apartment in a block of flats with communal laundry facilities. Despite her family's financial status, Lennox had piano lessons at school from the age of seven years at the cost of £4.00 per term. She was interested in singing and, with plenty of time to herself, passed some of the time by singing along to the popular music of the time, including music by The Beatles. She was an unhappy teenager, partly because of a struggle over boundaries for her independence with her overprotective father. She attended Aberdeen High School for Girls, now Harlaw Academy. In 1964, her early talent was demonstrated when she came second in a talent contest at a Butlins holiday camp. She sang the song "Mairi's Wedding".

In the 1970s, Lennox won a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied the flute and classical music for three years. She lived on a student grant and worked at part-time jobs for extra money. Lennox was unhappy during her time at the Royal Academy partly because she was lonely and shy, and she missed many history-of-music lessons. Lennox also was made a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama that year.

Music career

1977–90: The Tourists and Eurythmics

Between 1977 and 1980, Lennox was the lead singer of The Tourists (initially known as The Catch), a moderately successful British pop band and her first collaboration with Dave Stewart. During the time they were in The Tourists, Stewart and Lennox were involved in a relationship, though this had ended by the time they formed Eurythmics.

Lennox and Stewart's second collaboration, the 1980s synthpop duo Eurythmics, resulted in her most notable fame, as the duo's alto, soul-tinged lead singer. Early in Eurythmics' career, Lennox was known for her androgyny, wearing suits and once impersonating Elvis Presley. Eurythmics released a long line of singles in the 1980s, including "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", "Here Comes the Rain Again", "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves", "Who's That Girl?", "Would I Lie to You?", "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)", "Missionary Man", "You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart", "Thorn in My Side", "The Miracle of Love" and "Don't Ask Me Why". Though Eurythmics never officially disbanded, Lennox made a fairly clear break from Stewart in 1990. Thereafter, she began a long and equally-successful solo career.

Lennox and Stewart reconvened Eurythmics in the late 1990s with the album Peace, their first album of new material in ten years. A subsequent concert tour was completed, with profits going to Greenpeace and Amnesty International. The duo ultimately disbanded in 2005, having released a compilation album that year.

(left) performing as Eurythmics in 1987.]]

Lennox has received eight BRIT Awards, the most of any female artist. Four of the awards were given during her time with Eurythmics, and another was given to the duo for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1999.

From the beginning of her career, Lennox has experimented with her image - both as an artist and as a woman. She matured as a public figure in the late 20th century, just as MTV and the medium of video were becoming the obvious vehicles for selling contemporary popular music. She has managed her image astutely, both as a means of interpreting and marketing her music; this was emphasized in the music video for "Little Bird" in 1993, in which many look-alikes were featured, all wearing outfits she wore in different music videos and performances both solo and from her Eurythmics' eras.

The 1988 single with Al Green, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" (a cover version of Jackie DeShannon's 1969 hit), was recorded for the soundtrack of the movie Scrooged. Though it was produced by Dave Stewart, it was credited to Lennox and Green, and can be considered her first release outside a band identity. This one-off single peaked at #2 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, #9 on the US Hot 100 and was a top 40 hit in the UK. Lennox performed the song "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye", a Cole Porter song, that same year for a cameo appearance in the Derek Jarman film Edward II. She then made a memorable appearance with David Bowie and the surviving members of Queen at 1992's Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at London's Wembley Stadium, performing "Under Pressure".

1992–93: Diva

Lennox began working with former Trevor Horn protegé Stephen Lipson, beginning with her 1992 solo début album, Diva. It was a commercial and critical success, charting #1 in the UK, #6 in Germany, and #23 in the US. Lennox's profile was boosted by Diva's singles, which included "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". "Little Bird" also formed a double A-side with "Love Song for a Vampire", a soundtrack cut for Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula. The B-side of her single "Precious" was a self-penned song called "Step by Step", which was later covered by Whitney Houston for the of the film The Preacher's Wife. "Step by Step" appeared also on the Mexican and Japanese editions of the album. The song "Keep Young and Beautiful" was included on the CD release as a bonus track (the original vinyl album had only ten tracks).

The album entered the UK album chart at no.1 and has since sold over 1.2 million copies in the UK alone, being certified quadruple platinum.

