CD Baby is an online music store specializing in the sale of CDs and digital music downloads from independent musicians to consumers. The company is also a digital aggregator of independent music recordings, distributing content to several online digital music retailers.

CD Baby has achieved recent value as one of the few sources of information on physical CD sales in the independent music industry, surprising analysts by reporting continued increases in independent CD sales all the way through its most recent report at the end of 2008, apparently showing that independent CD sales move separately from the major label sales reported in the press.

CD Baby was the trading name of Hit Media, Inc., a Nevada Corporation^[1] founded by Derek Sivers in 1997. Sivers sold CD Baby to Disc Makers in 2008 for what Sivers has reported to be $22 million, bequeathing, upon Sivers' death, the principal to a charitable trust for music education.; while alive, according to Sivers, it "pays out 5% of its value per year to me.[1]"

The firm currently operates out of Portland, Oregon.^[2] CD Baby allows artists to set their price point for selling physical compact discs – CD Baby retains $4 of every CD sale, the remainder gets paid out to the artist on a weekly basis. They also charge a one-time $49 setup fee per album and $9.99 per single song.

History[link]

CD Baby began with its founder, Derek Sivers in Woodstock, New York.^[when?] Sivers was a musician who created the website to sell his own music. As a hobby, he also began to sell the CDs of local bands and friends. He chose to make CD Baby a "utopian" online store for independent musicians. To do this, Sivers followed principles based on his personal preferences:

• The musician will be paid every week
• The musician will get the full name and address of everyone who purchases their music (unless they opt out)
• The musician will never be removed from the system for not selling enough

In addition, Sivers made sure to listen to every CD he sold (currently several people are employed to do this). The operation was run mainly in Sivers' bedroom.

Sivers, eventually hired John Steup as his vice president and first employee. In an interview, Sivers recalls saying to Steup: "This thing might get huge one day. I mean, we might have 100 artists here."^[3]

Steadily, CD Baby grew as more artists wanted to sell their music through the website. Sivers and his employees always dealt with the artists directly.

Beginning around 1999, Sivers oversaw expansions of his roster with such collaborations as the one with Oasis Disc Manufacturing President Micah Solomon, where Sivers partnered with Oasis Disc Manufacturing [2] to distribute the complete Oasis artist roster at the CD Baby store (an arrangement still valid currently).[3]

CD Baby was somewhat inspired by a website named Songs.com founded by Paul Schatzkin, Tom Kimmel, and Michael Camp. Songs.com, though not having the nonexclusive policy CD Baby does, was also a website that sold primarily independent music. However, ten months after Songs.com was sold to Gaylord Entertainment for $3-million, Gaylord folded all its digital initiatives, including Songs.com. Schatzkin would then send an email to members of Songs.com, recommending CD Baby. Schatzkin was also the instigator of CD Baby's toll-free phone line, "1-800-BUY-MY-CD."

Sivers never accepted money to advertise a CD more than any other CD and didn't negotiate with investors or display advertisements. Currently, there are one hundred or so employees of CD Baby whose work ranges from warehouse work to programming to business development to customer service to listening to CDs.

Although the majority of artists who use CD Baby are North American, about thirty percent of orders for CD Baby are overseas.

In 2003, Sivers won a World Technology Award for Entertainment.

In 2004, CD Baby began offering a digital distribution service. By opting in to their digital distribution service, artists can authorize CD Baby to act on their behalf to submit music for digital sale to online retailers such as Apple's iTunes, Emusic, Real Network's Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon MP3, MusicMatch, Didiom, and MusicNet among others. Songs on CD Baby are now also available on Spotify.

In August 2008 it was announced^[4] that Disc Makers, a CD and DVD manufacturer, bought CD Baby (and Host Baby) for 22 million dollars following a 7-year partnership between the two companies, according to Sivers.

Technical history[link]

Up until 2009, CD Baby ran on PHP and MySQL.^[2] It gained brief notoriety when Sivers announced publicly in early 2005 that he was rewriting all the systems in Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL.^[5][6] After about 2 years of work, he felt that the rewrite was still less than half done, and he threw the new code away and rewrote it again in his original programming language, PHP, and database, MySQL. He said it took him only two months to finish. This was a widely discussed move, because some saw it as a demonstration that Ruby on Rails was overhyped and not up to the task of solving large problems. Sivers himself summed it up by saying that "Rails was an amazing teacher" but that PHP was perfectly up to the task once he had learned the lessons Ruby and Rails taught him.^[7]

CD Baby relaunched the website with major infrastructure changes (using ASPX) to support future growth, including redundancy that protects the original material on the site in a way that initially was not available to the artists and incurred significant risk to them. The website is no longer being run with the original or revised PHP of Sivers. The new site experienced significant glitches initially, but this did not prevent the company from continuing to pay its artists as sales were reported to CD Baby by digital partners and others, monies received and artist-chosen payment points reached.^[8][9]

CD Baby has also continued to invest heavily both in technology and people, doubling the support staff during the system transition and adding a support team with a significant presence on the Forum, while maintaining existing email and phone technical support.

