James Walker may refer to:

Politics[link]

• James Walker (MP) (c. 1635–1692), English MP for Exeter
• Sir James Walker, 2nd Baronet (1829–1899), British MP for Beverley
• Jimmy Walker (1881–1946), born James J. Walker, former mayor of New York City
• James Walker (Alberta politician) (1874–?), politician and municipal councillor in Edmonton
• James Walker (UK politician) (1883–1945), British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Newport, 1929–1931, Motherwell, 1935–1945
• James Walker (physician) (c. 1720–1789), British physician
• James Walker (Australian politician) (1841–1923), Australian Senator
• James A. Walker (1832–1901), Confederate general and U.S. congressman
• James B. Walker (1812–1877), U.S. politician from Michigan
• James D. Walker (1830–1906), U.S. Democratic Party politician from Arkansas
• James Edgar Walker (1911–1989), Canadian politician
• James P. Walker (1851–1890), American politician, U.S. Representative from Missouri
• James H. Walker (died 1954), former Alberta provincial politician
• James Walker (Canadian judge) (1756–1800), Canadian lawyer, judge and political figure in Lower Canada

Sports[link]

• James Walker (American football coach) (born 1944), head college football coach for the Kentucky State University Thorobreds
• James Walker (American football player), one of the 1910 College Football Consensus All-Americans
• James Walker (Australian rules footballer) (born 1979), former Australian rules footballer
• James Walker (canoer) (born 1971), Australian sprint canoer
• James Walker (cricketer) (born 1981), English cricketer
• James Walker (cyclist), South African Olympic cyclist
• Jim Walker (darts player) (born 1959), Scottish darts player, PDC
• James Walker (footballer born 1987), English footballer
• James Walker (hurdler) (born c. 1958), American hurdler
• James Walker (racing driver) (born 1983), British racing driver
• James Walker (rugby) (1859–1923), Scottish rugby footballer and cricketer
• James Walker (runner) (born 1954), marathon runner from Guam
• Jamie Walker (born 1971), American baseball player
• Jim Walker (footballer) (born 1947), professional footballer
• Jimmy Walker (basketball) (1944–2007), American basketball player
• Jimmy Walker (footballer) (born 1973), English footballer
• Jimmy Walker (Scottish footballer), see List of Scotland international footballers
• Jimmy Walker (golfer) (born 1979), American golfer

Other fields[link]

• James Walker (Royal Navy officer) (1764–1831), British naval officer
• James Walker (engineer) (1781–1862), Scottish engineer
• James Walker (Harvard) (1794–1874), president of Harvard University, 1853–1860
• James Walker (chemist) (1863–1935), Scottish physical chemist
• James Walker (conductor) (1913–1988), record producer and conductor of, among others, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
• James Walker (writer/filmmaker) (born 1979), British writer and filmmaker
• James L. Walker (1845–1904), American individualist anarchist and writer
• Jimmie Walker (born 1947), American comedian and actor
• James Walker (actor), British actor
• Jim Walker (drummer), original drummer for the UK music group Public Image Ltd
• Jim Walker (flautist), American flutist and educator

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

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2010)

Mike Garson
Mike Garson, picture by Alex Boyd
Background information
Birth name	Mike Garson
Born	(1945-07-29) July 29, 1945 (age 66)
Origin	New York, United States
Genres	Rock, industrial, Techno, jazz, funk, experimental, folk, instrumental, ambient
Instruments	Piano, keyboards, synthesizers, drums, percussion, organ, vibraphone, stylophone
Years active	1964—present
Website	www.mikegarson.com

Mike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.

Early career[link]

In the early 1970s, Garson was a member of rock/country/jazz amalgam Brethren with Rick Marotta, Tom Cosgrove and Stu Woods. They recorded two hard-to-find albums on the Tiffany label, which featured guest piano and liner notes by Dr. John (and, strangely enough, album photography by Murray Head, who scored a hit with "Say it Ain't So Joe" and later with the single "One Night In Bangkok").

Garson also earned notice when he played on the I'm the One album by early 1970s experimental artist Annette Peacock. Bowie asked Peacock to join him on a tour; she declined, but Garson began an enduring relationship with Bowie.

Work with David Bowie[link]

Garson gave the piano and keyboard backing on the later Ziggy Stardust tour and his unique contribution to Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) gave the song an avant garde jazz feel with lengthy and sometimes atonal piano solos.

