Ferns (Pteridophyta) Temporal range: Mid Devonian[1]—Recent PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Athyrium filix-femina unrolling young frond
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pteridophyta
Classes[2]
†Cladoxylopsida Psilotopsida Equisetopsida (alias Sphenopsida) Marattiopsida Polypodiopsida (alias Pteridopsida, Filicopsida) †Zygopteridales †Stauropteridales †Rhacophytales

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta.^[3] Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem (making them vascular plants). They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants. Ferns reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers.

By far the largest group of ferns are the leptosporangiate ferns, but ferns as defined here (also called monilophytes) include horsetails, whisk ferns, marattioid ferns, and ophioglossoid ferns. The term pteridophyte also refers to ferns and a few other seedless vascular plants (see classification section below).

Ferns first appear in the fossil record 360 million years ago in the Carboniferous but many of the current families and species did not appear until roughly 145 million years ago in the early Cretaceous (after flowering plants came to dominate many environments).

Ferns are not of major economic importance, but some are grown or gathered for food, as ornamental plants, for remediating contaminated soils, and have been the subject of research for their ability to remove some chemical pollutants from the air. Some are significant weeds. They also play a role in mythology, medicine, and art.

Life cycle[link]

Gametophyte (thalloid green mass) and sporophyte (ascendent frond) of Onoclea sensibilis

Ferns are vascular plants differing from lycophytes by having true leaves (megaphylls), which are often pinnate. They differ from seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms) in their mode of reproduction—lacking flowers and seeds. Like all other vascular plants, they have a life cycle referred to as alternation of generations, characterized by alternating diploid sporophytic and haploid gametophytic phases. The diploid sporophyte has 2n paired chromosomes, where n varies from species to species. The haploid gametophyte has n unpaired chromosomes, i.e. half the number of the sporophyte. Unlike the gymnosperms and angiosperms, the ferns' gametophyte is a free-living organism.

Life cycle of a typical fern:

1. A diploid sporophyte phase produces haploid spores by meiosis (a process of cell division which reduces the number of chromosomes by a half).
2. A spore grows into a haploid gametophyte by mitosis (a process of cell division which maintains the number of chromosomes). The gametophyte typically consists of a photosynthetic prothallus.
3. The gametophyte produces gametes (often both sperm and eggs on the same prothallus) by mitosis.
4. A mobile, flagellate sperm fertilizes an egg that remains attached to the prothallus.
5. The fertilized egg is now a diploid zygote and grows by mitosis into a diploid sporophyte (the typical "fern" plant).

Fern ecology[link]

Ferns at Muir Woods, California

The stereotypic image of ferns growing in moist shady woodland nooks is far from being a complete picture of the habitats where ferns can be found growing. Fern species live in a wide variety of habitats, from remote mountain elevations, to dry desert rock faces, to bodies of water or in open fields. Ferns in general may be thought of as largely being specialists in marginal habitats, often succeeding in places where various environmental factors limit the success of flowering plants. Some ferns are among the world's most serious weed species, including the bracken fern growing in the Scottish highlands, or the mosquito fern (Azolla) growing in tropical lakes, both species forming large aggressively spreading colonies. There are four particular types of habitats that ferns are found in: moist, shady forests; crevices in rock faces, especially when sheltered from the full sun; acid wetlands including bogs and swamps; and tropical trees, where many species are epiphytes (something like a quarter to a third of all fern species^[4]).

Many ferns depend on associations with mycorrhizal fungi. Many ferns only grow within specific pH ranges; for instance, the climbing fern (Lygodium) of eastern North America will only grow in moist, intensely acid soils, while the bulblet bladder fern (Cystopteris bulbifera), with an overlapping range, is only found on limestone.

