Look up humeur, mood, or moods in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Mood may refer to:

• Mood (psychology), a relatively long lasting emotional state
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• Mood (city), a city in Iran
• Mood District, a district in Iran
• Mood (band), hip hop artists
• Moods (Barbara Mandrell album), 1978
• Moods (Neil Diamond album), 1972
• Moods (The Three Sounds album), 1960
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• Moods, an album by Will Downing in 1995
• Robert Mood, a Norwegian general.

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Glenn Miller
Background information
Birth name	Alton Glenn Miller
Born	(1904-03-01)March 1, 1904 Clarinda, Iowa, United States
Died	Missing in action over the English Channel, December 15, 1944(1944-12-15) (aged 40)
Genres	Swing music, Big band
Occupations	Bandleader, Musician, Arranger, Composer
Instruments	Trombone
Years active	1923–1944
Associated acts	Glenn Miller Orchestra

Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904 – missing in action^[1] December 15, 1944) was an American jazz musician (trombone), arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known Big Bands. Miller's notable recordings include "In the Mood", "Moonlight Serenade", "Pennsylvania 6-5000", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "A String of Pearls", "At Last", "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", "American Patrol", "Tuxedo Junction", and "Little Brown Jug".^[2] While he was traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War II, Glenn Miller disappeared in bad weather over the English Channel. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was re-formed after the war and continues to record and perform to this day.

Early life and career[link]

Miller was born on a farm in Clarinda, Iowa, to Lewis Elmer Miller and Mattie Lou (née Cavender).^[3] He went to grade school in North Platte in western Nebraska. In 1915, Miller's family moved to Grant City, Missouri. Around this time, Miller had finally made enough money from milking cows to buy his first trombone and played in the town orchestra. In 1918, the Miller family moved again, this time to Fort Morgan, Colorado, where Miller went to high school. During his senior year, Miller became very interested in a new style of music called "dance band music." He was so taken with it that he formed his own band with some classmates. By the time Miller graduated from high school in 1921, he had decided he wanted to become a professional musician.^[3]

In 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he joined Sigma Nu Fraternity,^[4] but spent most of his time away from school, attending auditions and playing any gigs he could get, most notably with Boyd Senter's band in Denver. He dropped out of school after failing three out of five classes one semester, and decided to concentrate on making a career as a professional musician. He later studied the Schillinger technique with Joseph Schillinger, under whose tutelage he composed what became his signature theme, "Moonlight Serenade".^[5] In 1926, Miller toured with several groups, eventually landing a good spot in Ben Pollack's group in Los Angeles. During his stint with Pollack, Miller wrote several musical arrangements of his own. He also co-wrote his first composition, "Room 1411", written with Benny Goodman and released as a Brunswick 78, 4013, credited to Bennie Goodman's Boys.^[6] In 1928, when the band arrived in New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of Red Nichols's orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, Miller played in the pit bands of two Broadway shows, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy (where his bandmates included big band leaders Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa).

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Miller managed to earn a living working as a freelance trombonist in several bands. On a March 21, 1928 Victor session Miller played alongside Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Joe Venuti in the All-Star Orchestra, directed by Nat Shilkret.^[7][8][9] On November 14, 1929,^[10] an original vocalist named Red McKenzie hired Glenn to play on two records that are now considered to be jazz classics:^[11][12] "Hello, Lola" and "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight". Beside Glenn were clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa and Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone.^[13]

In the early-to-mid-1930s, Miller also worked as a trombonist and arranger in The Dorsey Brothers, first when they were a Brunswick studio group (under their own name and providing accompaniment for many of The Boswell Sisters sessions), and finally when they formed an ill-fated co-led touring and recording orchestra.^[14] Miller composed the song "Annie's Cousin Fanny"^[15][16] and "Dese Dem Dose"^[14][17] for the Dorsey Brothers Band in 1934 and 1935. In 1935, he assembled an American orchestra for British bandleader Ray Noble,^[14] developing the arrangement of lead clarinet over four saxophones that eventually became the sonic keynote of his own big band. Members of the Noble band included future bandleaders Claude Thornhill, Bud Freeman and Charlie Spivak.

Glenn Miller made his first movie appearance in the 1935 Paramount Pictures release The Big Broadcast of 1936 as a member of the Ray Noble Orchestra performing "Why Stars Come Out at Night".^[18] The Big Broadcast of 1936 starred Bing Crosby, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Ethel Merman, Jack Oakie, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and also featured other performances by Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers, who would appear with Miller again in two movies for Twentieth Century Fox in 1941 and 1942.

Glenn Miller compiled several musical arrangements and formed his first band in 1937. The band failed to distinguish itself from the many others of the era, and broke up after playing its last show at the Ritz Ballroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut on January 2, 1938.^[19] Benny Goodman said in 1976, "In late 1937, before his band became popular, we were both playing in Dallas. Glenn was pretty dejected and came to see me. He asked, 'What do you do? How do you make it?' I said, 'I don't know, Glenn. You just stay with it.'"^[20]

Success from 1938 to 1942[link]

Discouraged, Miller returned to New York. He realized that he needed to develop a unique sound, and decided to make the clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor saxophone holding the same note, while three other saxophones harmonized within a single octave. George T. Simon discovered a saxophonist named Wilbur Schwartz for Glenn Miller. Miller hired Schwartz, but instead had him play the lead clarinet. According to Simon, "Willie's tone and way of playing provided a fullness and richness so distinctive that none of the later Miller imitators could ever accurately reproduce the Miller sound."^[21] With this new sound combination, Glenn Miller found a way to differentiate his band's style from the many bands that existed in the late thirties. Miller talked about his style in the May, 1939 issue of Metronome magazine. "You'll notice today some bands use the same trick on every introduction; others repeat the same musical phrase as a modulation into a vocal ... We're fortunate in that our style doesn't limit us to stereotyped intros, modulations, first choruses, endings or even trick rhythms. The fifth sax, playing clarinet most of the time, lets you know whose band you're listening to. And that's about all there is to it."^[22]

Bluebird Records and Glen Island Casino[link]

In September 1938, the Miller band began making recordings for the RCA Victor, Bluebird Records subsidiary.^[23] Cy Shribman, a prominent East Coast businessman, began financing the band, providing a much needed infusion of cash.^[24] In the spring of 1939, the band's fortunes improved with a date at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and more dramatically at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York. The Glen Island date according to author Gunther Schuller attracted "a record breaking opening night crowd of 1800..."^[25] With the Glen Island date, the band began a huge rise in popularity.^[26] In 1939, TIME magazine noted: "Of the twelve to 24 discs in each of today's 300,000 U.S. jukeboxes, from two to six are usually Glenn Miller's."^[27] There were record-breaking recordings such as "Tuxedo Junction" which sold 115,000 copies in the first week.^[28] Miller's huge success in 1939 culminated with his band appearing at Carnegie Hall on October 6, with Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, and Fred Waring also the main attractions.^[29]

From 1939 to 1942, Miller's band was featured three times a week during a quarter-hour broadcast for Chesterfield cigarettes on CBS,^[30] first with the Andrews Sisters and then on its own.^[31] On February 10, 1942, RCA Victor presented Miller with the first gold record for "Chattanooga Choo-Choo".^[32] "Chattanooga Choo Choo" was performed by the Miller orchestra with his singers Gordon "Tex" Beneke, Paula Kelly and the vocal group, the Modernaires.^[33] Other singers with this orchestra included Marion Hutton,^[34] Skip Nelson,^[35] Ray Eberle^[36] and to a smaller extent, Kay Starr,^[37] Ernie Caceres,^[38] Dorothy Claire^[39] and Jack Lathrop.^[40] Pat Friday ghost sang with the Miller band in their two films, Sun Valley Serenade and Orchestra Wives with Lynn Bari lip synching.^[41]

Motion pictures[link]

Miller and his band appear in two Twentieth Century Fox films. In 1941's Sun Valley Serenade they are major members of the cast, which also features comedian Milton Berle.^[42] The Miller band returned to Hollywood to film 1942's Orchestra Wives,^[43] featuring Jackie Gleason playing a part as the group's bassist, Ben Beck. Miller had an ailment that made laughter extremely painful. Since Jackie Gleason was a comedian, Miller had a difficult time watching Gleason more than once, because Miller would start laughing.^[44] Harry Morgan appears as Cully Anderson, the unrequited love interest of Ann Rutherford's character, Connie Ward.^[45][46][47] Miller was contracted to do a third movie for Fox, Blind Date, but as he entered the U.S. Army, this never panned out.^[48]

