Paul the Deacon, from a medieval manuscript.

Paul the Deacon (c. 720s – 13 April probably 799), also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, (i.e. "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.

Life[link]

An ancestor named Leupichis entered Italy in the train of Alboin and received lands at or near Forum Julii (Cividale del Friuli). During an invasion the Avars swept off the five sons of this warrior into Pannonia, but one, his namesake, returned to Italy and restored the ruined fortunes of his house. The grandson of the younger Leupichis was Warnefrid, who by his wife Theodelinda became the father of Paul.

Born between 720 and 735 in Friuli in Italy to this possibly noble Lombard family, Paul received an exceptionally good education, probably at the court of the Lombard king Ratchis in Pavia, learning from a teacher named Flavian the rudiments of Greek. It is probable that he was secretary to the Lombard king Desiderius, a successor of Ratchis; it is certain that this king's daughter Adelperga was his pupil. After Adelperga had married Arichis II, duke of Benevento, Paul at her request wrote his continuation of Eutropius.

It is certain that he lived at the court of Benevento, possibly taking refuge when Pavia was taken by Charlemagne in 774; but his residence there may be much more probably dated to several years before that event. Soon he entered a monastery on Lake Como, and before 782 he had become a resident at the great Benedictine house of Monte Cassino, where he made the acquaintance of Charlemagne. About 776 his brother Arichis had been carried as a prisoner to Francia, and when five years later the Frankish king visited Rome, Paul successfully wrote to him on behalf of the captive.

His literary achievements attracted the notice of Charlemagne, and Paul became a potent factor in the Carolingian Renaissance. In 787 he returned to Italy and to Monte Cassino, where he died on April 13 in one of the years between 796 and 799. His surname Diaconus, shows that he took orders as a deacon; and some think he was a monk before the fall of the Lombard kingdom.

Works[link]

The chief work of Paul is his Historia Langobardorum. This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate no later than 795/96, maybe at Montecassino. It covers the story of the Lombards from their legendary origins in the north in 'Scadinavia' and their subsequent migrations, notably to Italy in 568/9 to the death of King Liutprand in 744, and contains much information about the Byzantine empire, the Franks, and others. The story is told from the point of view of a Lombard and is especially valuable for the relations between the Franks and the Lombards. It begins:

The region of the north, in proportion as it is removed from the heat of the sun and is chilled with snow and frost, is so much the more healthful to the bodies of men and fitted for the propagation of nations, just as, on the other hand, every southern region, the nearer it is to the heat of the sun, the more it abounds in diseases and is less fitted for the bringing up of the human race.

Among his sources, Paul used the document called the Origo gentis Langobardorum, the Liber pontificalis, the lost history of Secundus of Trent, and the lost annals of Benevento; he made a free use of Bede, Gregory of Tours and Isidore of Seville.

Cognate with this work is Paul's Historia Romana, a continuation of the Breviarium of Eutropius. This was compiled between 766 and 771, at Benevento. The story runs that Paul advised Adelperga to read Eutropius. She did so, but complained that this Pagan writer said nothing about ecclesiastical affairs and stopped with the accession of the emperor Valens in 364; consequently Paul interwove extracts from the Scriptures, from the ecclesiastical historians and from other sources with Eutropius, and added six books, thus bringing the history down to 553. This work has value for its early historical presentation of the end of the Roman Empire in the West, although it was very popular during the Middle Ages. It has been edited by H Droysen and published in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Auctores antiquissimi, Band ii. (1879) as well as by A. Crivellucci, in Fonti per la storia d' Italia, n. 51 (1914).

Paul wrote at the request of Angilram, bishop of Metz (d. 791), a history of the bishops of Metz to 766, the first work of its kind north of the Alps. This Gesta episcoporum Mettensium is published in Band ii. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica Scriptores, and has been translated into German (Leipzig, 1880). He also wrote many letters, verses and epitaphs, including those of Duke/Prince Arichis II of Benevento and of many members of the Carolingian family. Some of the letters are published with the Historia Langobardorum in the Monumenta; the poems and epitaphs edited by Ernst Dümmler will be found in the Poetae latini aevi carolini, Band i. (Berlin, 188f). Fresh material having come to light, a new edition of the poems (Die Gedichte des Paulus Diaconus) has been edited by Karl Neff (Munich, 1908), who denies, however, the attribution to Paul of the most famous poem in the collection, the Ut queant laxis, a hymn to St. John from the initial syllables of the first verses of which Guido d'Arezzo took the names of the first notes of the musical scale. Paul also wrote an epitome, which has survived, of Sextus Pompeius Festus' De significatu verborum. It was dedicated to Charlemagne.

While in Francia, Paul was requested by Charlemagne to compile a collection of homilies. He executed this after his return to Monte Cassino, and it was largely used in the Frankish churches. A life of Pope Gregory the Great has also been attributed to him, and he is credited with a Latin translation of the Greek Life of Saint Mary the Egyptian.

References[link]

• Carlo Cipolla, Note bibliografiche circa l'odierna condizione degli studi critici sul testo delle opere di Paolo Diacono (Venice, 1901)
• Atti e memorie del congresso storico tenuto in Cividale (Udine, 1900)
• Julius Sophus Felix Dahn, Langobardische Studien, Bd. i. (Leipzig, 1876)
• Wilhelm Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Bd. i. (Berlin, 1904)
• Albert Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, Bd. ii. (Leipzig, 1898)
• Pasquale del Giudice, Studi di storia e diritto (Milan, 1889)
• Ugo Balzani, Le Cronache italiane nel medio evo (Milan, 1884)

Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History, (Yale, 1988).