1995–2000: Medusa and return to Eurythmics

Although Lennox's profile decreased for a period because of her desire to bring up her two children outside of the media's glare, she continued to record. Her second album, Medusa, was released in March 1995. It consisted solely of cover songs, all originally recorded by male artists including Bob Marley and The Clash. It entered the UK album chart at No. 1 and peaked in the USA at number 11, spending 60 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and selling a total of 1,900,000 to date in the United States. It has since achieved double platinum status in both the UK and the US. The album yielded four UK singles: "No More I Love You's" (which entered the UK singles chart at No. 2, Lennox's highest ever solo peak), "A Whiter Shade of Pale", "Waiting in Vain" and "Something So Right". The album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammy Awards of 1996, losing to Turbulent Indigo by Joni Mitchell, however, Lennox took home the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance award for her work on the first single "No More I Love You's". Though Lennox declined to tour for the album, she did perform a large scale one-off concert in New York's Central Park, which was filmed and later released on home video.

In 1997, Lennox re-recorded the Eurythmics track "Angel" for the Diana, Princess of Wales tribute album, and also recorded the song "Mama" for The Avengers soundtrack album. In 1998, following the death of a mutual friend (former Tourists member Peet Coombes), she re-established contact with Dave Stewart. Following their first performance together in eight years at a record company party, Stewart and Lennox began writing and recording together for the first time since 1989. This resulted in the album Peace, the first new Eurythmics record in a decade. The title was designed to reflect the duo's ongoing concern with global conflict and world peace. The record was promoted with a concert on the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior II, where they played a mixture of old and new songs. "I Saved the World Today" was the lead single, reaching number eleven on the UK singles chart (their highest charting hit since 1986). Another single, released at the beginning of 2000, "17 Again", made the UK top 40, and topped the US dance chart. Critics were impressed overall with the record, although some commented that it "lacked the power" (NME) of their previous releases and "quietly acknowledged that their solo careers had failed" (Q Magazine), despite the fact that both of Lennox's solo efforts reached the number one position in the UK charts, Diva going quadruple platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US (Q magazine, themselves placing it in their top 50 albums of 1992) and Medusa going double-platinum in both countries, respectively.

2003–07: Bare and work in Africa

In 2003, Lennox released her third solo album, Bare. The album peaked at #3 in the UK and #4 in the US - her highest charting album in the US to date. She embarked on her first tour as a solo artist to promote the album. The tour, simply titled Solo Tour, pre-dated the release of the album and visited both the US and Europe, with only a two-night stop in the UK at Saddler's Wells Theatre in London. The album has been certified Gold in both the UK and the US and was nominated for Best Pop Album at the 46th Grammy Awards. The album was released with a DVD which included interviews and acoustic versions of songs by Lennox. The Japanese edition of the album features a version of Lennox's earlier hit "Cold" recorded live in Toronto.

In 2004, Lennox won the Academy Award for Best Song for "Into the West" from the film , which she co-wrote with screenwriter Fran Walsh and composer Howard Shore. The song also won a Grammy award and a Golden Globe award. She had previously recorded "Use Well the Days" for the movie, which incorporates a number of quotations from Tolkien in its lyrics. This song was not used in the film, but it appears on a bonus DVD included with the "special edition" of the movie's soundtrack CD. In mid-2004, Lennox embarked on an extensive North American tour with Sting. In July 2005, Lennox performed at Live 8 in Hyde Park, London, along with Madonna, Sting, and other popular musicians.

In 2005 Lennox and Stewart collaborated on two new songs for their Eurythmics compilation album, Ultimate Collection, of which "I've Got a Life" was released as a single in October 2005. The promotional video for the song features Lennox and Stewart performing in the present day, with images of past Eurythmics videos playing on television screens behind them. Lennox also appears in a man's suit with a cane, reminiscent of her "Sweet Dreams" video image from 1983. The single peaked at number fourteen in the UK Singles Chart and was a number-one US Dance hit. On 14 November 2005, Sony BMG repackaged and released Eurythmics' back catalogue as 2005 Deluxe Edition Reissues. Each of their eight studio albums' original track listings are supplemented with bonus tracks and remixes.

2007–08: Songs of Mass Destruction and AIDS activism

Ending her long association with Stephen Lipson, Lennox's fourth solo album, Songs of Mass Destruction, was recorded in Los Angeles with veteran producer Glen Ballard (known for producing Alanis Morissette's album, Jagged Little Pill). It was released on 1 October 2007, and was the last studio album of Lennox's contract with BMG. It peaked at #7 in the UK and #9 in the US. Lennox stated that she believed the album consisted of "twelve strong, powerful, really emotive songs that people can connect to". If she achieves that, she says, "I can feel proud of [it], no matter if it sells ten copies or 50 million." Lennox described it as "a dark album, but the world is a dark place. It's fraught, it's turbulent. Most people's lives are underscored with dramas of all kinds: there's ups, there's downs - the flickering candle." She added, "Half the people are drinking or drugging themselves to numb it. A lot of people are in pain."