The spores are rich in lipids, protein and calories, so some vertebrates eat these. The European woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) has been found to eat the spores of Culcita macrocarpa and the bullfinch (Pyrrhula murina) and the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) also eat fern spores.^[5]

Fern structure[link]

Ferns at the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens

Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica, growing in Nunniong, Australia

Like the sporophytes of seed plants, those of ferns consist of:

• Stems: Most often an underground creeping rhizome, but sometimes an above-ground creeping stolon (e.g., Polypodiaceae), or an above-ground erect semi-woody trunk (e.g., Cyatheaceae) reaching up to 20 m in a few species (e.g., Cyathea brownii on Norfolk Island and Cyathea medullaris in New Zealand).
• Leaf: The green, photosynthetic part of the plant. In ferns, it is often referred to as a frond, but this is because of the historical division between people who study ferns and people who study seed plants, rather than because of differences in structure. New leaves typically expand by the unrolling of a tight spiral called a crozier or fiddlehead. This uncurling of the leaf is termed circinate vernation. Leaves are divided into three types:
  • Trophophyll: A leaf that does not produce spores, instead only producing sugars by photosynthesis. Analogous to the typical green leaves of seed plants.
  • Sporophyll: A leaf that produces spores. These leaves are analogous to the scales of pine cones or to stamens and pistil in gymnosperms and angiosperms, respectively. Unlike the seed plants, however, the sporophylls of ferns are typically not very specialized, looking similar to trophophylls and producing sugars by photosynthesis as the trophophylls do.
  • Brophophyll: A leaf that produces abnormally large amounts of spores. Their leaves are also larger than the other leaves but bear a resemblance to trophophylls.
• Roots: The underground non-photosynthetic structures that take up water and nutrients from soil. They are always fibrous and are structurally very similar to the roots of seed plants.

The gametophytes of ferns, however, are very different from those of seed plants. They typically consist of:

• Prothallus: A green, photosynthetic structure that is one cell thick, usually heart or kidney shaped, 3–10 mm long and 2–8 mm broad. The prothallus produces gametes by means of:
  • Antheridia: Small spherical structures that produce flagellate sperm.
  • Archegonia: A flask-shaped structure that produces a single egg at the bottom, reached by the sperm by swimming down the neck.
• Rhizoids: root-like structures (not true roots) that consist of single greatly elongated cells, water and mineral salts are absorbed over the whole structure. Rhizoids anchor the prothallus to the soil.

One difference between sporophytes and gametophytes might be summed up by the saying that "Nothing eats ferns, but everything eats gametophytes." This is an over-simplification, but it is true that gametophytes are often difficult to find in the field because they are far more likely to be food than are the sporophytes.

Evolution and classification[link]

Ferns first appear in the fossil record in the early-Carboniferous period. By the Triassic, the first evidence of ferns related to several modern families appeared. The "great fern radiation" occurred in the late-Cretaceous, when many modern families of ferns first appeared.

One problem with fern classification is the problem of cryptic species. A cryptic species is a species that is morphologically similar to another species, but differs genetically in ways that prevent fertile interbreeding. A good example of this is the currently designated species Asplenium trichomanes, the maidenhair spleenwort. This is actually a species complex that includes distinct diploid and tetraploid races. There are minor but unclear morphological differences between the two groups, which prefer distinctly differing habitats. In many cases such as this, the species complexes have been separated into separate species, thus raising the number of overall fern species. Possibly many more cryptic species are yet to be discovered and designated.

Ferns have traditionally been grouped in the Class Filices, but modern classifications assign them their own phylum or division in the plant kingdom, called Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as Polypodiophyta, (or Polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of tracheophyta (vascular plants), although Polypodiopsida sometimes refers to only the leptosporangiate ferns). The term "pteridophyte" has traditionally been used to describe all seedless vascular plants, making it synonymous with "ferns and fern allies". This can be confusing since members of the fern phylum Pteridophyta are also sometimes referred to as pteridophytes.

