Look up Newbury in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Newbury may refer to:

Places[link]

In the United Kingdom[link]

• Newbury, Berkshire
  • Newbury (UK Parliament constituency)
  • Newbury Racecourse
  • Newbury F.C.
  • A.F.C. Newbury
  • Newbury R.F.C.
  • Newbury Building Society
  • Newbury Weekly News
  • Newbury College
  • Newbury railway station
  • Newbury bypass
  • Newbury Buses
  • Newbury Sound
  • Newbury Castle
  • First Battle of Newbury
  • Second Battle of Newbury

• Newbury, Kent
• Newbury, Somerset
• Newbury, Wiltshire

In Canada[link]

• Newbury, Ontario

In the United States of America[link]

• Newbury, Massachusetts
• Newbury, New Hampshire
• Newbury, Ohio
• Newbury (town), Vermont
  • Newbury (village), Vermont, within the town of Newbury
• Newburyport, Massachusetts
• West Newbury, Massachusetts
• Newbury Park, California

In Australia[link]

• Newbury, New South Wales
• Newbury, Victoria

In New Zealand[link]

• Newbury (school area), Manawatu

People[link]

• Newbury (surname)
• Mickey Newbury

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Newbury"
• Newbery (disambiguation)
• Newberry (disambiguation)
• First Battle of Newbury
• Second Battle of Newbury

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2011)

Mickey Newbury (May 19, 1940 - September 29, 2002) was an American songwriter, a critically acclaimed recording artist, and a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Biography[link]

Born Milton Sims Newbury, Jr. in Houston, Texas. As a teenager, Mickey Newbury sang tenor in a moderately successful vocal group called The Embers. The group opened for several famous performers, such as Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash. Although Newbury tried to make a living from his music by singing in clubs, he put his musical career on hold at age 19 when he joined the Air Force. After four years in the military, Newbury again set his sights on making a living as a songwriter. Before long, he moved to Nashville and signed to the prestigious publishing company Acuff-Rose Music.

For a time, he was one of the most influential creative minds in Nashville and it's arguable that he was the first real "outlaw" of the outlaw country movement of the 1970s. Ralph Emery referred to him as the first "hippie-cowboy" and along with Johnny Cash and Roger Miller, he was one of the first to rebel against the conventions of the Nashville music society. After being disappointed by the production methods used by Felton Jarvis on his debut album, Newbury got himself released from his contract with RCA and signed the first offer he received to comply with his condition that he could either produce his own albums or choose the producer.

He went on to record three musically revolutionary albums in Wayne Moss's garage-turned-studio just outside Nashville. The influence of the production methods can be heard in the albums Waylon Jennings went on to record in the 1970s (with instrumentation highly unconventional for country music) and his poetically sophisticated style of songwriting was highly influential on Kris Kristofferson.^{[citation needed]} It was Newbury who convinced Roger Miller to record Kristofferson's "Me & Bobby McGee", which went on to launch Kristofferson as country music's top songwriter. Newbury is also responsible for getting Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark to move to Nashville and pursue careers as songwriters. However, he had no desire to cash-in on the Outlaw movement.^{[citation needed]}

In 1974, he moved to a house on the McKenzie River in Oregon with his wife, Susan, and new born son, Chris, where they welcomed three more children over the years. He recorded several albums throughout the 1970s for Elektra and ABC/Hickory, all of them critically praised, but financially unsuccessful. In 1980, he was given the distinction of being the youngest songwriter ever inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Although he spent much of the 1980s retired from performing and recording music, he returned both to recording and touring in the late 1980s before he died, in Springfield, Oregon, following a prolonged battle with pulmonary fibrosis on September 29, 2002, aged 62.

Legacy[link]

Newbury wrote many songs that would be recorded by singers and songwriters such as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Bill Monroe, Johnny Rodriguez, Hank Snow, Ray Charles, Tony Rice, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tammy Wynette, Ray Price, Don Gibson, Brenda Lee, Charlie Rich, David Allan Coe, Sammi Smith, Joan Baez, Tom Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Steve Von Till, B.B. King, Linda Ronstadt, Dax Riggs and Bobby "Blue" Bland, among many others.