CD Baby and musicians[link]

Independent artists at CD Baby[link]

With a catalogue of more than 350,000 albums and over two million digital song tracks, CD Baby is home to the largest online community of independent recording artists. Music created by these acts, ranging from part-time hobbyists, to full-time musicians with successful careers, spans all genres from avant-garde to world music. Notable artists releasing their music via CD Baby include American country acts Mary Gauthier, Gretchen Peters, Tom Russell and Anndrea Naidu, Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe, instrumental musician Michael Aguilar, UK duo Nizlopi, and, Italian-born, American classical violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra, American rock and alternative band Beyond the Element, Russian American opera singer Elena Zoubareva, and Big Sur, CA based reggae band RastaFarOUT. Grammy Award-winning artist Janis Ian, a pioneer among independent musicians marketing online, sells her CDs on the website as well as through her own website.

Mainstream artists at CD Baby[link]

In addition to the independent artists in the CD Baby catalog, many of whom are not well known to mainstream audiences, there are also artists signed to a major record label at different points in their careers. These include 60's legend Marty Balin, 80's icon Tiffany, blue-eyed soul singer/songwriter Grayson Hugh, Europe's Lory Bianco, and newer American acts such as The Low Anthem, Regina Spektor and Jack Johnson (who sold his music at CD Baby prior to signing with a mainstream major label). The catalog also includes an album with early demo songs by Madonna being sold by her former producer Stephen Bray. Gary Jules first released his debut album containing the hit song Mad World on CD Baby. American Idol winner Jordin Sparks' EP For Now was sold via CD Baby as was Soulja Boy's album Unsigned & Still Major. Sara Bareilles's "Careful Confessions" album is still available at CD Baby.

Statistics[link]

CD Baby statistics as of December 10, 2009:^[2]

• 300,000 artists sell their music at CD Baby
• 5,339,025 CDs sold online to customers
• $200,000,000+ paid directly to the artists

In the news[link]

• "CD Baby Finds Success in Online Music Niche", NPR's by Marcie Sillman Morning Edition, December 28, 2004
• "CD Baby's Unlikely Alliance with Best Buy" by Annie Baxter, NPR's Morning Edition, February 2, 2006
• "Baby Love" by Matt Welch, LA Weekly, June 9, 2005
• "Derek Sivers of CD Baby", Venture Voice, Show # 19
• "It's the future, baby: How CD Baby helps indie musicians with digital distribution" by Kristin Thomson, Future of Music Coalition, October 8, 2003
• The Future of the Music Business: How to Succeed with the New Digital Technologies, by Steve Gordon, Backbeat Books, 2005, ISBN 0-87930-844-3, p. 213-225 ("An Interview with Derek Sivers, Founder and President of CD Baby")

References[link]

1. ^ "Analysis of the CD Baby Digital Distribution Agreement", Suzette Becker
2. ^ ^{a b c} "CD Baby: about", December 10, 2009
3. ^ "A Conversation with Derek Sivers"
4. ^ CD Baby sold to Disc Makers
5. ^ "CD Baby rewrite in Postgres and Ruby, Baby!", January 22, 2005
6. ^ "Migrating to Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL: An Interview with CD Baby", November 2, 2005
7. ^ "7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails", September 22, 2007
8. ^ "Wednesday Updates (customer browsing, digital payments, uploader, and more)", July 30, 2009
9. ^ "Friday Update (iTunes Australia, uploader, accounting, etc.)", July 30, 2009

External links[link]

• CD Baby (retail store)
• CD Baby.net (information for musicians)
• Hostbaby (webhosting)
• CD BABY BLOG
• CD Baby Podcast (indie music business talk show)
• Oasis Disc Manufacturing
• CD Baby @ Oasis Tools of Promotion page
• CD Duplication

A human infant

An infant (from the Latin word infans, meaning "unable to speak" or "speechless") is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal. When applied to humans, the term is usually considered synonymous with baby, but the latter is commonly applied to the young of any animal. When a human child learns to walk, the term toddler may be used instead.

