A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are commonly divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons. They have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries. Lagoons are common coastal features around the world.

Definition[link]

Garabogaz-Göl lagoon in Turkmenistan.

Lagoons are shallow, often elongated bodies of water separated from a larger body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef, or similar feature. Some authorities (such as Nybakken) include fresh water bodies in the definition of "lagoon", while others explicitly restrict "lagoon" to bodies of water with some degree of salinity. The distinction between "lagoon" and "estuary" also varies between authorities. Davis restricts "lagoon" to bodies of water with little or no fresh water inflow, and little or no tidal flow, and calls any bay that receives a regular flow of fresh water an "estuary". Davis does state that the terms "lagoon" and "estuary" are "often loosely applied, even in scientific literature."^[1] Kusky characterizes lagoons as normally being elongated parallel to the coast, while estuaries are usually drowned river valleys, elongated perpendicular to the coast.^{[2][1][3][4][5]} When used within the context of a distinctive portion of coral reef ecosystems, the term "lagoon" is synonymous with the term "back reef" or "backreef", which is more commonly used by coral reef scientists to refer to the same area.^[6] Coastal lagoons are classified as inland bodies of water.^[7][8]

Many lagoons do not include "lagoon" in their common names. Albemarle and Pamlico sounds in North Carolina,^[9] Great South Bay between Long Island and the barrier beaches of Fire Island in New York,^[10] Isle of Wight Bay, which separates Ocean City, Maryland from the rest of Worcester County, Maryland,^[11] Banana River in Florida,^[12] Lake Illawarra in New South Wales,^[13] Montrose Basin in Scotland,^[14] and Broad Water in Wales have all been classified as lagoons, despite their names. In England, The Fleet at Chesil Beach has also been described as a lagoon.

In Latin America often the use of “laguna”, which lagoon translates to, is used to describe a lake, such as Laguna Catemaco. In Portuguese, “lagoa” may be a body of shallow sea water, but also a relatively small freshwater lake not linked to the sea.

Etymology[link]

"Lagoon" is derived from the Italian laguna, which refers to the waters around Venice, the Lagoon of Venice. Laguna is attested in English by at least 1612, and had been Anglicized to "lagune" by 1673. In 1697 William Dampier referred to a "Lagune or Lake of Salt water" on the coast of Mexico. Captain James Cook described an island "of Oval form with a Lagoon in the middle" in 1769.^[15]

Atoll lagoons[link]

Atoll lagoons form as coral reefs grow upwards while the islands the reefs surround subside, until eventually only the reefs remain above sea level.

Coastal lagoons[link]

Coastal lagoons form along gently sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop off-shore, and the sea-level is rising relative to the land along the shore (either because of an intrinsic rise in sea-level, or subsidence of the land along the coast). Coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres (13 ft). Due to the gentle slope of the coast, coastal lagoons are shallow. They are sensitive to changes in sea level. A relative drop in sea level may leave a lagoon largely dry, while a rise in sea level may let the sea breach or destroy barrier islands, and leave reefs too deep under water to protect the lagoon. Nybakken describes coastal lagoons and barrier islands as a "coupled system". Coastal lagoons are young and dynamic, and may be short-lived in geological terms. Coastal lagoons are common, occurring along nearly 15 percent of the world's shorelines. In the United States, lagoons are found along more than 75 percent of the eastern and Gulf coasts.^[3][4]

Coastal lagoons are usually connected to the open ocean by inlets between barrier islands. The number and size of the inlets, precipitation, evaporation, and inflow of fresh water all affect the nature of the lagoon. Lagoons with little or no interchange with the open ocean, little or no inflow of fresh water, and high evaporation rates, such as Lake St. Lucia, in South Africa, may become highly saline. Lagoons with no connection to the open ocean and significant inflow of fresh water, such as the Lake Worth Lagoon in Florida in the middle of the 19th century, may be entirely fresh. On the other hand, lagoons with many wide inlets, such as the Wadden Sea, have strong tidal currents and mixing. Coastal lagoons tend to accumulate sediments from inflowing rivers, from runoff from the shores of the lagoon, and from sediment carried into the lagoon through inlets by the tide. Large quantities of sediment may be occasionally be deposited in a lagoon when storm waves overwash barrier islands. Mangroves and marsh plants can facilitate the accumulation of sediment in a lagoon. Benthic organisms may stabilize or destabilize sediments.^[3][4]

River-mouth Lagoons on Mixed Sand and Gravel Beaches[link]

River-mouth lagoons on mixed sand and gravel (MSG) beaches form at the river-coast interface, where a braided river interacts with a coastal environment that is significantly affected by longshore drift ^[16]. The lagoons which form on the MSG coastlines are often located on the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand and have long been referred to as 'hapua' by the Maori People. This classification differentiates hapua from similar lagoons located on the New Zealand coast termed 'waituna'. Hapua are often located on paraglacial coastal areas^[17] where there is a low level of coastal development and minimal population density. Hapua form as freshwater fills an elongated coast-parallel area, blocked from the sea by a MSG barrier which constantly alters its shape and volume due to longshore drift^[16][18]. Longshore drift continually extends the barrier behind which the hapua forms by transporting sediment along the coast. Hapua are defined as a narrow shore-parallel extensions of the coastal riverbed^[18]. They discharge the majority of stored water to the ocean via an ephemeral and highly mobile drainage channel or outlet^[19]. The remainder percolates through the MSG barrier due to its high levels of permeability. Hapua systems are driven by a wide range of dynamic processes that are generally classified as fluvial or marine; changes in the balance between these processes as well as the antecedent barrier conditions can cause shifts in the morphology of the hapua, in particular the barrier. New Zealand examples include the Rakaia, Ashburton and Hurunui river-mouths.