Garson played also for Bowie's bandmate Mick Ronson on his first and last solo tour, and his first album (Slaughter on Tenth Avenue). Garson came to replace Ronson as Bowie's musical lieutenant on several occasions. Notably on "We Are the Dead" from the Diamond Dogs album, where Garson's metronome like keyboard provides a dramatic setting for Bowie's vocals and on the title track to Young Americans where his jaunty piano leads the band. Garson played with Bowie on and off over the years, resurfacing on The Buddha of Suburbia album and the ambitious Outside album.

Solo career[link]

Parallel to this work with Bowie, Garson engaged in his own solo career as a jazz pianist, pushing the bounds of his art. He is regarded in the industry as one of the very few 'rock' pianists capable of performing extended piano solos. He remains one of the most highly sought-after session musicians with a unique sound of his own.

In 1993, Garson began a short-lived series of Screen Themes albums, jazz renditions of major themes and suites from film scores of 1993, and the following year, 1994. The latter album featured the recording debut of Jessica L. Tivens, at age 13, who had previously appeared on Star Search. Both albums were released by Discovery Records.

Other collaborations[link]

Garson worked with the reformed Spiders From Mars in 1975, alongside Mick Woodmansey, Trevor Bolder, Dave Black (guitar) and Pete McDonald (vocals). They recorded one eponymous album in 1976 before going their separate ways.

He joined the Smashing Pumpkins for their Adore tour, playing piano, keyboards and synthesizer. His piano playing was an integral part of the Pumpkins' performance. After the tour, he joined Corgan on his solo effort—the soundtrack for the movie Stigmata. Garson did not perform the song "Le Deux Machina" on the Pumpkins' Machina II album, but did play on the corresponding piano section of "Glass and the Ghost Children" off of Machina/The Machines of God, which was actually excerpts of the version from The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music tape. Garson also played on Nine Inch Nails albums The Fragile and With Teeth, as well as with No Doubt and many other acts.

Current work[link]

Recently Mike Garson appeared on Myspace with his own music site, and to date has released some 50 free tracks. He is currently working on three new albums, as well as collaborating with several bands as touring player/session musician. His latest collaboration shows up on the last "met-on-Myspace" young French artist Kuta's album A Home. Garson also contributed to and received co writing credit on the track "Something Unseen" by Athens, GA power pop band Chris McKay & the Critical Darlings. He has also been collaborating with the Norwegian band Sleepyard. In addition to this, he worked on the writing and recording of two songs on mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan's latest release, Option Paralysis. He has also worked on several projects with the photographer Alex Boyd, including scoring the soundtrack to the short film Die Hasenjagd. In november 2010 he recorded an album with Bowie covers called The Bowie Variations, which was released in july 2011 as a HDCD

Discography[link]

• Avant Garson (1979)
• Jazzical (1982)
• Serendipity (1986)
• Remember Love (1989)
• The Mystery Man (1990)
• Oxnard Sessions, Vol.1 (1990)
• A Gershwin Fantasia (1992)
• Oxnard Sessions, Vol.2 (1992)
• Now Music, Vol.4 (1998)
• Homage to my Heroes (2003)
• Conversations with my Family (2008)
• Lost In Conversation (2008)
• The Bowie Variations (2011, HDCD)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Regenmag – Mike Garson An interview in which Mike talks about his career to date
• Mike Garson at Reverbnation
• Mike Garson at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Mike Garson YouTube channel

Detail from the Statue of William Tell and his son in Altdorf, Switzerland (Richard Kissling, 1895)

William Tell (in the four languages of Switzerland: German: Wilhelm Tell; French: Guillaume Tell; Italian: Guglielmo Tell; Romansh: Guglielm Tell) is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th-century Swiss chronicle.

It is set in the period of the original foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th century. According to the legend, Tell — an expert marksman with the crossbow — assassinated Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of Habsburg Austria positioned in Altdorf, Uri.

Along with Arnold Winkelried, Tell is a central figure in Swiss patriotism as it was constructed during the Restoration of the Confederacy after the Napoleonic era.

The legend[link]

Tell's leap (Tellensprung) from the boat of his captors at the Axen cliffs 46°55′57″N 8°36′42″E / 46.9326°N 8.6118°E / 46.9326; 8.6118. Study by Ernst Stückelberg (1879) for his fresco at the Tellskapelle.