The term infant is typically applied to young children between the ages of 1 month and 12 months; however, definitions vary between birth and 3 years of age. A newborn is an infant who is only hours, days, or up to a few weeks old. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate (from Latin, neonatus, newborn) refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth;^[1] the term applies to premature infants, postmature infants, and full term infants. Before birth, the term fetus is used.

Infant is also a legal term referring to any child under the age of legal adulthood.^[2]

Physical characteristics[link]

A newborn, 1 hour after birth

A newborn's shoulders and hips are wide, the abdomen protrudes slightly, and the arms and legs are relatively long with respect to the rest of their body. In first world nations, the average birth weight of a full-term newborn is approximately 3.2 kg.(7 ½ lbs), and is typically in the range of 2.7–4.6 kg (5.5–10 pounds). The average total body length is 35.6–50.8 cm (14–20 inches), although premature newborns may be much smaller. The Apgar score is a measure of a newborn's transition from the uterus during the first minutes after birth.

A newborn's head is very large in proportion to the body, and the cranium is enormous relative to his or her face. While the adult human skull is about 1/8 of the total body length, the newborn's is about 1/4. At birth, many regions of the newborn's skull have not yet been converted to bone, leaving "soft spots" known as fontanels. The two largest are the diamond-shaped anterior fontanel, located at the top front portion of the head, and the smaller triangular-shaped posterior fontanel, which lies at the back of the head. Later in the child's life, these bones will fuse together in a natural process. A protein called noggin is responsible for the delay in an infant's skull fusion.^[3]

A newborn baby with umbilical cord ready to be clamped

During labour and birth, the infant's skull changes shape to fit through the birth canal, sometimes causing the child to be born with a misshapen or elongated head. It will usually return to normal on its own within a few days or weeks. Special exercises sometimes advised by physicians may assist the process.

Some newborns have a fine, downy body hair called lanugo. It may be particularly noticeable on the back, shoulders, forehead, ears and face of premature infants. Lanugo disappears within a few weeks. Infants may be born with full heads of hair; others, particularly white infants, may have very fine hair or may even be bald. Amongst fair-skinned parents, this fine hair may be blond, even if the parents are not. The scalp may also be temporarily bruised or swollen, especially in hairless newborns, and the area around the eyes may be puffy.

Newborns' digestive tracts, which of course have never been used prior to birth, are filled with a greenish-black, sticky material called meconium. This has the function of standing in for fecal material and allows the intestines to develop to the point where they can process milk immediately on birth. This material is passed by the child in the first few days.

Immediately after birth, a newborn's skin is often grayish to dusky blue in color. As soon as the newborn begins to breathe, usually within a minute or two, the skin's color reaches its normal tone. Newborns are wet, covered in streaks of blood, and coated with a white substance known as vernix caseosa, which is hypothesised to act as an antibacterial barrier. The newborn may also have Mongolian spots, various other birthmarks, or peeling skin, particularly on the wrists, hands, ankles, and feet.

A newborn's genitals are enlarged and reddened, with male infants having an unusually large scrotum. The breasts may also be enlarged, even in male infants. This is caused by naturally occurring maternal hormones and is a temporary condition. Females (and even males) may actually discharge milk from their nipples (sometimes called witch's milk), and/or a bloody or milky-like substance from the vagina. In either case, this is considered normal and will disappear in time.

The umbilical cord of a newborn is bluish-white in color. After birth, the umbilical cord is normally cut, leaving a 1–2 inch stub. The umbilical stub will dry out, shrivel, darken, and spontaneously fall off within about 3 weeks. Occasionally, hospitals may apply triple dye to the umbilical stub to prevent infection, which may temporarily color the stub and surrounding skin purple.

Internal physiological changes at birth[link]

Newborn infant, seconds after delivery

Upon entry into the air-breathing world, without the nutrition and oxygenation via the umbilical cord, the newborn must begin to adjust to life outside the uterus. Newborns can feel all different sensations, but respond most enthusiastically to soft stroking, cuddling and caressing. Gentle rocking back and forth often calms a crying infant, as do massages and warm baths. Newborns may comfort themselves by sucking their thumb, or a pacifier. The need to suckle is instinctive (see suction in biology) and allows newborns to feed.