Hapua Environment[link]

Hapua have been identified as establishing in the Canterbury Bight coastal region on the east coast of the South Island. They are often found in areas of coarse-grained sediment where contributing rivers have moderately steep bed gradients ^[16]. MSG beaches in the Canterbury Bight region contain a wide range of sediment sizes from sand to boulders^[20] and are exposed to the high energy waves that make up an east coast swell environment^[21]. MSG beaches are reflective rather than dissipative energy zones due to their morphological characteristics. They have a steep foreshore which is known as the ‘engine room’ of the beach profile. In this zone, swash and backwash are dominating processes alongside longshore transport ^[22]. MSG beaches do not have a surf zone; instead a single line of breakers is visible in all sea conditions^[16]. Hapua are associated with MSG beaches as the variation in sediment size allows for the barrier to be permeable.

The east coast of the South Island has been identified as being in a period of chronic erosion of approximately 0.5 metres per year^[23]. This erosion trend is a result of a number of factors. Zenkovich^[17] defined the rivers on the east coast as ‘small’; this classification was not related to their flow rate but to the insufficient amount of sediment that they transport to the coast. The sediment provided is not adequate to nourish the coast against its typical high energy waves and strong longshore drift. These two processes constantly remove sediment depositing it either offshore or further up drift^[24]. As the coastline becomes eroded the hapua have been 'rolling back' by eroding the backshore to move landwards^[18].

Hapua or river-mouth lagoons form in micro-tidal environments. A micro-tidal environment is where the tidal range (distance between low tide and high tide) is less than two metres^[16]. Tidal currents in a micro-tidal zone are less than those found on meso-tidal (two – four metres) and macro-tidal (greater than four metres) coastlines^[25]. Hapua form in this type of tidal environment as the tidal currents are unable to compete with the powerful freshwater flows of the rivers therefore there is no negligible tidal penetration to the lagoon^[16]. A fourth element of the environment in which hapua form is the strong longshore drift component^[16]. Longshore or littoral drift is the transportation of sediments along the coast at an angle to the shoreline. In the Canterbury Bight coastal area; the dominant swell direction is northwards from the Southern Ocean^[16]. Therefore the principal movement of sediment via longshore drift is north towards Banks Peninsula. Hapua are located in areas dominated by longshore drift; because it aids the formation of the barrier behind which the hapua is sited.

A hapua also requires sediment to form the lagoon barrier. Sediment which nourishes the east coast of New Zealand can be sourced from three different areas. Material from the highly erodible Southern Alps is removed via weathering; then carried across the Canterbury Plains by various braided rivers to the east coast beaches^[24][18]. The second source of sediment is the high cliffs which are located in the hinterland of lagoons^[24]. These can be eroded during the occurrence of high river flow or sea storm events. Beaches further south provide nourishment to the northern coast via longshore transport.

Hapua Characteristics[link]

Hapua have a number of characteristics which includes shifts between a variety of morphodynamic states due to changes in the balance between marine and fluvial processes as well as the antecedent barrier conditions^[18]. The MSG barrier constantly changes size and shape as a result of the longshore drift. Water stored in the hapua drains to the coast predominately though an outlet; although it can also seep through the barrier depending on the permeability of the material^[18][26].

Changes in the level of the lagoon water do not occur as a result of saltwater or tidal intrusion. Water in a hapua is predominately freshwater originating from the associated river. Hapua are non-estuarine, there is no tidal inflow however the tide does have an effect on the level of water in the lagoon. As the tide reaches its peak, the lagoon water has a much smaller amount of barrier to permeate through so the lagoon level rises^[27]. This is related to a physics theory known as hydraulic hear. The lagoon level has a similar sinusoidal wave shape as the tide but reaches its peak slightly later^[26]. In general, any saltwater intrusion into the hapua will only occur during a storm via wave overtopping or sea spray^[18][24].

Hapua can act as both a source and sink of sediment^[24][23]. The majority of sediment in the hapua is fluvial sourced^[16]. During medium to low river flows, coarser sediment generally collects in the hapua; while some of the finer sediment can be transported through the outlet to the coast^[24]. During flood events the hapua is 'flushed out' with larger amounts of sediment transferred through the outlet. This sediment can be deposited offshore or downdrift of the hapua replenishing the undernourished beach^[24]. If a large amount of material is released to the coast at one time it can be identified as a 'slug'. These can often be visible from aerial photographs.

Antecedent barrier conditions combined with changes in the balance between marine and fluvial processes results in shifts between a variety of morphological states in a hapua or river-mouth lagoon on a MSG beach. Marine processes includes the direction of wave approach, wave height and the coincidence of storm waves with high tides^[28]. Marine processes tend to dominate the majority of morphodynamic conditions until there is a large enough flood event in the associated river to breach the barrier^[16]. The level and frequency of base or flood flows are attributed to fluvial processes. Antecedent barrier conditions comprise of the permeability, volume and height of the barrier as well as the width and presence of previous outlet channels^[28]. During low to medium river flows, the outlet from the lagoon to the sea becomes offset in the direction of longshore drift^[24]. Outlet efficiency tends to decrease the further away from the main river-mouth the outlet is^[18]. A decrease in efficiency can cause the outlet to become choked with sediment and the hapua to close temporarily. The potential for closure varies between different hapua depending on whether marine or fluvial processes are the bigger driver in the event. A high flow event; such as a fresh or flood can breach the barrier directly opposite the main river channel^[24][18]. This causes an immediate decrease in the water level of the hapua; as well as transporting previously deposited sediments into the ocean. Flood events are important for eroding lagoon back shores; this is a behaviour which allows hapua to retreat landward and thus remain coastal landforms even with coastal transgression and sea level rise^[18]. During high flow events there is also the possibility for secondary breaches of the barrier or lagoon truncation to occur.