Critical reaction[link]

In 2004, Miller orchestra bassist Herman "Trigger" Alpert explained the band's success: "Miller had America's music pulse ... He knew what would please the listeners."^[49] Although Miller had massive popularity, many jazz critics of the time had misgivings. They believed that the band's endless rehearsals and according to critic Amy Lee in Metronome magazine, "letter-perfect playing", diminished any feeling from performances.^[50] They also felt that Miller's brand of swing shifted popular music away from the "hot jazz" bands of Benny Goodman and Count Basie toward commercial novelty instrumentals and vocal numbers.^[51] For years, even after Miller died, the Miller estate maintained an unfriendly stance toward critics that derided the band during Miller's lifetime.^[52] Miller was often criticized for being too commercial. His answer to the criticism was, "I don't want a jazz band".^[53][54] Many modern jazz critics still harbor similar antipathy toward Miller.^[55][56] Jazz critics Gunther Schuller^[57] (1991) and Gary Giddins^[58] (2004) have separately defended the Miller orchestra for whatever deficiencies earlier critics have found. In an article written for The New Yorker in 2004, Gary Giddins says he feels that these early critics erred in denigrating Glenn Miller's music, and that the popular opinion of the time should hold greater sway. The article states: "Miller exuded little warmth on or off the bandstand, but once the band struck up its theme, audiences were done for: throats clutched, eyes softened. Can any other record match 'Moonlight Serenade' for its ability to induce a Pavlovian slaver in so many for so long?"^[58] Schuller, notes, "[The Miller sound] was nevertheless very special and able to penetrate our collective awareness that few other sounds have..."^[59] He compares it partially to "Japanese Gagaku [and] Hindu music" in its purity.^[59] Schuller and Giddins do not take completely uncritical approaches to Miller. Schuller says that Ray Eberle's "lumpy, sexless vocalizing dragged down many an otherwise passable performance."^[59] However finally Schuller notes: "How much further [Miller's] musical and financial ambitions might have carried him must forever remain conjectural. That it would have been significant, whatever form(s) it might have taken, is not unlikely."^[59]

Reaction from musical peers[link]

Louis Armstrong thought enough of Miller to carry around his recordings transferred to seven-inch tape reels when he went on tour. "[Armstrong] liked musicians who prized melody, and his selections ranged from Glenn Miller to Jelly Roll Morton to Tchaikovsky."^[60] Jazz pianist George Shearing's quintet of the 1950s and 1960s was influenced by Miller: "with Shearing's locked hands style piano (influenced by the voicing of Miller's saxophone section) in the middle [of the quintet's harmonies]."^[61][62] Frank Sinatra and Mel Tormé held the orchestra in high regard. Tormé credited Miller with giving him helpful advice when he first started his singing and song-writing career in the 1940s. Mel Tormé met Glenn Miller in 1942, the meeting facilitated by Tormé's father and Ben Pollack. Tormé and Miller discussed "That Old Black Magic" which was just emerging as a new song by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Miller told Tormé to pick up every song by Mercer and study it and to become a voracious reader of anything he could find, because "all good lyric writers are great readers."^[63] In an interview with George T. Simon in 1948, Sinatra lamented the inferior quality of music he was recording in the late forties and in comparison with "those great Glenn Miller things"^[64] from eight years earlier.^[65][66] With the opposite opinion, fellow bandleader Artie Shaw frequently disparaged the band after Miller's death: "All I can say is that Glenn should have lived, and 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' should have died."^{[67] [68]} Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco surprised many people when he led the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the late sixties and early seventies. De Franco was already the veteran of bands like Gene Krupa and Tommy Dorsey in the 1940s. He was also a major exponent of modern jazz in the 1950s.^[69] He never sees Miller as leading a swinging jazz band, but DeFranco is extremely fond of certain aspects of the Glenn Miller style. "I found that when I opened with the sound of 'Moonlight Serenade,' I could look around and see men and women weeping as the music carried them back to years gone by."^[70][71] De Franco says, "the beauty of Glenn Miller's ballads [...] caused people to dance together."^[72]

The Army Air Force Band 1942–1944[link]

Bust outside the Corn Exchange in Bedford, where Miller played in World War II.

In 1942, at the peak of his civilian career, Miller decided to join the war effort. At 38, Miller was too old to be drafted, and first volunteered for the Navy but was told that they did not need his services.^[73] Miller then wrote to Army Brigadier General Charles Young. He persuaded the United States Army to accept him so he could, in his own words, "be placed in charge of a modernized Army band."^[3] After being accepted into the Army, Glenn’s civilian band played its last concert in Passaic, New Jersey, on September 27, 1942.^[3]

At first placed in the United States Army, Glenn Miller was transferred to the Army Air Force.^[74] Captain Glenn Miller served initially as assistant special services officer for the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1942. He played trombone with the Rhythmaires, a 15-piece dance band, in both Montgomery and in service clubs and recreation halls on Maxwell. Miller also appeared on both WAPI (Birmingham, Alabama) and WSFA radio (Montgomery), promoting the activities of civil service women aircraft mechanics employed at Maxwell.^[75]

Miller initially formed a large marching band that was to be the core of a network of service orchestras. Miller's attempts at modernizing military music were met with some resistance from tradition-minded career officers. For example, Miller's arrangement of "St. Louis Blues March", combined blues and jazz with the traditional military march.^[76] Miller's weekly radio broadcast "I Sustain the Wings", for which he co-wrote the eponymous theme song, moved from New Haven to New York City and was very popular. This led to permission for Miller to form his 50-piece Army Air Force Band and take it to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances.^[75] While in England, now Major Miller recorded a series of records at HMV- (now EMI-) owned Abbey Road Studios. HMV at this time was the British and sometime European distributor for the American record company that handled and originated Glenn Miller's recordings, RCA Victor.^[77] The recordings the AAF band made in 1944 at Abbey Road were propaganda broadcasts for the Office of War Information. Many songs are sung in German by Johnny Desmond and Glenn Miller speaks in German about the war effort.^[78] Before Miller's disappearance, his music was used by World War II AFN radio broadcasting for entertainment and morale as well as counter-propaganda to denounce fascist oppression in Europe with even Miller once stating on radio:

"America means freedom and theres no expression of freedom quite so sincere as music".^[79][80]-Glenn Miller

Also, the Miller-led AAF Orchestra recorded songs with the American singer Dinah Shore. These were done at the Abbey Road studios and were the last recorded songs made by the band while being led by Miller. They were stored with HMV/EMI for fifty years, never being released until their copyright expired in Europe in 1994.^{[81] [82]} In summarizing Miller's military career, General Jimmy Doolittle said, “next to a letter from home, that organization was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”^[83]

Disappearance[link]

U.S. Army Air Force UC-64

Miller's monument in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut

Miller spent his last night alive at the Hall in Milton Ernest, on the outskirts of Bedford. On December 15, 1944, Miller was to fly from the United Kingdom to Paris, France, to play for the soldiers there. His plane (a single-engined UC-64 Norseman, USAAF serial 44-70285) departed from RAF Twinwood Farm in Clapham, Bedfordshire and disappeared while flying over the English Channel.^[84] No trace of the aircrew, passengers or plane has ever been found. Miller's status is missing in action.