Newborn infants have unremarkable vision, being able to focus on objects only about 18 inches (45 cm) directly in front of their face. While this may not be much, it is all that is needed for the infant to look at the mother’s eyes or areola when breastfeeding. Depth perception does not develop until the infant is mobile. Generally, a newborn cries when wanting to feed. When a newborn is not sleeping, or feeding, or crying, he or she may spend a lot of time staring at various objects. Usually anything that is shiny, has sharp contrasting colors, or has complex patterns will catch an infant's eye. However, the newborn has a preference for looking at other human faces above all else. (see also: infant metaphysics and infant vision)

In utero, the infant can hear many internal noises, such as the mother's heartbeat, in addition to external noises including the human voice, music and most other sounds. Therefore, though a newborn's ears may have some catarrh and fluid, he or she can hear sound from before birth. Newborns usually respond more readily to a female voice over a male voice. This may explain why people will unknowingly raise the pitch of their voice when talking to newborns (this voice change is called motherese). The sound of other human voices, especially the mother's, can have a calming or soothing effect on the newborn. Conversely, loud or sudden noises will startle and scare them. Newborns have been shown to prefer sounds that were a regular feature of their prenatal environment, for example, the theme tune of a television programme their mother watched regularly.

Newborns can respond to differing tastes, including sweet, sour, bitter, and salty substances, with a preference toward sweetness. It has been shown that neonates show a preference for the smell of foods that their mother ate regularly.^{[citation needed]}

Care and feeding[link]

A baby breastfeeding

Infants cry as a form of basic instinctive communication. A crying infant may be trying to express a variety of feelings including hunger, discomfort, overstimulation, boredom, wanting something, or loneliness.

Breastfeeding is the recommended method of feeding by all major infant health organizations.^[4] If breastfeeding is not possible or desired, bottle feeding is done with expressed breast-milk or with infant formula. Infants are born with a sucking reflex allowing them to extract the milk from the nipples of the breasts or the nipple of the baby bottle, as well as an instinctive behavior known as rooting with which they seek out the nipple. Sometimes a wet nurse is hired to feed the infant, although this is rare, especially in developed countries.

Adequate food consumption at an early age is vital for an infant’s development. From birth to four months, infants should consume breast milk or an unmodified milk substitute. As an infant’s diet matures, finger foods may be introduced as well as fruit, vegetables and small amounts of meat.^[5]

As infants grow, food supplements are added. Many parents choose commercial, ready-made baby foods to supplement breast milk or formula for the child, while others adapt their usual meals for the dietary needs of their child. Whole cow's milk can be used at one year, but lower-fat milk should not be provided until the child is 2 to 3 years old. Weaning is the process through which breast milk is eliminated from the infant's diet through the introduction of solid foods in exchange for milk.^[6] Until they are toilet-trained, infants in industrialized countries wear diapers. The transition from diapers to cloth undergarments is an important transition in the development of a infant/baby to that of a toddler. Children need more sleep than adults—up to 18 hours for newborn babies, with a declining rate as the child ages. Until babies learn to walk, they are carried in the arms, held in slings or baby carriers, or transported in baby carriages or strollers. Most industrialized countries have laws requiring child safety seats for babies in motor vehicles.

Infants and the Benefits of Touch[link]

Studies have shown that infants who have been the recipients of positive touch experience more benefits as they develop emotionally and socially. Experiments have done with infants up to four months of age using both positive touch (stroking or cuddling) and negative touch (poking, pinching or tickling). The infants who received the positive touch cried less often and also vocalized and smiled more than the infants who were touched negatively. Infants who were the recipients of negative touching have been linked with emotional and behavioural problems later in life. A lower amount of physical violence in adults has been discovered in cultures with greater levels of positive physical touching. ^[7]

Infant mortality[link]

An infant being immunized in Bangladesh

Infant mortality is the death of an infant in the first year of life, often expressed as the number of deaths per 1000 live births (infant mortality rate). Major causes of infant mortality include dehydration, infection, congenital malformation and SIDS.^[8]

This epidemiological indicator is recognized as a very important measure of the level of health care in a country because it is directly linked with the health status of infants, children, and pregnant women as well as access to medical care, socioeconomic conditions, and public health practices.^[9][10]

