A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit (e.g. Box Hill, Surrey).

The panoramic view from Connors Hill, near Swifts Creek, Victoria

Terminology[link]

A Khulan (Mongolian Wild Ass) on a hill in the Gobi of Mongolia at sunset.

The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is generally somewhat lower and less steep than a mountain. In the United Kingdom geographers historically regarded mountains as hills greater than 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, which formed the basis of the plot of the 1995 film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. In contrast, hillwalkers have tended to regard mountains as peaks 2,000 feet (610 m) above sea level: the Oxford English Dictionary also suggests a limit of 2,000 feet (610 m). This has led to Cavanal Hill in Poteau, Oklahoma, receive billing as the "World's Tallest Hill" due to its height of 1,999 feet (609 m). Mountains in Scotland are frequently referred to as "hills" no matter what their height, as reflected in names such as the Cuillin Hills and the Torridon Hills. In Wales, the distinction is more a term of land use and appearance and has nothing to do with height.

A hillock is a small hill. Other words include knoll and (in Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England) its variant, knowe.^[1]

Artificial hills may be referred to by a variety of technical names, including mound and tumulus.

Hills of the Judean Desert.

Hills may form through a number of geomorphic phenomena: faulting, erosion of larger landforms, such as mountains and movement and deposition of sediment by glaciers (e.g. moraines and drumlins, or by erosion exposing solid rock which then weathers down into a hill. The rounded peaks of hills results from the diffusive movement of soil and regolith covering the hill, a process known as downhill creep.

Areas that would otherwise have hills do not because of glacier cover during the Ice Age. The hills that existed before the ice age were worn down by the ice (and the rocks they carry) and/or the surrounding valleys and hollows were filled in with glacial drift, therefore leaving a level topography. The contrast between the flat plains of northern Indiana, once covered by ice, and the rugged hills of southern Indiana, where the ice never reached, is a result of this. Another example is the Driftless Zone, an island of hilly country that the ice sheets missed, surrounded by glacial plains, also in the American Midwest.

There are various specific names used to describe particular types of hill, based on appearance and method of formation. Many such names originated in one geographical region to describe a type of hill formation peculiar to that region, though the names are often adopted by geologists and used in a wider geographical context. These include:

• Drumlin – an elongated whale-shaped hill formed by glacial action.
• Butte – an isolated hill with steep sides and a small flat top, formed by weathering.
• Tor – a rock formation found on a hilltop; also used to refer to the hill itself, especially in South West England.
• Puy – used especially in the Auvergne, France, to describe a conical volcanic hill.
• Pingo – a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and Antarctica.

Historical significance[link]

Clouds over hills

Hills have played an important role in history.

Many settlements were originally built on hills, either to avoid or curb floods, particularly if they were near a large body of water, or for defence, since they offer a good view of the surrounding land and require would-be attackers to fight uphill. For example, Ancient Rome was built on seven hills, protecting it from invaders.

In northern Europe, many ancient monuments are sited in heaps. Some of these are defensive structures (such as the hill-forts of the Iron Age), but others appear to have hardly any significance. In Britain, many churches at the tops of hills are thought to have been built on the sites of earlier pagan holy places. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC has followed this tradition and was built on the highest hill in that city.

Military significance[link]

The Battle of Bunker Hill

Hills provide a major advantage to an army, giving them an elevated firing position and forcing an opposing army to charge uphill to attack them. They may also conceal forces behind them, allowing a force to lay in wait on the crest of a hill, using that crest for cover, and firing on unsuspecting attackers as they broach the hilltop.

As a result, conventional military strategies often demand possession of high ground. Hills have become sites for many noted battles, such as the first recorded military conflict in Scotland known as the battle of Mons Graupius. Modern conflicts include the Battle of Bunker Hill (which was actually fought on Breed's Hill) in the American War for Independence and Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill in the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point of the American Civil War. The Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War won Americans control of Santiago. The Battle of Alesia was also fought from a hilltop fort. Fighting on Mamayev Kurgan during the Battle of Stalingrad and the Umurbrogol Pocket in the Battle of Peleliu were also examples of bloody fighting for high ground. Another recent example is the Kargil War between India and Pakistan.

The Great Wall in China is also an example of an advantage provider; it is built on mountain tops, and was meant to defend against invaders from the north, and among others, Mongolians.

Sports and games[link]

Hillwalkers on Beinn Dearg, Scotland

An example of a golf course in England that has hills

Hillwalking is a British English term for a form of hiking which involves the ascent of hills. The activity is usually distinguished from mountaineering as it does not involve ropes or technically difficult rock climbing, although the terms mountain and hill are often used interchangeably in Britain. Hillwalking is popular in mountainous areas such as the English Peak District or the Scottish Highlands. Many hills are categorised according to relative height or other criteria and feature on lists named after mountaineers, such as Munros (Scotland) or Wainwrights (England). Specific locating activities such as "peak bagging" (or "Munro bagging") involve climbing hills on these lists with the aim of completing (or "compleating") the list.

In golf, the terrain on golf courses is often made more rugged and hilly to make the holes harder to play. For example, the hole may be located at the top of a hill, and the course is designed specifically to make it almost impossible to allow the golf ball to rest near the top; it would roll down, and the player would have to try again.

Cheese rolling is an annual event in the West Country of England which involves rolling a wheel of cheese down a hill. Contestants stand at the top and chase the wheel of cheese to the bottom. The winner, the one who catches the cheese, gets to keep the wheel of cheese as a prize.

Largest man-made[link]

• Blackstrap Ski Hill (45 m (148 ft))^[2]
• Silbury Hill (40 m (130 ft))
• Grizzly Peak (Disneyland Resort) (34 m (112 ft))
• Mount Manisty 100ft
• Monks Mound (30 m (98 ft))
• Mount Gushmore (27 m (89 ft))

Gallery[link]

• 

  Cerro Paranal in Chile is a privileged place for astronomical observation.^[3], and home of ESO's telescopes.

• 

  A coffee plantation on a conical hill near Orosí, Costa Rica.