There are three main theories about what happened to Miller's plane, including the suggestion that he might have been hit by Royal Air Force bombs after an abortive raid on Siegen, Germany. One hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers, short on fuel, jettisoned approximately 100,000 incendiaries in a designated area before landing. The logbooks of Royal Air Force navigator Fred Shaw^[85] recorded that he saw a small, single-engined monoplane spiraling out of control and crashing into the water. However, a second source, while acknowledging the possibility, cites other RAF crew members flying the same mission who stated that the drop area was in the North Sea. Further research by British scholars also seems to indicate that this is the most likely probability, making Miller's death a "friendly fire" incident.^[86][87]

In his 2006 self-published book I Kept My Word: The Personal Promise Between a World War II Army Private and His Captain About What Really Happened to Glenn Miller, Clarence B. Wolfe — a gunner with Battery D, 134th AAA Battalion, in Folkestone, England — claims that his battery shot down Miller's plane.^[88] Another book by Lt. Col. Huton Downs,^[89] a former member of Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal staff, argues that the U.S. government covered up Miller's death. Downs suggested that Miller had been enlisted by Eisenhower to covertly attempt to convince some German officers to end the war early. The book goes on to suggest that Miller was captured and killed in a Paris brothel, and his death covered up to save the government embarrassment.^[90]

When Glenn Miller disappeared, he left behind his wife, the former Helen Burger, originally from Boulder, Colorado, and the two children they adopted in 1943 and 1944, Steven and Jonnie.^[91] Helen Miller accepted the Bronze Star medal for Glenn Miller in February 1945.^[92]

Civilian band legacy[link]

The Miller estate authorized an official Glenn Miller "ghost band" in 1946. This band was led by Tex Beneke, former lead saxophonist and a singer for the civilian band. It had a make up similar to the Army Air Force Band: it had a large string section.^[93] The orchestra's official public début was at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway where it opened for a three week engagement on January 24, 1946.^[94] Future television and film composer Henry Mancini was the band's pianist and one of the arrangers.^[95] This ghost band played to very large audiences all across the United States, including a few dates at the Hollywood Palladium in 1947, where the original Miller band played in 1941.^[96] In a website concerning the history of the Hollywood Palladium, it is noted "[e]ven as the big band era faded, the Tex Beneke and Glenn Miller Orchestra concert at the Palladium resulted in a record-breaking crowd of 6,750 dancers."^[97] By 1949, economics dictated that the string section be dropped.^[98]

This band recorded for RCA Victor, just as the original Miller band did.^[98] Beneke was struggling with how to expand the Miller sound and also how to achieve success under his own name. What began as the "Glenn Miller Orchestra Under the Direction of Tex Beneke" finally became "The Tex Beneke Orchestra". By 1950, Beneke and the Miller estate parted ways.^[99] The break was acrimonious^[100] and Beneke is not currently listed by the Miller estate as a former leader of the Glenn Miller orchestra.^[101]

When Glenn Miller was alive, various bandleaders like Bob Chester imitated his style.^[102] By the early 1950s, various bands were again copying the Miller style of clarinet-led reeds and muted trumpets, notably Ralph Flanagan,^[103] Jerry Gray,^[104] and Ray Anthony.^[105] This, coupled with the success of The Glenn Miller Story (1953),^[106] led the Miller estate to ask Ray McKinley to lead a new ghost band.^[98] This 1956 band is the original version of the current ghost band that still tours the United States today.^[107] The official Glenn Miller orchestra for the United States is currently under the direction of Nick Hilscher.^[108] The officially sanctioned Glenn Miller Orchestra for the United Kingdom has toured and recorded with great success under the leadership of Ray McVay.^[109] The official Glenn Miller Orchestra for Europe has been led by Wil Salden since 1990.^[110]

Army Air Force band legacy[link]

In the mid-1940s, after Miller's disappearance, the Miller-led Army Air Force band was decommissioned and sent back to the United States. "The chief of the European theater asked [Warrant Officer Harold Lindsay] Lin [Arinson] to put together another band to take its place, and that's when the 314 was formed." According to singer Tony Bennett who sang with it while in the service, the 314 was the immediate successor to the Glenn Miller led AAF orchestra.^[111] The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band's long term legacy has carried on with the Airmen of Note, a band within the United States Air Force Band. This band was created in 1950 from smaller groups within the Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. and continues to play jazz music for the Air Force community and the general public.^[83]

Posthumous events[link]

Glenn Miller's widow, Helen, died in 1966.^[112] Herb Miller, Glenn Miller's brother, led his own band in the United States and England until the late 1980s.^[113] Herb's son, John continues the tradition leading a band playing mainly Glenn Miller style music.^[114] In 1989, Glenn Miller's daughter Jonnie purchased her father's house where he was born. The Glenn Miller Foundation was created to oversee the subsequent restoration.^[115]

In 1953, Universal-International pictures released The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart.^[116] In 1953, Glenn Miller was voted into the Down Beat magazine Jazz Hall of Fame in the Readers' Poll. In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Glenn Miller postage stamp.^[117] The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammys), honored Glenn Miller by including three of his recordings in their Hall of Fame: In 1983, "In The Mood", Bluebird B-10416-A, was inducted. The recording of "Moonlight Serenade", Bluebird B-10214-B, was also honored by the Grammys in similar fashion in 1991. "Chattanooga Choo Choo", Bluebird B-11230-B, was inducted in 1996.^[118] In 2003, Miller received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[119]

In the United States and England, there are a few archives that are devoted to Glenn Miller.^[120] The University of Colorado, Boulder, has an extensive Glenn Miller Archive, which houses many of Miller's recordings, gold records and other memorabilia, which is open to scholarly research and the general public.^[121] This archive, formed by Alan Cass, includes the original manuscript to Miller's theme song, "Moonlight Serenade", among other items of interest.^[122] In 2002, the Glenn Miller Museum opened to the public at the former RAF Twinwood Farm, in Clapham, Bedfordshire, England.^[123] Miller's surname resides on the 'Wall of Missing' at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. A monument stone was also placed in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut next to the campus of Yale University.^[124]

Glenn Miller arranging staff and compositions[link]

Miller had a staff of arrangers who wrote originals like "String of Pearls" (written and arranged by Jerry Gray)^[125] or took originals like "In The Mood" (writing credit given to Joe Garland)^[126] and arranged by Eddie Durham^[127]) and "Tuxedo Junction" (written by bandleader Erskine Hawkins)^[128] and arranged by Jerry Gray)^[129]) and arranged them for the Miller band to either record or broadcast. Glenn Miller's staff of arrangers in his civilian band, that handled the bulk of the work were Jerry Gray (a former arranger for Artie Shaw), Bill Finegan (a former arranger for Tommy Dorsey),^[130] Billy May^[131] and to a much smaller extent, George Williams,^[132] who worked very briefly with the band as well as Andrews Sisters arranger Vic Schoen^[133][134] According to Norman Leyden, "[s]everal others [besides Leyden] arranged for Miller in the service, including Jerry Gray, Ralph Wilkinson, Mel Powell, and Steve Steck."^[135] In 1943, Glenn Miller wrote Glenn Miller's Method for Orchestral Arranging, published by the Mutual Music Society in New York,^[136] a one hundred sixteen page book with illustrations and scores that explains how he wrote his musical arrangements.

Discography[link]

Glenn Miller composed individually or in collaboration with others at least fourteen songs that are available on recordings. He added lyrics to an additional tune. These and many other songs were recorded by Miller with his pre-war civilian bands and his Army Air Force band.

Band alumni[link]

Many of the Miller musicians went on to studio and touring careers in Hollywood and New York after World War II. Musicians who went from the Miller bands to important reputations afterwards include:

• George Siravo, 1916–2000^[137] was an arranger with Glenn Miller's first band in the late 1930s. Siravo went on to become a staff arranger with Columbia Records in the 1940s, working with Frank Sinatra^[138] and Doris Day.^[139]

• Billy May, 1916–2004^[140] a trumpeter and an arranger for the civilian band,^[141][142] became a much-coveted arranger and studio orchestra leader after that band broke up, going on to work with Frank Sinatra,^[143] Rosemary Clooney,^[144] Anita O'Day,^[145] and Bing Crosby,^[144] among other singers of the post-war era.