It is shown through data that infant mortality rates continue to be very high in the US compared to infant mortality rates in other countries such as Sweden and Japan. There is a positive relationship between national wealth and good health. The rich and industrialized countries of the world, prominently Canada, the United States, and Japan, spend a large proportion of their wealthy budget on the health care system. As, a result, their health care systems are very sophisticated, with many physicians, nurses, and other health care experts servicing the population. Thus, infant mortality is low. On the other hand, a country such as Mexico, which spends disproportionately less of its budget on healthcare, suffers from high mortality rates. This is because the general population is likely to be less healthy. ^[11] Infant mortality rates are especially high in minority groups. Non-Hispanic black woman have an infant mortality rate of 13.63 per 1000 live births whereas in non-Hispanic white woman it was much lower at a rate of 5.76 per 1000 live births. ^[12]

Emotional development[link]

Attachment theory is primarily an evolutionary and ethological theory whereby the infant or child seeks proximity to a specified attachment figure in situations of alarm or distress for the purpose of survival.^[13] The forming of attachments is considered to be the foundation of the infant/child's capacity to form and conduct relationships throughout life. Attachment is not the same as love and/or affection although they often go together. Attachment and attachment behaviors tend to develop between the age of 6 months and 3 years. Infants become attached to adults who are sensitive and responsive in social interactions with the infant, and who remain as consistent caregivers for some time. Parental responses lead to the development of patterns of attachment which in turn lead to 'internal working models' which will guide the individual's feelings, thoughts, and expectations in later relationships.^[14] There are a number of attachment 'styles' namely 'secure', 'anxious-ambivalent', 'anxious-avoidant', (all 'organized') and 'disorganized', some of which are more problematic than others. A lack of attachment or a seriously disrupted capacity for attachment could potentially amount to serious disorders.

Baby and plane travel[link]

Many airlines refuse boarding for all babies aged under 7 days (for domestic flights) or 14 days for international flights. Asiana Airlines allows babies to board international flights at 7 days of age. Garuda Indonesia disallows all babies under the age of 14 days to board any flights.

Delta Airlines and Pinnacle Airlines allow infants to travel when they are less than 7 days old when they present a physician travel approval letter. Comair requires a letter if the infant is 12 days or younger. Skywest will not allow an infant less than 8 days old on board.^[15]

Common care issues[link]

• Baby colic
• Bassinet/crib
• Bathing
• Cradle cap
• Day care
• Diaper rash
• Infant formula
• Infant massage
• Immunization
• Pacifier
• Paternal bond
• Teething
• Umbilical cord

See also[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Babies

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Baby care and evolution

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Babies

Look up infant in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Herbal Recipes for Moms and Babies, includes herbal recipes for diaper rash, teething, mom's vulva and breasts, how to make woolen soakers and more
• Discovery Health's Infant & Toddler Center
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• The impact of buggy orientation on parent-infant interaction and infant stress
• The World Health Report 2005 – Make Every Mother and Child
• Infant eyesight - University of Illinois

Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers (born September 22, 1969^[1]) is best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.

A professional musician (and circus clown) since 1987, Derek started CD Baby by accident in 1998 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby went on to become the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients.

After he won the 2003 World Technology Award, Esquire magazine's annual "Best and Brightest" cover story said, "Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold . . . one of the last music-business folk heroes."

In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company, MuckWork, where teams of assistants help musicians do their "uncreative dirty work". His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org.

Derek is married to Sajitha, and they reside in Singapore.^[1]

CD Baby[link]

Derek Sivers bequeathed his company to a charitable trust for music education, and had them sell it to Disk Makers. This agreement allows him to receive the minimum allowed by law for such agreement of 5% per year of the company's sale price (annually $1,100,000 pretax, based on a sale price of $22 million as reported by Sivers^[2]) until death, while upon death the remainder if any will ultimately go into the trust.^[2]

Bibliography[link]

• Anything you want (2011, The Domino Project)^[3]

External links[link]

• Derek Sivers - Sivers' personal website
• MusicThoughts - thoughts on music translated in nine languages
• TED speaker page - Sivers' presentations at the TED Conference
• MuckWork - outsourcing of support tasks for musicians
• Sivers Reading Recommendations - business books that Sivers has read along with his notes on each

Interviews:

• EDay Emerce 2010 with Ronnie Overgoor in Rotterdam
• Mitch Joel - Six Pixels of Separation podcast
• Jay Baer - Convince & Convert
• Mixergy
• Forbes - Michael Ellsberg
• Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Eventual Millionaire
• Brain Pickings - by Maria Popova
• Amber Rae
• IdeaMensch
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Ariel Hyatt
• Marketing Over Coffee
• Fear.Less
• 10 Questions 10 Answers