Although his songs have been recorded by hundreds of performers from a wide variety of musical genres, he is most remembered for his creation of "An American Trilogy", a medley that was recorded by many, including symphony orchestras, and Elvis Presley.

He is also often praised for simultaneously having four Top 10 singles on four different charts in the late 60s. Eddy Arnold had a #1 Country hit with "Here Comes the Rain, Baby", Andy Williams had a #4 Easy Listening hit with "Sweet Memories", and Kenny Rogers and the First Edition had a #5 Pop/Rock hit with "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)".^{[citation needed]}

Shortly before his death, Newbury was interviewed by John Kruth, who was writing a biography on Townes Van Zandt, where he stated "How many people have listened to my songs and thought, 'He must have a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a pistol in the other'. Well, I don't. I write my sadness."

Many of Newbury's songs, such as "The Thirty-Third Of August", "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be", and "Just Dropped In", delve into the dark recesses of the human psyche. “You’ve Always Got The Blues” was used as the soundtrack for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 8-part TV series, Stringer.^{[citation needed]}

Selected list of songs[link]

• 1968 "Funny, Familiar, Forgotten Feelings" - Tom Jones, Don Gibson
• 1968 "Sweet Memories" - Willie Nelson, Andy Williams
• 1968 "Time Is A Thief" - Solomon Burke, B.B. King
• 1968 "Here Comes The Rain Baby" - Eddy Arnold, Roy Orbison
• 1968 "Weeping Annaleah" - Tom Jones
• 1968 "Mister Can't You See" - Buffy Sainte-Marie (her only Top 75 hit)
• 1968 "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" - The First Edition
• 1969 "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye" - Jerry Lee Lewis
• 1969 "San Francisco Mabel Joy" - Waylon Jennings, Kenny Rogers, Joan Baez
• 1969 "The 33rd of August" - David Allen Coe
• 1969 "I Don't Think Much About Her No More" - Johnny Cash, George Hamilton IV, Bobby Bare
• 1970 "Are My Thoughts With You" - Linda Ronstadt
• 1971 "An American Trilogy" - Elvis Presley
• 1971 "Mobile Blue" - Ian Matthews
• 1971 "How I Love Them Old Songs" - Tompall Glaser, Bill Monroe
• 1971 "Frisco Depot" - Waylon Jennings, Roberta Flack
• 1973 "Why You Been Gone So Long" - Carl Perkins, Gene Clark
• 1974 "If You See Her" - Waylon Jennings, Johnny Rodriguez
• 1975 "Lovers" - Charlie Rich, Olivia Newton-John
• 1977 "Makes Me Wonder If I Ever Said Goodbye" - Kenny Rogers
• 1978 "Wish I Was" - Sammi Smith
• 1979 "Darlin' Take Care of Yourself" - Tammy Wynette
• 1980 "That Was The Way It Was Then" - Brenda Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis

Newbury tribute albums (in order of release)[link]

• Thirteen covers by as many artists make up the first Newbury tribute album, Frisco Mabel Joy Revisited
• Manowar cover "An American Trilogy" on their 2002 album, Warriors of the World
• Cowboy Johnson included 12 covers on his 2004 tribute, A Grain of Sand
• Toni Jolene Clay covered 15 Newbury songs, 11 on her 2005 album, Amen For Old Friends
• Jonmark Stone & Marie Rhines covered 10 songs on their 2005 album, When I Heard Newbury Sing
• Kacey Jones covers 15 songs on her 2006 tribute album, Kacey Jones Sings Mickey Newbury.
• Ronny Cox sings 12 Newbury songs on his 2007 album, How I love them old songs...
• Will Oldham covers "I Came to Hear the Music" on his 2007 album, Ask Forgiveness

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Notice of Newbury's death in Rolling Stone
• [1] List of Newbury's songs covered by other artists

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. (March 2008)

Lita Ford
Lita Ford in 2009
Background information
Birth name	Carmelita Rossana Ford
Also known as	Lita, Lita Ford
Born	(1958-09-18) 18 September 1958 (age 53) London, England
Genres	Heavy metal, hard rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1976–1995, 2008–present
Labels	Mercury, RCA, JLRG Entertainment
Associated acts	The Runaways, Ozzy Osbourne, Nitro
Website	litafordonline.com
Notable instruments
B.C. Rich Warlock, Gibson Explorer

Lita Rossanna Ford (born 19 September 1958)^[1][2] is a British-born, American rock musician and singer who was the lead guitarist for The Runaways and achieved popularity for her solo career between the 1980s and early 2010s.