There are several accounts of the Tell legend. The earliest sources give an account of the apple-shot, Tell's escape and the ensuing rebellion. The assassination of Gessler is not mentioned in the Tellenlied, but is already present in the White Book of Sarnen account.

The legend as told by Tschudi (ca. 1570) goes as follows: William Tell, who originally came from Bürglen, was known as a strong man and an expert shot with the crossbow. In his time, the Habsburg emperors of Austria were seeking to dominate Uri. Albrecht (or Hermann) Gessler, the newly appointed Austrian Vogt of Altdorf, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat. On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler — intrigued by Tell's famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance — devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.^[1]

But Gessler noticed that Tell had removed two crossbow bolts from his quiver, not one. Before releasing Tell, he asked why. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the second bolt on Gessler himself. Gessler was angered, and had Tell bound. He was brought to Gessler's ship to be taken to his castle at Küssnacht to spend his newly won life in a dungeon. But, as a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, the soldiers were afraid that their boat would founder, and unbound Tell to steer with all his famed strength. Tell made use of the opportunity to escape, leaping from the boat at the rocky site now known as the Tellsplatte ("Tell's slab") and memorialized by the Tellskapelle.

The Hohle Gasse between Immensee and Küssnacht

Tell ran cross-country to Küssnacht. As Gessler arrived, Tell assassinated him with the second crossbow bolt along a stretch of the road cut through the rock between Immensee and Küssnacht, now known as the Hohle Gasse.^[2] Tell's blow for liberty sparked a rebellion, in which he played a leading part. That fed the impetus for the nascent Swiss Confederation. He fought again against Austria in the 1315 Battle of Morgarten. Tschudi also has an account of Tell's death in 1354, according to which he was killed trying to save a child from drowning in the Schächenbach river in Uri.^[3]

Earliest mentions (15th century)[link]

The first reference to William Tell appears in the White Book of Sarnen (German: Weisses Buch von Sarnen). This volume was written in 1475 by a country scribe named Hans Schreiber. It makes mention of the Rütli oath (German: Rütlischwur) of 1291, the Burgenbruch and Tell's heroic deeds.^[4]

A roughly equally early account of Tell is found in the Tellenlied, a song composed during the 1470s, its oldest extant manuscript copy dating to 1501. This song begins with the Tell legend, which it presents as the origin of the Confederacy, calling Tell the "first confederate". The narrative presented includes Tell's apple-shot, his preparation of a second arrow to shoot Gessler in the event of his killing his son, and his escape, but it omits the assassination of Gessler. The text then goes on to enumerate the cantons of the Confederacy, and it was expanded with "current events" in the course of the Burgundy Wars, ending with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477.^[5]

Early Modern period[link]

Chronicles[link]

Depiction of the apple-shot scene in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia (1554 edition).

Der Apfelschuss. Fresco by Ernst Stückelberg (1831–1903) in the Tellskapelle, Switzerland

Further reference to William Tell is found in Petermann Etterlin's Chronicle of the Swiss Confederation (German: Kronika von der loblichen Eydtgenossenschaft). Etterlin's 1507 chronicle is the earliest printed version of the Tell story.^[6]

An account of William Tell's deeds is also given in the chronicle of Melchior Russ from Lucerne. This book, which its author dates to 1482, is an incoherent compilation of older writings, including the Song of the Founding of the Confederation, Conrad Justinger's Bernese Chronicle, and the Chronicle of the State of Bern (in German, Chronik der Stadt Bern).^[7]

The version of the legend compiled by Aegidius Tschudi from Glarus in his monumental Chronicon Helveticum (ca. 1570) became the major model for later writers dealing with William Tell.^[8] Not only did Tschudi's chronicle become the main source for Johannes von Müller's History of the Swiss Confederation (German: Geschichte Schweizerischer Eidgenossenschaft, 1780), it also served as a model for Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell (1804).^[8] Tschudi is known to have manipulated documents.^[9]

Veneration[link]

A widespread veneration of Tell, including sight-seeing excursions to the scenes of his deeds, can be ascertained for the early 16th century. Heinrich Brennwald in the early 16th century mentions the chapel (Tellskapelle) on the site of Tell's leap from his captors' boat. Tschudi mentions a "holy cottage" (heilig hüslin) built on the site of Gessler's assassination. The church of Bürglen had a bell dedicated to Tell from 1581, and a nearby chapel has a fresco dated to 1582 showing Tell's death in the Schächenbach.^[10]