References[link]

• Small, M (2009). "Berklee Today". Indie Musician Advocate

This business-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Kenneth E. "Ken" Davis is a prominent lobbyist and Republican political figure in Pennsylvania. He is a long-term ally of controversial Republican National Committeeman Bob Asher, a mainstay in state-wide and Montgomery County Republican politics.^[1]

Education and career[link]

He earned a degree from Moravian College and a Master's degree in government from American University.^[2] He began his career as a congressional aide to Pennsylvania Senator Hugh Scott in his Washington, DC office.^[2] He later worked as Director of Government Relations for Rohm and Haas, where he represented the company's interests before various levels of government.^[2]

He served as a member of the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority, a sub-cabinet board within the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, during the Ridge Administration.^[2] He served on the Private Sector Task Force on Management and Productivity during the Rendell Administration, where he wrote a study on commercial and economic development policies.^[2] He currently serves as a member of the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority.

He is a lobbyist for Duane Morris, where he is Managing Director of the firm's government affairs division.^[2] Within that position, he specializes in Pennsylvania's gambling law as well as Marcellus Shale issues.^[2]

Montgomery County politics[link]

He has served as a 15-year member and president of the Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners.^[2] He was considered as a possible Republican nominee for Montgomery County Commissioner, a nomination that went to eventual winner Tom Ellis.^[3]

County Republican Party[link]

In 2004, long-time chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, Frank Bartle retired, setting off a heated campaign between Davis and Robert J. Kerns that ended in controversy.^[4] Following the initial vote, which Davis won 329 to 328, Kerns alleged that proxy votes were improperly allocated in favor of Davis.^[4] Kerns filed a lawsuit in Common Pleas court, where a judge ruled that there were irregularities in the vote, but declined to overturn the result.^[5] In 2006, Davis defeated Kerns in a re-match.^[5] In 2008, Davis decided not to seek re-election, and returned full-time to his lobbying practice.

Support of Jim Matthews[link]

During the early stages of the Republican 2006 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, Davis and Bob Asher were instrumental in securing decisive support for Jim Matthews as the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor on a ticket with Lynn Swann^[6][7]

Feud with Bruce Castor[link]

During an intra-party primary battle for the Republican Party nomination for Montgomery County Commissioner, Davis' lobbying contract worth $7,500 per month was criticized by District Attorney Bruce Castor as being inappropriate. Davis eventually gave up the contract. However, Castor continued his feud with Jim Matthews and his fellow Commissioner Tom Ellis, and announced his own candidacy for Commissioner in response to Davis' endorsement of the pair. Castor went on to deeat Ellis for the nomination, and won the other seat alongside Matthews. Matthews, however, made a deal with Democratic Commissioner Joe Hoeffel to govern the County, leaving Castor out of the arrangement.^[1][8][9]

References[link]

The Edge
Background information
Birth name	David Howell Evans
Born	(1961-08-08) 8 August 1961 (age 50) Barking, Essex, England, United Kingdom
Origin	County Dublin, Ireland
Genres	Rock, post-punk, alternative rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, activist
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, keyboards, piano, bass guitar
Years active	1976–present
Labels	Island, Mercury
Associated acts	U2, Passengers
Website	www.u2.com
Notable instruments
Gibson Explorer Fender Stratocaster Gibson Les Paul Fender Telecaster Gretsch Country Gentleman Gretsch White Falcon Rickenbacker 330/12

David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his stage name The Edge (or just Edge),^[1] is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record. As a guitarist, The Edge has crafted a minimalistic and textural style of playing. His use of a rhythmic delay effect yields a distinctive ambient, chiming sound that has become a signature of U2's music.

The Edge was born in England to a Welsh family, but was raised in Ireland after moving there as an infant. In 1976, at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, he formed U2 with his fellow students and his older brother Dik. Inspired by the ethos of punk rock and its basic arrangements, the group began to write its own material. They eventually became one of the most popular acts in popular music, with successful albums such as 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1991's Achtung Baby. Over the years, The Edge has experimented with various guitar effects and introduced influences from several genres of music into his own style, including American roots music, industrial music, and alternative rock. With U2, The Edge has also played keyboards, co-produced their 1993 record Zooropa, and occasionally contributed lyrics. The Edge met his second and current wife, Morleigh Steinberg, through her collaborations with the band.