External links[link]

• Works of Paulus Diaconus at Bibliotheca Augustana (in Latin)
• History of the Lombards
•  "Paul the Deacon". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)

The Deacon is a fictional Marvel Comics character. He is a zealot who believes he is doing the work of God. He has been blessed with powers and weapons from Heaven. His sole weakness is that he will not destroy any holy object such as the Bible.

Origin[link]

After being confined by himself in a maximum security detention center somewhere in Texas, the man known as the Deacon was liberated by a prison guard in the service of the rogue angel, Zadkiel. The Deacon is a mountain of a man who believes he's doing the Lord’s work by punishing those who have sinned. He feels his murderous ways are righteous and just, and he even killed two prisoners soon after being released. The guard spoke to Deacon about Zadkiel and his mission, and he presented the former prisoner with the Ark of Bezalel – telling him to reach inside so the Lord could provide the necessities the Deacon would need to fulfill his task. First, the Deacon was given the Elixir of the Rock of Etam followed by two large golden daggers, possibly from Heaven itself. It is unknown if the Deacon's assignment was to kill a recent addition to the prison in the form of Ghost Rider, or if it was to dispose of the priest Blaze was speaking to with the hope of finding a way to reach Zadkiel, but either way the Deacon had no trouble slaying the priest and his Satan worshipper protectors and taking on the Ghost Rider at the same time. The Deacon's wrath was furious, and he seemed to be more than a match for Blaze with the power of Heaven on his side, but it was when he had Ghost Rider on the ropes that the Deacon’s demise was imminent. Just as he was going to plunge one of the golden daggers into Ghost Rider while inside the prison chapel, Blaze took a large Bible and shielded himself with it. Deacon would not harm the Lord's book and refused to stab Ghost Rider. Blaze turned this to his advantage and beat the Deacon into submission with the very book the Deacon was so well versed in. Ghost Rider left the Deacon inside the chapel wondering why the Lord had forsaken him.^[1]

Heaven's on Fire[link]

The Deacon apparently escaped from prison after his defeat at the hands of Ghost Rider, and Zadkiel had a new mission for him. Deacon traveled to Kansas where he slaughtered the nuns of The Sacred Heart Convent for the Sisters of the Holy Sepulcher. After that despicable act, he met with Blackout to decide who else would join their cause to kill the Ghost Rider. The two madmen recruited Big Wheel, Trull, Madcap, Scarecrow and Vengeance, but Deacon didn't cause any real damage until he confronted the guardians of one of the gateways to Heaven – the Gun Nuns. It didn't take him long to kill almost every one of them, but the arrival of Blaze's Caretaker, Sara), temporarily stayed his hand. Sara knew he was the one who murdered her sisters and sought revenge against him. Deacon was sure he would slay her too, but it appeared the Lord wasn't on his side that day. Sara sliced into the back of Deacon's neck, completely paralyzing him, leaving him for the authorities to escort him back to prison. Deacon would not suffer alone as he was roommates with the ever-talkative Orb.^[2]

Powers and abilities[link]

None, but the Deacon is a mountain of a man whose strength is easily greater than that of a normal man considering he can lift an average sized man with one arm and choke the life out of him at the same time. If the Deacon takes a sip from the Elixir from the Rock of Etam, he will gain superhuman strength. He is also immune to the Penance Stare of Ghost Rider because he is not bothered by anything he has done. The Deacon truly feels as if he is doing the Lord's work by punishing the sinners of the world. Deacon is a formidable armed and unarmed combatant.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Deacon at the Marvel Universe

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. (August 2008)

Paul Rodgers
Rodgers performing with Queen, 2005.
Background information
Born	(1949-12-17) 17 December 1949 (age 62) Middlesbrough, England
Genres	Rock, blues rock, hard rock, blues, soul blues
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, drums, bass, harmonica, synthesizer, flute
Years active	1968–present
Labels	Atlantic Records Victor Entertainment SPV GmbH Velvel Records
Associated acts	Free, Bad Company, The Firm, The Law, Queen + Paul Rodgers
Website	Official website

Paul Bernard Rodgers (born 17 December 1949, Middlesbrough)^[1] is an English rock singer-songwriter, best known for his success in the 1970s as a member of Free and Bad Company. After stints in two less successful bands in the 1980s and early 1990s, The Firm and The Law, he became a solo artist. He has recently toured and recorded with another 1970s band, Queen. Rodgers has been dubbed "The Voice" by his fans.^[2][3] A poll in Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 55 on its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".^[4]

Rodgers has been cited as a significant influence on a number of notable rock singers, including David Coverdale, John Waite, Steve Overland, Lou Gramm, Jimi Jamison, Eric Martin, Steve Walsh, Joe Lynn Turner, Paul Young, Robin McAuley, Jimmy Barnes, Richie Kotzen and Joe Bonamassa. In 1991, John Mellencamp called Rodgers "the best rock singer ever." ^[5]

Free[link]

Paul Rodgers played bass^[6] (he later moved onto vocals) in local band The Roadrunners, which just before leaving Middlesbrough for the London music scene changed its name to The Wildflowers. Other members of this band were Micky Moody (later of Whitesnake) and Bruce Thomas (later of Elvis Costello and The Attractions). Rodgers appeared on the British music scene in 1968 as singer/songwriter for bluesy rockers Free. In 1970, they shot up the international radio charts with "All Right Now", which Rodgers wrote with the group's bassist Andy Fraser.