• Cornetist Bobby Hackett,1915–1976^[146] solos on "A String of Pearls", with Miller in 1941, for Bluebird records.^[147] "^[148][149] Hackett went on to work with Jackie Gleason and Dizzy Gillespie.^[150]

• Johnny Desmond, 1919–1985^[151] a lead vocalist from the Army Air Force Band, became a popular singer in the 1950s, and appeared on Broadway in the 1960s in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand.^[152]

• Kay Starr, b. 1922^[153] became a pop, jazz and country singer in the post-war period. In 1939, Marion Hutton, the regular "girl singer", became sick and sixteen year old Kay Starr was flown in to replace her.^[154] Kay Starr's two recordings with Glenn Miller were two 1939 sides, "Baby Me" and "Love With a Capital You".^[155]

• Artie Malvin, 1922–2006^[156] Glenn Miller's AAF Band had a vocal group called "The Crew Chiefs". Artie Malvin was the baritone of the four men. After World War II and Miller's death, Malvin became heavily immersed in the popular music of the forties and fifties, being involved in everything from children's music to the nascent beginnings of rock to jingles for commercials.^[156] By the 1970s Artie Malvin was involved with "The Carol Burnett Show"^[157] doing special musical material.^[158]

• Paul Tanner, b. 1917^[159] trombonist for the civilian band, went on to create the electrotheremin and perform on songs such as Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys^[160]

Some of the Army Air Force members went on to notable careers in classical music and modern jazz. Three such are:

• Norman Leyden b. 1917^[161] an arranger from the Army Air Force Band^[162] later became a noted arranger in New York, composing arrangements for Sarah Vaughan,^[163][164] among other artists. His long career culminated with his highly regarded work for the Oregon Symphony, now as Laureate Associate Conductor.^[165][166]

• Mel Powell, 1923–1998,^[167] was the pianist and one of the arrangers in the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. Gary Giddins comments on "[Miller's] splendid forty-two-piece Army Air Force Band’s startling performance of 'Mission to Moscow.'”^[168] "Mission to Moscow" was arranged by Mel Powell, the former pianist for the Benny Goodman orchestra before he was drafted into the service and subsequently joined the Miller orchestra. "Pearls on Velvet" with the Air Force Band is also one of his compositions.^[169] "In 1949, he decided on a radical change of direction, setting aside jazz and enrolling as a pupil of the composer and teacher Paul Hindemith at Yale University."^[167] Powell started teaching at the California Institute for the Arts in Los Angeles in 1969.^[170]

• Addison Collins, Jr. played French Horn in the service band. He is featured as "Junior" Collins on the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool recordings of 1949–50.^[171]

Drummer and biographer:

• George T. Simon 1912–2001. George Simon knew and worked with Glenn Miller from his early sideman days to the days of leading his civilian band and finally, worked with him when he was stateside with the Army Air Force band. Simon was a drummer for some of the Miller bands. He helped his friend Glenn Miller with personnel using the connections that Simon had as editor with the now defunct Metronome magazine.^[172] George Simon wrote the liner notes for eleven Miller reissues, among them: Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band, 1955, Glenn Miller On The Air, 1963, and Glenn Miller: A Legendary Performer, 1974.^[173] During a long career, he also wrote articles with topics ranging from Miller and Frank Sinatra to Thelonious Monk. In 1974, Simon won a Grammy award for his liner notes for the RCA record: Bing Crosby: A Legendary Performer.^[174]

See also[link]

Music portal

• Death in absentia
• Kalamazoo,Michigan
• List of people who have mysteriously disappeared
• List of swing/big band musicians
• Role of music in World War II

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Bennett, Tony (1998). The Good Life. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-02469-8. http://books.google.com/?id=ucteAAAACAAJ. 
• Butcher, Geoffrey (1997). Next to a Letter from Home. North Pomfret, Vt: Trafalgar Square. ISBN 0-7515-1078-5. http://books.google.com/?id=DdJbHAAACAAJ. 
• Friedwald, Will (1997). The Song Is You. New York: 0306807424. ISBN 0-306-80742-4. http://books.google.com/?id=T3GW0qNfJ-MC&dq=will+friedwald+the+song+is+you. 
• Flower, John (1972). Moonlight Serenade: a bio-discography of the Glenn Miller Civilian Band. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House. ISBN 0-87000-161-2. http://books.google.com/?id=ucteAAAACAAJ. 
• Miller, Glenn (1943). Glenn Miller's Method for Orchestral Arranging. New York: Mutual Music Society.  ASIN: B0007DMEDQ
• Simon, George Thomas (1980). Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. New York: Da Capo paperback. ISBN 0-306-80129-9. http://books.google.com/?id=DvLC5_RJS0MC. 
• Simon, George Thomas (1971). Simon Says. New York: Galahad. ISBN 0-88365-001-0. http://books.google.com/?id=xiwYAQAAIAAJ&q=Simon+Says+The+Sights+and+Sounds&dq=Simon+Says+The+Sights+and+Sounds. 
• Schuller, Gunther (1991). Volume 2 of The Swing Era:the Development of Jazz, 1930–1945 /. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507140-9. http://books.google.com/?id=Zc4Lh9KC2MIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=swing+era+the+development+of+jazz#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• Sudhalter, Richard (1999). Lost Chords. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514838-X. http://books.google.com/?id=rqckHQAACAAJ&dq=white+chords. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Glenn Miller

• The Glenn Miller Birthplace Society, organizing the annual Glenn Miller Birthplace Festival in Clarinda, IA
• Website (78rpmrecord.com) listing recordings Glenn Miller made for Brunswick records as a sideman in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
• Glenn's Swing Orchestra (Jazz big band: Tribute to Glenn Miller)
• A World War II Soldier's Insight into the mysterious disappearance of Glenn Miller
• In Search Of... television program, segment on Glenn Miller hosted by Leonard Nimoy.
• George's Spink's article, "Glenn Miller: The Sound of an Era" written for the Chicago Sun-Times in December 1984 on the 40th anniversary of Miller's disappearance .
• Glenn Miller at Find a Grave

Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi performing in Denver, Colorado in 2011
Background information
Birth name	Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi
Born	(1984-01-30) January 30, 1984 (age 28) Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Genres	Alternative hip hop, neo-psychedelia, pop rock
Occupations	Rapper, singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, drums
Years active	2003–present
Labels	GOOD, Universal Republic,[1] Wicked Awesome
Associated acts	WZRD, Dot da Genius, Kanye West, Chip tha Ripper, Ratatat
Website	www.KidCudi.com

Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi^[2] (born January 30, 1984),^[3] better known by his stage name Kid Cudi ( /ˈkɪd ˈkʌdi/ KID KUD-ee), sometimes stylized KiD CuDi, is an American alternative hip hop recording artist, singer-songwriter, guitarist and actor. He first gained major attention after the release of his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. In 2009, his single "Day 'n' Nite" reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. "Day 'n' Nite" was included on Cudi's debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day, which was later certified Gold. In 2010 he released his second studio album Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, preceded by the release of two singles "Erase Me" and "Mr. Rager". In October 2010, Cudi announced that he would be forming a rock band with Dot da Genius called 'Wizard', later renamed WZRD. Their self-titled debut album was released on February 28, 2012.^[4] Kid Cudi has sold over 4.6 million digital singles and has worked with Kanye West, Common, David Guetta and other artists signed to the GOOD Music label.^[5]

In 2009 Cudi, along with record producers Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds and Emile Haynie launched their record label, Dream On, in partnership with Kanye West's GOOD Music and Universal Motown. On February 26, 2011 Cudi took to his Twitter account to announce that the label had been dissolved due to differences. In April 2011, while performing at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom Kid Cudi announced he was launching his own label: "Wicked Awesome Records".

Biography[link]

1984-2008: Early life and career beginnings[link]

Kid Cudi was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in Shaker Heights and Solon. He is the youngest of four children, with two brothers, Domingo and Dean, and a sister, Maisha.^[6] His father, a house painter, substitute teacher and World War II Air Force veteran was Mexican-Native American, while his mother, a middle-school choir teacher at Roxboro Middle School, in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is African-American.^[7][8] When he was eleven years old, Mescudi's father died of cancer; his passing would have a significant effect on Mescudi's personality and subsequently his music.^[8] Mescudi attended Shaker Heights High School for two years, then transferred to Solon High School, and later earned his GED. Eventually, Mescudi studied film at the University of Toledo then dropped out after a year.^[6]

It was towards the end of high school that Mescudi first began rapping, inspired by alternative hip hop groups such as The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest.^[8] He moved to Brooklyn in New York City to pursue a music career.^[2] In July 2008, Kid Cudi released his first mixtape, A Kid Named Cudi, in collaboration with New York street-wear brand 10.Deep as a free download.^[9] The mixtape quickly caught the attention of Kanye West, which in turn spawned his signing to GOOD Music later that year.