As a member of U2 and as an individual, The Edge has campaigned for human rights and philanthropic causes. He co-founded Music Rising, a charity to support musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina. He has collaborated with U2 bandmate Bono on several projects, including songs for Roy Orbison and Tina Turner, and the soundtracks to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and the Royal Shakespeare Company's London stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine placed him at number 38 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Personal life[link]

The Edge at a U2 concert in Anaheim (2005)

David Howell Evans was born at the Barking Maternity Hospital,^[2] Essex, England to Welsh parents Garvin and Gwenda Evans.^[1] When he was one, his family moved to County Dublin, Ireland where he attended St Andrew's National School. He received piano and guitar lessons and often performed with his brother Dik Evans before they both answered an advertisement posted by Larry Mullen, Jr. at their school, Mount Temple Comprehensive School, seeking musicians to form a band.^[3] The band accepted both of them. This band went through several incarnations before emerging as U2 in March 1978 (Dik Evans left the band just before the name change).^[3] U2 began performing in various venues in Ireland and eventually began developing a following. Their debut album, Boy, was released in 1980.

In 1981, leading up to the October tour, Evans came very close to leaving U2 for religious reasons, but he decided to stay.^[3] During this period, he became involved with a group called Shalom Tigers, in which bandmates Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were also involved.^[4] Shortly after deciding to remain with the band, he wrote a piece of music that later became "Sunday Bloody Sunday".^[3] The Edge married his high school girlfriend Aislinn O'Sullivan on 12 July 1983.^[5] The couple had three daughters together: Hollie in 1984, Arran in 1985 and Blue Angel in 1989.^[4] The couple separated in 1990, but were unable to get officially divorced because of Irish laws regarding marriage annulment; divorce was legalised in 1995 and the couple were legally divorced in 1996.^[4]

In 1993, The Edge began dating Morleigh Steinberg, a professional dancer and choreographer employed by the band as a belly dancer during the Zoo TV Tour. They had a daughter, Sian (born 1997), and a son, Levi (born 25 October 1999),^[4] before marrying on 22 June 2002.^[4] He appeared in the 2009 music documentary film It Might Get Loud.^[6] The Edge has been criticized for his efforts to build five luxury mansions on a 156 acre plot of land in Malibu, California.^[7] The California Coastal Commission voted 8-4 against the plans, with the project described by the commission's executive director, Peter Douglas, as "In 38 years...one of the three worst projects that I've seen in terms of environmental devastation...It's a contradiction in terms – you can't be serious about being an environmentalist and pick this location."^[7] The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy agreed to remain neutral on the issue following a $1 million donation from The Edge and a commitment from The Edge to designate 100 acres of the land as open space for public footpaths.^[7]

Music style[link]

Guitar playing[link]

As a guitar player, The Edge has a sound typified by a low-key playing style, a chiming, shimmering sound (thanks in part to the sound of VOX AC-30s) that he achieves with extensive use of delay effects and reverb. The feedback delay is often set to a dotted eighth note (3/16 of a measure), and the feedback gain is adjusted until a note played repeats two or three times.^{[citation needed]}

On 1987's The Joshua Tree, The Edge often contributes just a few simple lead lines given depth and richness by an ever-present delay. For example, the introduction to "Where the Streets Have No Name" is simply a repeated six-note arpeggio, broadened by a modulated delay effect. The Edge has said that he views musical notes as "expensive", in that he prefers to play as few notes as possible. He said in 1982 of his style,

"I like a nice ringing sound on guitar, and most of my chords I find two strings and make them ring the same note, so it's almost like a 12-string sound. So for E I might play a B, E, E and B and make it ring. It works very well with the Gibson Explorer. It's funny because the bass end of the Explorer was so awful that I used to stay away from the low strings, and a lot of the chords I played were very trebly, on the first four, or even three strings. I discovered that through using this one area of the fretboard I was developing a very stylized way of doing something that someone else would play in a normal way."^[9]

Many different influences have shaped The Edge's guitar technique.^{[citation needed]} His first guitar was an old acoustic guitar that his mother bought him at a local flea market for only a few pounds; he was nine at the time. He and his brother Dik Evans both experimented with this instrument.^[9] He said in 1982 of this early experimentation, "I suppose the first link in the chain was a visit to the local jumble sale where I purchased a guitar for a pound. That was my first instrument. It was an acoustic guitar and me and my elder brother Dik both played it, plonking away, all very rudimentary stuff, open chords and all that."^[9] The Edge has stated that many of his guitar parts are based around guitar effects. This is especially true from the Achtung Baby era onwards, although much of the band's 1980s material made heavy use of echos.