• 

  Some hills can be quite small, such as this Ant-hill

See also[link]

Look up hill in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: hills

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2009)

• Earth Sculpture; Or, The Origin of Land-forms
• The International Geography

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011)

Benny Hill
A waxwork of Hill in character as Fred Scuttle on The Benny Hill Show
Birth name	Alfred Hawthorne Hill
Born	(1924-01-21)21 January 1924[1] Southampton, Hampshire, England
Died	20 April 1992(1992-04-20) (aged 68) Teddington, London, England
Medium	Comedian, actor
Nationality	British
Years active	1937–1992
Genres	Comedy, television
Influences	Jack Benny
Notable works and roles	The Benny Hill Show (1951–91) Who Done It? (1956) Light Up the Sky! (1960) Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) The Italian Job (1969)

Benny Hill (21 January 1924 – 20 April 1992) was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Early life[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Alfred Hawthorne Hill was born in Southampton and attended Taunton's School. During World War II, he was evacuated to Bournemouth.^{[citation needed]}

After leaving school, Hill worked at Woolworth's,^[2] as a milkman, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming assistant stage manager with a touring review. He was called up in 1942 and trained as a mechanic, but transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment^[3] division before the end of the war. It was there that he met his future agent, Richard Stone, then a colonel.^{[citation needed]}

Inspired by the "star comedians" of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to 'Benny', in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny.^[2] Hill began appearing at working men's clubs and Masonic dinners before moving on to nightclub and theatre jobs. Hill auditioned for Soho's famed Windmill Theatre (home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Hill's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers to the role.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Between the end of World War II and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1950. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, Benny Hill, which ran from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio's Light Programme from 1964 to 1966.

Films and recordings[link]

Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Who Done It? (1956); Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job (1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill (1974). Hill's audio recordings include Gather in the Mushrooms, (1961), Pepys' Diary (song), (1961), Transistor Radio (1961), Harvest of Love (1963), and Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song Anything She Does by the band Genesis. Hill's song, Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West), on the Best of Benny Hill album, was the UK Singles Chart Christmas number one single in 1971.^[4]

The Benny Hill Show[link]

Hill had struggled on stage and had uneven success in radio. But in television he found a form that played to his strengths, allowing him a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with him at the focus of almost every segment. It was to prove one of the great success stories of television comedy, keeping Hill a star for nearly four decades, generating impressive revenues for Thames TV, and remaining a cult series in much of the world long after Hill's death.

The show had a music hall-derived format and its humour relied on slapstick, innuendo, and parody. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the early 1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where it remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials. The series showcased Hill's talents as an imaginative writer, comic performer and impressionist. He also bought scripts from various comedy writers but they never received an onscreen credit. He had a need to be in sole control of the show. There is evidence that he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, Cherri Gilham, whom he wrote to from Spain and told her he was using her "Fat Lady idea on the show" in January 1977.

The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, The 'run-off', which was literally a "running gag" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Hill as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters, such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion and time-lapse techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta (2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy.

From the start of the eighties the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as 'Hills Angels'. They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence, or in character as foils against Hill. Sue Upton, one of the longest serving members of the Angels, said of Hill, "He was one of the nicest, kindest, most gentle of men to work with".^{[citation needed]} However, the sexual content of the routines contributed to feminist accusations of sexism.^{[citation needed]}

The alternative comedian Ben Elton made a headline-grabbing allegation, both on the TV show Saturday Live and in the pages of Q magazine (in its January 1987 issue), that The Benny Hill Show was single-handedly responsible for the incidences of rape in England during the period in question, and also suggested the programme incited other acts of violence against women.^[5] But a writer in The Independent newspaper opined that Elton's assault was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs".^[6] Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context, and he appeared in a parody for Harry Enfield and Chums, Benny Elton, where Elton ends up being chased by angry women, accompanied by the "Yakety Sax" theme, after trying to force them to be more feminist rather than letting them make their own decisions.

In response to the accusations of sexism, defenders of Hill have said the show used traditional comic stereotypes to reflect universal human truths in a way that was non-malicious and fundamentally harmless. Hill's friend and producer Dennis Kirkland said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent quoted Hill and Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.^{[citation needed]}

In an episode about Hill transmitted as part of the documentary series Living Famously, John Howard Davies, the head of light entertainment at Thames Television who had cancelled the show, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "The audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Hill) was looking a little tired."^{[citation needed]}

The loss of his show totally devastated Hill (or, as one former supporting player put it, "He started to die from there"), and what followed was a self-inflicted decline in his health. In 1990 a new show was produced complete with Hill and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour: New York!.

In February 1992, Thames Television, which received a steady stream of requests from viewers for The Benny Hill Show repeats, finally gave in and put together a number of re-edited shows. Hill died on 20 April 1992, the same day that a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television, for which he was to have made a series of specials. Hill turned down competing offers from Carlton and Thames.

Celebrity fans[link]

Charlie Chaplin was a fan of Hill's work: Hill had discovered that Chaplin, his childhood idol, was a fan when he was invited to Chaplin's home in Switzerland by Chaplin's family and discovered that Chaplin had a collection of Hill's work on video. Hill and Dennis Kirkland were the first outside the family to be invited into Chaplin's private study. Hill was awarded the Charlie Chaplin International Award for Comedy at the 1991 Festival of Comedy in Vevey, Switzerland.^[7]

Radio and TV show host Adam Carolla claimed that he was a fan of Benny Hill and that he considered Hill "as American as the Beatles." Indeed, during an episode of The Man Show, Carolla performed in what was billed as a tribute to "our favourite Englishman, Sir Benny Hill" in a more risqué takeoff of the sketches that Hill popularised. (Note: Hill was never knighted.) Carolla played a rude and lecherous waiter; a role Hill essayed numerous times in his shows—and the sketch featured many of the staples of Hill's shows, including a Jackie Wright-esque bald man, as well as the usual scantily-clad women.

Michael Jackson was a Benny Hill fan: "I just love your Benny Hill!" the young Jackson told a bemused English music-press critic during a 1970s tour. "He's so funny!". During Benny Hill's decline in his health he was visited by Jackson, who was in the UK at the time.

In Benny Hill: The World's Favourite Clown, filmed shortly before his death, celebrities such as Burt Reynolds, Michael Caine, John Mortimer, Mickey Rooney, and Walter Cronkite, among others, expressed their appreciation of and admiration for Hill and his humour – and in Reynolds' case, the appreciation extended to the Hill's Angels as well. More surprisingly, perhaps, the novelist Anthony Burgess made no secret of his admiration for Hill. Burgess, whose novels were often comic, relished language, wordplay and dialect, admired the verbal and comedic skill that underlay Hill's success. Reviewing a biography of Hill, Saucy Boy, in the Guardian in 1990, Burgess described Hill as "a comic genius steeped in the British music-hall tradition" and "one of the great artists of our age". A meeting between the two men was described in a newspaper article by Burgess and recalled in the Telegraph newspaper by the satirist Craig Brown.^[8]

In 2006, broadcaster and critic Garry Bushell launched a campaign to erect a statue of Hill in Southampton, with the support of Barbara Windsor, Brian Conley and other British comedy favourites. Those taking part in the first fundraising concert included Neville Staple, Right Said Fred and Rick Wakeman.