Traditionally, three discrete groups of plants have been considered ferns: two groups of eusporangiate ferns—families Ophioglossaceae (adders-tongues, moonworts, and grape-ferns) and Marattiaceae—and the leptosporangiate ferns. The Marattiaceae are a primitive group of tropical ferns with a large, fleshy rhizome, and are now thought to be a sibling taxon to the main group of ferns, the leptosporangiate ferns. Several other groups of plants were considered "fern allies": the clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts in the Lycopodiophyta, the whisk ferns in Psilotaceae, and the horsetails in the Equisetaceae. More recent genetic studies have shown that the Lycopodiophyta are more distantly related to other vascular plants, having radiated evolutionarily at the base of the vascular plant clade, while both the whisk ferns and horsetails are as much "true" ferns as are the Ophioglossoids and Marattiaceae. In fact, the whisk ferns and Ophioglossoids are demonstrably a clade, and the horsetails and Marattiaceae are arguably another clade. Molecular data—which remain poorly constrained for many parts of the plants' phylogeny — have been supplemented by recent morphological observations supporting the inclusion of Equisetaceae within the ferns, notably relating to the construction of their sperm, and peculiarities of their roots.^[2] However, there are still differences of opinion about the placement of the Equisetum species (see Equisetopsida for further discussion). One possible means of treating this situation is to consider only the leptosporangiate ferns as "true" ferns, while considering the other three groups as "fern allies". In practice, numerous classification schemes have been proposed for ferns and fern allies, and there has been little consensus among them.

A 2006 classification by Smith et al. is based on recent molecular systematic studies, in addition to morphological data. Their phylogeny is a consensus of a number of studies, and is shown below (to the level of orders).^[2][6]

Their classification based on this phylogeny divides extant ferns into four classes:

• Psilotopsida (whisk ferns and ophioglossoid ferns), about 92 species^[7]
• Equisetopsida (horsetails), about 15 species^[7]
• Marattiopsida, about 150 species^[7]
• Polypodiopsida (leptosporangiate ferns), over 9000 species^[7]

The last group includes most plants familiarly known as ferns. Modern research supports older ideas based on morphology that the Osmundaceae diverged early in the evolutionary history of the leptosporangiate ferns; in certain ways this family is intermediate between the eusporangiate ferns and the leptosporangiate ferns. Research by Rai and Graham since this 2006 classification broadly supports the division into four groups, but queries their relationships, concluding that "at present perhaps the best that can be said about all relationships among the major lineages of monilophytes in current studies is that we do not understand them very well".^[8]

Uses[link]

Ferns are not as important economically as seed plants but have considerable importance in some societies. Some ferns are used for food, including the fiddleheads of bracken, Pteridium aquilinum, ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, and cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamomea. Diplazium esculentum is also used by some tropical peoples as food. Tubers from the King Fern or para (Ptisana salicina) are a traditional food in New Zealand and the South Pacific. Fern tubers were used for food 30,000 years ago in Europe.^[9][10] Fern tubers were used by the Guanches to make gofio in the Canary Islands. Licorice fern rhizomes were chewed by the natives of the Pacific Northwest for their flavor.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns of the genus Azolla are very small, floating plants that do not resemble ferns. Called mosquito fern, they are used as a biological fertilizer in the rice paddies of southeast Asia, taking advantage of their ability to fix nitrogen from the air into compounds that can then be used by other plants.^{[citation needed]}

Many ferns are grown in horticulture as landscape plants, for cut foliage and as houseplants, especially the Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and other members of the genus Nephrolepis. The Bird's Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus) is also popular, as is the staghorn ferns (genus Platycerium). Perennial (also known as hardy) ferns planted in gardens in the northern hemisphere also have a considerable following.^{[citation needed]}

Several ferns are noxious weeds or invasive species, including Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum), mosquito fern and sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis). Giant water fern (Salvinia molesta) is one of the world's worst aquatic weeds. The important fossil fuel coal consists of the remains of primitive plants, including ferns.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns have been studied and found to be useful in the removal of heavy metals, especially arsenic, from the soil. Other ferns with some economic significance include:^{[citation needed]}

