Ray Winstone
Winstone in June 2006.
Born	Raymond Andrew Winstone (1957-02-19) 19 February 1957 (age 55) Homerton, Hackney, London, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1979–present
Spouse	Elaine Winstone (m. 1979) «start: (1979)»"Marriage: Elaine Winstone to Ray Winstone" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.db.wn.com/index.php/Ray_Winstone)
Children	3 (including Lois and Jaime Winstone)

Raymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone^[1] (born 19 February 1957) is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" and "geeza" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over actor. More recently he has branched out into film production. His film résumé includes Cold Mountain, Nil By Mouth, King Arthur, The Proposition, The Departed, Beowulf, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Edge of Darkness.

Early life[link]

Winstone was born in Hackney Hospital, Homerton, Hackney, London.^[2] His family was originally from Cirencester, Gloucestershire – half of them moving to London, the other half to Wales. Winstone moved via Plaistow to Enfield when he was seven, and grew up on a council estate just off the A10 road. His father, Raymond J. Winstone, ran a fruit and vegetable business (he is now a black cab driver),^[3] while his mother, Margaret (née Richardson),^[4] had a job emptying fruit machines. Winstone recalls playing with his friends on bomb sites until "Moors Murderers" Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were arrested for killing three children. Winstone joined Brimsdown Primary School and then he was educated at Edmonton County School, which had changed from a grammar school to a comprehensive upon his arrival. He also attended Corona Theatre School. He did not take to school, eventually leaving with a single CSE (Grade 2) in Drama.

Winstone had an early affinity for acting; his father would take him to the cinema every Wednesday afternoon. Later, he would witness Albert Finney in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and the bug would bite: "I thought 'I could be that geezer'" he said later. Other major influences included John Wayne, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. After borrowing extra tuition money from a friend's mother, a drama teacher, he took to the stage, appearing as a Cockney newspaper-seller in a production of Emil and the Detectives.

Winstone was also a fan of boxing. Known to his friends as Winnie, at home he was called Little Sugs (his father already being known as Sugar – after Sugar Ray Robinson). At the age of 12, Winstone joined the famous Repton Amateur Boxing Club and, over the next 10 years, won 80 out of 88 bouts. At welterweight, he was London schoolboy champion on three occasions, fighting twice for England. The experience gave him a perspective on his later career: "If you can get in a ring with 2,000 people watching and be smacked around by another guy, then walking onstage isn't hard."

School[link]

Deciding to pursue drama, Winstone enrolled at the Corona Stage Academy in Hammersmith. At £900 a term, it was expensive, considering the average wage was then about £36 a week.

He landed his first major role in What a Crazy World at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, but he danced and sang badly, leading his usually-supportive father to say "Give it up, while you're ahead." One of his first TV appearances came in the 1976 "Loving Arms" episode of the popular police series The Sweeney where he was credited as "Raymond Winstone" and played a minor part as an unnamed young thug.

Winstone was not popular with the establishment at his secondary school, who considered him a bad influence. After some 12 months, he found that he was the only pupil not invited to the Christmas party and decided to take revenge for this slight. Hammering some pins through a piece of wood, he placed it under the wheel of his headmistress's car and blew out the tyre. For this, he was expelled. As a joke, he went up to the BBC, where his schoolmates were involved in an audition, and got one of his own by flirting with the secretary. The audition was for one of the most notorious plays in history – Alan Clarke's Scum – and, because Clarke liked Winstone's cocky, aggressive boxer's walk, he got the part, even though it had been written for a Glaswegian. The play, written by Roy Minton and directed by Clarke, was a brutal depiction of a young offenders institution. Winstone was cast in the leading role of Carlin, a young offender who struggles against both his captors and his fellow cons in order to become the "Daddy" of the institution. Hard hitting and often violent (particularly during the infamous "billiards" scene in which Carlin uses two billiard balls stuffed in a sock in order to beat one of his fellow inmates over the head) the play was judged unsuitable for broadcast by the BBC, and was not finally shown until 1991. The banned television play was entirely re-filmed in 1979 for cinematic release with many of the original actors playing the same roles. In a recent director's commentary for the Scum DVD, Winstone cites Clarke as a major influence on his career, and laments the director's death in 1990 from cancer.

Winstone's role in Scum seems to have set a mould for many of his other parts; he is frequently cast as a tough or violent man. He has also been cast against type, however, in films in which he reveals a softer side. He had a comedy part in Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence, and played the romantic lead in Fanny and Elvis. His favourite role was in the television biopic on the life of England's most notorious monarch, King Henry VIII. Helena Bonham Carter co-starred as Henry's best-known queen, Anne Boleyn. Emilia Fox played Jane Seymour, Charles Dance played the Duke of Buckingham, Emily Blunt played Catherine Howard and David Suchet played Cardinal Wolsey. Joss Ackland and Sean Bean also starred.