Vocals[link]

The Edge in June 2005

The Edge also supplies the backing vocals for U2. U2's 1983 live album and video release, Under a Blood Red Sky and Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky are good reference points for his singing (as are the live DVDs from the Elevation Tour, U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle and Elevation 2001: Live from Boston). For example, he sings the chorus to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (Bono harmonizes on the final 'Sunday'). U2 used this tradeoff technique later in "Bullet the Blue Sky" as well. His backing vocals are sometimes in the form of a repeated cry; examples of songs that use this approach include "Beautiful Day", "New Year's Day" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)". Another technique he uses in his backing vocals is the falsetto, in songs such as "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own", "A Man and a Woman", "The Wanderer", live versions of "The Fly", and "Window in the Skies".

The Edge sings the lead vocal on "Van Diemen's Land" and "Numb", the first half of the song "Seconds", dual vocals with Bono in "Discotheque", and the bridge in the song "Miracle Drug".^[4] He also sings the occasional lead vocal in live renditions of other songs (such as "Sunday Bloody Sunday" during the PopMart Tour and "Party Girl" during the Rotterdam Zoo TV show when it was Bono's birthday).^[10] He also plays a solo acoustic version of the song "Love is Blindness" that is featured in the documentary film From the Sky Down.

Other instruments[link]

He has played piano and keyboards on many of the band's songs, including "I Fall Down", "October", "So Cruel", "New Year's Day", "Running to Stand Still", "Miss Sarajevo", "The Hands that Built America", and "Original of the Species" and others. He plays the organ on "Please". In live versions of "New Year's Day", "The Unforgettable Fire", "Your Blue Room", and "Moment of Surrender", he plays both the piano and guitar parts alternately. In most live versions of "Original of the Species," piano is the only instrument played during the song. Although The Edge is the band's lead guitarist, he occasionally plays bass guitar, including the live performances of the song "40" where The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton switch instruments.

Solo recordings[link]

In addition to his regular role within U2, The Edge has also recorded with such artists as Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Tina Turner, Ronnie Wood, Jay-Z, and Rihanna. The Edge connected with Brian Eno and Lanois collaborator Michael Brook (the creator of the infinite guitar, which he regularly uses), working with him on the score to the film Captive (1986). From this soundtrack the song "Heroine", the vocal of which was sung by a young Sinéad O'Connor was released as a single.

He also created the theme song for season one and two of The Batman. He and fellow U2 member, Bono, wrote the lyrics to the theme of the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. The Edge, along with bandmate Bono, recently composed a musical adaptation of Spider-Man. On May 25, 2011, a single titled Rise Above 1: Reeve Carney Featuring Bono and The Edge was released digitally.^[11] The music video was released on July 28, 2011.^[12]

Musical equipment[link]

Edge's 1964 Vox AC30 on stage in Foxborough for the U2 360° Tour.

The Edge plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano, bass guitar (on "40" and "Race Against Time") and lap steel guitar. Compared to many lead guitarists, The Edge is known for using many more guitars during a show. According to his guitar tech Dallas Schoo, a typical lead guitarist uses four or five different guitars in one night, whereas The Edge takes 45 on the road, and uses 17 to 19 in one 2.5-hour concert. He is estimated to have more than 200 guitars in the studio.^{[citation needed]}

Philanthropy[link]

In 2005, The Edge along with Bob Ezrin and Henry Juszkiewicz co-founded Music Rising, a charity that helped provide replacement instruments for those that were lost in Hurricane Katrina. The instruments were originally only replaced for professional musicians but they soon realized the community churches and schools needed instruments as well. The charity's slogan is "Rebuilding the Gulf Region note by note" and has so far helped over a hundred musicians who were affected by Hurricane Katrina. The Edge also serves on the board of the Angiogenesis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to improving global health by advancing angiogenesis-based medicine, diets, and lifestyle.^[13]

See also[link]

• Timeline of U2
• List of people on stamps of Ireland

References[link]

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Edge

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Edge

• U2.com, official U2 site
• Music Rising
• The Edge at the Internet Movie Database
• The Edge – Album Credits
• A Study of The Edge's Guitar Delay
• The Edge: 'It's all about the vision'
• Food Bank For New York City public service announcement
• Comment on the mathematical analysis of The Edge's guitar sound