William Tell can be found in a Tell play (Tellspiel), whose first performance was probably in the winter of either 1512 or 1513 in Altdorf.^[7] The oldest existing written version of a Tell play is known as the Urner Tellspiel (The "Tell Play of Uri").^[11]

The Three Tells[link]

The Three Tells (die Drei Tellen, also die Drei Telle) were symbolic figures of the Swiss Peasant War of 1653. They expressed the hope of the subject population to repeat the success story of the rebellion against Habsburg in the early 14th century.

By the 18th century, the Drei Tellen had become associated with a sleeping hero legend. They were said to be asleep in a cave at the Rigi. The return of Tell in times of need was already foretold in the Tellenlied of 1653 and symbolically fulfilled in the impersonation of the Three Tells by costumed individuals, in one instance culminating in an actual assassination executed by these impersonators in historical costume.

Tell during the 16th century had become closely associated and eventually merged with the Rütlischwur legend, and the "Three Tells" represented the three conspirators or Eidgenossen Walter Fürst, Arnold von Melchtal and Werner Stauffacher.

In 1653, three men dressed in historical costume representing the Three Tells appeared in Schüpfheim. Other impersonations of the Three Tells also appeared in the Freie Ämter and in the Emmental.

The first impersonators of the Three Tells were Hans Zemp, Kaspar Unternährer of Schüpfheim and Ueli Dahinden of Hasle. They appeared at a number of important peasant conferences during the war, symbolizing the continuity of the present rebellion with the resistance movement against the Habsburg overlords at the origin of the Swiss Confederacy. Unternährer and Dahinden fled to the Entlebuch alps before the arrival of the troops of general Sebastian Peregrin Zwyers; Zemp escaped to the Alsace. After the suppression of the rebellion, the peasants voted for a tyrannicide, directly inspired by the Tell legend, attempting to kill the Lucerne Schultheiss Ulrich Dulliker. Dahinden and Unternährer returned in their roles of Tells, joined by Hans Stadelmann replacing Zemp. In an ambush, they managed to injure Dulliker and killed a member of the Lucerne parliament, Caspar Studer. The assassination attempt — an exceptional act in the culture of the Old Swiss Confederacy — was widely recognized and welcomed among the peasant population, but its impact was not sufficient to rekindle the rebellion. Even though it did not have any direct political effect, its symbolic value was considerable, placing the Lucerne authorities in the role of the tyrant (Habsburg and Gessler) and the peasant population in that of the freedom fighters (Tell). The Three Tells after the deed went to mass, still wearing their costumes, without being molested. Dahinden and Unternährer were eventually killed in October 1653 by Lucerne troops under Colonel Alphons von Sonnenberg. In July 1654, Zemp betrayed his successor Stadelmann in exchange for pardon and Stadelmann was executed on 15 July 1654.^[12]

The Three Tells appear in a 1672 comedy by Johann Caspar Weissenbach. The "sleeping hero" version of the Three Tells legend was published in Deutsche Sagen by the Brothers Grimm in 1816 (no. 298).

Reception 1789–1945[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011)

An allegorical Tell defeating the chimera of the French Revolution (1798)

Sketches of Gessler and Tell by Ernst Stückelberg (1880)

Official seal of the Helvetic Republic

Throughout the long nineteenth century, and into the World War II period, Tell was perceived as a symbol of rebellion against tyranny both in Switzerland and in Europe.

Antoine-Marin Lemierre wrote a play inspired by Tell in 1766 and revived it in 1786. The success of this work established the association of Tell as a fighter against tyranny with the history of the French revolution.

The French revolutionary fascination with Tell was reflected in Switzerland with the establishment of the Helvetic Republic. Tell became, as it were, the mascot of the short-lived republic, his figure being featured on its official seal. The French Navy also had a Tonnant class ship of the line named Guillaume Tell, which was captured by the British Royal Navy in 1800.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe learned of the Tell saga during his travels through Switzerland between 1775 and 1795. He obtained a copy of Tschudi's chronicles and considered writing a play about Tell, but ultimately gave the idea to his friend Friedrich von Schiller, who in 1803–04 wrote the play Wilhelm Tell, first performed on March 17, 1804, in Weimar. Schiller's Tell is heavily inspired by the political events of the late 18th century, the French and American revolutions, in particular. Schiller's play was performed at Interlaken (the Tellspiele) in the summers of 1912 to 1914, 1931 to 1939 and every year since 1947. In 2004 it was first performed in Altdorf itself.