Television and film[link]

After a short run in the TV series Fox, and a role in Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (alongside Diane Lane, Laura Dern and a host of real-life punks like Fee Waybill, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Paul Simonon), Winstone got another big break, being cast as Will Scarlet in Robin of Sherwood. He proved immensely popular and enjoyed the role, considering Scarlet to be "the first football hooligan" – though he was not fond of the dubbed German version, in which he said he sounded like a "psychotic mincer." But once the show was over, the parts dried up. He got involved in co-producing Tank Malling, starring Jason Connery, Amanda Donohoe and Maria Whittaker, and scored a few TV parts. Over the years, he's appeared in TV shows including The Sweeney, The Bill, Boon, Fairly Secret Army (as Stubby Collins), Ever Decreasing Circles, One Foot in the Grave, Murder Most Horrid, Birds of a Feather, Minder, Kavanagh QC, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Get Back (with the fledgling Kate Winslet). During this period, he was increasingly drawn to the theatre, playing in Hinkemann in 1988, Some Voices in 1994 and Dealer's Choice and Pale Horse the following year.

Winstone was asked to appear in Mr Thomas, a play written by his friend and fellow-Londoner Kathy Burke. The reviews were good, and led to Winstone being cast, alongside Burke, in Gary Oldman's drama Nil By Mouth. He was widely lauded for his performance as an alcoholic wife-batterer, receiving a BAFTA nomination (17 years after his Best Newcomer award for That Summer). He continued to play "tough guy" roles in the likes of Face and The War Zone — the latter especially controversial, as he played a man who rapes his own daughter — but that obvious toughness would also allow him to play decent men softened by love in romantic comedies like Fanny and Elvis and There's Only One Jimmy Grimble. In Last Christmas, he played a dead man, now a trainee angel, who returns from Heaven to help his young son cope with his bereavement, written by Tony Grounds, with whom Winstone worked again on Births, Marriages & Deaths and Our Boy, the latter winning him the Royal Television Society Best Actor Award. They worked together again in 2006 on All in the Game where Winstone portrayed a football manager. He did a series of Holsten Pils advertisements where he played upon the phrase "Who's the Daddy", coined in the film Scum.

In 2000 Winstone starred along side Jude Law in the hit cult film Love, Honour and Obey, then snagged the lead role in Sexy Beast that brought him great acclaim from UK and international audiences, and brought him to the attention of the American film industry. Winstone plays "Gal" Dove, a retired and happily married former thief dragged back into London's underworld by a psychopathic former associate (Ben Kingsley, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance).

After a brief role alongside Burke again in the tragi-comic The Martins, he appeared in Last Orders, where he starred alongside Michael Caine, Helen Mirren, David Hemmings and Tom Courtenay.

Next Winstone would get a prime part in Ripley's Game, the sequel to The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which he once again played a gangster. He followed up with Lenny Blue, the sequel to Tough Love, and the short The Bouncer.

In 2000, he starred in To the Green Fields Beyond at the Donmar Warehouse (directed by Sam Mendes, the man behind American Beauty). In 2002 he performed at the Royal Court as Griffin in The Night Heron. Two years later, he joined Kevin Spacey for 24 Hour Plays at the Old Vic, a series of productions that were written, rehearsed and performed in a single day. Now internationally known, Winstone was next chosen by Anthony Minghella to play Teague, a sinister Home Guard boss, in the American Civil War drama Cold Mountain.

Perhaps inspired by Burke and Oldman, Winstone has now decided to direct and produce his own films, setting up Size 9 and Flicks production companies with his long-time agent Michael Wiggs. The first effort was She's Gone, in which he plays a businessman whose young daughter disappears in Istanbul (filming was held up by unrest in the Middle East). He followed it up with Jerusalem, in which he played poet and visionary William Blake.

Winstone made his action film debut in King Arthur, starring Clive Owen, directed by Antoine Fuqua, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. In that film, Fuqua proclaimed him as "the British De Niro." He then provided the voice of Soldier Sam in the screen version of The Magic Roundabout.

In 2005, he appeared opposite Suranne Jones in ITV drama Vincent about a team of private detectives. He returned to the role in 2006 and was awarded an International Emmy. In 2005 he also portrayed a 19th century English policeman trying to tame the Australian outback in The Proposition. A complete change of pace for Winstone was providing the voice for the plucky Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, also in 2005. Winstone appeared in Martin Scorsese's 2006 film The Departed as Mr. French, an enforcer to Jack Nicholson's mob boss. He provided motion capture movements and voice for the title character in the Robert Zemeckis' film Beowulf. He then co-starred in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was released on 22 May 2008. He returned to television drama in The Changeling inspired Compulsion, originally shown in May 2009. He is currently filming in New Zealand as 'Arjan' in the film Tracker with Temuera Morrison. He next stars in 44 Inch Chest, alongside John Hurt and Ian McShane.^[5] He also had a role as CIA agent Darius Jedburgh in the Edge of Darkness remake, replacing Robert De Niro.^[6] He is set to play the role of Detective Inspector Jack Regan in a remake of The Sweeney. Winstone stars also in the slasher-thriller film Red Snow, directed by Stuart St. Paul and based on a short film by Adam Mason.^[7]

In November 2010, Winstone completed filming a new British independent film The Hot Potato, based on a true story set in the East End of London in the 1960s. The film, scheduled for release in 2011, will also star his eldest daughter Lois Winstone, Jack Huston, Colm Meaney and David Harewood.