Storm events also have the ability to close hapua outlets as waves overtop the barrier depositing sediment and choking the scoured channel^[23]. The resultant swift increase in lagoon water level causes a new outlet to be breached rapidly due to the large hydraulic head that forms between the lagoon and sea water levels. Storm breaching is believed to be an important but unpredictable control on the duration of closures at low to moderate river flow levels in smaller hapua^[23].

Hapua are extremely important for a number of reasons. They provide a link between the river and sea for migrating fish as well as a corridor for migratory birds^[16][29]. To lose this link via closure of the hapua outlet could result in losing entire generations of specific species as they may need to migrate to the ocean or the river as a vital part of their lifecycle. River-mouth lagoons such as hapua were also used a source for mahinga kai (food gathering) by the Maori people^[16][29]. However, this is no longer the case due to catchment degradation which has resulted in lagoon deterioration. River-mouth lagoons on MSG beaches are not well explained in international literature.

Hapua Case Study[link]

The hapua located at the mouth of the Rakaia River stretches approximately three kilometres north from where the river-mouth reaches the coast. The average width of the hapua between 1952 and 2004 was approximately 50 metres; whilst the surface area has stabilised at approximately 600,000 square metres since 1966^[30]. The coastal hinterland is comprised of erodible cliffs and a low lying area commonly known as the Rakaia Huts. This area has changed notably since European Settlement; with the drainage of ecologically significant wetlands and development of the small bach community.

The Rakaia River begins in the Southern Alps, providing approximately 4.2 Mt per year of sediment to the east coast. It is a braided river with a catchment area of 3105 kilometres squared and a mean flow of 221 cubic metres per second^[31]. The mouth of the Rakaia River reaches the coast south of Banks Peninsula. As the river reaches the coast it diverges into two channels; with the main channel flowing to the south of the island^[23]. As the hapua is located in the Canterbury Bight it is in a state of constant morphological change due to the prevailing southerly sea swells and resultant northwards longshore drift.

Images[link]

• 

  Glenrock Lagoon in Australia

• 

  Lagoa dos Patos lagoon in Brazil

• 

  Venetian Lagoon as seen by Landsat 1

• 

  Szczecin Lagoon as seen by Landsat c. 2000.

• 

  Vistula and Curonian lagoons on the Baltic Sea.

• 

  Nearly half the area of Kiritimati is covered with lagoons, some freshwater and some seawater.

• 

  Blue lagoon, Ölüdeniz, Turkey

• 

  Washdyke Lagoon in New Zealand

• 

  Marano Lagoon in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy

See also[link]

• Aerated lagoon
• Anaerobic lagoon
• Ayre (landform)
• Braided river
• Coastline
• Estuary
• Kerala backwaters
• Longshore Drift
• Sediment transport

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lagoons

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Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson, May 1986
Background information
Birth name	Laurel Phillips Anderson
Born	(1947-06-05) June 5, 1947 (age 65) Glen Ellyn, Illinois, United States
Genres	Experimental music, art rock
Occupations	Musician, performance artist
Instruments	Violin, Synclavier, percussion, vocalist
Years active	1975–present
Labels	Warner Bros., Nonesuch/Elektra
Associated acts	Lou Reed, Janice Pendarvis, David Van Tieghem
Website	www.laurieanderson.com

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947^[1]) is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor,^[2] Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s. Throughout the 1970s, Anderson did a variety of different performance-art activities. She became widely known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.^[3]

Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she developed a talking stick, a six-foot-long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate different sounds.^[4]

Anderson married singer–songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed in 2008.^[5]

Early life[link]

Anderson was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, the daughter of Mary Louise (née Rowland) and Arthur T. Anderson.^[6] She graduated from Glenbard West High School. She attended Mills College in California, and eventually graduated from Barnard College magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, studying art history. In 1972, she obtained an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University. Her first performance-art piece—a symphony played on automobile horns—was performed in 1969. In 1970, she drew the underground comix Baloney Moccasins, which was published by George DiCaprio. In the early 1970s, she worked as an art instructor, as an art critic for magazines such as Artforum,^[7] and illustrated children's books^[8] - the first of which was titled The Package, a mystery story in pictures alone.^[9]

1970s[link]

She performed in New York through the 1970s. One of her most-cited performances, Duets on Ice, which she conducted in New York and other cities around the world, involved her playing the violin along with a recording while wearing ice skates with the blades frozen into a block of ice; the performance ended only when the ice had melted away. Two early pieces, "New York Social Life" and "Time to Go," were included in the 1977 compilation New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, along with works by Pauline Oliveros and others.^[2] Two other pieces were included on Airwaves a collection of audio pieces by artists. She also recorded a lecture for Vision, a set of artist's lectures released by Crown Point Press as a set of 6 LPs.

Many of Anderson's earliest recordings remain unreleased, or were only issued in limited quantities, such as her first single, "It's Not the Bullet that Kills You (It's the Hole)". That song, along with "New York Social Life" and about a dozen others, were originally recorded for use in an art installation that consisted of a jukebox that played the different Anderson compositions, at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City. Among the musicians on these early recordings are Peter Gordon on saxophone, Scott Johnson on guitar, Ken Deifik on harmonica, and Joe Kos on drums. Photographs and descriptions of many of these early performances were included in Anderson's retrospective book, Stories from the Nerve Bible.^[10]

During the late 1970s, Anderson made a number of additional recordings that were released either privately or included on compilations of avant-garde music, most notably releases by the Giorno Poetry Systems label run by New York poet John Giorno, an early intimate of Andy Warhol.^[11] Among the Giorno-released recordings was You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With, a double-album shared with Giorno and William Burroughs (the original release had one LP side for each artist, with the fourth side triple-grooved, one for each, so you'd get a different one, depending on where you put the needle down). In 1978, Anderson performed at The Nova Convention, a major conference involving many counter-culture figures and rising avant-garde musical stars, including William S. Burroughs, Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, Timothy Leary, Malcolm Goldstein, John Cage, and Allen Ginsberg.^[12] She also worked with comedian Andy Kaufman in the late 1970s.^[13]

1980s[link]

Anderson became widely known outside the art world in 1981 with the single "O Superman", originally released in a limited quantity by B. George's One Ten Records. The song reached number two on the national pop charts in Britain after the sudden influx of orders from the UK (prompted by British radio station Radio Clyde playlisting the record) and led to Anderson's signing a 7-album deal with Warner Bros. Records, which re-released the single.