In a June 2011 interview in The Observer, the American rapper Snoop Dogg declared himself to be a fan of Benny Hill.^[9]

In a 2011 interview British actor and director Mark Noyce stated that Benny Hill was his all-time favourite comedian. He was quoted as saying “he was way ahead of his time and an absolute master of his art. I would have loved the opportunity to have met him and I hope he will be remembered as the genius I believe he was.”^[10]

Personal life[link]

Hill never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was turned down by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton, he never owned his own home in London, nor a car. Hill preferred to rent a place to live rather than buy one, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flat in Teddington, London, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television where he recorded his shows.

His mother died in 1976 at age 82, and Hill kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing a thing. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the one luxury Hill permitted himself; he became a francophile, enjoying frequent visits to France, and in particular Marseille, where until the 1980s he could enjoy anonymity in outdoor cafés, on public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, Hill also spoke enough German, Dutch and Italian to get by when travelling. Such holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, borrowed from regional acts.

Death[link]

After suffering a mild heart attack on 24 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose weight and recommended a heart bypass. He declined, and a week later was found to have kidney failure. Hill died at the age of 68 on 20 April 1992.^[1] On 22 April, after several days of unanswered telephone calls, his producer, Dennis Kirkland, climbed a ladder to the balcony of Hill's 3rd floor apartment and upon seeing the body through a window had the neighbours call the police. The police broke into the apartment and found Hill, dead, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Hill's cause of death was recorded as coronary thrombosis.^[11]

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 26 April 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. When authorities looked into his open grave the following morning "The vandals had dug down, exposing his coffin [...] Within two hours of the discovery, cemetery staff had refilled the grave and covered it with a half-ton concrete slab."^[12]

Hill's fortune was estimated at £10 million. His only will, however, dated from 1961 and left his entire estate to his parents, both of whom had since died. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided. A note was found among his belongings assigning huge sums of money to his close friends, but because there was no witness the note had no legal standing.^{[citation needed]}

Posthumous reception[link]

Although still shown worldwide, The Benny Hill Show has not been shown on UK terrestrial, networked television since a tribute season on Channel 4 in 1992, and not on satellite or cable since a run on the now defunct channel Granada Plus – now ITV3 – in 1999. To quote his biographer Mark Lewisohn, "In Britain, Benny Hill is taboo". In the United States the show has recently been aired on the BBC America cable channel and over Tribune Broadcasting's Antenna TV digital subchannel network. An Australian channel, Seven Network, showed some episodes as part of a Great Comedy Classics slot. On the new Australian channel 7TWO, The Benny Hill Show is shown frequently. In Italy, Sky television broadcasts quite regularly on Comedy Channel. And in Finland the channel MTV3 MAX presents "The Benny Hill Show" every weekend.

In 1998 Channel 4 featured Hill in one of its Heroes Of Comedy programmes.

On 28 December 2006, Channel 4 broadcast the documentary Is Benny Hill Still Funny?. The programme featured an audience that comprised a cross-section of young adults who had little or no knowledge of Hill, to discover whether Hill's comedy was valid to a generation that enjoyed the likes of Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and Borat. The participants were asked to watch a 30-minute compilation that included examples of Hill's humour from both his BBC and ITV shows. The responses and results demonstrated that none of the sample of viewers took offence at any of the sketches shown.

Hill's silent "Wishing Well" sketch was discovered to be the most popular. The alternative comedian Ben Elton, who had criticised Hill for sexism, was interviewed in the programme. Elton said he still had reservations about certain aspects of Hill's sketches, but claimed to be an admirer of Hill's talent and abilities as a comic performer.

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Lewisohn, Mark. Funny, Peculiar – The True Story of Benny Hill
• Smith, John. Benny Hill Story New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989
• GRO – Alfred H. Hill born MAR qtr 1924 2c 52 SOUTHAMPTON, mmn = Cave
• GRO – Alfred Hawthorne Hill died: APR 1992 14 1352 Richmond-upon-Thames, aged 68, his date of birth was 21 January 1924

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Benny Hill

Biography portal

• Benny Hill - Daily Telegraph obituary
• Benny Hill page at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• The Benny Hill Show page at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• Benny Hill at the Internet Movie Database
• The Eastleigh Photograph Archive Photos of the dairy and streets where Benny worked as a milkman, inspiring the song Ernie (The fastest milkman in the west)
• The Benny Hill Songbook Lyrics, guitar chords and transcripts
• Benny's Place featuring Louise English & Hill's Angels A tribute to Benny Hill and his beautiful ladies known as Hill's Angels
• Laughterlog.com Article with complete list of appearances on television, radio and record
• BBC Hampshire BBC article on Benny Hill's Hampshire connections

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2010)

Cypress Hill
Cypress Hill performing at Bonnaroo in 2006
Background information
Also known as	DVX (Devasting Vocal Excellence)
Origin	South Gate, California, United States
Genres	Hip hop, rap rock, alternative hip hop, west coast hip hop
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Ruffhouse, Columbia, Sony Music, Priority, EMI
Associated acts	Soul Assassins, Tom Morello, Everlast, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Slash, House of Pain, Xzibit, Funkdoobiest, Adil Omar, Young De, Travis Barker, Psycho Realm, La Coka Nostra, Rusko, Rage Against the Machine, Fergie, La Coka Nostra
Website	CypressHill.com
Members
B-Real DJ Muggs Sen Dog Eric Bobo
Past members
Mellow Man Ace

Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. Cypress Hill was the first Cuban-American/Latino hip hop group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, selling over 18 million albums worldwide. It is one of the most well-known groups in West Coast rap and was critically acclaimed for their first two groundbreaking albums.^[1]

History[link]

Formation (1988)[link]

Senen Reyes (also known as Sen Dog) and Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (also known as Mellow Man Ace) are brothers who initially lived in South Gate, California. In 1971, their family had immigrated to the United States, settling in the Los Angeles neighborhood of South Gate. In 1988, the two brothers teamed up with Lawrence Muggerud (also known as DJ Muggs) and Louis Freese (also known as B-Real) to form a hip-hop group named DVX (Devastating Vocal Excellence). The band soon lost Mellow Man Ace to a solo career, and changed their name to Cypress Hill, after a street in South Gate.^[2]

Early works and mainstream success (1989–1995)[link]

After recording a demo in 1989, Cypress Hill signed a record deal with the major label, Columbia Records. Their self-titled first album was released in August 1991. The lead single was the double A-side "The Phuncky Feel One"/"How I Could Just Kill a Man" which received heavy airplay on urban and college radio. The other two singles released from the album were "Hand on the Pump" and "Latin Lingo", the latter of which combined English and Spanish lyrics. The success of these singles led to the album selling two million copies in the US alone. The group made their first appearance at Lollapalooza on the side stage in 1992.