Ray is the face of the BET365 adverts shown during Sky's Football coverage.

Personal life[link]

Winstone met his wife, Elaine, while filming That Summer in 1979. They have three daughters; the eldest two, Lois and Jaime, are both actresses.

Winstone lives with his wife in Roydon, Essex. He is an avid fan of West Ham United and promoted their 2009 home kit.^[8]

Winstone was made bankrupt on 4 October 1988^[9] and again on 19 March 1993.^[10]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ray Winstone at the Internet Movie Database
• Three-page biography from Tiscali Film & TV
• BBC Drama Faces – Ray Winstone
• Edmonton County former pupils

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. (February 2012)

Damon Albarn
Background information
Born	(1968-03-23) 23 March 1968 (age 44) Whitechapel, London, England
Origin	Colchester, England
Genres	Alternative rock, art rock, alternative hip hop, electronic, trip hop, baroque music,[1] Britpop
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, composer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, guitar, bass guitar, organ, violin, omnichord, recorder, vibraphone, synthesizer, melodica, harmonium, drums, keyboards
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Food, SBK, Virgin, Parlophone, Honest Jon's
Associated acts	Blur, Gorillaz, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Rocket Juice & the Moon, Massive Attack, De La Soul, Kano

Damon Albarn (/ˈdeɪmən ˈælbɑrn/; born 23 March 1968) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and record producer who has been involved in many high profile projects, coming to prominence as the frontman and primary songwriter of the Britpop band Blur. Albarn's current role is lead vocalist and songwriter of Gorillaz, whose first two studio albums had sold more than 20 million copies combined by 2007.^[2] Albarn has also led projects such as The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Monkey: Journey to the West, Mali Music and Rocket Juice & the Moon. Albarn has released multiple singles and albums which have charted at number one, both in the UK and internationally.

Albarn was voted the fourth greatest frontman of all time in a 2010 UK Poll for Q Music magazine.^[3]

Early life[link]

Albarn was born in Whitechapel, London in 1968, and grew up with his middle-class, Quaker family in Leytonstone, later moving to Colchester.^[4][5] He attended the George Tomlinson Primary School, and studied piano and violin. When he was 9 years old he moved for three months to Turkey, with his parents. When he was aged 12, he became friends with Graham Coxon, a fellow pupil at Stanway School.

He studied acting at the East 15 Acting School in Debden, leaving after the first year. On leaving drama school he worked as a tea boy at the Beat Factory studio. His first band was the synth pop group, Two's a Crowd.^[6] Before Blur, he played with The Aftermath and Real Lives.^[5]

Albarn's father, Keith Albarn, was the manager of Soft Machine and presenter of the BBC's Late Night Line-Up. Keith Albarn was the head of North Essex College of Art, which later became Colchester Institute. Albarn's mother, Hazel, was a theatrical set designer.^[5] He has a sister, Jessica (born 1971).^[5]

Blur[link]

Albarn in 2009

Blur are an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure (1991) incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing. Following a stylistic change—influenced by English guitar pop groups such as The Kinks, The Beatles and XTC—Blur released the Modern Life is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995) albums. As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a famous chart battle with rival band Oasis dubbed "The Battle of Britpop".

In recording their follow-up, Blur (1997), the band underwent another reinvention, influenced by the lo-fi style of American indie rock bands such as Pavement. "Song 2", one of the album's singles, brought Blur brief mainstream success in the US. The last album featuring Blur's original line-up, 13 (1999) found the band members experimenting with electronic music and gospel music, as Albarn wrote more personal lyrics. In May 2002, Coxon left Blur during the recording of their seventh album Think Tank (2003). Containing electronic sounds and more minimal guitar work, the album was marked by Albarn's growing interest in hip hop and African music. After a 2003 tour without Coxon, Blur did no studio work or touring as a band, as members engaged in other projects. Subsequently, Blur reunited in 2009 with Coxon back in the fold. Following a series of successful concerts, Blur left the spotlight until they released their first single in a decade by the original line-up, called "Fool's Day". On 21 February 2012, Blur were awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the Brits. They went on to perform five tracks: "Girls & Boys", "Song 2", "Parklife", "Tender" and "This Is a Low". Blur will headline at Hyde Park, with New Order and The Specials, to celebrate the closing of the 2012 Summer Olympics on 12 August 2012.^[7]

Gorillaz[link]

Gorillaz is a virtual band composed of four animated band members created in 1998 by Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl. The band's music is a collaboration between various musicians, Albarn being the only permanent musical contributor. Their style is broadly alternative rock, but with a large number of other influences including Britpop, dub, hip-hop, and pop music.^[8][9] In 2001, the band's eponymous debut album sold over seven million copies, and featured hits such as the songs "19-2000" and "Clint Eastwood," earning them an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band.^[10] It was nominated for the Mercury Prize 2001, but the nomination was later withdrawn at the band's request.^[11]