"O Superman" was part of a larger stage work titled United States and was included on the album Big Science.^[14] Prior to the release of Big Science, Anderson returned to Giorno Poetry Systems to record the album You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With; Anderson recorded one side of the 2-LP set, with William S. Burroughs and John Giorno recording a side each, and the fourth side featured a separate groove for each artist. This was followed by the back-to-back releases of her albums Mister Heartbreak and United States Live, the latter of which was a five-LP (and, later, 4-CD) recording of her 2-evening stage show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.^[6] She also appeared in a television special produced by Nam June Paik broadcast on New Years Day 1984, entitled Good Morning Mr. Orwell (the title being inspired by Orwell's novel 1984).

She next starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave and also composed the soundtracks for the Spalding Gray films Swimming to Cambodia and Monster in a Box. During this time she also contributed music to Robert Wilson's "Alcestis" at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She also hosted the PBS series Alive from Off-Center during this time, for which she produced the short film What You Mean We? Release of Anderson's first post-Home of the Brave album, 1989's Strange Angels, was delayed for more than a year in order for Anderson to take singing lessons. This was due to the album being more musically inclined (in terms of singing) than her previous works.^[15]

1990s[link]

In 1991, she was a member of the jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.^[16] In the same year, Anderson appeared in The Human Face, a feature arts documentary directed by artist-filmmakers Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson for BBC TV. Anderson was the presenter in this documentary on the history of the face in art and science. Her face was transformed using latex masks and digital special effects as she introduced ideas about the relationship between physiognomy and perception. Her varied career in the early 1990s included voice-acting in the animated film The Rugrats Movie. In 1994 she created a CD-ROM titled Puppet Motel, which was followed by Bright Red, co-produced by Brian Eno, and another spoken-word album, The Ugly One with the Jewels. This was then followed by an appearance on the 1997 charity single Perfect Day.^[17]

In 1996, Anderson performed with Diego Frenkel (La Portuária) and Aterciopelados for the AIDS benefit album Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin produced by the Red Hot Organization.

An interval of more than half a decade followed before her next album release. During this time, she wrote a supplemental article on the cultural character of New York City for the Encyclopædia Britannica^[18] and created a number of multimedia presentations, most notably one inspired by Moby-Dick (Songs and Stories From Moby Dick, 1999–2000).^[19] One of the central themes in Anderson's work is exploring the effects of technology on human relationships and communication.

2000s[link]

Life on a String, appeared in 2001, by which time she signed a new contract with another Warner Music label, Nonesuch Records. Life on a String was a mixture of new works (including one song recalling the recent death of her father) and works from the Moby Dick presentation.^[20] In 2001, she recorded the audiobook version of Don DeLillo's novel The Body Artist. Anderson, who rarely revisits older work (though themes and lyrics occasionally reappear), went on tour performing a selection of her best-known musical pieces in 2001. One of these performances was recorded in New York City only a week after the September 11, 2001, attacks, and included a performance of "O Superman." This concert was released in early 2002 as the double CD Live in New York.^[21]

In 2003, Anderson became NASA's first artist-in-residence, which inspired her performance piece, The End of the Moon.^[22][23] She mounted a succession of themed shows and composed a piece for Expo 2005 in Japan. In 2005, Anderson visited Russia’s space programme – the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and mission control – with The Arts Catalyst and took part in The Arts Catalyst’s Space Soon event at the Roundhouse to reflect on her experiences. She was part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Later that year, she collaborated with the choreographer Trisha Brown and filmmaker Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo on the acclaimed multimedia project O Zlozony/O Composite for the Paris Opera Ballet. The ballet premiered at the Opera Garnier in Paris in December 2004. Anderson has also collaborated with William S. Burroughs, Jean Dupuy, Arto Lindsay, Bill Laswell, Ian Ritchie, Peter Gabriel, Perry Hoberman, David Sylvian, Jean Michel Jarre, Brian Eno, Phillip Glass, Nona Hendryx, Bobby McFerrin, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dave Stewart, Peter Gordon, Adrian Belew, Hector Zazou, and Lou Reed.

Since the latter part of the 1990s Anderson and Lou Reed have collaborated on a number of recordings together.^[24] Anderson contributed to "Call on Me" from Reed's collaborative project The Raven, on the tracks "Rouge" and "Rock Minuet" from Reed's Ecstasy, and "Hang on to Your Emotions" from Reed's Set the Twilight Reeling; Lou Reed contributes to the tracks "In Our Sleep" from Laurie Anderson's Bright Red and "One Beautiful Evening" from Anderson's Life on a String. They were married on April 12, 2008^[25] in a private ceremony in Boulder, Colorado.^[26]

In 2005, her exhibition The Waters Reglitterized opened at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City. According to the press release by Sean Kelly,^[27] the work is a diary of dreams and their literal recreation as works of art. This work, created in the process of re-experiencing or re-working her dreams while awake, uses the language of dreams to investigate the dream itself. The resulting pieces include drawings, prints, and high-definition video. The installation ran until October 22, 2005. In 2006, she contributed a song to Plague Songs, a collection of songs related to the 10 Biblical plagues.