• Dryopteris filix-mas (male fern), used as a vermifuge, and formerly in the US Pharmacopeia; also, this fern accidentally sprouting in a bottle resulted in Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's 1829 invention of the terrarium or Wardian case
• Rumohra adiantiformis (floral fern), extensively used in the florist trade
• Microsorum pteropus (Java fern), one of the most popular freshwater aquarium plants.
• Osmunda regalis (royal fern) and Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), the root fiber being used horticulturally; the fiddleheads of O. cinnamomea are also used as a cooked vegetable
• Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in North America
• Pteridium aquilinum or Pteridium esculentum (bracken), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in Japan and are believed to be responsible for the high rate of stomach cancer in Japan. It is also one of the world's most important agricultural weeds, especially in the British highlands, and often poisons cattle and horses.
• Diplazium esculentum (vegetable fern), a source of food for some native societies
• Pteris vittata (brake fern), used to absorb arsenic from the soil
• Polypodium glycyrrhiza (licorice fern), roots chewed for their pleasant flavor
• Tree ferns, used as building material in some tropical areas
• Cyathea cooperi (Australian tree fern), an important invasive species in Hawaii
• Ceratopteris richardii, a model plant for teaching and research, often called C-fern

Culture[link]

Blätter des Manns Walfarn. by Alois Auer, Vienna: Imperial Printing Office, 1853

Pteridologist[link]

The study of ferns and other pteridophytes is called pteridology. A pteridologist is a specialist in the study of pteridophytes in a broader sense that includes the more distantly related lycophytes.

Pteridomania[link]

"Pteridomania"' is a term for the Victorian era craze of fern collecting and fern motifs in decorative art including pottery, glass, metals, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture "appearing on everything from christening presents to gravestones and memorials." The fashion for growing ferns indoors led to the development of the Wardian case, a glazed cabinet that would exclude air pollutants and maintain the necessary humidity.^[11]

Barnsley fern created using chaos game, through an Iterated function system (IFS).

The dried form of ferns was also used in other arts, being used as a stencil or directly inked for use in a design. The botanical work, The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, is a notable example of this type of nature printing. The process, patented by the artist and publisher Henry Bradbury, impressed a specimen on to a soft lead plate. The first publication to demonstrate this was Alois Auer's The Discovery of the Nature Printing-Process.

New Zealand icon[link]

The silver fern in particular has a prominent place within New Zealand culture. Its leaf features as the emblem of many of the country's top national sports teams, including the eponymous Silver Ferns and the All Blacks.

Folklore[link]

Ferns figure in folklore, for example in legends about mythical flowers or seeds.^[12] In Slavic folklore, ferns are believed to bloom once a year, during the Ivan Kupala night. Although alleged to be exceedingly difficult to find, anyone who sees a "fern flower" is thought to be guaranteed to be happy and rich for the rest of their life. Similarly, Finnish tradition holds that one who finds the "seed" of a fern in bloom on Midsummer night will, by possession of it, be guided and be able to travel invisibly to the locations where eternally blazing Will o' the wisps called aarnivalkea mark the spot of hidden treasure. These spots are protected by a spell that prevents anyone but the fern-seed holder from ever knowing their locations.^[13]

Misunderstood names[link]

Several non-fern plants are called "ferns" and are sometimes confused with true ferns. These include:

• "Asparagus fern"—This may apply to one of several species of the monocot genus Asparagus, which are flowering plants.
• "Sweetfern"—A flowering shrub of the genus Comptonia.
• "Air fern"—A group of animals called hydrozoan that are distantly related to jellyfish and corals. They are harvested, dried, dyed green, and then sold as a "plant" that can "live on air". While it may look like a fern, it is merely the skeleton of this colonial animal.
• "Fern bush"—Chamaebatiaria millefolium—a rose family shrub with fern-like leaves.