It was a number one hit in more than 20 territories and acknowledged by ASCAP in 1990 for having received over a million radio plays in the US. The song played a role in introducing Rodgers's vocal style, while helping to establish the sound of the British blues/rock invasion. For a short time, Free were alongside Led Zeppelin as among the highest grossing British acts though Free's status did not sustain. Free released four albums with a combination of blues, ballads and rock that were Top Five successes in the UK. When in 2000, the song "All Right Now" achieved the mark of two million radio plays in the UK, an award was given to Rodgers as one of the two writers.

After the first break-up of Free in the spring of 1971, Rodgers briefly formed a three-piece band called Peace. Alongside bassist Stewart McDonald and drummer Mick Underwood, Rodgers played guitar and sang lead vocal. Peace supported Mott the Hoople's UK tour in 1971, but broke up when Free reformed at the start of 1972. Two songs by Peace were eventually included on the fifth disc of the 2000 Free compilation Songs of Yesterday, along with a song that Rodgers recorded with the Maytals. A bootleg has circulated of a 22 December 1971 appearance by Peace on the BBC's Top Gear program.^[7]

1970s: Bad Company[link]

Rodgers formed his next band, Bad Company, with Mick Ralphs, former guitarist of Mott the Hoople. Rodgers said: "Mick and I were trying to come up with names for the band. When I called him and said 'Bad Company', he dropped the phone."

Bad Company toured successfully from 1973 to 1982, and had several hits such as "Feel Like Making Love", "Can't Get Enough", "Shooting Star", "Bad Company", and "Run With The Pack". Rodgers also showcased his instrumental talents on several tracks: "Bad Company" and "Run With The Pack" featured him on piano; "Rock And Roll Fantasy" on guitar; and on the ballad "Seagull" Rodgers played all of the instruments. Bad Company earned six platinum albums until Rodgers left in 1982 at the height of their fame stating that he wanted to spend time with his young family.

It was revealed in April 2011 that after Jim Morrison's death, the rest of The Doors wanted Rodgers to replace him. Rodgers has said that he was unreachably rural at the time, and the moment passed.^[8]

1980s: Solo career and The Firm[link]

In the early 1980s, it was rumoured that Rodgers would sing with The Rossington-Collins Band (made up of the survivors of Lynyrd Skynyrd), In October 1983, Rodgers released his first solo LP Cut Loose. He composed all of the music and played all of the instruments. The album reached number 135 on the Billboard's Pop Albums chart.

When his friend Jimmy Page started to come around to his house, guitar in hand and Led Zeppelin at an end, the duo's first live pairing was on the US ARMS (Action Research into Multiple Sclerosis) Tour, which had first been mooted by Eric Clapton and, besides Rodgers and Page, would include Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood and others. The inspiration behind ARMS had been former Small Faces/Faces member Ronnie Lane's own struggle with M.S. This led to Rodgers and Page's further teaming in the group The Firm, which resulted in two albums and two tours. Both Firm world tours managed only average attendance.^{[citation needed]} Despite being panned by critics^{[citation needed]} The Firm's two albums, The Firm and Mean Business, achieved moderate sales success^{[citation needed]} and produced the radio hits "Radioactive", "Satisfaction Guaranteed", and, in the UK, "All The King's Horses".

1990s: The Law and solo career[link]

The Law, Rodgers's 1991 musical venture with former The Who and Faces drummer Kenney Jones, produced Billboard's number one AOR chart hit "Laying Down The Law" written by Rodgers, but the album peaked at number 126 on the Billboard 200 chart. A second album can be found on the bootleg market, which is often referred to as The Law II. It is believed that this collection of songs were leftovers from the first album.

Rodgers acknowledged the influence of Jimi Hendrix by collaborating with Steve Vai, Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys (Buddy Miles and Billy Cox) and the London Metropolitan Orchestra and recorded the track "Bold As Love", on the Hendrix tribute album In From The Storm. Then Rodgers teamed with Journey guitarist Neal Schon and released The Hendrix Set, a live 5-track CD, recorded in 1993 with Rodgers' interpretations of Hendrix songs. A Canadian and US tour followed.

His Grammy-nominated solo CD, Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters was released in 1993. Rodgers wrote the title track and was backed by guitarists Brian May, Gary Moore, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Buddy Guy, Richie Sambora, Brian Setzer, Slash and Trevor Rabin.

For Woodstock's 25th anniversary in 1994, Rodgers pulled together drummer Jason Bonham, bassist Andy Fraser (from Free), guitarists Slash and Schon at the last moment to perform as the Paul Rodgers Rock and Blues Revue.

In 1995 he formed a new band consisting of Jaz Lochrie on bass, Jimmy Copley on drums and Geoff Whitehorn on guitar. The band (The Paul Rodgers Band) toured extensively in Europe, US and in the UK until 1998 and released three albums - Now, Now and Live and Electric. Now charted internationally in the Top 40. The single "Soul Of Love" remained in rotation on more than 86 US radio stations for six months but was not a sales success. His 1997 world tour included Russia, Japan, Canada, US, UK, Germany, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel, Brazil, Greece and Argentina.