Laurie Anderson narrated Ric Burns's Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film, which was first televised in September 2006 as part of the PBS American Masters series. Anderson also performed in Came So Far for Beauty, the Leonard Cohen tribute event held in the Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, on October 4–5, 2006. Recent releases include a re-release of her first album, Big Science on Nonesuch Records, a book of drawings titled Night Life, and a brand new album released in 2010 called Homeland.

Material from Homeland was performed at small work-in-progress shows in New York throughout May 2007, most notably at the Highline Ballroom on May 17–18, supported by a 4-piece band with spontaneous lighting and video visuals mixed live throughout the performances by Willie Williams and Mark Coniglio, respectively. A European tour of the Homeland work in progress took place during the late summer and fall of 2007, including performances on September 28 and September 29, 2007, at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin; on October 17–19 at the Melbourne International Arts Festival; in Russia at the Moscow Dom Muzyky concert-hall on April 26, 2008. The work was performed across the Atlantic in Toronto, Canada, June 14, 2008, with husband Lou Reed, making the "Lost Art of Conversation" a duet with vocals and guitar, with his ambling style contrasting with Anderson's tightly wound performance. Anderson's Homeland Tour performed at several locations across the United States as well, such as at the Ferst Center for the Arts, Atlanta, Georgia; The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, New York; and Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois, co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.^[28]

Anderson was awarded the 2007 Gish Prize for her "outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to humankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life."^[29]

2010s[link]

In February 2010, Laurie Anderson premiered a new theatrical work, entitled Delusion, at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. This piece was commissioned by the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad and the Barbican Centre, London.^[30]

In May/June 2010, Anderson curated the Vivid Sydney festival in Sydney, Australia together with Lou Reed.^[31] Her new album Homeland was released on June 22.

She performed "Only an Expert" on July 15, 2010 on The Late Show with David Letterman, and her song "Gravity's Angel" was featured on the Fox TV show So You Think You Can Dance on the same day.

She appears as a guest musician on several tracks from experimental jazz musician Colin Stetson's 2011 album New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges.

Anderson is currently developing a new theatrical work, entitled "Another Day in America". The first public showings of this work-in-progress will take place in Calgary, Alberta in January, 2011 as part of Theatre Junction GRAND's 2011-12 season and One Yellow Rabbit's annual arts festival, the High Performance Rodeo.^[32]

Inventions[link]

Anderson has invented several experimental musical instruments that she has used in her recordings and performances.

Tape-bow violin[link]

The tape-bow violin is an instrument created by Laurie Anderson in 1977. It uses recorded magnetic tape in place of the traditional horsehair in the bow, and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. Anderson has updated and modified this device over the years.

She can be seen using a later generation of this device in her film Home of the Brave during the "Late Show" segment in which she manipulates a sentence recorded by William S. Burroughs. This version of the violin discarded magnetic tape and instead used MIDI-based audio samples, triggered by contact with the bow.

Talking stick[link]

The talking stick is a 6-foot-long baton-like MIDI controller. It was used in the Moby-Dick tour in 1999–2000. She described it in program notes as follows:

The Talking Stick is a new instrument that I designed in collaboration with a team from Interval Research and Bob Bielecki. It is a wireless instrument that can access and replicate any sound. It works on the principle of granular synthesis. This is the technique of breaking sound into tiny segments, called grains, and then playing them back in different ways. The computer rearranges the sound fragments into continuous strings or random clusters that are played back in overlapping sequences to create new textures. The grains are very short, a few hundredths of a second. Granular synthesis can sound smooth or choppy depending on the size of the grain and the rate at which they’re played. The grains are like film frames. If you slow them down enough, you begin to hear them separately.

Voice filters[link]

A recurring motif in Anderson's work is the use of a voice filter which deepens her voice into a masculine register, a technique which Anderson has referred to as "audio drag".^[33] Anderson has long used the resulting character in her work as a "voice of authority" or conscience,^[33] although she later decided that he had lost much of his authority and instead began utilizing the voice to provide historical or sociopolitical commentary,^[34] as he does on "Another Day in America", a piece from her 2010 album Homeland.

For much of Anderson's career, the character was nameless or actually called the Voice of Authority, although more recently, he was dubbed Fenway Bergamot from Reed's suggestion.^[34] The cover of Homeland depicts Anderson in character as Bergamot, with streaks of black makeup to give her a moustache and thick, masculine eyebrows.

In "The Cultural Ambassador", a piece on her album The Ugly One with the Jewels, Anderson explained some of her perspective on the character:

(Anderson:) I was carrying a lot of electronics so I had to keep unpacking everything and plugging it in and demonstrating how it all worked, and I guess I did seem a little fishy — a lot of this stuff wakes up displaying LED program readouts that have names like Atom Smasher, and so it took a while to convince them that they weren't some kind of espionage system. So I've done quite a few of these sort of impromptu new music concerts for small groups of detectives and customs agents and I'd have to keep setting all this stuff up and they'd listen for a while and they'd say: So uh, what's this? And I'd pull out something like
(Bergamot:) this filter, and say, now this is what I like to think of as the voice of authority. And it would take me a while to tell them how I used it for songs that were, you know, about various forms of control, and they would say, now why would you want to talk like that? And I'd look around at the SWAT teams, and the undercover agents, and the dogs, and the radio in the corner, tuned to the Super Bowl coverage of the war. And I'd say, take a wild guess.