2010–present: Island Records and A Christmas Cornucopia

In August 2010, Lennox signed a new contract with Island Records in the UK and Decca Records in the US (both part of the Universal Music Group). Her first release was a Christmas album entitled A Christmas Cornucopia, issued 15 November 2010. The album is a collection of Lennox's interpretations of traditional festive songs such as "Silent Night" and "The First Noel", along with one new composition, "Universal Child", which was released as a download-only single on 13 October 2010. Lennox had previously showcased the song on the American Idol Gives Back TV show in April 2010. She sang the song "Angels from the Realms of Glory" from the album for the TNT special Christmas in Washington.

A Music video for a second single from the album, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", which she performed on Loose Women, a TV show broadcast in the United Kingdom, which she featured on in December 2010 as a music guest and also was interviewed. The single has debuted at #126 on the UK Singles Charts.

According to Metacritic, A Christmas Cornucopia has so far been met with "generally favourable reviews". Ian Wade of BBC Music gave the album a very positive review, saying "this collection could find itself becoming as much a part of the holiday season as arguments with loved ones." Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine awarded the album 3.5/5 and said "Lennox seems more inspired on A Christmas Cornucopia than she has in years." John Hunt of Qatar Today magazine gave the album 9/10 and said "in particular, the vocal work and musical arrangement of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' are impactful to the point of being intimidating."

It was confirmed in late-2010, that Lennox would become an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which she will receive sometime in 2011.

Public image

Charity and political work

In 1990, Lennox recorded a version of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" for the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue, a benefit for AIDS awareness. A video was also produced.

Lennox has been a public supporter of Amnesty International and Greenpeace for many years, and she and Dave Stewart donated all of the profits from Eurythmics' 1999 Peacetour to both charities.

Her song "Sing" was subsequently born out of Lennox's involvement with Nelson Mandela's 46664 campaign and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), both of which are human rights groups which seek education and health care for those affected by HIV.

In Dec 2007 Lennox established The SING Campaign, an organisation dedicated to raising funds and awareness for women and children affected by HIV and AIDS.

In October 2006, Lennox spoke at the British House of Commons about the need for children in the UK to help their counterparts in Africa.

On 25 April 2007, Lennox performed "Bridge over Troubled Water" during the American Idol "Idol Gives Back" fundraising drive.

On 11 December 2007, she performed on the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway together with a variety of artists, which was broadcast to over 100 countries.

She led a rally against the Gaza War in London on 3 January 2009.

Lennox opened the 2009 Edinburgh Festival of Politics with a stinging attack on Pope Benedict XVI's approach to HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa. She said that the Pope's denunciation of condoms on his recent tour of Africa had caused "tremendous harm" and she criticised the Roman Catholic Church for causing widespread confusion on the continent. Lennox also condemned the media's obessesion with "celebrity culture" for keeping the AIDS pandemic off the front page. In an attempt to counter this, during her address, she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "HIV positive". Lennox wore similar T-shirts at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden on 30 October 2009, while appearing on The Graham Norton Show on 30 November 2009 (where she performed the new song "Full Steam", a duet with singer David Gray), and most recently during a recorded performance for American Idol during a 21 April 2010 fund-raiser, Idol Gives Back. In June 2010, she was named as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for AIDS.

Lennox also supports the Burma Campaign UK, a non-governmental organisation that addresses the suffering in Burma and promotes democratisation.

In 2006, in response to her humanitarian work, Lennox became patron of the Master's Course in Humanitarian and Development Practice for Oxford Brookes University. A spokesperson said that the university was "delighted that as a long-term supporter of human rights and social justice campaigns Ms Lennox has agreed to act as patron for its unique MA programme." She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to Oxfam.

Gay icon

Lennox has garnered a significant following within the LGBT community. According to The Advocate, "[h]er distinctive voice and provocative stage persona have made Lennox a longtime gay icon." With Eurythmics' music videos earning regular rotation on MTV in the 1980s, Lennox took part in the shaping of popular culture alongside other gay icons such as Boy George, Madonna, Morrissey, and Michael Stipe.

Music videos

Both during her work with Eurythmics and in her solo career, Lennox has made a large number of music promo videos. Her 1992 album Diva was accompanied by a video album that included promos for every song except one (Eurythmics made a similar collection for their 1987 album Savage). Actors Hugh Laurie and John Malkovich appeared in the music video for "Walking on Broken Glass", while the video for "Little Bird" paid homage to the different images and personas that have appeared in some of Lennox's previous videos. The clip features Lennox performing on stage with several lookalikes (male and female) that represent her personas from "Why", "Walking on Broken Glass", "Sweet Dreams", "Beethoven", "I Need a Man", "Thorn in My Side", "There Must Be an Angel", and even her stage image from the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. Many of her solo videos have a theatrical feel, often in period settings with dramatic and comedic flourishes.