Black Sunday, the group's second album, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in 1993, recording the highest Soundscan for a rap group up until that time. Also, with their debut still in the charts, they became the first rap group to have 2 albums in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 at the same time. With "Insane in the Brain" becoming a crossover hit, the album went triple platinum in the U.S. and sold about 3.25 million copies.

The band headlined the Soul Assassins tour with House of Pain and Funkdoobiest as support, then performed on a college tour with Rage Against the Machine and Seven Year Bitch. In 1993, Cypress Hill also had two tracks on the Judgment Night soundtrack, teaming up with Pearl Jam on the track "Real Thing" and Sonic Youth on "I Love You Mary Jane".

The group later played at Woodstock 94, introducing new member Eric Bobo, son of Willie Bobo and formerly a percussionist with the Beastie Boys. Rolling Stone magazine named the group as the best rap group in their music awards voted by critics and readers. Cypress Hill played at Lollapalooza for two successive years, topping the bill in 1995. They also appeared on the "Homerpalooza" episode of The Simpsons. Prior to Bobo joining the crew, Panchito "Ponch" Gomez sat in as a percussionist when not acting.

Their third album III: Temples of Boom was released in 1995, selling 1.5 million copies and reaching number 3 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of the hit single "Throw Your Set in the Air".^{[citation needed]} Cypress Hill also contributed a track "I Wanna Get High" to the High Times sponsored Hempilation album to support NORML.

Continued career (1996–2002)[link]

Sen Dog took a break from the band to form a Los Angeles based rap rock band SX-10.^[3] Meanwhile in 1996, Cypress Hill appeared on the first 'Smokin' Grooves' tour, featuring Ziggy Marley, The Fugees, Busta Rhymes and A Tribe Called Quest. The band also released a nine track EP Unreleased and Revamped with rare mixes. In 1997, band members focused on their solo careers. Muggs released Soul Assassins: Chapter 1 featuring contributions from Dr. Dre, KRS-One, Wyclef Jean and Mobb Deep. B-Real appeared with Busta Rhymes, Coolio, LL Cool J and Method Man on "Hit Em High" from the multi-platinum Space Jam Soundtrack. He also appeared with RBX, Nas and KRS-One on "East Coast Killer, West Coast Killer" off Dr. Dre's Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath album, and contributed to an album entitled The Psycho Realm with the band of the same name. Though the focus that year was not on group efforts, the band played Smokin' Grooves with George Clinton and Erykah Badu.

Cypress Hill released IV in 1998 which went gold in the U.S., on the backs of hit singles "Tequila Sunrise" and "Dr. Greenthumb." Sen Dog also released the Get Wood sampler as part of SX-10 on the label Flip. In 1999, Cypress Hill helped with the PC crime video game Kingpin: Life of Crime. Three of their songs from the 1998 IV album were in the game ( "16 Men Till There's No Men Left", "Checkmate" and "Lightning Strikes"). B-Real also did some of the voices of the people in the game. Also in 1999, the band released a greatest-hits album in Spanish, Los grandes éxitos en español. In 2000, Cypress Hill then fused genres with their fifth album, Skull & Bones, which was a two-disc album. The first disc, "Skull" was composed of rap tracks while "Bones" explored further the group's forays into rock. The album reached the Top 5 on the Billboard 200 and number 3 in Canada. The first single was "Rock Superstar" for rock radio and "Rap Superstar" for urban radio. Following the release of the album, Cypress Hill (along with MxPx) landed a slot opening for The Offspring on the Conspiracy of One tour. The band also released Live at the Fillmore, a concert disc recorded at the Fillmore (in San Francisco) in 2000. Cypress Hill continued their experimentation with rock on the Stoned Raiders album in 2001. However, its sales were a disappointment, as the disc did not even reach the top 50 of the U.S. album charts. In 2001, the group appeared in the film How High.

[edit] Till Death Do Us Part (2003–2007)

Cypress Hill recorded "Just Another Victim" for WWE as a theme song for Tazz. At the time, WWE was using original music for almost all of the wrestlers, so this was an unusual step for the company to take, but it remains one of the more memorable songs to emerge from the wrestling organization. The band released Till Death Do Us Part on March 23, 2004. The album saw the band experiment with reggae especially on the lead single "What's Your Number". The track features Tim Armstrong of Rancid on guitar and backup vocals. It is based on the classic song "The Guns of Brixton" on The Clash's London Calling and has proven to be a success on the modern rock charts. However, the album represented a further departure from the signature sound of their first four albums. The album also features appearances by Damian Marley, son of Bob Marley, Prodigy of Mobb Deep and producers the Alchemist and Fredwreck.

In 2004, the song How I Could Just Kill A Man was included in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas created by Rockstar Games, playing on West Coast hip hop radio station Radio Los Santos. In December 2005 a best of compilation album titled Greatest Hits From the Bong was released including 9 hits from previous albums and 2 new tracks. The group's next album was tentatively scheduled for an early 2007 release. In the summer of 2006, B-Real appeared on Snoop Dogg's single "Vato", which was produced by Pharrell Williams.

In 2007 Cypress Hill toured with their full line up as a part of the Rock the Bells tour, held by Guerilla Union, and headlined with Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, and a reunited Rage Against the Machine. Other acts included Immortal Technique, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, EPMD, Pharoahe Monch, Jedi Mind Tricks, Erykah Badu, MF Doom, Sage Francis, Brother Ali, The Coup, Blue Print, Lucky I Am, Living Legends, Felt, Cage, Mr. Lif, Grouch & Eligh, Slightly Stoopid, and Hangar 18.

[edit] Departure from Sony and Rise Up (2008–present)

On July 25, 2008, Cypress Hill performed at a benefit concert at the House of Blues Chicago, where a majority of the proceeds went to the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness.^[4]

In August 2009, a new song by Cypress Hill, titled "Get 'Em Up", was made available on iTunes. The song is featured on the Madden NFL 2010 video game.^[5]

In November 2009, a new version of Guns N' Roses classic "Paradise City" performed by Cypress Hill, Slash and Fergie was made available as a bonus track to Slash's single "Sahara" off Slash's solo album Slash.