Kid Cudi was featured on Kanye West's 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak, singing with West on the track "Welcome to Heartbreak", and helping with songwriting on "Heartless" and "Paranoid". "Welcome to Heartbreak" peaked at #87 on the Pop 100,^[10] and music videos for both songs have been released. Cudi was then tipped as an artist to watch for in media such as Rolling Stone, Vibe, The Source, XXL and BBC News's Sound of 2009 poll of up-and-coming acts.^[11] MTV News also reported on Cudi on a series of reports MCs To Watch In 2009.^[12]

Kid Cudi performing at Central Park Summerstage in New York City, in 2008.

His first television appearance was at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, alongside Travis Barker and DJ AM. On February 17, 2009, he appeared on Snoop Dogg's MTV talk show Dogg After Dark performing "Day 'n' Nite" at the end of the show. Two days later on February 19, 2009, Cudi appeared on BET's 106 & Park with Kanye West to debut the video of "Day 'n' Nite". On March 16, 2009 Kid Cudi performed on mtvU's Spring Break special, and the next day he performed three songs on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly. He has also appeared as a musical guest on The Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Kid Cudi also made a cameo appearance next to Solange in the video for the song "T.O.N.Y." in February 2009, and later in The Black Eyed Peas' video for "I Gotta Feeling", with David Guetta. He has also been on two magazine covers, Complex (August/September 2009) and URB (August 2009). Bape awarded Cudi his own t-shirt in September 2009, in reward for his music and past employment there when living in New York City.

[edit] 2009–2010: Man on the Moon series

Kid Cudi performing on August 6, 2009.

Cudi's debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day was released on Universal Motown Records on September 15, 2009^[13] and sold 104,419 copies in the first week and charted at #4.^[14] The album's lead single "Day 'n' Nite", Kid Cudi's greatest commercial success thus far, charted well both in the U.S. and in Europe. The second single was "Make Her Say" (originally titled "I Poke Her Face"), which features a sample from Lady Gaga's hit single "Poker Face" and performances by Kanye West and Common.^[15][16]

On February 25, 2009, Cudi self-leaked a "teaser trailer" ^[17] for the upcoming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen film using his song "Sky Might Fall" in the background, later he posted that he made the trailer himself and was in talks to possibly make it official.^[18]

With Emile Haynie, Cudi produced an exclusive single called "Switchin Lanes" for the video game Midnight Club: Los Angeles, part of its "South Central Premium Upgrade" downloadable content (DLC) which came out March 19, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and March 27, 2009 for the Xbox 360.^[19]

He revealed information about his future plans via his blog, saying that a possible collaboration with Chip tha Ripper could be followed with a collaboration project with electrorock duo Ratatat.^[20] During the summer of 2009, Cudi joined rapper Asher Roth for the Great Hangover concert tour.^[21] Kid Cudi was featured on the highly anticipated Jay-Z album The Blueprint 3 (2009), on the song "Already Home".^[22] In a late 2009 interview, Cudi announced that the follow-up to his debut album will be a collaboration album called Cudder and the Revolution of Evolution. He stated he has already recorded songs with Snoop Dogg, Travis Barker, Clipse, Cage and Pharrell and would also like to work with Drake, Green Day, Kings of Leon, Robin Thicke, The Killers and The Postal Service on the album. Also it was rumored that Man on the Moon: The End of Day will be followed up by a sequel titled Man on the Moon: The Ghost in the Machine and that the Man on the Moon will be a trilogy, but was not been confirmed.^[23] Kid Cudi was nominated for three 2010 Grammy Awards for his singles, "Day 'n' Nite" and "Make Her Say".^[24] Kid Cudi was featured on Snoop Dogg's re-release of Malice n Wonderland, More Malice (2010), on the song "That Tree",^[25] as well as teaming up with Johnny Polygon to remix Polygon's "The Riot Song" which appears on his mixtape, Rebel Without Applause(2010)^[26] On April 20, 2010, Kid Cudi announced that the name of his second album has been changed from Cudder and the Revolution of Evolution to Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager.^[27][28] On June 11, 2010, Kid Cudi was arrested in the Chelsea neighborhood of the Manhattan borough New York City and charged with felony criminal mischief and possession of a controlled substance.^[29] Despite his arrest, he was released and made it to Manchester, Tennessee in time to play at Bonnaroo.

The lead single for Cudi's second studio album titled "Erase Me" featuring Kanye West and produced by Jim Jonsin, debuted on a Cleveland radio station June 30, 2010 and was officially released to Rhythm/Crossover radio on August 17, 2010.^{[30][31][32][33]} The album debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 169,000 copies.^[34] In its second week it crossed the 200,000 sales mark.^[35] 2010 also featured Kid Cudi on a number of songs for Kanye West's weekly free music giveaway G.O.O.D. Fridays appearing on "Good Friday", "Christian Dior Denim Flow" and "The Joy", which later became a bonus track on Jay-Z and Kanye West collaborative effort Watch the Throne (2011).

2011-present: New direction and WZRD[link]

In October 2010, Cudi announced that he would be forming a rock band with Dot da Genius tentatively called 'Wizard'.^[36] However, in early 2011, he announced that he would be releasing a mixtape prior to the rock album.^[37] On February 26, 2011 Cudi took to his Twitter account to announce that Dream On, the record label he launched back in 2009 with partners Patrick “Plain Pat” Reynolds and producer Emile Haynie, has been dissolved.^[38] However in an interview with Complex Magazine he explained they were still on good terms: "I wanted to try something new, and I wanted to take control of things myself. Those are still my guys, Pat and Emile, and I'm still going to work with them in the future. When we start working on Man on the Moon III I’ll be calling them up to see if they want to be a part of it. I know Emile is definitely down. We had an issue, but we’re men and we were able to figure it out and move forward. There’s no hard feelings."^[39]

In March 2011, Cudi announced that a music video for "Marijuana" will be released in the spring,^[40] followed by a music video for "Mr. Rager" in the summer of 2011.^[40] As well as a short film inspired by his song "Maniac" with Cage, directed by Shia LaBeouf^[41] will be released in October 2011.^{[dated info][40]}

In April 2011, while performing at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom Kid Cudi announced name of the record label he is launching. The new label, which he will be releasing his third studio album on is called “Wicked Awesome Records”. He also renamed his band on the same occasion to '2 Be Continuum' renaming it from the original 'Wizard'. Kid Cudi explained his reasoning saying: "I needed something more original, something different, but it’s still wizardry at its finest."^[42] On August 12, 2011, Kid Cudi released the music video for "No One Believes Me", directed by Fright Night director Craig Gillespie. Although the song was recorded as a collaborative song with Dot da Genius, the single was released under Kid Cudi's name.^[43] On August 21, Cudi announced that he is no longer releasing the mixtape A Man Named Scott so that he can focus on his rock project and his third solo album Man on the Moon III.^[44] Kid Cudi released a video for Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager's title track "Mr. Rager" on September 8, 2011. The video has received all-positive reviews from critics and fans alike.^[45]

Despite saying he will not do many more features for other artists in Complex magazine's October/November 2011 cover story,^[46] he appeared on Bryan Greenberg's second studio album We Don't Have Forever (2011), Travis Barker's Give the Drummer Some (2011), The Knux's Eraser (2011), and Wale's Ambition (2011) respectively.

On October 30, Cudi released the Maniac, a short horror film co-starring Cage and directed by Shia LaBeouf, through his blog.^[47]

On November 13, 2011, a previously unreleased mixtape of material Cudi had recorded from 2002-2003 titled Rap Hard was released. On November 18, 2011 renamed his band, for the second time to 'WZRD'.^[48] He also announced that the upcoming rock project will be released on his 28th birthday, January 30, 2012.

In late 2011, Cudi was mentioned in a viral video by Ben Breedlove about his near death experiences.^[49] After Breedlove's death on December 26, 2011, Cudi commented on his thoughts about inspiring the young kid. "I am so sad about Ben Breedlove," Kid Cudi wrote on his Tumblr blog. "I watched the video he left for the world to see, and him seeing me in detail, in his vision really warmed my heart. I broke down, I am to tears because I hate how life is so unfair. This has really touched my heart in a way I cant describe, this is why I do what I do. Why I write my life, and why I love you all so much. Life is really f---- up sometimes, but I know Ben is at Peace, and I hope he gets a chance to sit and talk with my Dad. We love you Ben. Forever. Thank you for loving me. To Ben’s family, you raised a real hero, he’s definitely mine. You have my love."