In addition, the book Where the Red Fern Grows has elicited many questions about the mythical "red fern" named in the book. There is no such known plant, although there has been speculation that the oblique grape-fern, Sceptridium dissectum, could be referred to here, because it is known to appear on disturbed sites and its fronds may redden over the winter. Also, the autumn fern, Dryopteris erythrosora, is well-known for its copper-red color.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Adiantum lunulatum

• 

  Fern leaf, probably Blechnum nudum

• 

  A tree fern unrolling a new frond

• 

  Tree fern, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  "Filicinae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904

• 

  Unidentified tree fern in Oaxaca

• 

  Tree Fern Spores San Diego, CA

• 

  Leaf of fern

• 

  Unidentified fern with spores showing in Rotorua, NZ.

• 

  Ferns in one of many natural Coast Redwood undergrowth settings Santa Cruz, CA.

• 

  Nature prints in The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland used fronds to produce the plates

• 

  A young, newly-formed fern frond

• 

  Fern fronds

• 

  Fern bed under a forest canopy in woods near Franklin, Virginia

• 

  Pyrrosia piloselloides, Dragon's Scale, in Malaysia

• 

  Fern growing on a wall

• 

  Spores of Dryopteris filix-mas

See also[link]

• British Pteridological Society
• Fern gall
• Fern spike
• Fern sports
• Fiddlehead greens
• Pteridomania

References[link]

• Pryer, Kathleen M., Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith, Raymond Cranfill, Paul G. Wolf, Jeffrey S. Hunt and Sedonia D. Sipes. 2001. Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants. Nature 409: 618–622 (abstract here).
• Pryer, Kathleen M., Eric Schuettpelz, Paul G. Wolf, Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith and Raymond Cranfill. 2004. Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences. American Journal of Botany 91:1582–1598 (online abstract here).
• Moran, Robbin C. (2004). A Natural History of Ferns. Portland, OR: Timber Press. ISBN 0-88192-667-1.
• Lord, Thomas R. (2006). Ferns and Fern Allies of Pennsylvania. Indiana, PA: Pinelands Press. [1]

External links[link]

Wikispecies has information related to: Pteridophyta

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pteridophyta

• Tree of Life Web Project: Filicopsida
• A classification of the ferns and their allies
• A fern book bibliography
• Register of fossil Pteridophyta
• L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (2004 onwards). The Ferns (Filicopsida) of the British Isles.
• Ferns and Pteridomania in Victorian Scotland
• Non-seed plant images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
• "American Fern Society"
• "British Pteridological Society"
• Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World

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Iron & Wine
Beam at a 2006 concert at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool
Background information
Birth name	Samuel Beam
Born	(1974-07-26) July 26, 1974 (age 37) Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S.
Genres	Folk Folk rock
Instruments	Vocals, Guitar, Banjo
Labels	Sub Pop Warner Bros./4AD
Associated acts	Calexico, Rosie Thomas
Website	www.ironandwine.com

Iron & Wine's performance at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco

Samuel Beam (born July 26, 1974), better known by his stage and recording name Iron & Wine, is an American singer-songwriter. He has released four studio albums, several EPs and singles, as well as a few download-only releases, which include a live album (a recording of his 2005 Bonnaroo performance). He occasionally tours with a full band.^[1]

Beam was raised in South Carolina before moving to Virginia and then Florida to attend school. He now resides in Dripping Springs, near Austin, Texas.^[2] The name Iron & Wine is taken from a dietary supplement named "Beef Iron & Wine" that he found in a general store while shooting a film.^[3][4]

Early life[link]

Beam was raised in Chapin, South Carolina, where his father worked in land management and his mother was a schoolteacher. When he was a child, his family took regular trips to the country, where his grandfather ran a farm. He attended Seven Oaks Elementary School, Irmo Middle School, and Chapin High School. While home from college, he was a waiter at California Dreaming restaurant in Columbia. Beam earned a bachelor's degree in art from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.^[5] He specialized in painting. He graduated from the Florida State University Film School with an MFA degree. Before the release of the first Iron & Wine album, Beam's main source of income was as a professor of film and cinematography at the University of Miami and Miami International University of Art & Design.^[6] He had been writing songs for over seven years before a friend lent him a four-track recorder. He began making demos and gave one to his friend Michael Bridwell, brother of Band of Horses lead singer, Ben Bridwell. Michael handed it to Mike McGonigal, editor of Yeti magazine, who chose "Dead Man's Will", later released on In the Reins, for inclusion on one of his magazine's compilation CDs. Beam later came to the attention of Sub Pop Records co-owner, Jonathan Poneman, who contacted Beam to propose a deal.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Musical career[link]