Cypress Hill's eighth studio album, Rise Up, features contributions from Everlast, Tom Morello, Daron Malakian, Pitbull, Marc Anthony and Mike Shinoda.^[6] The album was released on Priority Records/EMI Entertainment, as the group was signed to the label by new Creative Chairman Snoop Dogg on January 15, 2010. The album was finally released on April 20, 2010.^[7] The album's introduction single, "It Ain't Nothin'" was released as a free download from the group's official website. The song "Rise Up" was featured at WWE's pay-per-view, Elimination Chamber, as the official theme song for that event, and was released as the third single for the album, with "Armada Latina" being fourth. The song also appeared in the trailer of the movie The Green Hornet.

Cypress Hill commenced its Rise Up tour in Philadelphia on April 10, 2010. Julio G had replaced DJ Muggs for the tour. Muggs had been absent due to working on several other projects, including separate albums with B-Real and Sen Dog. The group was supposed to stop in Tucson, Arizona but canceled the show in protest of the recent immigration legislation. At the Rock en Seine festival in Paris on August 27, 2010 they said in an interview that they would wait and see what happens with the legislation before going back there.^[8] Cypress Hill performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in late August 2010, on the 28th at Leeds and the 29th at Reading.

In summer 2012, Cypress Hill and Dubstep artist Rusko will be releasing a collaborative EP entitled 'Cypress X Rusko'.

Style[link]

Rapping[link]

One of the band's most striking aspects is B-Real's exaggeratedly high-pitched nasal vocals.^[2] In the book Check the Technique B-Real describes his nasal style, saying his rapping voice is "high and annoying... the nasal style I have was just something that I developed... my more natural style wasn't so pleasing to [DJ Muggs and Sen Dog's] ears"^[9] and talking about the nasal style in the book How to Rap, B-Real says, "you want to stand out from the others and just be distinct... when you got something that can separate you from everybody else, you gotta use it to your advantage."^[1] Sen Dog's voice is deeper, more violent and often shouted alongside the rapping; his vocals are often emphasized by adding an additional background/choir voice to say them. Sen Dog's style is in contrast to B-Real's, who says, "[Sen's] voice is so strong", and "it all blends together" when they are both on the same track.^[9]

Both B-Real and Sen Dog started writing lyrics in both Spanish and English and B-Real was inspired to start writing raps from watching Sen Dog and Mellow Man Ace writing their lyrics,^[9] and originally B-Real was going to just be the writer for the group rather than a rapper.^[9] Their lyrics are noted for bringing a "cartoonish" approach to violence by Peter Shapiro and Allmusic.^[2][10]

Production[link]

The sound and groove of their music, produced by Muggs, is notable for its spooky sounds and stoned aesthetic; with its bass-heavy rhythms and odd sample loops ("Insane in the Brain" is notable for having a pitched-altered horse neigh looped in its chorus), it carries a psychedelic value, which lessened in the later albums.^[2][10]

The band is also known for involving rock instruments. In their songs – this has caused the band to sometimes be classified as a rap rock group.^[2] The double album Skull & Bones consists of a pure rap album ("Skull") and an entire CD of rap/rock songs ("Bones"). Also in IV, there is "Lightning Strikes" which doesn't truly use electric guitars, but a synthesized version of it. In the live album Live at The Fillmore some of the old classics are played in a rock/metal version, with Sen Dog's band SX-10 and Eric Bobo playing the rock instrument.

The band's music is constantly subject to change: while the first album and Black Sunday follow a more minimalistic and funky sound, III (Temples of Boom) has a very dark, spooky atmosphere and heavy beats, sometimes approaching hardcore rap. IV introduced more diverse sounds on the beats while maintaining the hardcore edge. The first albums are mostly influenced by psychedelic music, but the band eventually got closer to modern rap as it is today while still experimenting with rock from time to time, like on "Skull and Bones" and "Stoned Raiders".

The band involves horns in their songs, and often have guitar and horns together in the instrumentals. "What's Your Number?", "Trouble", "Tequila Sunrise", and "(Rock) Superstar" have become some of the band's most popular songs featuring these elements.

Side and solo projects[link]

Eric Bobo is part of the group Sol Invicto with producer Richie Londres and Stephen Carpenter of the Deftones. Eric Bobo is also a main member of Cultura Londres Proyecto which is a Spanish Hip Hop group from London, England. In 2008, he released his first solo album "Meeting Of The Minds" on Nacional Records. In 2011, he joined up with Chilean DJ Latin Bitman to form the group Ritmo Machine & in November 2011 they released the album "Welcome To The Ritmo Machine" on Nacional Records with special guests Sick Jacken (Psycho Realm), Ana Tijoux, Sen-Dog, Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys), P-Nut (311), Pato Machete & Chali 2na (Jurassic 5).

2009 saw the releases of both B-Real and Sen Dog's solo efforts Smoke N Mirrors and Diary of a Mad Dog. B-Real is also part of a super-group called Serial Killaz with both Xzibit and his protege Young De. B-Real started his own production company called Audio Hustlaz, with which he has worked and featured on tracks with Kurupt, Young De, Xzibit, Adil Omar, Snoop Dogg, Bitza and others, and has also done guest appearances for La Coka Nostra, Ill Bill, Prozak, Akrobatik, The Outlawz, Nipsey Hussle and Apathy.

Other notable side projects include B-Real's rap metal group Kush with members from Deftones and Fear Factory who are as yet to release any official material.

Sen Dog has released one album with his rap metal group SX-10.

Muggs has released collaborative albums with Sick Jacken, GZA, Planet Asia, Ill Bill and others.

Discography[link]

• Cypress Hill (1991)
• Black Sunday (1993)
• Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom (1995)
• Unreleased and Revamped (1996)
• Cypress Hill IV (1998)
• Skull & Bones (2000)
• Stoned Raiders (2001)
• Till Death Do Us Part (2004)
• Rise Up (2010)

Awards and Nominations[link]

Grammy Awards

MTV Video Music Awards Awards

Band Members[link]

Current Members

• B-Real – lead rapping (since 1988)
• DJ Muggs – turntables, production (since 1988)
• Eric Bobo – drums, percussion (since 1993)
• Sen Dog – rapping (since 1988)

Former Members

• Mellow Man Ace - rapping (1988)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Cypress Hill interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' April 2010
• Cypress Hill interview, August 2010, Radio France Internationale
• Cypress Hill on Velvet Hammer Site
• Cypress Hill at Legacy Recordings (Sony Music)
• Eric Bobo video interview

Thom Yorke
Yorke at the Latitude Festival, Suffolk, 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Edward Yorke
Also known as	Tchock,[1] Tchocky,[2][3] Dr. Tchock,[4][5] Thom E. Yorke,[6] Zachariah Wildwood[citation needed]
Born	(1968-10-07) 7 October 1968 (age 43) Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England
Genres	Alternative rock, electronic music
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards
Years active	1985—present
Labels	XL
Associated acts	Radiohead, Atoms for Peace

Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the rock band Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but has also played drums and bass guitar (notably during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions). In July 2006, he released his debut solo album, The Eraser.