Rodgers and Bad Company hit Billboard's US BDS charts with the number one single "Hey, Hey" in 1999, one of four new tracks off Bad Company's The Original Bad Company Anthology. The second single release, Rodgers's "Hammer Of Love", reached number two. For the first time in 20 years, all the original members of Bad Company toured the US.

2000s: Solo career, Queen and Bad Company reunion[link]

Rodgers focused on his solo career in 2000 and released Electric, his sixth solo CD. In its debut week, the single "Drifters" was US rock radio's number one on the Most Added FMQB Hot Trax list, number two on Most Added R&R Rock and number three on Most Added Album Net Power Cuts. "Drifters" remained in the top 10 for eight weeks on Billboard's Rock charts. That year, he played sold-out concerts in England, Scotland, Australia, United States and Canada. After his appearance on TV's Late Show with David Letterman in New York, he met and jammed with B.B. King. That same year, Paul Rodgers, Jimmie Vaughan, Levon Helm, bluesmen Hubert Sumlin, Johnnie Johnson, James Cotton and others performed a sold out concert in Cleveland as a Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters.

The spring of 2001, Rodgers returned to Australia, England and Scotland for the second run of sold-out shows. That summer he toured the US with Bad Company.

Paul Rodgers and Bad Company released their first live CD and DVD In Concert: Merchants of Cool in 2002. It included all the hits and a new single "Joe Fabulous" penned by Rodgers which hit number one at Classic Rock Radio and Top 20 on mainstream rock radio in the US. In its debut week, the DVD sales sound scanned at number three Canada, and number four in the US. The Joe Fabulous Tour kicked off in the US and sold out in the UK. While in London, Rodgers performed with Jeff Beck at the Royal Festival Hall. Rodgers was invited by long-time fan Tony Blair to perform at the Labour Party Conference. "I had the entire Labour Party singing the chorus of "Wishing Well", a song I wrote and shared with Free, ...'love in a peaceful world'. 'Love in a peaceful world'... over and over and over hoping the words would sink in but we went to war" recalled Rodgers. Twice in 2002, Rodgers performed on Britain's TV show Top of the Pops 2.

In 2003, Rodgers toured as a solo artist for the first time in two years playing 25 US dates. In his solo band were guitarist Howard Leese (formerly of Heart), bassist Lynn Sorensen and drummer Jeff Kathan. Jools Holland invited Rodgers to record "I Told The Truth" for Holland's album Small World Big Band. The CD also featured Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood, Peter Gabriel, Michael McDonald, Ringo Starr and others. This led to Rodgers performing two sold-out nights at London's Royal Albert Hall with Holland and his 18-piece rhythm and blues orchestra, and several UK TV appearances. He also appeared with Jeff Beck, performing some songs from Beck's back catalogue (along with several other notable musicians, including John Mclaughlin, Roger Waters and the White Stripes) for part of a week-long series of charity concerts put on by Jeff Beck at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Early in 2004, Rodgers joined Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox (Hendrix's Cry of Love), Buddy Guy, Joe Satriani, Kid Rock's Kenny Olson, Alice in Chain's Jerry Cantrell, Double Trouble, Indigenous, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and blues legend Hubert Sumlin (Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters) and performed three sold-out shows in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco as "Experience Hendrix". Once again, Rodgers only played 25 concerts in the US and Canada. He performed at Wembley for the fiftieth anniversary celebration for the Fender Stratocaster, along with David Gilmour who played Strat #001, Ronnie Wood, Brian May, Joe Walsh, Gary Moore, Rodgers sang and played a custom designed Jaguar Fender Strat. Rodgers was invited by The Four Tops to be part of their fiftieth anniversary TV/DVD concert celebration at Motown's Opera House and performed alongside Aretha Franklin, Dennis Edwards & The Temptations Revue, Sam Moore, Mary Wilson, Ashford and Simpson and The Four Tops.

Paul Rodgers and Queen at the NEC, Birmingham, 6 May 2005.

In late 2004, after a successful live television performance, two of the four members of the British rock group Queen proposed a collaboration with Rodgers, in which he would sing lead vocals on a European tour. Rodgers thus joined Brian May and Roger Taylor (former bassist John Deacon retired in the late 1990s), with the group billed as Queen + Paul Rodgers and they subsequently toured worldwide in 2005 and 2006. The participants clearly stated, including on Brian May's own website, "that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as: "Queen + Paul Rodgers", not replacing the late Freddie Mercury". The group subsequently released a live album with songs from Queen, Bad Company and Free, called Return of the Champions, and a DVD of the same name. Both featured live recordings from their Sheffield Hallam FM Arena concert on 9 May 2005. The DVD features "Imagine" from Hyde Park. "For one glorious summer" opined music critic Sean Michaels "we were all Paul Rodgers".^[9] Another DVD was released in 2006 from a live performance in Japan, called Super Live in Japan.

Queen + Paul Rodgers also released a single featuring "Reaching Out", "Tie Your Mother Down" and "Fat Bottomed Girls".

The summer of 2006 saw Rodgers again focused on his solo career with a world tour, which commenced in Austin, Texas, US in June, then on to Japan, finishing in Glasgow, Scotland, in October 2006.