Their second studio album, Demon Days, was released in 2005 and included the singles "Feel Good Inc.", "Dare", "Dirty Harry" and "Kids With Guns"/"El Mañana". Demon Days went five times platinum in the UK,^[12] double platinum in the United States^[13] and earned five Grammy Award nominations for 2006^[14] and won one of them in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category.^[15] In November 2005, they staged the first-ever live performances of Demon Days Live involving many of the artists who had played on the successful Demon Days album, as a launch event for the festival. Gorillaz have also released two B-sides compilations and a remix album. The combined sales of Gorillaz and Demon Days had, by 2007, exceeded 15 million albums.^[16]

Gorillaz released their third studio album, Plastic Beach in early 2010, which was received with high praise. In December 2010, the group released an album called The Fall which was recorded over 32 days during their North American tour. The band also appeared on the Snoop Dogg track: "Sumthing' Like this Night" on his album: "Doggumentary".

During November, Gorillaz announced that on 23 February 2012, Gorillaz will release a new line of Converse sneakers designed by Jamie Hewlett. The selection of footwear is carried at Journeys stores in the US and Schuh stores in the UK. Gorillaz will release a new one off single to accompany with the release of these shoes as a part of Converse's "Three Artists, One Song" campaign.^[17] On 9 February 2012, Gorillaz confirmed that the single will be called "DoYaThing", and that the two collaborators working on this single will be James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Andre 3000 of Outkast. 2D will rap for the first two verses, James Murphy will sing the chorus, and Andre 3000 then overtakes the rest of the track with another rap verse. The track is available for free download in Journeys stores by scanning the QR Code on display items. There will also be an explicit, 12 Minute long version of the single released on a later date. It has also been confirmed that Jamie Hewlett is working on a new Music Video for this single, featuring animated versions of the two collaborators on this track.^[18][19] Murdoc also stated that the music video will feature the Gorillaz' new HQ, for which they have abandoned Plastic Beach.

In a recent interview, Albarn talked about the unlikelihood of any future releases from the Gorillaz. His relationship with artist Jamie Hewlett soured when Albarn chose to undercut the role of animation on their Plastic Beach Tour. ^[20]

Solo career and side-projects[link]

He also released Democrazy in 2003, a collection of demos he recorded while staying in hotel rooms on the U.S. portion of Blur's tour for Think Tank.

In late 2011 Damon Albarn confirmed he is recording a solo album under his name, inspired by "empty club music".^[21]

African music[link]

Albarn released Mali Music in 2002, recorded in Mali, during a trip he made to support Oxfam in 2000. He has also visited Nigeria to record music with African drummer Tony Allen.

Collaborating with producers Dan the Automator, XL Recordings, Richard Russell & Rodiadh McDonald, Jneiro Jarel, DJ Darren Cunningham aka Actress, Marc Antoine, Alwest, Remi Kabaka Jr., Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Kwes, Damon Albarn went to Kinshasa for one week to record an album called Kinshasa One Two.^[22] The Congolese band Tout Puissant Mukalo joined them as well. All proceeds will benefit Oxfam's work in the DRC.^[23] The album was released by Warp Records. ^[24]

The Good, the Bad and the Queen[link]

Albarn in 2007

In May 2006, NME reported that Albarn was working with Danger Mouse on his first solo album, tentatively titled The Good, the Bad & the Queen. However, in July 2006, NME Music reported that those plans had been switched to the formation of a new band titled The Good, the Bad & the Queen. This proved to be inaccurate, as Albarn and other members of the group have indicated that The Good, the Bad & the Queen is the name of the album and not the band itself.^[25][26][27] The album was awarded Best Album at the 2007 MOJO Awards on 18 June.^[28]

The group's line-up is composed of Albarn, former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, The Verve/Gorillaz guitarist Simon Tong, and drummer Tony Allen of Fela Kuti's band, The Africa '70. Danger Mouse produced the album and decided on the final track listing.

The first single by the line-up, "Herculean", was released in late October 2006, and peaked at No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart. A second single, "Kingdom of Doom", and the band's debut album were then released in January 2007. That single fared slightly better than "Herculean", peaking at No. 20, while the album peaked at No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart and went gold during its first week of release in the UK. "Green Fields" was released as the third single from the album in April 2007, just missing out on the Top 50.

On 27 April 2008, The Good, the Bad & the Queen headlined the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival in Victoria Park where they introduced on stage several guests including ex-Specials keyboard player Jerry Dammers. He also worked with Syrian rapper and friend Eslam Jawaad on the song "Mr. Whippy", though the song does not appear on the album it is a B-Side on the Herculean single.