Yorke has been cited among the most influential figures in the music industry; in 2002, Q Magazine named Yorke the 6th most powerful figure in music,^[7] and Radiohead were ranked #73 in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2005. Yorke has also been cited among the greatest singers in popular music; in 2005, a poll organised by Blender and MTV2 saw Yorke voted the 18th greatest singer of all time,^[8] and in 2008, he was ranked 66th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" list.^[9]

Early life[link]

Yorke was born on 7 October 1968, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. At birth, his left eye was fixed shut; the doctors determined that the eye was paralyzed and that the condition was permanent. Yorke's parents took him to an eye specialist, who suggested a muscle graft. Yorke underwent five eye operations before he was six years old.^[10] Yorke's father, a chemical equipment salesman, was hired by a firm in Scotland shortly after his son's birth and the family lived there until Yorke was seven. During this time Yorke had to wear a patch over his eye.^[11] He has stated that the last surgery was "botched", giving him a drooping eyelid.^[12]

Yorke's family moved frequently; Yorke would move from school to school, where classmates teased him because of his eye.^[13] The family finally settled in Oxfordshire in 1978.^[13] Yorke received his first guitar when he was seven, inspired by guitarist Brian May in a live performance with his band Queen.^[12] By 11, he had joined his first band and written his first song.^[14] He attended the all boys public school Abingdon where he met future band members Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood and Colin's younger brother, Jonny Greenwood.^[15] Yorke and his friends formed a band named On A Friday, as Friday was the only day on which the members were allowed to rehearse.^[12] Yorke, in this early line up, played guitar and provided vocals, and was already developing his songwriting and lyrical skills. Yorke, speaking about music's influence on him as a schoolboy, said, "School was bearable for me because the music department was separate from the rest of the school. It had pianos in tiny booths, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around there after school."^[16]

After leaving school, Yorke postponed going to university for a year. During that time he worked in a few jobs and was involved in a car accident that made him wary of any kind of mechanized transport.^[17] Yorke left Oxford to study at the University of Exeter in late 1988, which as a result put On a Friday on hiatus aside from holiday break rehearsals.^[18] While at Exeter, Yorke worked as a DJ at Guild nights in the Lemon Grove and played briefly with the band Headless Chickens.^[19] Yorke also met Rachel Owen, whom he began dating.^[20]

Career[link]

Radiohead[link]

On A Friday resumed activity in 1991 as the members were finishing their degree courses. Now relocated to Oxford, they signed to Parlophone and changed their name to Radiohead. Around this time, Yorke said he "hit the self-destruct button pretty quickly"; he would drink heavily, which resulted in him randomly cutting his hair off and being too drunk to perform onstage.^[21]

Radiohead first gained notice with the worldwide hit single "Creep", which later appeared on the band's 1993 debut album Pablo Honey. Yorke admitted later that the success had enlarged his ego; he tried to project himself as a rock star, which included bleaching his hair and wearing extensions. He said, "When I got back to Oxford I was unbearable . . . [A]s soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse and lost it forever."^[22]

By the time of their second album, The Bends (1995), the band, through frequent touring and greater attention to detail in the recording studio, had picked up a large cult fan base and had begun to receive wider critical acclaim. After the album's release, the American group R.E.M. picked Radiohead as its opening act for the European leg of their tour.^[23] Whilst on tour Yorke and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe became close friends; in particular, Stipe gave him advice on how to deal with the demands of being in a rock band.^[24] During the production of the band's third album, OK Computer (1997), all five members had differing opinions and equal production roles, with Yorke having "the loudest voice", according to guitarist Ed O'Brien.^[25] After the album was finished, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack along with other musicians under the moniker Venus in Furs.^[26] Upon release, OK Computer was heralded as a landmark album by nearly every publication that reviewed it, establishing Radiohead as one of the leading alternative rock acts of the 1990s. But Yorke was ambivalent about this success. Some of these concerns were voiced in the documentary film Meeting People Is Easy, which focused on the period. Yorke has explained in various interviews that he dislikes the "mythology" within the rock genre, and hates the media's obsession with celebrities.^[27]

Yorke and the band adopted a more radical approach on 2000's Kid A and 2001's Amnesiac, processing vocals, obscuring lyrics, and departing from rock for a more varied musical landscape including electronic, jazz and avant-garde classical influences. Expanding Radiohead's sales whilst earning acclaim for experimentation, the albums also divided fans and critics. In 2003, Radiohead released their sixth album, Hail to the Thief, a blend of rock and electronica that Yorke described as a reaction to the events of the early 2000s and newfound fears for his children's future, though he denied political intent. The band has continued to tour, and in 2005 they undertook recording sessions for a seventh album, In Rainbows, released as a digital DRM-free download in October 2007. In 2011, The King of Limbs, the 8th studio album by Radiohead, was released.

Solo work[link]

Yorke released his solo album The Eraser in 2006. Produced by Nigel Godrich and featuring cover art by Stanley Donwood, it was released on the independent label XL Recordings. Yorke described the album as "more beats and electronics" and denied that it meant he was leaving Radiohead, saying, "I want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... this was all done with their blessing."^[28] The Eraser reached number 3 in the UK in its first week and number 2 in the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as number 9 on the Irish charts. The album was on the prestigious Mercury Prize shortlist and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

Yorke rarely plays as a solo act, having never embarked on a solo tour. He has sometimes played short acoustic sets of Radiohead songs in the band's webcasts and television appearances, and occasionally on his own at rallies. In 2006, he performed stripped-down versions of several songs from The Eraser ("Analyse", "The Clock", "Skip Divided" and "Cymbal Rush") on radio and TV programmes, and since then he has played and sung "Cymbal Rush" as an encore at some Radiohead concerts. In July 2009, Yorke played a rare solo performance at the Latitude Festival in England.^[29]

On September 21, 2009, Yorke released a new double-A side single, "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses / The Hollow Earth".^[30] It was later announced that he has established an unnamed band with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joey Waronker of R.E.M., Mauro Refosco of Forro in the Dark and producer Nigel Godrich.^[31] They played two sold out shows at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on October 4 and 5, 2009.^[32] Two days before, Yorke also played a "warm-up" show at the Echoplex in Los Angeles.^[33] On February 25, 2010, Yorke officially gave the band the name Atoms for Peace^[34]

Collaborations[link]

Apart from his own solo work, Yorke has collaborated with several artists. He sang backing vocals on PJ Harvey's Mercury Prize-winning 2000 album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and duetted with Harvey on one of its songs, "This Mess We're In". In the same year, he also appeared on Björk's soundtrack album Selmasongs, singing "I've Seen It All" with her. The Oscar-nominated song was written for Dancer in the Dark, a film starring Björk, and Yorke's part is sung in the film by an actor; due to time constraints Björk performed it alone at the 2001 Oscars. The two worked together again in 2008 on a charity single named "Náttúra".