On 15 August 2006, Brian May confirmed through his website that "Queen + Paul Rodgers" would begin producing a new studio album beginning in October, to be recorded at Roger Taylor's home.^[10]

In April 2007 Rodgers released a live album of his 2006 tour, recorded in Glasgow, Scotland 13 October 2006, with a DVD of the same show released the following month.

On 27–28 December 2007, Rodgers performed with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra during their Winter 2007 Tour in Houston, Texas and Dallas, Texas. Unannounced, he joined the band at the end of their show to sing "Bad Company" and "All Right Now".

Rogers was a judge for the sixth and seventh annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.^[11]

On 27 June 2008, Rodgers and Queen performed at the Concert for Nelson Mandela to celebrate Mandela's 90th birthday.

On 8 August 2008, Rodgers and original members Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke reunited as Bad Company to perform a one-night only, sold-out performance at the Seminole Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida. The live performance was released on Blu-ray, DVD, and CD on 9 February 2010 and the tracks included seventeen Bad Company hits. Rodgers dedicated "Gone, Gone, Gone" to original bassist Boz Burrell, who died in 2006.

On 14 May 2009, Rodgers announced he was ending his five year long collaboration with Queen, although did not rule out the possibility of working with them again. On 17 November 2009, it was announced he would join the other surviving members of Bad Company for an eight date UK tour in April 2010.

2010s: Solo career[link]

On 5 June 2010 he began a mini-California tour by performing at the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival. One week later, on 12 June, Rodgers and his band appeared as headliners on the Grandstand Stage at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar, California, followed by casino shows in Lemoore on 17 June and in Santa Ynez on 18 June.

It was recently^[when?] announced that Rodgers would be taking part in a Paul McCartney tribute album that would also feature contributions by Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, BB King, and KISS.^[12] Originally planned for a late 2010 release, no further information has been announced and no release has taken place as of February 2012.

Rodgers performed a solo UK tour in April 2011 with Joe Elliot's Down 'n' Outz. The 28 April concert at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena was filmed for a future live DVD release.

Personal life[link]

Paul Rodgers married Machiko Shimizu in 1971, and has two children by that marriage, Steve and Jasmine. The two children are also musicians and singers who formed a band, Bôa, in the 1990s. Rodgers and Shimizu divorced in 1996.

On 26 September 2007, Rodgers married a former model and Miss Canada, exercise physiologist and artist Cynthia Kereluk in Canada's Okanagan Valley.^[13]

Rodgers became a Canadian citizen on 21 October 2011.^[14]

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

• Cut Loose (1983)
• Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters (1993)
• The Hendrix Set (live EP, 1993)
• Paul Rodgers and Friends: Live at Montreux (1994, edited 2011)
• Live: The Loreley Tapes (live album, 1996)
• Now (1997)
• Now and Live (2CD compilation, 1997)
• Electric (2000)
• Extended Versions (live album, 2006) (10 of the 13 Loreley Tapes in different order)
• Live in Glasgow (2007)^[1]
• Live at Hammersmith Apollo 2009 (2010)

with Free[link]

• Tons of Sobs (1969)
• Free (1969)
• Fire and Water (1970)
• Highway (1970)
• Free Live! (live album, 1971)
• Free at Last (1972)
• Heartbreaker (1973)
• The Free Story (1973)
• The Best of Free (1991)

with Bad Company[link]

• Bad Company (1974)
• Straight Shooter (1975)
• Run With the Pack (1976)
• Burnin' Sky (1977)
• Desolation Angels (1979)
• Rough Diamonds (1982)
• The Original Bad Company Anthology (compilation CD, 1999, produced by Paul Rodgers for Bad Company)
• In Concert: Merchants of Cool (2002)
• Hard Rock Live (2010)
• Live at Wembley (2011)

with The Firm[link]

• The Firm (1985)
• Mean Business (1986)
• The Firm Live at Hammersmith 1984 (DVD, 1984, limited release video)
• Five From the Firm (DVD, 1986)

with The Law[link]

• The Law (1991)

with Queen + Paul Rodgers[link]

Live albums

• Return of the Champions (CD/LP/DVD, 2005)
• Super Live in Japan (DVD, 2006; Japan only)
• Live in Ukraine (CD/DVD, 2009)

Studio albums

• The Cosmos Rocks (CD, 2008)

Singles

• "Reachin' Out" / "Tie Your Mother Down" (CD single, 2005, Europe only)
• "Say It's Not True" (Download/CD single, 2007)
• "C-lebrity" (Download/CD single, 2008)

Other albums

• The A-Z of Queen, Volume 1 (Two DVD tracks only)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul Rodgers

• Official Paul Rodgers site including tour dates
• MSS Magazine interview
• QUEEN + Paul Rodgers - Live In Moscow 15 September 2008 DVD - сайт, где можно приобрети неофициальные двд групы.
• Fan website

Portrait of William Warfield by Carl Van Vechten, 7 Feb. 1951

William Caesar Warfield (22 January 1920 – 26 August 2002), was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.

Early life and career[link]

Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas and grew up in Rochester, New York, where his father was called to serve as pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town Hall on 19 March 1950. He was quickly invited by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to tour Australia and give 35 concerts. In 1952, Warfield performed in Porgy and Bess during a tour of Europe sponsored by the U.S. State Department (he made six separate tours for the US Department of State, more than any other American solo artist.) In this production he played opposite the opera star Leontyne Price, whom he soon married, but the demands of two separate careers left them little time together. They divorced in 1972, but were featured together in a 1963 studio recording of excerpts from Porgy and Bess.