Early life[link]

Lita Ford was born Lita Rossana Ford to a British father and an Italian mother in London, England. She moved with her family to the United States at the age of 4 and began playing the guitar at the age of 11. Her vocal range is mezzo-soprano.^[3]

In 1975 at the age of 16 she joined the all-female rock band The Runaways, for whom she played lead guitar. They then scored a record deal and released their first album in 1976.

The Runaways[link]

It was not long before the all-girl formation caught the eye of the media. Lita Ford's guitar skills made her a driving force in the band and a permanent member from her arrival to the band's eventual break-up.

In 1979, disagreements were erupting within the band, who had since parted ways with producer Kim Fowley, lead singer Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox. Rhythm guitarist Joan Jett wanted the band to shift more towards Ramones-influenced punk music while Ford and drummer Sandy West wanted to continue playing hard rock-oriented songs.^[4] With neither side being able to compromise, the band finally broke up that year.^[4]

Solo career[link]

After the group split in 1979, Ford began a solo career. Her first album Out for Blood as well as the title single were released in 1983 and failed on the charts. The next effort, 1984's Dancin' on the Edge achieved moderate success. It included the single "Fire In My Heart" which reached the Top 10 in several countries but not the US. The next single "Gotta Let Go" was one of Ford's biggest hits. It reached Number One on the Mainstream Rock charts.

Ford toured extensively and made several guest appearances on TV shows for the next four years, but had no releases; a follow-up to Dancin' On The Edge, titled The Bride Wore Black, was abandoned and never released because Ford did not like the production of the album and this upset the head of her record label, leading to Ford switching from Mercury Records to RCA Records. The artist has described the album as being in "Label hell! Who knows what shelf that is sitting on!"^[5]

Ford performing on the 19th December 1988 in the "Olympiahalle" venue of Munich, Germany.

By the time Ford returned again, the lighter pop-metal she had long favoured had broken through to mainstream audiences, which set the stage for her most commercially successful album, 1988's Lita. With Sharon Osbourne as her manager, and again produced by herself, the album featured four commercial hits, including "Kiss Me Deadly", "Back To The Cave", "Close My Eyes Forever", and "Falling In And Out Of Love" (co-written with Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe). The ballad "Close My Eyes Forever", a duet with Sharon's husband Ozzy Osbourne, was her only Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit, reaching #8.

Her next release was called Stiletto. It featured the singles "Hungry" and "Lisa" (the second was dedicated to her mother). However this album was not as successful as Dancin' On The Edge and Lita.

Ford's next release was Dangerous Curves, which featured her last charting single "Shot Of Poison". Ford's last release would be with ZYX Records and would be titled Black. It failed to repeat the success of 1991's Dangerous Curves.

During her solo years, she was an endorser of B.C. Rich guitars and used Warlock, Eagle, Mockingbird and Bich single and double-neck models.

Ford appears in the 1992 film Highway to Hell as 'The Hitchhiker'. Ford was also asked by VH-1 to be in the cast of The Surreal Life for its 7th season, in 2007. She declined.

Return to stage, new album and tour 2008-2009[link]

In June 2008, Ford and her new solo band played several warm-up gigs prior to Rocklahoma under the name Kiss Me Deadly in the New York City area.^[6]

In June 2009, she began touring the US and Europe, with a new line-up consisting of Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal (Guns N' Roses guitarist, 2006–present) on guitar, Dennis Leeflang (Bumblefoot drummer) and PJ Farley on bass (Trixter, Ra) and Michael T. Ross (Angel/XYZ).

Ford released a new album Wicked Wonderland on 6 October 2009 via JLRG Entertainment.^[7]

In an interview with ExclusiveMagazine.com, talking about her new album Wicked Wonderland, Ford revealed the reason why its sound is heavier than the 80s music she once used to put out - "I just wanted to kick ass! I don’t know what’s popular, or the flavour of the day. I just wanted the music to ROCK! The lyrics are very personal and that’s it. I wasn’t going to come out in sandals with hairy armpits!".^[8]

Ford contributed her likeness and voice to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game, Brütal Legend. She appears as the character Rima, alongside Jack Black, Tim Curry, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, and Lemmy Kilmister. Her song "Betrayal" is also one of the 100+ songs that appear in the game.