In January 2012 Cudi appeared on two songs off Chip tha Ripper's mixtape Tell Ya Friends, "Ride 4 You" which also featured Far East Movement and "GloryUs" which credited the duo as they are collectively known, The Almighty GloryUs, which led to speculation that a project from the two was underway. On January 31, Cudi announced through his Twitter feed that he had completed Man on the Moon III and that his next album was the collaborative effort with Chip tha Ripper.^[50] In 2012 Cudi was featured on the soundtrack to the film The Hunger Games, crafting an original song for the film titled "The Ruler and the Killer". Cudi wrote on Twitter, "I could not have done it with out my producing partners on the project for the film, The legendary and Godly T Bone Burnett and Greg Wells!", referring to "The Ruler and the Killer"^[51]

While working on WZRD, Cudi claims he had writer's block for almost 5 months because of his new sobriety. Something that never has happened to him for such an extended period of time. According to Kid Cudi, bands that inspired the album include Electric Light Orchestra, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and Pink Floyd. The album includes a song titled "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", a cover of the same titled song by Nirvana who in turn was inspired by blues guitar legend Lead Belly's rendition of the traditional folk song.^[52]

Acting career[link]

Kid Cudi starred in the new HBO comedy series How to Make It in America until its cancellation after 2 seasons. He is credited under his real name.^[53]

Personal life[link]

On March 26, 2010, his daughter, Vada Wamwene Mescudi, was born.^[54][55]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Man on the Moon: The End of Day (2009)
• Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010)
• Man on the Moon III (2012)^[56]

Collaborative albums

• WZRD (2012) (with Dot da Genius as WZRD)^[37]
• Cruel Summer (2012) (with GOOD Music)^[57]
• The Almighty GloryUS (TBA) (with Chip tha Ripper)

Mixtapes

• A Kid Named Cudi (2008)

Awards and nominations[link]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kid Cudi

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• Official website
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Robert Plant
Plant at Birmingham's Symphony Hall (2010)
Background information
Birth name	Robert Anthony Plant
Born	(1948-08-20) 20 August 1948 (age 63) West Bromwich, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), England
Genres	Rock, hard rock, heavy metal, blues rock, folk rock, world music, country rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, harmonica, percussion, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Atlantic, Swan Song, Es Paranza, Sanctuary, Mercury, Universal, Rounder
Associated acts	Band of Joy, Led Zeppelin, The Honeydrippers, Page and Plant, Strange Sensation, Alison Krauss, The New Yardbirds
Website	Official website

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career. In 2007, Plant released Raising Sand, an album produced by T-Bone Burnett with American bluegrass soprano Alison Krauss, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.^[1]

With a career spanning more than 40 years, Plant is regarded as one of the most significant singers in the history of rock music, and has influenced contemporaries and later singers such as Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose.^[2] In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All-Time".^[3] In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.^[4][5] In 2011, a Rolling Stone readers' pick placed Plant in first place of the magazine's "Best Lead Singers of All Time".^[6]

Life and career[link]

Early career[link]

Plant was born in the Black Country town of West Bromwich (then in Staffordshire now in West Midlands) to parents Robert C. who worked as a civil engineer^[7] and Annie C. (Cain) Plant, but grew up in Kidderminster, in Worcestershire. Plant gained an interest in singing and rock and roll music at an early age.

When I was a kid I used to hide behind the curtains at home at Christmas and I used to try and be Elvis. There was a certain ambience between the curtains and the French windows, there was a certain sound there for a ten year old. That was all the ambience I got at ten years old... I think! And I always wanted to be a curtain, a bit similar to that.^[8]

He left King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys in Stourbridge in his mid-teens and developed a strong passion for the blues, mainly through his admiration for Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and early rendition of songs in this genre.

I suppose I was quite interested in my stamp collection and Romano-British history. I was a little grammar school boy and I could hear this kind of calling through the airwaves^[9]

He abandoned training as a chartered accountant after only two weeks to attend college in an effort to gain more GCE passes and to become part of the English Midlands blues scene.^[10][11] "I left home at 16", he said "and I started my real education musically, moving from group to group, furthering my knowledge of the blues and of other music which had weight and was worth listening to."^[12]

Plant's early blues influences included Johnson, Bukka White, Skip James, Jerry Miller, and Sleepy John Estes. Plant had various jobs while pursuing his music career, one of which was working for the major British construction company Wimpey in Birmingham in 1967 laying tarmac on roads. He also worked at Woolworths in Halesowen town for a short period of time. He cut three obscure singles on CBS Records^[13] and sang with a variety of bands, including The Crawling King Snakes, which brought him into contact with drummer John Bonham. They both went on to play in the Band of Joy, merging blues with newer psychedelic trends. Though his early career met with no commercial success, word quickly spread about the "young man with the powerful voice".

Led Zeppelin (1968–1980)[link]

Early years[link]

Plant with Led Zeppelin

In 1968, the guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham— where Plant was singing in a band named Hobbstweedle.^[14] Page explained:

When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with him personality-wise or that he had to be impossible to work with, because I just could not understand why, after he told me he'd been singing for a few years already, he hadn't become a big name yet. So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.^[15]

According to Plant:

I was appearing at this college when Peter and Jimmy turned up and asked me if I'd like to join The Yardbirds. I knew The Yardbirds had done a lot of work in America – which to me meant audiences who would want to know what I might have to offer – so naturally I was very interested.^[12]

derivative of Plant's feather sigil used in the Led Zeppelin IV album

Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs, although Plant would receive no songwriting credits on the band's first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time. Plant brought along John Bonham as drummer, and they were joined by John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Page as a studio musician. Jones called Page on the phone before they checked out Plant, and Page hired Jones immediately.

Initially dubbed the "New Yardbirds" in 1968, the band soon came to be known as Led Zeppelin. The band's self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.^[16]

In 1975, Plant and his wife Maureen (now divorced) were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece. This significantly affected the production of Led Zeppelin's seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year.

In July 1977 his son Karac died aged five of a stomach infection while Plant was engaged on Led Zeppelin's concert tour of the United States. It was a devastating loss for the family. Plant retreated to his home in the Midlands and for months afterward he questioned his future.^[17] Karac's death later inspired him to write the song "All My Love" in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin's final studio LP, 1979's In Through the Out Door.

Lyrics[link]

This section of a 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. (June 2008)

This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (March 2009)

Plant did not begin writing song lyrics with Led Zeppelin until the making of Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. According to Jimmy Page:

The most important thing about Led Zeppelin II is that up to that point I'd contributed lyrics. Robert hadn't written before, and it took a lot of ribbing to get him into writing, which was funny. And then, on the second LP, he wrote the words of Thank You. He said, "I'd like to have a crack at this and write it for my wife."^[18]

Plant's lyrics with Led Zeppelin were often mystical, philosophical and spiritual, alluding to events in classical and Norse mythology, such as "Immigrant Song", which refers to Valhalla and Viking conquests. However, the song "No Quarter" is often misunderstood to refer to the god Thor; the song actually refers to Mount Thor (which is named after the god). Another example is "The Rain Song".

Plant was also influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, whose book series inspired lyrics in some early Led Zeppelin songs. Most notably "The Battle of Evermore", "Misty Mountain Hop", "No Quarter", "Ramble On" and "Over the Hills and Far Away" contain verses referencing Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Conversely, Plant sometimes used more straightforward blues-based lyrics dealing primarily with sexual innuendo, as in "The Lemon Song", "Trampled Under Foot", and "Black Dog".

Welsh mythology also forms a basis of Plant's interest in mystical lyrics. He grew up close to the Welsh border and would often take summer trips to Snowdonia. Plant bought a Welsh sheep farm in 1973, and began taking Welsh lessons and looking into the mythology of the land (such as Black Book of Carmarthen, Book of Taliesin, etc.) Plant's first son, Karac, was named after the Welsh warrior Caratacus. The song "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" is named after the 18th Century Welsh cottage Bron-Yr-Aur owned by a friend of his father; it later inspired the song "Bron-Yr-Aur". The songs "Misty Mountain Hop", "That's the Way", and early dabblings in what would become "Stairway to Heaven" were written in Wales and lyrically reflect Plant's mystical view of the land. Critic Steve Turner suggests that Plant's early and continued experiences in Wales served as the foundation for his broader interest in the mythologies he revisits in his lyrics (including those myth systems of Tolkien and the Norse).^[19]

The passion for diverse musical experiences drove Plant to explore Africa, specifically Marrakesh in Morocco where he encountered Umm Kulthum.