Rocket Juice & the Moon[link]

Rocket Juice & the Moon is the title of Albarn's new side-project featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and afrobeat legend Tony Allen. Albarn said that he is not responsible for the name and that someone in Lagos did the sleeve design and that’s the name he gave it, which he said he is fine with because trying to find a name for another band is always tricky. The band performed together for the first time on 28 October 2011 in Cork, Ireland, as part of the annual Cork Jazz Festival, under the moniker Another Honest Jon's Chop Up!. A full tour is not expected anytime soon due to the Red Hot Chili Peppers tour lasting until 2013. Their debut album was released on 26 March 2012.^[29]

Other appearances[link]

Albarn has also appeared on other unrelated works. Albarn was asked, alongside Blur bandmate Graham Coxon, to remix the Massive Attack song "Angel" for the single release, in 1998. Albarn then adopted the pseudonym of "Control Freak" for his remixing career. He only ever used the name once in a remix, when he remixed the Blur song "Bugman" as Control Freak for the single release of "Coffee & TV" in summer 1999. The Rentals' 1999 Album Seven More Minutes features Albarn on the track "Big Daddy C".

Albarn contributed backing vocals to a song on Massive Attack's 100th Window, released in 2003. More recently, on Massive Attack's 2010 Heligoland album, he sang on the track "Saturday Come Slow" and contributed keyboards to the track "Splitting the Atom".^[30] Albarn also appeared on the Nathan Haines' song "Squire for Hire", however Albarn credited it to Gorillaz' frontman 2D instead. Fatboy Slim's 2004 release Palookaville featured Albarn's vocals on the song "Put It Back Together". Albarn provided the voice-over intro and backing vocals in the song "Time Keeps On Slipping" for the rap concept album Deltron 3030, and featured on the track "Lovage (Love That Lovage, Baby)" for the Lovage album Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. Both albums were produced by Dan the Automator, who also produced Gorillaz' debut album. In 2008, he also produced parts of Amadou & Mariam's fifth album Welcome to Mali.

Film, theatre and soundtrack work[link]

His song "Closet Romantic" appeared on the soundtrack for Trainspotting alongside an early Blur recording, "Sing". Albarn composed the score with collaboration by Michael Nyman for the 1999 movie Ravenous with Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle. He composed the soundtrack to the 2000 Icelandic film 101 Reykjavík. In 2000, he composed the main part of the soundtrack for the crime comedy Ordinary Decent Criminal.

In their first major work together since Gorillaz, Albarn and Hewlett, along with acclaimed Chinese theatre and opera director Chen Shi-zheng, adapted for stage the Chinese story Journey to the West. as "Monkey: Journey to the West", which received its world premiere as the opening show of the 2007 Manchester International Festival, on 28 June 2007 at the Palace Theatre, Manchester.^[31] Albarn wrote the score, Hewlett designed the set and costumes. The opera was Albarn and Hewlett's second collaboration with the Manchester International Festival.

In collaboration with theatre director Rufus Norris, Albarn has created an opera for the 2011 Manchester International Festival based on the life of Elizabethan scientist John Dee and titled Doctor Dee.^[32]

Albarn is set to record the film score for the film The Boy in the Oak, which was written by his sister, Jessica Albarn. The film was set for a spring 2011 release in selected theatres.^[33]

Acting career[link]

Albarn starred in Antonia Bird's 1997 film Face alongside Ray Winstone and Robert Carlisle. Albarn was also featured in Gunar Karlsson's 2007 film Anna and the Moods. Albarn also played Bull in Joe Orton's "Up Against It", a Radio 4 play about The Beatles broadcast in 1998.

Personal life[link]

Albarn had a long-standing relationship with Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann.^[4] His involvement with her profoundly influenced his songwriting in Blur in the mid-to-late 1990s.

In the 1990s he spent a good deal of time in Reykjavík, and owns a home in Grafarvogur, a suburb of Reykjavík. He currently lives in Bayswater, London with artist Suzi Winstanley, and their daughter.

Albarn's grandfather, Edward Albarn, was a conscientious objector during the Second World War and was involved in a farming community in Lincolnshire. Albarn himself is outspokenly anti-war and has criticised British involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.^{[citation needed]} In 2002, he and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack took out full page advertisements in the NME challenging the need for war.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005 Albarn, among others, criticised the London Live 8 concert for not featuring enough black artists; among the few included were Ms. Dynamite, Snoop Dogg, and Youssou N'Dour. Eventually the organisers added a separate concert at the Eden Project in Cornwall to the programme in order to showcase African musicians. Albarn said he did not want to perform at Live 8 because he thought it was too "exclusive" and may have been motivated by self-promotion.^[30]

Albarn has been a vocal critic of celebrity culture:

"We need to dismantle very significant parts of our culture and really re-examine them. I suppose you start with the celebrity thing... you have to get rid of things like The X Factor immediately."^[34]

In 2006, Albarn was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from the University of East London,^[35] saying it was "great to receive [the] award from an institution where my dad used to work and which I, as a child, used to think of as that big building with lots of interesting people in".^[36]

Albarn is a vegetarian, and a fan of English football club Chelsea.