According to a recent exhibit about World War Two, Warfield was the only African American member of the "Ritchie Boys", thousands of soldiers who were trained at Fort Ritchie, Maryland. It was an intelligence center where hundreds of Jewish recruits who fled Nazi Germany for the United States were trained to interrogate their one-time countrymen. According to the exhibit at the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Warfield was brought to the camp because of his strong German skills which he perfected while studying music. Because of segregation, his skills were never put to use.

Warfield was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. In 1975 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He later became Chairman of the Voice Department. In 1994, he moved to Northwestern University's School of Music, where he stayed until his death.

He sang the premiere performances of the version for soloist and orchestra of Set I of Aaron Copland's Old American Songs in 1955, and of the version for soloist and piano of Set II of the collection in 1958. (He also recorded both sets of the songs.) His vocal talents were also featured on two recordings of Handel's "Messiah" – a classic, but heavily cut, performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy (released in 1959), and a lesser-known, drastically restructured recording made in 1956, also heavily cut, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein combined the Christmas and Resurrection sections, and ended with the arias and choruses depicting the death of Christ. The Ormandy recording featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Bernstein's the Westminster Choir.

Warfield was also accomplished in acting and poetry recitation. He played the character De Lawd in a celebrated Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of The Green Pastures, a role he played twice (these were the days of live TV, before video tape, though both versions survive as kinescopes^{[1] [2]}). He appeared in two Hollywood films, including a star-making performance as Joe in MGM's 1951 Technicolor remake of Show Boat. His other film was an overlooked item called "Old Explorers", starring James Whitmore and José Ferrer. In a nod to "Show Boat", Warfield played a cameo role as a tugboat captain. Footage of Warfield in "Show Boat" has been seen in several TV shows and/or films, notably That's Entertainment!. Warfield played his Show Boat role in two other productions of the musical – the 1966 Lincoln Center production, and a 1972 production in Vienna. And he was heard singing Ol' Man River in three different record albums of the show – the 1951 motion picture soundtrack album on MGM Records, a 1962 studio album featuring Barbara Cook and John Raitt on Columbia Masterworks, and the RCA Victor album made from the Lincoln Center production.

Warfield made an appearance on The Colgate Comedy Hour and on a program called TV Recital Hall in 1951, the same year that he made his screen debut in Show Boat. He later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955. In 1961, he appeared as a recital soloist on an episode of the Young People's Concerts, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In March 1984 he was the winner of a Grammy in the "Spoken Word" category for his outstanding narration of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait accompanied by the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra. And in the 1990s, he narrated a special jazz arrangement of music from "Show Boat", on the PRI program Riverwalk Jazz. In 1999 Warfield joined baritones Robert Sims and Benjamin Matthews in a trio by the name of "Three Generations". Managed by Arthur White, this ensemble toured the United States giving full concerts of African American Spirituals and folk songs until Warfield's death in 2002.

Vocal decline[link]

Beginning in 1962, Warfield began to have some trouble with his voice, as he himself admitted in his autobiography. This was only slightly noticeable on the 1962 studio recording of Show Boat. By the time he made the 1966 recording of the Lincoln Center production of the musical, his voice had deepened from merely bass-baritone to a full-fledged bass, and he could not sing the climactic high note on Ol' Man River as easily as he had in the 1951 film version, though he sounded fine on his lower notes. Because of this problem, however, he compensated by learning how to sing even more expressively than he had before.

By 1976, Warfield, although still making various stage and television appearances, was not singing as much as he had in the past. He served as narrator in various orchestral works, such as Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and occasionally performed sprechstimme roles in works by Arnold Schoenberg. However, he did sing on occasion during his final years, despite the fact that by then his singing voice was practically gone. In those years, when he sang Ol' Man River, he would not perform it with the original lyrics, but with the altered ones that Paul Robeson used in his recitals beginning in 1938.

Organizations[link]

Warfield was active in many organizations, After appearing as the featured artist at the 50th year convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. (NANM), he became active with the organization, serving as its President for two terms. He later served on the boards of the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM) and the Schiller Institute. After joining the Schiller Institute in 1996, he began to collaborate with acclaimed vocal coach Sylvia Olden Lee in a project to save the performance tradition of the Negro spiritual.^[3] During the final years of his life, from 1999 to 2002, he performed regularly at Schiller Institute biannual conferences, often with Olden Lee as his accompanist, and the two of them travelled the country conducting singing workshops for members of the LaRouche Youth Movement.^[4] Warfield was made an honorary member of the Delta Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia at Ball State University in 1961, and awarded the Fraternity's Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award in 1976 at its national convention in Evansville, Indiana.