Yorke also sang covers of the Roxy Music songs "2HB", "Ladytron" and "Bitter-Sweet" for the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, as part of Venus in Furs. The band existed solely for the film's soundtrack and also consisted of Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. Yorke was duplicating the original vocals of Bryan Ferry. Two other cover songs were performed by Venus in Furs, with vocals by an actor in the film. Yorke never appeared on screen.

Yorke's other collaborations include the 1998 single "Rabbit in Your Headlights", which he sang and co-wrote with DJ Shadow and which closes Psyence Fiction, the debut album by the group UNKLE; "El President", a 1998 duet with Isabel Monteiro of the band Drugstore, which was also released as a single, and vocals on the 2010 track "...And The World Laughs with You" by experimental musician and producer Flying Lotus of Warp Records. Thom paired up with his brother Andy in 2009 to record the track "All for the Best" for inclusion on the 2009 compilation CD Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy. He has also collaborated on several tracks with the electronic music group Modeselektor, providing vocals on the 2007 track "The White Flash" from the album Happy Birthday, as well as 2011 tracks "Shipwreck" and "This" from the album Monkeytown, in addition to production contributions on the album's b-side "Dull Hull". Yorke has also contributed music and remix/production skills in collaboration with various electronic artists including Burial, Four Tet, as well as hip-hop artists such as MF DOOM.

Yorke has also collaborated with Stanley Donwood on a picture book titled Dead Children Playing.

Atoms for Peace[link]

On February 25, 2010 Yorke revealed the name of his new band: "Atoms for Peace", and announced a series of U.S. tour dates. Yorke first introduced the band late in 2009, with a series of concerts in Los Angeles. It includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass, Beck, R.E.M., all-round session drummer Joey Waronker, percussionist Mauro Refosco of the musical collective Forro in the Dark and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on keyboards and treatments. When the band officially debuted in Los Angeles last October, it was billed with question marks due to it being unnamed. In a note on Radiohead's web site, Yorke wrote; "It has been decided that we call ourselves Atoms For Peace. hope you like the name. it seemed bleedin' obvious." Atoms for Peace is a track on Yorke's 2006 solo album, The Eraser, its title taken in turn by the Eisenhower speech of the same name. The band toured briefly, playing eight dates across the USA including the three-day Coachella music festival in Indio, California on April 18, 2010.^[35] Thom Yorke has also confirmed rumours that the band were recording material together, and has announced that an album is nearing completion, tentatively scheduled for release in 2012.

Personal life[link]

Yorke currently lives in Oxford with his girlfriend, Rachel Owen. They have two children, son Noah, born in 2001, and daughter Agnes, born 2004. Owen studied fine art printmaking at Exeter and painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence. She completed a PhD at the University of London researching the illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy.^[36]

His only brother, Andy, is ex-vocalist of the band Unbelievable Truth.

Yorke is very active in creating public awareness for cultural and political issues. In 2005, Yorke became a spokesman for Friends of the Earth and their campaign to reduce carbon emissions, The Big Ask. He often pays tribute to his children whilst performing live; during songs at the 2003 Glastonbury Festival, he played with a photo of Noah resting on the top of the piano and at the 2006 Bonnaroo Music Festival, he used guitar picks that were marked with Agnes' fingerprints.

Musical approach[link]

Vocal characteristics[link]

Thom Yorke in 2006

As a singer, Yorke is recognisable by his distinctive tenor voice, vibrato, frequent use of falsetto and ability to reach, and sustain notes over a wide vocal range. In 1994, the band watched Jeff Buckley in concert; Yorke later said the concert had a direct effect on his vocal delivery on "Fake Plastic Trees".^[37] However, Yorke has said, "It annoys me how pretty my voice is... how polite it can sound when perhaps what I'm singing is deeply acidic."^[38] He has often adopted other styles of singing, such as an aggressive shouting style in the middle section of "Paranoid Android" and a semi-spoken style for 2003's "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door".

Musicianship[link]

Aside from vocal duties and writing lyrics, Yorke's musical contributions to Radiohead include guitar, both acoustic and electric (usually rhythm parts, with band member Jonny Greenwood handling lead), and piano (including Rhodes piano, especially on Kid A). He also plays bass guitar on occasion (the bass line for "The National Anthem" was recorded by him) as well as drums; during the 2006 and 2008 tours he performed percussion on stage in tandem with drummer Phil Selway on the track "Bangers + Mash".

Yorke, unlike the other members of Radiohead, has never learned how to read music.^[39] He said, "If someone lays the notes on a page in front of me, it's meaningless... because to me you can't express the rhythms properly like that. It's a very ineffective way of doing it, so I've never really bothered picking it up."^[38]

Since Kid A, Radiohead, and in particular Yorke, have incorporated many elements of electronic music into their work. As a result, Yorke has taken an increased role in programming beats and samples and has been credited with playing "laptop" on recent albums. On a radio show in 2003 to publicise the release of Hail to the Thief, Yorke remarked that he would rather make a record just with a computer than with only an acoustic guitar.^[40] His solo effort The Eraser featured piano, bass and guitar, but was built primarily around electronics.

In interviews Yorke has cited a variety of personal musical heroes and influences, including jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus, Neil Young, Miracle Legion, singer Scott Walker, electronic acts Aphex Twin and Autechre, and Krautrock band Can. Talking Heads, Queen, Joy Division, Magazine, Elvis Costello, The Smiths and Sonic Youth were early influences on Radiohead and Yorke. In 2004, at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Yorke mentioned to the crowd, "When I was in college, the Pixies and R.E.M. changed my life",^[41] and he has often mentioned both bands as influential examples.