Solo discography[link]

Solo albums

• Democrazy (2003)

Collaboration albums

• Mali Music (2002) (with Afel Bocoum, Toumani Diabaté & Friends) No. 81 (UK)
• The Good, the Bad & the Queen (2007) (with Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong) No. 2 (UK)
• Kinshasa One Two (2011) (as part of DRC Music)
• Rocket Juice & the Moon (2012) (with Flea and Tony Allen)

Film and theatre soundtracks

• Ravenous (1999) (with Michael Nyman)
• 101 Reykjavík (2002) (with Einar Örn Benediktsson)
• Journey to the West (2008) No. 5 (UK)
• Dr Dee (2012)

See also[link]

• Honorific nicknames in popular music

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Damon Albarn

• Damon Albarn pieces including video interviews on BBC Imagine...
• Damon Albarn interview at musicOMH
• Albarn's Mali mission – BBC News
• Damon Albarn at the Internet Movie Database

Richard Cockerill

Full name	Richard Cockerill
Date of birth	(1970-12-16) 16 December 1970 (age 41)
Place of birth	Rugby, Warwickshire
School	Harris Church of England School
Occupation(s)	Director of Rugby
Rugby union career
Playing career
Position	Hooker
Professional / senior clubs
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1992–2002 2002–2004 2004–2005	Leicester Tigers Montferrand Leicester Tigers	224 5	60 0
National team(s)
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1997–1999	England	27	15
Coaching career
Years	Club / team
2005 –	Leicester Tigers
Rugby union career

Richard Cockerill (born 16 December 1970) is a former English rugby union footballer who played as a hooker.

Cockerill was born in Rugby. Joining Leicester Tigers, he established himself as the B of the "ABC club" alongside Graham Rowntree (A) and Darren Garforth (C).

He made his England debut against Argentina in 1997 and later his first match at Twickenham was as a half-time replacement for the Bath hooker Andy Long in Clive Woodward's first match in charge against the Wallabies; Long was young and clearly out of his depth. Cockerill's performance earned him a starting place against New Zealand, where he stood up to Norm Hewitt during the haka (see book cover).

A dip in form led him to lose his first choice hooking position at Leicester to Dorian West. He was also dropped from the England side after criticising Woodward in his book entitled In Your Face. He subsequently moved to France, but signed again for Leicester for the 2004–5 season.

In 2005 he was appointed forwards coach at Leicester Tigers succeeding John Wells.^[1]

Cockerill served as acting head coach of Leicester Tigers in the early part of the 2007–08 season before Marcelo Loffreda arrived from Argentina in the wake of the Pumas' third-place finish in the 2007 Rugby World Cup. He also took over as acting head coach in February 2009 after Heyneke Meyer resigned due to family reasons. On 17 April 2009, Cockerill was confirmed in the head coach role.^[2] On 16 May he guided Leicester to win the Guinness Premiership with a 10–9 win over London Irish in the final.^[3] A week later they lost in the final of the Heineken cup to Leinster by 19 points to 16 in Edinburgh.^[4]

Bibliography[link]

• Richard Cockerill (with Michael Tanner as a ghost writer) In Your Face: A Rugby Odyssey ISBN 1-84018-266-0

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sporting heroes
• Tigers Coaches 2008–09
• Tigers player profile

Norm Hewitt

Full name	Norman Jason Hewitt
Date of birth	(1968-11-11) 11 November 1968 (age 43)
Place of birth	Hastings, New Zealand
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Weight	108 kg (17 st 0 lb)
Rugby union career
Playing career
Position	Hooker
New Zealand No.	938
Provincial/State sides
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1988–1994 1995–1997 1999–2001	Hawke's Bay Southland Wellington	92 22 31
Super Rugby
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1996–2001	Hurricanes	66	(10)
National team(s)
Years	Club / team	Caps	(points)
1993–1998	New Zealand	9	(0)

Norman "Norm" Hewitt (born 11 November 1968) is a former New Zealand All Black rugby union player. He was selected for the New Zealand team because of his fantastic performance in Hawkes Bay's surprise victory over the British Lions in 1993. In 1997 while playing for New Zealand against England Hewitt was confronted during his side's haka (a traditional Maori war dance) by his English counterpart Richard Cockerill, during the latter's first start for his country.

He made a dramatic public apology after a drunken incident in 1998,^[1] and thereafter became an outspoken advocate of changing drinking habits. Hewitt was also the winner of season one of Dancing with the Stars (New Zealand TV series) in 2005.^[2] He donated his winnings to literacy charity Duffy Books in Homes.^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Norm Hewitt at AllBlacks.com

This biographical article relating to New Zealand Rugby Union is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco performing at the Ancienne Belgique in 2007
Background information
Birth name	Angela Marie DiFranco
Born	(1970-09-23) September 23, 1970 (age 41) Buffalo, New York
Genres	Folk rock, indie, alternative
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Guitar, bass guitar, tenor guitar, vocals, percussion, piano
Years active	1990–present
Labels	Righteous Babe
Website	righteousbabe.com

Ani DiFranco ( /ˈɑːniː/; born Angela Maria DiFranco on September 23, 1970) is an American singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums,^[1] and is widely considered a feminist icon.^[2][3][4]

Biography[link]

DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York,^[5] to Elizabeth and Dante DiFranco, who had met while attending MIT.^[6][7] She started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum,^[8] at the age of nine.