Legacy[link]

The William Warfield Scholarship Fund continues to support young African American classical singers at the Eastman School of Music. To date the fund has awarded scholarships to over 50 students.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• William Warfield at the Internet Movie Database
• William Warfield at the Internet Broadway Database
• William Warfield Scholarship Fund
• Schiller Institute biography and obituary
• William Warfield interview by Bruce Duffie
• National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc.
• William Warfield at Find a Grave

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Paul Laurence Dunbar
Dunbar circa 1890
Born	(1872-06-27)June 27, 1872 Dayton, Ohio, United States
Died	February 9, 1906(1906-02-09) (aged 33) Dayton, Ohio
Cause of death	Tuberculosis
Resting place	Woodland Cemetery Dayton, Ohio
Nationality	American
Occupation	poet
Spouse	Alice Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an African American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of his popular work in his lifetime used a Negro dialect, which helped him become one of the first nationally-accepted African American writers. Much of his writing, however, does not use dialect; these more traditional poems have become of greater interest to scholars.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Dunbar was born in a home at 311 Howard Street in Dayton, Ohio on June 27, 1872.^[1] His parents had escaped from slavery in Kentucky; his father was a veteran of the American Civil War, having served in the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry Regiment. Dunbar was born six months into their marriage; their wedding was Christmas Eve, 1871.^[1]

Dunbar's parents, Joshua and Matilda, began having marital problems a few months after their son's birth. After the birth of her daughter, who was ignored by Joshua, Matilda took the children, including two from a previous marriage, and left him.^[2] Joshua died in 1884 when Dunbar was 12 years old.^[3]

Dunbar was the only African-American student during the years he attended Dayton's Central High School, and he participated actively as a student. During high school, he was both the editor of the school newspaper and class president, as well as the president of the school literary society. He wrote his first poem at age 6 and gave his first public recital at age 9. His mother Matilda assisted him in his schooling, having learned how to read expressly for that purpose. She often read the Bible with him and thought he might become a minister for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.^[4]

Writing career[link]

Dunbar's first professionally published poems were "Our Martyred Soldiers" and "On The River", published in Dayton's The Herald newspaper in 1888.^[3] In 1890 Dunbar wrote and edited Dayton's first weekly African-American newspaper, The Tattler, printed by the fledgling company of his high school acquaintances Wilbur and Orville Wright. The paper lasted only 6 weeks.^[5]

When his formal schooling ended in 1891, Dunbar took a job as an elevator operator, earning a salary of four dollars a week.^[3] The next year, Dunbar asked the Wrights to publish his dialect poems in book form, but the brothers did not have the facility to do so. Dunbar was directed to the United Brethren Publishing House which, in 1893, printed Dunbar's first collection of poetry, Oak and Ivy.^[5] Dunbar subsidized the printing of the book himself, though he earned back his investment in two weeks by selling copies personally,^[6] often to passengers on his elevator. The larger section of the book, the "Oak" section, consisted of traditional verse whereas the smaller section, the "Ivy", featured light poems written in dialect.^[7]

The work attracted the attention of James Whitcomb Riley, the popular "Hoosier Poet". Both Riley and Dunbar wrote poems in both standard English and dialect.

Despite frequently publishing poems and occasionally giving public readings, Dunbar had difficulty financially supporting himself and his mother. Many of his efforts were unpaid and he was a reckless spender, leaving him in debt by the mid-1890s.^[8]

On June 27, 1896, the novelist, editor, and critic William Dean Howells published a favorable review of Dunbar's second book, Majors and Minors. Howells's influence made Dunbar famous and brought national attention to his writing.^[9] Though he saw "honest thinking and true feeling" in Dunbar's traditional poems, he particularly praised Dunbar's dialect poems.^[10] With his new-found international literary fame, Dunbar collected his first two books into one volume, Lyrics of Lowly Life, which included an introduction by Howells.

Dunbar maintained a lifelong friendship with the Wrights. He was also associated with Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Brand Whitlock (who was described as a close friend).^[11] He was honored with a ceremonial sword by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Later work[link]

1897 sketch by Norman B. Wood

Dunbar wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels, and a play. He also wrote lyrics for In Dahomey - the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans to appear on Broadway in 1903; the musical comedy successfully toured England and America over a period of four years - one of the more successful theatrical productions of its time.^[12] His essays and poems were published widely in the leading journals of the day. His work appeared in Harper's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, the Denver Post, Current Literature and a number of other publications. During his life, considerable emphasis was laid on the fact that Dunbar was of pure black descent.

Dunbar traveled to England in 1897 to recite his works on the London literary circuit. He met the young black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor who set some of his poems to music and who was influenced by Dunbar to use African and American Negro songs and tunes in future compositions.

Marriage and declining health[link]

After returning from England, Dunbar married Alice Ruth Moore on March 6, 1898, a teacher and poet from New Orleans who he had met three years earlier.^[13] Dunbar called her "the sweetest, smartest little girl I ever saw".^[14] A graduate of Straight University (now Dillard University), her most famous works include a short story entitled "Violets". She and her husband also wrote books of poetry as companion pieces. An account of their love, life and marriage was depicted in a play by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson titled Oak and Ivy.^[15]

Dunbar took a job at the Library of Congress in Washington in October 1897. He and his wife moved to Washington, D.C., in the LeDroit Park neighborhood. Under the urging of his wife, however, he soon left the job to focus on his writing, which he promoted through public readings.