I was intrigued by the scales, initially, and obviously the vocal work. The way she sang, the way she could hold a note, you could feel the tension, you could tell that everybody, the whole orchestra, would hold a note until she wanted to change.^[20]

That musical inspiration eventually culminated in "Kashmir". Both he and Jimmy Page revisited these influences during their reunion album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded in 1994. In his solo career, Plant again tapped from these influences many times, most notably in the 2002 album, Dreamland.

Arguably one of Plant's most significant achievements with Led Zeppelin was his contribution to the track "Stairway to Heaven", an epic rock ballad featured on Led Zeppelin IV that drew influence from folk, blues, Celtic traditional music and hard rock among other genres. Most of the lyrics of the song were written spontaneously by Plant in 1970 at Headley Grange. While never released as a single, the song has topped charts as the greatest song of all time on various polls around the world.

Plant is also recognised for his lyrical improvisation in Led Zeppelin's live performances, often singing verses previously unheard on studio recordings. One of the most famous Led Zeppelin musical devices involves Plant's vocal mimicking of band mate Jimmy Page's guitar effects. This can be heard in the songs "How Many More Times", "Dazed and Confused", "The Lemon Song", "You Shook Me", "Nobody's Fault but Mine" and "Sick Again".

He is also known for his light-hearted, humorous, and unusual on-stage banter, often referred to as "plantations". Plant often discusses the origin and background of the songs during his shows, and sometimes provides social comment as well. He frequently talks about American blues musicians as his inspiration, mentioning artists like Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson, and Willie Dixon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the 2007 Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert with Led Zeppelin.

Stage persona[link]

Plant (left) with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page performing live

Plant enjoyed great success with Led Zeppelin throughout the 1970s and developed a compelling image as the charismatic rock-and-roll front man, similar to his contemporary in The Who, singer Roger Daltrey (who adopted the look in the late 1960s), Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, and his other fellow contemporary, Jim Morrison of The Doors.^[21] With his mane of long blond hair and powerful, bare-chested appearance, Plant helped to create the "god of rock and roll" or "rock god" archetype. On stage, Plant was particularly active in live performances, often dancing, jumping, skipping, snapping his fingers, clapping, making emphatic gestures to emphasise a lyric or cymbal crash, throwing back his head, or placing his hands on his hips. As the 1960s–1970s progressed he, along with the other members of Led Zeppelin, became increasingly flamboyant on-stage and wore more elaborate, colourful clothing and jewellery.

According to Classic Rock magazine, "once [Plant] had a couple of US tours under his belt, 'Percy' Plant swiftly developed a staggering degree of bravado and swagger that irrefutably enhanced Led Zeppelin's rapidly burgeoning appeal."^[12] In 1994, during his "Unledded" tour with Jimmy Page, Plant himself reflected tongue-in-cheek upon his Led Zeppelin showmanship:

I can't take my whole persona as a singer back then very seriously. It's not some great work of beauty and love to be a rock-and-roll singer. So I got a few moves from Elvis and one or two from Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin' Wolf and threw them all together.^[22]

One of the oddest awards he's received is the Rock Scene Magazine "Chest O Rama". Readers of the magazine had to decide who had the best chest in rock and Plant was the winner. When they contacted him about it, he replied: "I'm really greatly honoured although it's hard for me to be eloquent on the subject of my chest."^[23]

Solo career (since 1982)[link]

As a solo artist[link]

After the break-up of Led Zeppelin in 1980 (following the death of John Bonham), Plant pursued a successful solo career beginning with Pictures at Eleven in 1982, followed by 1983's The Principle of Moments. Popular tracks from this period include "Big Log" (a Top 20 hit in 1983), "In the Mood" (1983), "Little by Little" (from 1985's Shaken 'n' Stirred), "Far Post" (originally only on the B-side of "Burning Down One Side" but popularised by airplay on album-oriented rock stations), "Tall Cool One" (a No. 25 hit off 1988's Now and Zen) and "I Believe" (from 1993's Fate of Nations), another song written for and dedicated to his late son, Karac. In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called The Honeydrippers, who had a No. 3 hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips' tune, "Sea of Love" and a followup hit with a cover of Roy Brown's "Rockin' at Midnight". Although Plant avoided performing Led Zeppelin songs through much of this period (he occasionally would improvise his unique Zeppelin screams into his set), his tours in 1983 (with drummer Phil Collins) and 1985 were very successful, often performing to sold-out arena-sized venues.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone. Now and Zen, Manic Nirvana, and Fate of Nations (featuring Moya Brennan of Clannad). It was Johnstone who talked Plant into playing Led Zeppelin songs in his live shows, something Plant had resisted, not wanting to be forever known as "the former Led Zeppelin vocalist."

Although Led Zeppelin split in 1980, Plant and Page occasionally collaborated on various projects, including The Honeydrippers: Volume One album in 1984. In the spring 2 years later Robert performed at the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert 1986. The pair again worked together in the studio on the 1988 Page solo effort, Outrider, and in the same year Page contributed to Plant's album Now and Zen. Also, on 15 May 1988 Plant appeared with Page as a member of Led Zeppelin (and in his own right as a solo artist) at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

As Page and Plant (1994–1998)[link]

Page and Plant became a full-fledged performing act from 1994 through 1998, releasing the Unledded album in 1994 and following with an enormously successful tour in 1995: Fourteen years of speculation from their fans and occasional sniping between the two former members ended when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin reconvened their former musical partnership to produce No Quarter. Having long resisted offers from MTV to reform to do an Unplugged show, they finally accepted as part of a deal that also allowed them to visit Morocco to record new material. The album combines the results of both of these projects. The Led Zeppelin material features new arrangements and new instrumentation, including strings, Egyptian musicians and the haunting vocals of British-Asian star Najma Akhtar. Page and Plant recorded their only post-Zeppelin album of original material on the 1998 album, Walking into Clarksdale, an effort that was unsuccessful commercially, leading Plant to return to his solo career. A song from this album, "Please Read the Letter", was re-recorded by Plant with Alison Krauss, winning the 2009 Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

With Priory of Brion (1999–2000)[link]

Starting in mid-1999, Plant performed until the end of 2000 at several small venues with his folk-rock band, named Priory of Brion.

In 1999, Plant contributed to the tribute album for Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence, who was terminally ill. The album, More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album (Birdman, 1999), with the album title referring to Spence's only solo album, Oar (Columbia, 1969), contained Plant's version of Spence's "Little Hands". Plant had been an admirer of Spence and Moby Grape since the release of Moby Grape's eponymous 1967 debut album.^[24]

In 2001, Plant appeared on Afro Celt Sound System's album Volume 3: Further in Time. The song "Life Begin Again" features a duet with Welsh folksinger Julie Murphy, emphasising Plant's recurring interest in Welsh culture (Murphy would also tour in support of Plant).

With The Strange Sensation (2001–2007)[link]

In 2002, with his then newly-formed band Strange Sensation, Plant released a widely acclaimed collection of mostly blues and folk remakes, Dreamland. Contrasting with this lush collection of often relatively obscure remakes, the second album with Strange Sensation, Mighty ReArranger (2005), contains new, original songs. Both have received some of the most favourable reviews of Plant's solo career and four Grammy nominations, two in 2003 and two in 2006.

Plant and the Strange Sensation at the Green Man Festival, 2007.

As a former member of Led Zeppelin, along with Page and John Paul Jones, Plant received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and the Polar Music Prize in 2006.

From 2001 to 2007, Plant actively toured the US & Europe with The Strange Sensation. His sets typically included recent, but not only, solo material and plenty of Led Zeppelin favourites, often with new and expanded arrangements. A DVD titled Soundstage: Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation, featuring his Soundstage performance (filmed at the Soundstage Studios in Chicago on 16 September 2005), was released in October 2006.