Discography[link]

(with US and UK chart positions)^{[verification needed]}

Studio albums[link]

• Big Science (1982) US No. 124 UK No. 29^[35]
• Mister Heartbreak (1984) US No. 60 UK No. 93^[35]
• Home of the Brave (soundtrack album) (1986) US No. 145
• Strange Angels (1989) US No. 171, featuring Bobby McFerrin
• Bright Red (1994) US No. 195
• The Ugly One with the Jewels (spoken word) (1995)
• Life on a String (2001)
• Homeland (2010)

Live albums[link]

• United States Live (boxed set) (1984) US No. 192
• Live in New York (2002)

Compilation albums[link]

• Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology (2000)

Collaborations[link]

• You're the Guy I Want To Share My Money With (1981) (with William S. Burroughs, John Giorno)
• This is the Picture (Excellent Birds), with Peter Gabriel, 1986
• The Stone: Issue Three (by John Zorn, Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson, recorded live in 2008)
• Zoolook (by Jean Michel Jarre, recorded in 1984)
• Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin, song "Una Hoja, Una Raiz" (Compilation album, 1997, with Diego Frenkel (La Portuária) and Aterciopelados)
• Métamorphoses (by Jean Michel Jarre, recorded in 2000)
• Plague Songs, song "The Death of Livestock" (Compilation album, 2006)
• Verde, anil, amarelo, cor de rosa e carvão (Rose & Charcoal), song "Enquanto Isso" (with Marisa Monte, 1994)
• New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (2011) by Colin Stetson

Singles[link]

• "O Superman" (1981) No. 2 UK^[35]
• "Big Science" (1981)
• "Sharkey's Day" (1984)
• "Language Is a Virus" (1986)
• "Strange Angels" (1989)
• "Babydoll" (1989) No. 7 US Modern Rock
• "Beautiful Red Dress" (1990)
• "In Our Sleep" (1994)
• "Big Science 2" (2007) (Currently available only on iTunes)
• "Mambo and Bling" (2008)
• "Only an Expert" (2010)^[36]

The single "Sharkey's Day" was for many years the theme song of Lifetime Television. Anderson also recorded a number of limited-release singles in the late 1970s (many issued from the Holly Soloman Gallery), songs from which were included on a number of compilations, including Giorno Poetry Systems' The Nova Convention and You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With. Over the years she has also performed on recordings by other musicians such as Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, and Jean Michel Jarre. She also contributed lyrics to the Philip Glass album Songs for Liquid Days, she also contributed a spoken-word piece to a tribute album in honor of John Cage.

Music videos[link]

Formal music videos have been produced of

• "O Superman"
• "Sharkey's Day"
• "Language is a Virus" (from Home of the Brave)
• "Beautiful Red Dress"

In addition, in lieu of making another music video for her Strange Angels album, Anderson taped a series of 1- to 2-minute "Personal Service Announcements" in which she spoke about issues such as the U.S. national debt and the arts scene. Some of the music used in these productions came from her soundtrack of Swimming to Cambodia. The PSAs were frequently shown between music videos on VH-1 in early 1990.

Films[link]

1. Dearreader: How to Turn a Book Into a Movie - 1974
2. System ohne Schatten/Closed Circuit - 1983
3. Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson - 1986
4. What You Mean We? - 1987
5. Hotel Deutschland - 1992
6. The Rugrats Movie - 1998 (provided character voice)
7. Life on a String - 2002
8. Hidden Inside Mountains - 2006

Television[link]

1. Saturday Night Live - musical guest, 1986 [1]
2. Alive from Off Center - host, 1987

Audiobooks[link]

1. The Path to Tranquility by His Holiness the Dalai Lama - co-narrator, 1999
2. The Body Artist by Don DeLillo - sole narrator, 2001

Bibliography[link]

• United States (HarperCollins, 1984) ISBN 0-06-091110-7
• Stories from the Nerve Bible: A Twenty-Year Retrospective (HarperCollins, 1994) ISBN 0-06-055355-3
• Dal Vivo (Fondazione Prada, 1999) ISBN 88-87029-10-5
• Night Life (Edition 7L, 2007) ISBN 3-86521-339-1

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Golden, Barbara. “Conversation with Laurie Anderson.” eContact! 12.2 — Interviews (2) (April 2010). Montréal: CEC.
• mite. “Talking with Laurie Anderson.” Mutant Renegade Zine #7, June 1996.
• Nicom, John. “Homeland insecurity: Laurie Anderson takes uncompromising look at how America has changed.” LJWorld.com. September 12, 2008.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Laurie Anderson (category)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Laurie Anderson

• Official website
• "Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology (Liner Notes)". Archived from the original on January 11, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20010111023000/http://rhino.com/features/liners/76648lin.html. 
• Some Notes on Seeing: The Waters Reglitterized By Laurie Anderson for exhibition 2005
• "Eclectic Laurie Anderson visits Ames". Archived from the original on August 18, 2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20030818200546/http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/story.php?sid=78&sec=earth. 
• "NASA Art Program". Archived from the original on December 1, 1998. http://web.archive.org/web/19981201084829/http://www.spacelink.nasa.gov/NASA.Overview/NASA.Art.Program/.index.html. 

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. Throughout his life Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed. He performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials. Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts including country & western, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, in all earning him 12 gold and 4 platinum albums with his signature songs "Sunshine on My Shoulders", "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", "Rocky Mountain High", "Annie's Song", and "Calypso".

Denver further starred in films and several notable television specials in the 1970s and 1980s. In the following decades he continued to record, but also focused on calling attention to environmental issues, lent his vocal support to space exploration, and testified in front of Congress to protest censorship in music. He is known for his love of the state of Colorado, which he sang about numerous times. He lived in Aspen, Colorado, for much of his life, and influenced the governor to name him Poet Laureate of the state in 1974. The Colorado state legislature also adopted "Rocky Mountain High" as one of its state songs in 2007. He was an avid pilot, and died while flying his personal aircraft at the age of 53. Denver was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., was born in Roswell, New Mexico, to Erma Louise Swope and Lt. Col. Henry John Deutschendorf, Sr.,^[2] an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (who set three speed records in the B-58 Hustler bomber and earned a place in the Air Force Hall of Fame). Henry Sr. was of German ancestry, and met and married his "Oklahoma Sweetheart".^[3] Denver's Irish Catholic and German maternal grandmother was the one who imbued Denver with his love of music. In his autobiography, Take Me Home, Denver described his life as the eldest son of a family shaped by a stern father who could not show his love for his children.