In 1989, DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Records.^[1] Early in her career DiFranco worked with manager Dale Anderson, a writer for the Buffalo News, who started another record label called Hot Wings Records, after the two parted ways, that released similar sounding material. Her self-titled debut album was issued on the label in the winter of 1990. Later, she relocated to New York City, where she took poetry classes at The New School and toured vigorously for the next 15 years, essentially pausing briefly only to record albums.

Righteous Records was renamed Righteous Babe Records in 1994.

In 1998, DiFranco's drummer, Andy Stochansky, left the band to pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. Their rapport during live shows is showcased on the 1997 album Living in Clip.

In 2002 her rendition of Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" appeared on Going Driftless: An Artists' Tribute to Greg Brown.

Her father died early in the summer of 2004.^[9] In July 2005, DiFranco developed tendonitis and took a hiatus from touring. Her 2005 tour concluded with an appearance at the FloydFest World Music and Genre Crossover festival in Floyd, Virginia. She returned to touring in late April 2006, including a performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 28 and a performance at the Calgary Folk Music Festival on July 30, 2006.

In 2005 she collaborated with fellow folk singer Dar Williams on "Comfortably Numb", a Pink Floyd cover song from Williams' album My Better Self.

DiFranco's album Reprieve was released on August 8, 2006. It was previously leaked on iTunes for several hours around July 1, 2006, due to an error saying it was released in 2002.^[10] DiFranco performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon", a track from Lauper's 2005 collection The Body Acoustic.

On September 11, 2007, she released the first retrospective of her career, titled Canon and for the first time, a collection of poetry in a book titled Verses.

Red Letter Year was released on September 30, 2008. Says DiFranco about the album:

"When I listen to my new record, I hear a very relaxed me, which I think has been absent in a lot of my recorded canon. Now I feel like I’m in a really good place. My partner Mike Napolitano co-produced this record – my guitar and voice have never sounded better, and that’s because of him. I’ve got this great band and crew. And my baby, she teaches me how to just be in my skin, to do less and be more."^[11]

DiFranco performed a live webcast from Ex'pression College for Digital Arts^[12] on June 24, 2010. She debuted a selection of new material, including the songs "Which Side Are You On?" (a reworking of the Florence Reece song with different lyrics penned by DiFranco), "Life Boat", "Unworry", "Promiscuity", "Splinter", "Amendment", "See See..." and "Hearse".

In 2010, DiFranco sued hip-hop horrorcore artist Necro for sampling her song, "Used to You" in a response track called "The Asshole Anthem" on his DIE! album. Due to the lawsuit, the album was reissued without the track.^[13]

She has continued touring through 2011. As of 2008 her backing band consists of Todd Sickafoose on upright bass, Allison Miller on drums, and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes. DiFranco returned to the Calgary Folk Music Festival in July 2008.

She is also a poet and has been featured on Def Jam's poetry hour.

DiFranco released an album of new material on January 17, 2012, titled "¿Which Side Are You On?". It includes collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans-based horn players known for their work in such outfits as Galactic, Bonerama, and Rebirth Brass Band.

She and her husband currently reside in New Orleans.^[14][15]

Ani DiFranco, RZA, and Steve Albini at
The New Yorker festival in September 2005.

Relationships[link]

DiFranco identifies herself as bisexual,^[16][17] and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality with the song "In or Out". In 1998, she married sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada, overseen by folk singer Utah Phillips.^{[citation needed]} DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced five years later.

DiFranco gave birth to a daughter, Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano,^[18] at her Buffalo home on January 20, 2007. She married the child's father Mike Napolitano,^[19] also her regular producer, in 2009.

Critical reception[link]

DiFranco has been a critical darling for much of her career, if not always a commercial one, with a career album average of 72 on Metacritic.^[20] DiFranco has been toasted by the Buffalo News as the "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music." The News further said:

"Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."^[21]

Starting in 2003, DiFranco was nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, winning in 2004, for Evolve.

On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the "Woman of Courage Award"^[22] at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. Past winners have included singer and actress Barbra Streisand and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. DiFranco is one of the first musicians to receive the award, given each year to a woman who has set herself apart by her contributions to the feminist movement.

Music[link]

Guitar style and collaborations[link]

DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style,^[23][24] rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.

Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including musician Prince, who recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999 ("Providence" on her To the Teeth album, and "I Love U, but I Don't Trust U Anymore" on Prince's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic album); folk musician and social activist Utah Phillips (on The Past Didn't Go Anywhere in 1996 and Fellow Workers in 1999); funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker; and rapper Corey Parker. She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's Little Plastic Castle; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin'"; strings on the 1997 live album Living in Clip and 2004's Knuckle Down; and electronics and synthesisers in 1999's To the Teeth and 2006's Reprieve. Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album Live Without Dead Time, produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.

DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."^[25]

Lyrics, politics and religion[link]

Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami. The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.^{[citation needed]}

DiFranco has expressed political views outside of her music. During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.^[26][27][28] She supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. Kucinich appeared with her at a number of concerts across the country during both primary seasons.^[29][30] DiFranco went on to perform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Early in her career, DiFranco considered herself an atheist. On the subject of religion, DiFranco has stated:

"Well, I'm not a religious person myself. I'm an atheist. I think religion serves a lot of different purposes in people's lives, and I can recognize the value of that, you know, the value of ceremony, the value of community, or even just having a forum to get together and talk about ideas, about morals – that's a cool concept. But then, of course, institutional religions are so problematic."^[31]

Since becoming a mother and releasing her Red Letter Year album in 2009, DiFranco has talked in concert about "finding religion".^{[citation needed]} At concerts she has stated that her song "The Atom" is an "alternative Christian proposal". In "The Atom" she sings ”Oh holy is the atom/ The truly intelligent design/ To which all of evolution/ Is graciously aligned.” In Reno in 2008 prior to singing "The Atom", she said "I've kind of gotten religion lately, I took a sweet religion, one I am sort of familiar with and sprayed a can of patriarchy-off and this is what I came up with."^{[citation needed]}

Label independence[link]

DiFranco was one of the first independent artists to own her own label, which has allowed her a considerable degree of creative freedom over the years, including, for example, providing all instrumentals and vocals and recording the album herself at her home on an analog 8-track reel to reel, and handling much of the artwork and packaging design for her 2004 album Educated Guess.^[32] She has referenced this independence from major labels in song more than once, including "The Million You Never Made" (Not A Pretty Girl), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" (Not So Soft), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" (Dilate), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label.

DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. Righteous Babe Records employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to Ms. magazine^[33] she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success.

[edit] Discography

Studio albums[link]

	"Napoleon" noicon from Dilate
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

• 1990 – Ani DiFranco
• 1991 – Not So Soft
• 1992 – Imperfectly
• 1993 – Puddle Dive
• 1994 – Out of Range
• 1995 – Not a Pretty Girl
• 1996 – Dilate
• 1998 – Little Plastic Castle
• 1999 – Up Up Up Up Up Up
• 1999 – To the Teeth
• 2001 – Revelling/Reckoning
• 2003 – Evolve
• 2004 – Educated Guess
• 2005 – Knuckle Down
• 2006 – Reprieve
• 2008 – Red Letter Year
• 2012 - ¿Which Side Are You On?

Compilations[link]

• 1993 – Like I Said: Songs 1990–91^[34]
• 2007 – Canon

Live albums[link]

• 1994 – An Acoustic Evening With
• 1994 – Women in (E)motion (German Import)
• 1997 – Living in Clip
• 2002 – So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter
• 2004 – Atlanta – 10.9.03 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2004 – Sacramento – 10.25.03 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2004 – Portland – 4.7.04 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2005 – Boston – 11.16.03 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2005 – Chicago – 1.17.04 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2005 – Madison – 1.25.04 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2005 – Rome – 11.15.04 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2006 – Carnegie Hall – 4.6.02 (Official Bootleg series – available in stores)
• 2007 – Boston – 11.10.06 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2008 – Hamburg – 10.18.07 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2009 – Saratoga, CA – 9.18.06 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2009 – Chicago – 9.22.07 (Official Bootleg series)
• 2010 – Live at Bull Moose Music (Limited edition)^[35]

EPs[link]

• 1996 – More Joy, Less Shame
• 1999 – Little Plastic Remixes (limited distribution)
• 2000 – Swing Set

Demos[link]

• 1989 – Demo tape (unreleased)

Videos[link]

• 2002 – Render: Spanning Time with Ani DiFranco
• 2004 – Trust
• 2008 – Live at Babeville

Poetry[link]

• 2004 – "Self-evident: poesie e disegni"
• 2007 – Verses

Other contributions[link]

• 2004 – WFUV: City Folk Live VII – "Bliss Like This"
• 2006 – Jason Karaban – "Doomed to Make Choices"
• 2008 – The City That Care Forgot – Contributed backing vocals to the title track of Dr. John's 2008 album.
• 2009 – Jason Karaban – "Sobriety Kills"
• 2010 – Anais Mitchell – "Hadestown"
• 2011 – Twilight Singers – "Blackbird and the Fox"
• 2011 – Every Mother Counts – "Present/Infant" (Remix)

See also[link]

• Righteous Babe Records
• Category:Righteous Babe artists

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ani DiFranco

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ani DiFranco

• The Righteous Babe homepage
• Ani DiFranco at the Internet Movie Database
• Ani DiFranco discography at MusicBrainz
• Ani DiFranco at Rolling Stone
• Works by or about Ani DiFranco in libraries (WorldCat catalog)