In 2010, Ford was portrayed by actress Scout Taylor-Compton in the movie The Runaways.

In May 2011 Ford promised a "real comeback album" later in the year, saying the last one, Wicked Wonderland, recorded with Jim Gillette (to whom she was married at the time) was too much of a collective project. "A lot of people have told me that they want a real Lita album, and I know what they mean. They are going to get it," she said.^[9]

Personal life[link]

In the mid-1980s, Ford was romantically involved with, and briefly engaged to, guitarist Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath.^[10][11] He co-produced her album The Bride Wore Black, which to date remains unreleased. Ford said in a 1989 Kerrang! interview, "there's a certain amount of bad blood between Tony Iommi and I."

Ford married former Nitro singer Jim Gillette in 1994, after knowing each other for two weeks. They have two sons, James and Rocco Gillette. The family moved to Turks and Caicos, where Gillette has a successful building and real estate developing business.^[12] In a February 2011 radio interview, Lita Ford acknowledged that she and Gillette were divorcing.^[13] The family was in negotiations for a reality TV show, tentatively titled "The Gillettes: An Extreme American Family" on TLC, but they ended due to the impending divorce. In a March 2011 interview on the Classic Rock Revisited website, Ford claimed that she had taken a business trip to Los Angeles to discuss the reality show with TLC executives, and returned home to find her husband and sons not speaking to her. She also claimed that her sons physically attacked her, egged on by Gillette, which was when she decided to divorce Gillette and cancel the reality series.^[14]

Tributes[link]

An achievement in the Xbox 360 version of the video game Guitar Hero II, is titled the "Joan & Lita Award" in tribute to Lita and Joan Jett. It is awarded to two players who can get a 100 note streak in cooperative mode.

Ford lent her appearance and likeness to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 videogame Brütal Legend as Rima, Queen of the Zaulia beast-riders. In addition, the character Lita Halford was named after both Ford and Rob Halford, who also provides a voice in the game.^[15]

Her song, "Close My Eyes Forever", was included in Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore.

The song "Kiss Me Deadly" was covered in a compilation album called Viva La Internet/Blank CD by Reel Big Fish.

She was played by actress Scout Taylor Compton in the 2010 film The Runaways.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

• Greatest Hits Live! (2000)

Compilation albums[link]

• The Best of Lita Ford (1992)
• Greatest Hits (1999)
• Platinum and Gold Collection - The Best of Lita Ford (2004)

Other appearances[link]

• " Herman's Head Season 2 Episode 24 "Love Me Two Timer" May 2, 1993 as herself
• "I'll Be Home for Christmas" with Twisted Sister on A Twisted Christmas (2006)
• "Brütal Legend" Video Game (2009)
• " Big Time Rush Big Time Moms Mothers Day Special 2011, appearing as herself

Singles[link]

Tours[link]

• 1981 - Queens of Rock Tour with Joan Jett and Sandy West
• 1982 - Rulers of Metal Tour with Black Sabbath
• 1983 - Out For Blood Tour with Scandal, Wes Luthor, and Tony Schladora
• 1984 - Dressed To Kill Tour with Anthrax, The Johnson Brothers Band, Metal Mania
• 1985 - Central & South America Tour with Soundgarden
• 1986 - Wild Tour with several local bands opening at different venues
• 1986 - Metal Rulz Tour with Poison, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne
• 1988 - If You Can't Lick 'Em...Lick 'Em Tour with Ted Nugent
• 1988 - Open Up and Say . . . Ahh! Tour with Poison, Britny Fox
• 2009 - American Soldier Tour with Queensrÿche
• 2012 - "Rock Of Ages Tour" with Def Leppard, and Poison (band)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lita Ford

• Official website
• Lita Ford at the Internet Movie Database
• Lita Ford on Myspace
• Sleaze Roxx 2009 interview
• RMAX International Magazine interview
• Lita Ford at Legacy Recordings
• Lita Ford Interview at UnRatedMagazine.com, June 2009