Discography

Studio albums

Diva (1992)

Medusa (1995)

Bare (2003)

Songs of Mass Destruction (2007)

The Annie Lennox Collection (2009)

A Christmas Cornucopia (2010)

Awards and nominations

Lennox has received a variety of major awards during her career:

; American Music Awards

2008 – AMA Award of Merit for her work and her humanitarian efforts

; Academy Awards

2004 – Best Original Song ("Into the West")

; Grammy Awards

1984 – Best New Artist (Eurythmics) (nominated)

1986 – Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (Eurythmics, "Would I Lie to You?") (nominated)

1987 – Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (Eurythmics, "Missionary Man")

1993 – Album of the Year (Diva) (nominated)

1993 – Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Diva) (nominated)

1993 – Best Music Video – Long Form (Diva)

1996 – Best Pop Album (Medusa) (nominated)

1996 – Best Female Pop Vocal Performance ("No More I Love You's")

2004 – Best Pop Album (Bare) (nominated)

2005 – Best Song Written For a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media ("Into the West")

; Ivor Novello Awards

1984 – Songwriter of the Year for Lennox and Dave Stewart

1987 – Songwriter of the Year for Lennox and Dave Stewart

1987 – Best contemporary song ("Its Alright, (Baby's Coming Back)")

1993 – Best Song ("Why")

; ASCAP Awards

1984 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (US)

1984 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

1985 – Performance Award ("Here Comes the Rain Again") (US)

1985 – Performance Award ("Here Comes the Rain Again") (UK)

1986 – Performance Award ("Would I Lie to You?") (UK)

1993 – Performance Award ("Walking on Broken Glass") (UK)

1993 – Performance Award ("Why") (UK)

1994 – Performance Award ("Walking on Broken Glass") (US)

1994 – Performance Award ("Walking on Broken Glass") (UK)

1996 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

1997 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

1998 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2000 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2001 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2004 – Film Award ("Into the West") (UK)

2006 – Founders Award (US)

2006 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2008 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2009 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

2010 – Performance Award ("Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)") (UK)

; BRIT Awards

1984 – Best British Female Artist

1986 – Best British Female Artist

1989 – Best British Female Artist

1990 – Best British Female Artist

1993 – Best British Female Solo Artist

1993 – Best British Album (Diva)

1996 – Best British Female Solo Artist

1999 – Outstanding Contribution to British Music (Eurythmics)

; Golden Globe Awards

2004 – Best Original Song – Motion Picture ("Into the West")

; Honorary degrees and awards

1986 - Associate - Royal Academy of Music London

1997 - Fellowship - Royal Academy of Music London

2006 - Honorary Doctor of Music - The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

2006 - Fellowship - Edinburgh College of Art

2009 – Honorary Doctorate at the University of Edinburgh (awarded 20 October 2009), in recognition of her work in the field of HIV/AIDS, and her success as a recording artist.

; Other awards / titles / ambassadorships

2002 – Billboard Century Award by Billboard

2008 - OUT magazine honoured Lennox for her work in the HIV and Aids field. The top 100 most influential people in Gay Culture.

2008 - The British Red Cross Services to Humanity Award

2008 - Glamour Magazine's Inspirational Woman of the Year Award

2008 - Honoured at the 2008 Youth AIDS Gala, for her contribution in helping the fight against HIV and AIDS

2008 - The German Sustainability "special achievement" award for her commitment in the fight against HIV and AIDS

2008 - Webby Award for official website www.annielennox.com

2009 - Save the Children "Amigo de los Niños" Award

2009 - Awarded the "Freedom of the City of London" by the British Red Cross for services to humanity in the field of HIV and AIDS

2009 - Nobel Peace Laureates for services to humanity

2010 - Patron of the Elton John Aids Foundation

2010 - Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Scotland

2010 - Ambassador for HIV/AIDS in London

2010 - UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador

2010 - Barclays Women of the Year Award

2010 - GQ Charity Woman of the Year Award

2010 - Harper's Bazaar Lifetime Achievement Award

2010 - OBE - Order of the British Empire for her work fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa

Personal life

Both of Lennox's parents died of cancer. From 1988 to 2000, she was married to Israeli film and record producer Uri Fruchtman. They have two daughters, Lola (born 1990) and Tali (born 1993). A son, Daniel, was stillborn in December 1988. Lennox describes herself as an agnostic and lives in London.

Footnotes

External links

Official Annie Lennox website

The SING Campaign website, founded By Annie Lennox">The SING Campaign website, founded By Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox official YouTube channel

Annie Lennox official MySpace page

Annie Lennox official Facebook page

Annie Lennox official Twitter page

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