Because Denver's father was in the military, the family moved often, making it difficult for Denver to make friends and fit in with people of his own age. Constantly being the new kid was agony for the introverted child, and he grew up always feeling as if he should be somewhere else, but never knowing where that "right" place was.^[4] While living in Tucson, Arizona, Denver was a member of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus for two years. Denver was happy living in Tucson, but his father was transferred to Montgomery, Alabama, then in the midst of the Montgomery boycotts. The family later moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where Denver graduated from Arlington Heights High School. Attending high school in Fort Worth was a distressing experience for the disenfranchised Denver. In his third year of high school, he borrowed his father's car and ran away to California to visit family friends and begin his music career. His father flew to California to bring him back, and Denver unhappily returned to finish high school.^[5]

At the age of 11, Denver received an acoustic guitar from his grandmother.^[6] He learned to play well enough to perform at local clubs by the time he was in college. He adopted the surname "Denver" after the capital of his favorite state, Colorado. He decided to change his name when Randy Sparks, founder of The New Christy Minstrels, suggested that "Deutschendorf" wouldn't fit comfortably on a marquee.^[7] Denver attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock and sang in a folk-music group called "The Alpine Trio" while pursuing architecture studies.^[8] He was also a member of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. Denver dropped out of the Texas Tech School of Engineering in 1963,^[6] and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he sang in folk clubs. In 1965, Denver joined the Chad Mitchell Trio, a folk group that had been renamed "The Mitchell Trio" prior to Chad Mitchell's departure and before Denver's arrival, and then "Denver, Boise, and Johnson" (John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson).^[6]

Solo career[link]

In 1969, John Denver abandoned the band life to pursue a solo career and released his first album for RCA Records: Rhymes & Reasons. Two years prior Denver had made a self-produced demo recording of some of the songs he played at his concerts. He included in the demo a song called "Babe I Hate to Go," later renamed "Leaving on A Jet Plane." Denver made several copies and gave them out as presents for Christmas.^[9] Mitchell Trio manager Milt Okun brought the unreleased "Jet Plane" song to the high-profile folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. Their version of the song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.^[10]

Although RCA did not actively promote Rhymes & Reasons with a tour, Denver himself embarked on an impromptu supporting tour throughout the Midwest, stopping at towns and cities as the fashion took him, offering to play free concerts at local venues. When he was successful in convincing a school, college, American Legion Hall, or local coffee-house to let him play, he would spend a day or so postering the town and could usually be counted upon to show up at the local radio station, guitar in hand, offering himself for an interview.^{[citation needed]} With his foot-in-the-door of having authored "Leaving on a Jet Plane", he was often successful in gaining some valuable promotional airtime, usually featuring one or two songs performed live. Some venues would let him play for the "door"; others restricted him to selling copies of the album at intermission and after the show. After several months of this constant low-key touring schedule, however, he had sold enough albums to convince RCA to take a chance on extending his recording contract. He had also built a sizable and solid fan base, many of whom remained loyal throughout his career.^[6]

Denver recorded two more albums in 1970, Take Me to Tomorrow and Whose Garden Was This, including a mix of songs he had written and cover versions of other artists' compositions.

Career peak[link]

His next album, Poems, Prayers, and Promises (released in 1971), was a breakthrough for him in the U.S., thanks in part to the single "Take Me Home, Country Roads", which went to No.2 on the Billboard charts despite the first pressings of the track being distorted. Its success was due in part to the efforts of his new manager, future Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub, who signed Denver in 1970. Weintraub insisted on a re-issue of the track and began a radio-airplay campaign that started in Denver, Colorado. Denver's career flourished from then on, and he had a series of hits over the next four years. In 1972, Denver scored his first Top Ten album with Rocky Mountain High, with its title track reaching the Top Ten in 1973.^[11] Between 1974 and 1975, Denver experienced an impressive chart dominance, with a string of four No.1 songs ("Sunshine on My Shoulders", "Annie's Song", "Thank God I'm a Country Boy", and "I'm Sorry") and three No.1 albums (John Denver's Greatest Hits, Back Home Again, and Windsong).^[12]

In the 1970s, Denver's onstage appearance included long blond hair, embroidered shirts emblazoned with images commonly associated with the American West (created by designer & appliqué artist Anna Zapp), and "granny" glasses. His manager, Jerry Weintraub, insisted on a significant number of television appearances, including a series of half-hour shows in England, despite Denver's protests at the time, "I've had no success in Britain...I mean none."^[13] Weintraub explained to Maureen Orth of Newsweek in December 1976, "I knew the critics would never go for John. I had to get him to the people."

After appearing as a guest on many shows, Denver went on to host his own variety/music specials, including several concerts from Red Rocks Amphitheatre near Denver. His seasonal special, Rocky Mountain Christmas, was watched by more than 60 million people and was the highest-rated show for the ABC network at that time.^{[citation needed]}

His live concert special, An Evening with John Denver, won the 1974–1975 Emmy for Outstanding Special, Comedy-Variety or Music.^[14] When Denver ended his business relationship because of Weintraub's focus on other projects, Weintraub threw Denver out of his office and called him a Nazi. Denver would later tell Arthur Tobier, when the latter transcribed his autobiography^{[citation needed]}, "...I'd bend my principles to support something he wanted of me. And of course every time you bend your principles – whether because you don't want to worry about it, or because you're afraid to stand up for fear of what you might lose – you sell your soul to the devil."^[15]

Denver was also a guest star on The Muppet Show, the beginning of the lifelong friendship between Denver and Jim Henson that spawned two television specials with The Muppets. He also tried his hand at acting, appearing in the The Colorado Cattle Caper episode of the McCloud television movie on February 24, 1974, and starring in the 1977 film Oh, God! opposite George Burns. Denver hosted the Grammy Awards five times in the 1970s and 1980s and guest-hosted The Tonight Show on multiple occasions.^[16] In 1975, Denver was awarded the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year award. At the ceremony, the outgoing Entertainer of the Year Charlie Rich presented the award to his successor, but in protest of what he considered the inappropriateness of Denver's selection, Rich set fire to the envelope containing the official notification of the award.^[17] However, Denver's music was defended by country singer Kathy Mattea, who told Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly, "A lot of people write him off as lightweight, but he articulated a kind of optimism, and he brought acoustic music to the forefront, bridging folk, pop, and country in a fresh way.... People forget how huge he was worldwide."