Activism[link]

Yorke has been outspoken on various contemporary political and social issues. Radiohead had read No Logo by Naomi Klein during the Kid A sessions ("No Logo" was also briefly considered as the album title) and all the members were reportedly heavily influenced by it, though Yorke said it "didn't teach him anything he didn't already know".^[42] Yorke's activism in support of fair trade practices, with an anti-WTO and anti-globalisation stance, garnered significant attention in the early 2000s.^[43] Yorke had previously referenced maquiladoras in the title of a Radiohead B-side in 1995, and decried the International Monetary Fund in 1997's "Electioneering". Yorke is also a professed fan of Noam Chomsky's political writings,^[44] and is a vegan.^[45]

Yorke is also notable as a political activist on behalf of other causes, including human rights and anti-war movements such as Jubilee 2000, Amnesty International and CND, and Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign.^[46] Radiohead played at the Free Tibet concert in both 1998 and 1999, and at an Amnesty International concert in 1998.^[47] In 2005, Yorke performed at an all-night vigil for the Trade Justice Movement.^[48] In 2006, Jonny Greenwood and Yorke performed a special benefit concert for Friends of the Earth. Yorke made headlines the same year for refusing Prime Minister Tony Blair's request to meet with him to discuss climate change, declaring Blair had "no environmental credentials".^[49] Yorke has subsequently been critical of his own energy use. He has said the music industry's use of air transport is dangerous and unsustainable, and that he would consider not touring if new carbon emissions standards do not force the situation to improve.^[50] Radiohead commissioned a study by the group Best Foot Forward which the band claims helped them choose venues and transport methods that will greatly reduce the carbon expended on their 2008 tour. The band also made use of a new low-energy LED lighting system and encouraged festivals to offer reusable plastics.^[51]

In December 2009, Yorke gained access to the COP 15 climate change talks in Copenhagen, posing as a member of the media.^[52] In the same year he lent his support to the 10:10 project, a movement encouraging people to take positive action on climate change by reducing their carbon emissions.^[53]

Relationship with celebrities and the media[link]

Yorke has had an uneasy relationship with other celebrities and the media. Following Radiohead's 1993 Pablo Honey tour of America, Yorke became disenchanted at being "right at the sharp end of the sexy, sassy, MTV eye-candy lifestyle" he felt he was helping to sell to the world.^[54] The 1998 documentary film Meeting People is Easy portrays Yorke's disaffection with the music industry and press during the 1997-8 "Against Demons" world tour.^[55]

A number of celebrities have been upset by Yorke's alleged rudeness. In 2001, Kelly Jones, the lead singer of the Welsh band Stereophonics, referred to Thom Yorke as a "miserable twat"^[56] (a comment he later retracted).^[57] In 2002, Jack Black claimed to have approached Yorke to congratulate him on his solo show at the Bridge School benefit concert in San Francisco, only for Yorke to ignore him and walk away. Referring to the incident, Black stated in an interview: "I heard later that he's famously cold, and it wasn't just me that he despises, but the whole world."^[58] After completing a trek of Kilimanjaro in 2009, Ronan Keating was asked by an interviewer which celebrity he would most like to throw off a mountain. Keating named Yorke, and referred to him as a "muppet", stating that Yorke was once rude to him.^[59] In the same year, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West also complained about Yorke's alleged rudeness.^[60] In 2010, it was reported that Yorke would be covering Peter Gabriel's song "Wallflower", from Gabriel's fourth solo album Peter Gabriel 4 (Security), with Gabriel claiming, "Thom wanted to do a version of Wallflower, which I'm very curious to hear. I think that was an important track for him when he was 14."^[61] However, it was subsequently reported that Yorke had withdrawn from the project and hadn't informed Gabriel why.^[62]

Discography[link]

• The Eraser (2006)

References[link]

• Randall, Mac. Exit Music: The Radiohead Story. Delta, 2000. ISBN 0-385-33393-5

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Media related to Thom Yorke at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Thom Yorke at Wikiquote
• The Eraser: Official website for Yorke's solo album release
• Thom Yorke, Going Solo: Interview with Yorke, from NPR's "Fresh Air" radio program—July 2006

Napoleon Hill
Portrait of a young Napoleon Hill
Born	(1883-10-26)October 26, 1883 Pound, Virginia
Died	November 8, 1970(1970-11-08) (aged 87)
Occupation	author, journalist, attorney, lecturer
Nationality	United States
Period	1928–1970
Genres	non-fiction, how-to, treatise
Subjects	personal development, self-help, motivation, finance, investment
Literary movement	personal development, self-help
Notable work(s)	Think and Grow Rich The Law of Success Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
Influences Andrew Carnegie, W. Clement Stone, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller
Influenced W. Clement Stone Og Mandino
Signature
The Napoleon Hill Foundation naphill.org the napoleon hill foundation
Literature portal

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success.^[1] His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich (1937), is one of the best-selling books of all time (at the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies).^[2] Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions.^[3][4] How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach of the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

Life and works[link]

According to his official biographer, Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound, in Southwest Virginia.^[5] Hill's mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.^[6]

Influence of Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)[link]

Andrew Carnegie

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.^[7]

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and Jennings Randolph. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[8]

The Philosophy of Achievement[link]

Napoleon Hill holding his book Think and Grow Rich

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1925 as a multi-volume study course called The Law of Success, later re-released in 1928 in an abridged version under the same title. The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements were not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others' and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness, etc., had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.^[9]

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but Hill felt readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves. Although most readers feel that he never explicitly identified this secret, he offers these words about 20 pages into the book: If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have it. . . You may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities unless you work yourself into a white heat of desire for money, and actually believe you will possess it.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.^[10]

One of Hill's most moving stories was about his own son, Blair. He tells how his son was an inspiration to him, because although Blair was born without ears, without any normal hearing organs at all, even though his doctor told Hill that his son would neither be able to hear nor speak, Blair grew up to be able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill tells how his son, in his last year of college, picked up the manuscript of chapter two of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret for himself and went on to be an inspiration for hundreds and thousands of people who could not hear or speak.^[11]

From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement – Lectures on "Science of Success" in association with W. Clement Stone.^[12] In 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale stated "These two men [Hill and Stone] have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people...In fact, I owe them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings." ^[13]

Think and Grow Rich remains the top seller of Napoleon Hill's books – a perennial best-seller after 70 years (Business Week Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published).^[14] Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List. ^[15]

Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, showing that the secret of achievement is still highly sought-after by many today. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every human.^[10]

Today's philosophy-of-success teachers still use the research formulas taught by Hill to expand their students' knowledge of personal development.^[15]

Bibliography[link]

• The Law of Success (1928)
• The Magic Ladder To Success (1930)
• Think and Grow Rich (1937)
• How to Sell Your Way through Life (1939)
• Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960)
• You Can Work Your Own Miracles (1971)
• Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement
• Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind
• The Master-Key to Riches
• Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion
• Outwitting the Devil (2011) ISBN 978-1-4027-8453-8

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Napoleon Hill

• Napoleon Hill Quotes
• Article on Hill's life from Success magazine
• Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) – Find A Grave Memorial