In 1900, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and his doctors recommended drinking whisky to alleviate his symptoms. He moved to Colorado with his wife on the advice of his doctors. Dunbar and his wife separated in 1902, but they never divorced. Depression and declining health drove him to a dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health. He moved back to Dayton to be with his mother in 1904. Dunbar died from tuberculosis on February 9, 1906, at age thirty-three.^[16] He was interred in the Woodland Cemetery in Dayton.^[17]

Literary style[link]

Dunbar's work is known for its colorful language and a conversational tone, with a brilliant rhetorical structure. These traits were well matched to the tune-writing ability of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862–1946), with whom he collaborated.^[18]

Use of dialect[link]

Much of Dunbar's work was authored in conventional English, while some was rendered in African-American dialect. Dunbar remained always suspicious that there was something demeaning about the marketability of dialect poems. One interviewer reported that Dunbar told him, "I am tired, so tired of dialect", though he is also quoted as saying, "my natural speech is dialect" and "my love is for the Negro pieces".^[19]

Though he credited William Dean Howells with promoting his early success, Dunbar was dismayed by his demand that he focus on dialect poetry. Angered that editors refused to print his more traditional poems, he accused Howells of "[doing] my irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse."^[20] Dunbar, however, was continuing a literary tradition that used Negro dialect; his predecessors included Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, and George Washington Cable.^[21]

Two brief examples of Dunbar's work, the first in standard English and the second in dialect, demonstrate the diversity of the poet's production:

(From "Dreams")

What dreams we have and how they fly

Like rosy clouds across the sky;

Of wealth, of fame, of sure success,

Of love that comes to cheer and bless;

And how they wither, how they fade,

The waning wealth, the jilting jade —

The fame that for a moment gleams,

Then flies forever, — dreams, ah — dreams!

(From "A Warm Day In Winter")

"Sunshine on de medders,

Greenness on de way;

Dat's de blessed reason

I sing all de day."

Look hyeah! What you axing'?

What meks me so merry?

'Spect to see me sighin'

W'en hit's wa'm in Febawary?

Critical response and legacy[link]

Dunbar on 1975 U.S. postage stamp.

Dunbar became the first African-American poet to earn nation-wide distinction and acceptance. The New York Times called him "a true singer of the people — white or black."^[22] In his preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry (1931) writer and activist James Weldon Johnson criticized Dunbar's dialect poems for fostering stereotypes of blacks as comical or pathetic and reinforcing the restriction that blacks write only scenes of plantation life.^[19]

Writer Maya Angelou titled her autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) after a line from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy" at the suggestion of jazz musician and activist Abbey Lincoln.^[23] Angelou named Dunbar an inspiration for her "writing ambition"^[24] and uses his imagery of a caged bird like a chained slave throughout much of her writings.^[25]

In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante listed Paul Laurence Dunbar on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[26]

Dunbar's vaudeville song "Who Dat Say Chicken in Dis Crowd" may have influenced the development of "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say gonna beat dem Saints?", the New Orleans Saints' chant.^[27]

List of works[link]

• Oak and Ivy (1892)^[28]
• Majors and Minors (1896)^[28]
• Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896)^[28]
• Folks from Dixie (1898)^[28]
• The Strength of Gideon (1900)^[28]
• In Old Plantation Days (1903)^[28]
• The Heart of Happy Hollow (1904)^[28]
• Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow (1905)^[28]

See also[link]

	Poetry portal
	Biography portal

• "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life.
• African American literature
• Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
  • Paul Laurence Dunbar House
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor black composer

Places named in his honor

• Dunbar Creative and Performing Arts Magnet School (Mobile, Alabama)
• Dunbar High School (various cities)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Fort Worth, Texas) (Fort Worth, {Stop Six}, Texas)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Lexington, Kentucky)
• Dunbar Hospital (Detroit, Michigan)
• Dunbar Elementary School (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Dunbar Magnet Middle School (Little Rock, Arkansas)
• Dunbar Middle School (Lynchburg, Virginia)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar Library at Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar J.H.S 120/M.S. 301 (Bronx, NY)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar Lancaster-Keist Branch Library (Dallas, Texas)
• Dunbar High (Fort Myers, Florida)
• The Dunbar Hotel (Los Angeles, California)

http://dhs.leeschools.net/

References[link]

Notes[link]

Works cited[link]

• Alexander, Eleanor C. Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore. New York: New York University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8147-0696-7.
• Best, Felton O. Crossing the Color Line: A Biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906. Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., 1996. ISBN 0-7872-2234-8.
• Nettels, Elsa. Language, Race, and Social Class in Howells's America. University Press of Kentucky, 1988. ISBN 0-8131-1629-5.
• Wagner, Jean. Black Poets of the United States: From Paul Laurence Dunbar to Langston Hughes. University of Illinois Press, 1973. ISBN 0-252-00341-1.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Paul Laurence Dunbar

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Paul Laurence Dunbar

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Paul Laurence Dunbar

• Paul Laurence Dunbar: Online Resources, from the Library of Congress
• Dunbar House state historical site, by the Ohio Historical Society
• Dunbar house is also part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park which includes both the Wright Brothers bicycle shop and Dunbar's home (along with a bicycle the Wrights gave him).
• Wright State University's Paul Laurence Dunbar Library special collection
• University of Dayton's Paul Laurence Dunbar website
• Paul Laurence Dunbar Toledo's Attic Exhibit, contains an essay written by Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, then of the University of Toledo, as well as a short history of his writing career.
• Works by Paul Laurence Dunbar at Project Gutenberg
• The Life and Works of Paul Lawrence Dunbar by Lida Keck Wiggins, issued by Winston-Derek in 1992 ISBN 1-55523-473-9
• Dunbar's Legacy of Language, a 2006 NPR story marking the 100th anniversary of Dunbar's death; included is a poetry reading.
• Paul Laurence Dunbar at Find-A-Grave.
• Modern American Poetry
• Academy of American Poets
• Paul Laurence Dunbar public domain audiobooks from LibriVox