Beam released his first Iron & Wine album, The Creek Drank the Cradle, on the Sub Pop label in 2002. Beam wrote, performed, recorded and produced the album in his home studio. Featuring acoustic guitars, banjo, and slide guitar, the album's music has been compared to that of Nick Drake,^[11] Simon and Garfunkel,^[12] Elliott Smith, Neil Young and John Fahey.

Also in 2002, Beam recorded a cover of The Postal Service's then-unreleased song "Such Great Heights". Rather than being included on an Iron & Wine release, the track was initially included as a b-side of the original version by The Postal Service. It was later included on the B-sides and rarities album, Around the Well. He then followed up on his debut album in 2003 with The Sea & The Rhythm, an EP containing other home-recorded tracks with a similar style to the songs on the debut.

Beam's second full-length album, Our Endless Numbered Days (2004), was recorded in a professional studio with a significant increase in fidelity. Produced in Chicago by Brian Deck, the focus was still on acoustic material, but the inclusion of other band members gave rise to a slightly different sound. That same year, he recorded the song "The Trapeze Swinger" for the film In Good Company, and had his version of "Such Great Heights" featured in an advertisement for M&M's and in the film and soundtrack for Garden State. This version was later used in a 2006 Ask.com advertisement, and eventually released as a single in 2006 backed with recordings of "The Trapeze Swinger" and "Naked as We Came" made for Radio Vienna.

In February 2005, he released an EP entitled Woman King, which expanded on the sounds of his previous LP with the addition of electric guitars. Each track features a spiritual female figure, and had subtle Biblical undertones.

The EP In the Reins, a collaboration with the Arizona-based rock band Calexico, was released in September 2005. Beam wrote all of the EP's songs years earlier, but Calexico added their trademark fusion of southwestern rock, traditional Mexican music and jazz to the songs' arrangements. Several tracks, most notably, "Burn That Broken Bed", feature brass instruments, a first for Beam's music.^[13]

The third full-length Iron & Wine album, entitled The Shepherd's Dog, was released September 25, 2007.^[14] This album was voted one of the ten best of 2007 by Paste magazine.^[15] Contributors included Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus of Calexico, as well as jazz musicians Matt Lux and Rob Burger.^[16] When asked to describe the album to The Independent, Beam remarked that "it's not a political propaganda record, but it's definitely inspired by political confusion, because I was really taken aback when Bush got reelected."^[17]

Beam has released most of his music on iTunes, including several exclusive EPs. The Iron & Wine iTunes Exclusive EP features unreleased studio recordings, including a Stereolab cover and two tracks which had previously only appeared on vinyl. The Live Session (iTunes Exclusive) features Beam and his sister, Sarah Beam, performing a number of tracks from his albums, as well as a cover of New Order's "Love Vigilantes". Sarah Beam has contributed backing vocals on many of Beam's studio recordings.

Beam's music has appeared in television series such as Grey's Anatomy, The L Word and House M.D. "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" was used in the film Twilight. The song was specifically chosen for the film's prom scene by Kristen Stewart, the female lead, and appears on the film's soundtrack.

The B-sides and rarities album Around the Well was released in 2009. Iron & Wine also contributed the song "Stolen Houses (Die)" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization.

On November 26, 2010 Iron & Wine released a special edition Record Store Day Black Friday 12" vinyl and CD single called, Walking Far From Home for independent record stores.

Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine's fourth full-length album, was released on January 25, 2011 on Warner Bros. Records in North America and 4AD for the rest of the world.^[18] With this album, Beam blends his earlier styles with a stronger pop influence.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Beam, his wife Kim and their five daughters live in Dripping Springs near Austin, Texas.^[5][8][20]

Discography[link]

Studio, compilations, live albums and EPs[link]

Singles[link]

• "Call Your Boys" b/w "Dearest Forsaken" via Sub Pop Singles Club (CD + Clear 7" Vinyl) (2002)
• "No Moon" b/w "Sinning Hands" (Limited 7" Vinyl Bonus with first Pressing of Our Endless Numbered Days) (2004)
• "Passing Afternoon" (CD only) (2004)
• "The Trapeze Swinger" (iTunes only) (2005)
• "Such Great Heights" (UK only CD) (2006)
• "Boy with a Coin" (CD + UK only 10" Vinyl) (2007)
• "Dark Eyes" (Bob Dylan cover w/ Calexico) (2007)
• "Lovesong of the Buzzard" (CD + UK only 10" Vinyl) (2008)
• "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" (iTunes only) (2008)
• "Walking Far from Home" (2010)

Other contributions[link]

• The O.C. Soundtrack (2004) – "The Sea & the Rhythm"
• Garden State Soundtrack (2004) – "Such Great Heights"
• Sweetheart: Love Songs (2004) – "Ab's Song" (The Marshall Tucker Band cover)
• L Word: Season Two soundtrack (2004) – "Naked as We Came"
• Grey's Anatomy: Season Two soundtrack (2004) – "Naked as We Came"
• In Good Company (2004) – "Naked as We Came," "Sunset Soon Forgotten," "The Trapeze Swinger"
• Fighting in a Sack (2004) – "New Slang (Featuring Iron & Wine)[Live]"
• KCRW Sounds Eclectic Volume 3 (2005) – "Waitin' for a Superman" (Flaming Lips cover)
• I Am a Cold Rock. I Am Dull Grass. (2006) – "We All, Us Three, Will Ride"
• I'm Not There soundtrack (2007) – "Dark Eyes" (with Calexico)
• The Road Mix Volume 3, music from One Tree Hill (2007) – "He Lays in the Reins" (with Calexico)
• Acoustic 07 (2007) – "Naked as We Came"
• Numb3rs Season 3, Episode 19, "Pandora's Box" (2007) – "Naked as We Came"
• Friday Night Lights Season 1, Episode 12 (2007) – "Upward Over the Mountain"
• Friday Night Lights: Original Television Soundtrack (2007) – "Dead Man's Will" (with Calexico)
• Twilight soundtrack (2008) – "Flightless Bird, American Mouth"
• Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn soundtrack (2011) - "Flightless Bird, American Mouth (wedding version)"
• 90210 Season 1, Episode 18, "Off the Rails" (2008) – "Cinder & Smoke"
• House M.D.
  • Season 4, Episode 16 (Season Finale, Part 2) Wilson's Heart (2008) – "Passing Afternoon"
  • Season 6, Episode 1 (Season Premiere, Part 1) Broken (2009) – "Love Vigilantes" (New Order cover)
• Dark Was the Night (2009) – "Stolen Houses (Die)"
• Ugly Betty Season 3, Episode 16 (2009) – "Naked as We Came"
• The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2009) – "Naked as We Came"
• Misfits Season 1, Episode 6 (2009) – "Such Great Heights"
• TiMER (2009) – "The Trapeze Swinger"
• The Last Song soundtrack (2010) – "Each Coming Night"
• Degrassi (season 10) Episode 31, Halo Part. 2 (2010) - "Passing Afternoon"

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iron & Wine

• Official site

Sara Carter (July 21, 1898 – January 8, 1979) was an American Country music musician. Known for her deep and distinctive singing voice, she was the lead singer on most of the recordings of the historic Carter Family act in the 1920s and 1930s.^[1]

Biography[link]

Born Sara Elizabeth Dougherty in Copper Creek, Virginia, (Rich Valley), she was the daughter of William Sevier Dougherty and Nancy Elizabeth Kilgore. Sara married A. P. Carter on June 18, 1915, but they were later divorced in 1939. They had three children: Gladys (Millard), Janette (Jett), and Joe.^[1]

In 1927, she and A.P. began performing as the Carter Family, perhaps the first commercial rural Country music group. They were joined by her cousin, Maybelle, who was married to A.P.'s brother, Ezra Carter. She later remarried to Coy Bayes, A.P.'s first cousin, and moved to California in 1943, and the original group disbanded. In the late 1940s, Maybelle began performing with her daughters Helen, June, and Anita as The Carter Sisters (the act was renamed The Carter Family during the 1960s).