In 1977, Denver cofounded The Hunger Project with Werner Erhard and Robert W. Fuller. He served for many years and supported the organization until his death. Denver was also appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve on the President's Commission on World Hunger, writing the song "I Want to Live" as its theme song. In 1979, Denver performed "Rhymes & Reasons" at the Music for UNICEF Concert. Royalties from the concert performances were donated to UNICEF.^[18] His father taught him to fly in the mid-1970s, which led to a reconciliation between father and son.^[8] In 1980, Denver and his father, Lt. Col. “Dutch” Deutschendorf, co-hosted an award winning television special, "The Higher We Fly: the History of Flight."^[3] It won the Osborn Award from the Aviation/Space Writers’ Association, and was honored by the Houston Film Festival.^[3]

Political activism[link]

Denver became outspoken in politics in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he campaigned for Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party and of a number of charitable causes for the environmental movement, the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the African AIDS crisis. He founded the charitable Windstar Foundation in 1976, to promote sustainable living. His dismay at the Chernobyl disaster led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of communist Asia and Europe.^[8]

During the 1980s, Denver was critical of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Administration, but he remained active in his campaign against hunger, for which Reagan awarded Denver the Presidential World Without Hunger Award in 1985.^[8] Denver's criticism of the conservative politics of the 1980s was expressed in his autobiographical folk-rock ballad "Let Us Begin (What Are We Making Weapons For)." Denver was also critical of the Republican-dominated Congress and American Conservatism of the 1990s. He denounced the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a corrupt political machine that could buy off politicians, and in an open letter to the media, he wrote that he opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Denver had battled to expand the refuge in the 1980s, and he praised President Bill Clinton for his opposition to the proposed drilling. The letter, which he wrote in the midst of the 1996 presidential election, was one of the last he ever wrote.^[8] Denver was also on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society for many years.

Later years and humanitarian work[link]

He had a few more U.S. Top 30 hits as the 1970s ended, but nothing to match his earlier success. He began to focus more on humanitarian and sustainability causes, focusing extensively on conservation projects. He made public expression of his acquaintances and friendships with ecological-design researchers such as Richard Buckminster Fuller and Amory Lovins, from whom he said he learned much. He also founded two environmental groups; the Windstar Foundation and Plant-It 2020 (originally Plant-It 2000). Denver had a keen interest in solutions to world hunger. He visited Africa during the 1980s to witness first-hand the suffering caused by starvation and to work with African leaders toward solutions.

John Denver testifies before the US Senate, 1985

Testimony continued

In 1983 and 1984, Denver hosted the annual Grammy Awards. In the 1983 finale, Denver was joined on stage by folk-music legend Joan Baez with whom he led an all-star version of "Blowin' in the Wind" and Let The Sunshine In, joined by such diverse musical icons as Jennifer Warnes, Donna Summer, and Rick James.

In 1984, Roone Arlidge, president of ABC Sports, asked Denver to compose and sing the theme song for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Denver worked as both a performer and a skiing commentator (skiing was another avocation of Denver's). He had written "The Gold and Beyond", and sang it for the Olympic Games athletes, as well as local venues including many schools.^[3]

In 1985, Denver asked to participate in the singing of "We Are the World" but was turned down. According to Ken Kragen (who helped to produce the song), the reason that John Denver was turned down was that many people felt his image would hurt the credibility of the song as a pop-rock anthem. "I didn't agree" with this assessment, Kragen said, but reluctantly turned Denver down anyway.^[19]

For Earth Day 1990, Denver was the on-camera narrator of a well-received environmental TV program, "In Partnership With Earth," with then–EPA Administrator William K. Reilly.

With Denver's innate love of flying he was naturally attracted to NASA and became dedicated to America’s work in outer space. He conscientiously worked to help bring into being the “Citizens in Space” program. Denver received the NASA Public Service Medal, in 1985 for “helping to increase awareness of space exploration by the peoples of the world,” an award usually restricted to spaceflight engineers and designers. Also in 1985, Denver passed NASA’s rigorous physical exam and was in line for a space flight, a finalist for the first citizen’s trip on the Space Shuttle in 1986. He was not chosen. After the Challenger disaster with teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard, John dedicated his song “Flying for Me”, to all astronauts, and he continued to support NASA.^[3]

Denver testified before the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee on the topic of censorship during a Parents Music Resource Center hearing in 1985. Denver also toured Russia in 1985. His 11 Soviet Union concerts were the first by any American artist in more than 10 years, and they marked a very important cultural exchange that culminated in an agreement to allow other western artists to perform there.^[20] He returned two years later to perform at a benefit concert for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. In October 1992, John undertook a multiple-city tour of the People's Republic of China. He also released a greatest-hits CD, "Homegrown," to raise money for homeless charities.

In 1994, he published his autobiography, Take Me Home, in which he candidly spoke of his marijuana, LSD, and cocaine use, his marital infidelities, history of domestic violence, and a suicide attempt in a London hotel room.^[21][22] In 1996, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.