On 23 June 2006, Plant was the headliner (backed by Ian Hunter's band) at the Benefit For Arthur Lee concert at New York's Beacon Theatre, a show which raised money for Lee's medical expenses from his bout with leukaemia. Plant and band performed thirteen songs – five by Arthur Lee & Love, five Led Zeppelin songs and three others including a duet with Ian Hunter. At the show, Plant told the audience of his great admiration for Arthur Lee dating back to the mid-Sixties. Lee died of his illness six weeks after the concert.

An expansive box set of his solo work, Nine Lives, was released in November 2006, which expanded all of his albums with various b-sides, demos, and live cuts. It was accompanied by a DVD. All his solo works were re-released with these extra tracks individually.

In 2007, Plant contributed two tracks to the Fats Domino tribute album Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, "It Keeps Rainin'" with the Lil' Band O' Gold and "Valley of Tears" with The Soweto Gospel Choir.

With Alison Krauss (2007–2008)[link]

Robert Plant on stage with Alison Krauss at Birmingham's NIA, 5 May 2008

From 2007–2008, Plant recorded and performed with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. A duet album, Raising Sand, was released on 23 October 2007 on Rounder Records. The album, recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles and produced by T-Bone Burnett, includes performances of lesser-known material from R&B, Blues, folk, and country songwriters including Mel Tillis, Townes Van Zandt, Gene Clark, Tom Waits, Doc Watson, Little Milton and The Everly Brothers. The song "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" from Raising Sand won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals in 2008. Raising Sand also won Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.^[25] The album has been successful critically and commercially, and was certified platinum on 4 March 2008.

Plant and Krauss began an extended tour of the US and Europe in April 2008, playing music from Raising Sand and other American roots music as well as reworked Led Zeppelin tunes. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2008.^[26] Also in 2008, Plant performed with bluegrass musicians at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. He appeared as a surprise guest during Fairport Convention's set at the 2008 Cropredy Festival, performing Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore" with Kristina Donahue as a tribute to Sandy Denny.

Plant performing with Alison Krauss at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN, 2008.

On 8 February 2009, Plant and Krauss won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Country Collaboration with Vocals, and Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

In 2010, Plant realised a lifelong ambition by playing live at Molineux Stadium, home of the Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. Plant performed with the amateur cover band No Rezerve.^{[citation needed]}

With Band of Joy (2010)[link]

Plant with the Band of Joy at Birmingham Symphony Hall, 27 October 2010

In July 2010, Robert Plant embarked on a twelve-date summer tour in the United States with a new group called Band of Joy (reprising the name of his very first band in the 1960s). The group includes singer Patty Griffin, singer-guitarist Buddy Miller, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Darrell Scott, bassist-vocalist Byron House, and drummer-percussionist-vocalist Marco Giovino.

After a unique show in the United States on 12 September 2010 at the Bowery Ballroom in New York, another eleven-date autumn tour in Europe was announced to last from October to November 2010.^[27] North America tour dates were announced 16 November 2010, with the first show being 18 January 2011 in Asheville, North Carolina.^[28]

A new studio album called Band of Joy was released on 13 September 2010 on the Rounder Records label.^[29]

The band played their final scheduled show together at the Big Chill Festival at Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire on 7 August 2011. The show ended with Plant bidding his bandmates "a fond farewell".^[30]

On 30 September 2011, Plant and Band of Joy played in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, as part of the 11th Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.^[31]

With Sensational Space Shifters (2012)[link]

It was first reported that Robert Plant's new vehicle, The Sensational Space Shifters, would be debuting at 2012's WOMAD festival in Wiltshire, England. An intimate warm up gig was then announced in Gloucester on 8 May to a crowd of 400. Although it was initially reported that there were 10 members of the band, along with Plant the band consists of former Strange Sensation members, Cast guitarist Liam "Skin" Tyson, Justin Adams, Billy Fuller and John Baggot along with Dave Smith, Juldeh Camara and Patty Griffin^[32]. In addition to Womad and the Gloucester show, the Sensational Space Shifters are scheduled for the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 10-12.^{[33][34][35][36][37]}

Led Zeppelin-related projects and reunion rumours[link]

Plant on stage with Jimmy Page in 2007.

Plant performed with living members of Led Zeppelin both on 13 July 1985 for Live Aid (with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson on drums) and on 15 May 1988 for Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary. At the 1988 reunion, Jason Bonham, the son of Led Zeppelin's late drummer John Bonham, played drums. Both sets featured only a few songs, performed with minimal rehearsal. Plant was unhappy with both performances, saying that "it was like sleeping with your ex-wife but not making love." At the 1990 Silver Clef Award Winners Concert at Knebworth, Plant was joined by Jimmy Page. Some of their set was released on the subsequent live album and video. In 1995, Led Zeppelin were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Plant performed at the induction show with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Jason Bonham, Neil Young, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, performing spirited versions of "Bring It On Home", "Honeybee", and "When the Levee Breaks".

After years of reunion rumours, Led Zeppelin performed a full two-hour set on 10 December 2007 at the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert, with Jason again filling in on drums. Despite enormous public demand, Plant declined a $200 million offer to tour with Led Zeppelin after the 2007 show.^[38] In interviews following the 2007 show, Plant left the door open to possible future performances with Led Zeppelin, saying that he enjoyed the reunion and felt that the show was strong musically.^[39] Although Page, Jones, and Bonham have expressed the strong desire to tour as Led Zeppelin,^[40] Plant has consistently opposed a full tour and has responded negatively to questions about another reunion. In a January, 2008 interview, he stated that he does not want to "tour like a bunch of bored old men following the Rolling Stones around." In a statement on his web site in late 2008, Plant stated, "I will not be touring with Led Zeppelin or anyone else for the next two years. Anyone buying Led Zeppelin tickets will be buying bogus tickets."

Personal life[link]

Robert Plant married Maureen Wilson on 9 November 1968. The couple had three children: daughter Carmen Jane (1968) (married to Charlie Jones, Plant's bass player for solo tours); and sons Karac Pendragon (1972–1977) (died of a virus; the reason Led Zeppelin's 1977 North American Tour was cut short), and Logan Romero (1979). The couple divorced in August 1983. Also, Plant has a younger son, Jesse Lee (1991), the son of Shirley Wilson, sister of Maureen.

On 14 August 2009, it was announced via the Wolverhampton Wanderers text message news service that "Rock Legend and lifelong Wolves fan Robert Plant is to become the club's third Vice President." Plant officially received the honour before kick off at the club's first match of the season against West Ham.^[41] Plant was five years old when he first visited Molineux. He recalled in an interview with his local paper, the Express & Star, in August 2010: "I was five when my dad took me down for the first time and Billy Wright waved at me. Honest, he did. And that was it – I was hooked from that moment.^[42]

According to The Sunday Times Rich List Plant is worth £80 million as of 2009.^[43]

In late 2010 on BBC2, a documentary featured Robert Plant discussing his journey with Led Zeppelin and various projects since.

Legacy[link]

Robert Plant is one of the most significant singers in rock music and has influenced the style of many of his contemporaries, including Geddy Lee, Ann Wilson,^[44] Sammy Hagar,^[45] and later rock vocalists such as Jeff Buckley and Jack White who imitated his performing style extensively. Freddie Mercury of Queen, and Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses were also influenced by Plant.^[2] Encyclopædia Britannica notes "Exaggerating the vocal style and expressive palette of blues singers such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, [Robert] Plant created the sound that has defined much hard rock and heavy metal singing: a high range, an abundance of distortion, loud volume, and emotional excess".^[46] Plant received the Knebworth Silver Clef Award in 1990.^[47]

In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant No. 1 on their list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All-Time, a list which included Rob Halford (2), Steven Tyler (3), Freddie Mercury (6), Geddy Lee (13), and Paul Stanley (18), all of whom were influenced by Plant.^[3] In 2008, Rolling Stone named Plant as number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All-Time.^[2] In 2009, he was voted the "greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.^[4][5] Plant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for his "services to popular music".^[48][49] He was included in the Q magazine's 2009 list of "Artists Of The Century" and was ranked at number 8 in their list of "100 Greatest Singers" in 2007.^[50][51] In 2009, Plant also won the Outstanding Contribution to Music prize at the Q Awards.^[52] He was placed at no. 3 on SPIN's list of "The 50 Greatest Rock Frontmen of All Time".^[53]