On some Carter Family recordings, Sara is incorrectly credited as author of the songs "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room" and "Keep on the Firing Line"; in truth she discovered these public domain songs when they were being sung at a Seventh-day Adventist church she visited. RCA gave her songwriter credit, as it did A. P. Carter on his public domain discoveries. The Carter Family recordings of these tunes did however bring the songs wide fame and are largely responsible for their being known today.

Sara reunited with Maybelle briefly in the 1960s for two albums and briefly performed together during the folk music craze of the time.^[1] (See film clip here) The duo were also featured as guests in a late 1960s episode of The Wilburn Brothers television show.

Legacy[link]

Carter was inducted as part of The Carter Family in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 along with Bill Monroe. ^[2] In 1993, her image appeared on a U.S. postage stamp honoring the Carter Family. In 2001 she was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor.

Never particularly enjoying the limelight, Sara Carter lived privately thoroughout her life and left the promotion and care of the Carter Family legacy to others. Nevertheless, her contribution to the group was invaluable and as a country music female vocalist she strongly influenced generations of women, including Kitty Wells, Jean Shepard, Skeeter Davis, and Loretta Lynn with her blunt, "from the heart" vocals.

On her 2008 album All I Intended to Be, Emmylou Harris includes the song, "How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower", co-written with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, about the relationship between Sara and A.P., inspired by a documentary that the three of them saw on television.

Sara Carter is interred in the Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church graveyard in Hiltons, Virginia.^{[3][not in citation given]}

See also[link]

• Carter Family

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Wolfe, Charles (1998). "The Carter Family". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Ixford University Press. pp. 84–5, 617.

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 2008)

Fern Kinney is an American R&B and disco singer, who is best remembered for her releases, "Groove Me" and "Together We Are Beautiful".

Career[link]

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Kinney began singing in the late 1960s, and joined the vocal group, The Poppies, replacing their former singer, Patsy McClune. Kinney remained in the group with Dorothy Moore and Rosemary Taylor for about two years, and also released a solo single, "Your Love's Not Reliable", during this time, however it was not a success.

In the early 1970s she began working as a session musician and backing vocalist. Among the songs she sang on were King Floyd's "Groove Me", and her former "Poppie" bandmate Dorothy Moore's 1976 Top 10 single, "Misty Blue".

By 1979, then having settled as a housewife, Kinney decided to attempt a comeback, and she recorded her own version of "Groove Me", but changed the rhythm on the song to turn it into a disco dance track. The song reached number 6 on the Billboard dance chart. Her next single "Together We Are Beautiful", released in 1980 was another disco song, but with a slower and more sultry beat. It had been recorded by the British vocalist, Steve Allan, eighteen months earlier.^[1] It failed to chart in the United States, but reached number one in the United Kingdom.^[2]

Kinney's subsequent releases attempted to continue in the disco style, however by this time the disco fad had reached its peak and Kinney was unable to repeat her success. By 1983 she had returned to her earlier career as a backing vocalist. In 1994 Music club released a album (MCCD 167) of Fern Kinney's records called "Chemistry The Best Of" under the licence from Malaco Records, which contained 17 tracks. Kinney is regarded as a one hit wonder.

See also[link]

• One-hit wonders in the UK
• List of number-one singles from the 1980s (UK)
• List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
• List of disco artists (F-K)
• List of people from Mississippi
• List of performers on Top of the Pops

References[link]

1. ^ Rice, Jo (1982). The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits (1st ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. p. 202. ISBN 0-85112-250-7. 
2. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 304. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.