Gioachino Rossini used Schiller's play as the basis for his 1829 opera William Tell. The William Tell Overture is one of his best-known and most frequently imitated pieces of music; in the 20th Century, the "coda" of the Overture became the theme for the radio, television, and motion picture incarnations of The Lone Ranger, a fictional Western hero.

John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was inspired by Tell. Lamenting the negative reaction to his action, Booth wrote in his journal on April 21, 1865 "with every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for and what made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat."

Following a national competition, won by Richard Kissling, Altdorf in 1895 erected a monument to its hero. Kissling casts Tell as a peasant and man of the mountains, with strong features and muscular limbs. His powerful hand rests lovingly on the shoulder of little Walter, but the apple is not shown. The depiction is in marked contrast with that used by the Helvetic Republic, where Tell is shown as a landsknecht rather than a peasant, with a sword at his belt and a feathered hat, bending down to pick up his son who is still holding the apple.

The first film about Tell was made by French director Charles Pathé in 1900; only a short fragment survives.^{[citation needed]} A version of the legend was retold in P.G. Wodehouse's William Tell Told Again (1904), written in prose and verse with characteristic Wodehousian flair.

The design of the Federal 5 francs coin issued from 1922 features the bust of a generic "mountain shepherd" designed by Paul Burkard, but due to a similarity of the bust with Kissling's statue, in spite of the missing beard, it was immediately widely identified as Tell.

Adolf Hitler was enthusiastic about Schiller's play, quoting it in his Mein Kampf, and approving of a German/Swiss co-production of the play in which Hermann Göring's mistress Emmy Sonnemann appeared as Tell's wife. But on June 3, 1941, Hitler had the play banned. The reason for the ban is not known, but may been related to the failed assassination attempt in 1938 by young Swiss Maurice Bavaud^[13] (executed on May 14, 1941, and later dubbed "a new William Tell" by Rolf Hochhuth), or the subversive nature of the play.^[14][15] Hitler is reported to have exclaimed at a banquet in 1942: "Why did Schiller have to immortalize that Swiss sniper!"^[14]

Salvador Dalí painted The Old Age of William Tell and William Tell and Gradiva in 1931, and The Enigma of William Tell in 1933.

Charlie Chaplin parodies William Tell in his famous 1928 silent movie The Circus (film).

Reception after 1945[link]

Max Frisch in his "William Tell for Schools" deconstructed the legend, portraying the bailiff as a well-meaning administrator suffering from being placed in a barbaric back-corner of the empire, while Tell is a simpleton who stumbles into his adventure by a series of misunderstandings.^{[citation needed]}

Spanish playwright Alfonso Sastre re-worked the legend in 1955 in his "Guillermo Tell tiene los ojos tristes" (William Tell has sad eyes); it was not performed until the Franco regime in Spain ended.^{[citation needed]}

William Tell lives on as a hero in popular culture. He is still a powerful identification figure, and according to a 2004 survey, 60% of the Swiss believe that he existed.^[16]

Historicity debate[link]

François Guillimann, a statesman of Fribourg and later historian and advisor of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II, wrote to Melchior Goldast in 1607: "I followed popular belief by reporting certain details in my Swiss antiquities [published in 1598], but when I examine them closely the whole story seems to me to be pure fable."

In 1760, Simeon Uriel Freudenberger from Luzern anonymously published a tract arguing that the legend of Tell in all likelihood was based on the Danish saga of Palnatoki. A French edition of his book, written by Gottlieb Emmanuel von Haller (Guillaume Tell, Fable danoise), was burnt in Altdorf.^[17]

The skeptical view of Tell's existence remained very unpopular. Friedrich von Schiller used Tschudi's version as the basis for his play Wilhelm Tell in 1804, interpreting Tell as a glorified patriot assassin. This interpretation became very popular, especially in Switzerland, where the Tell figure was used in the early 19th century as a "national hero" and identification figure in the Helvetic Republic, and later in the beginnings of the Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, the modern democratic federal state that developed. When historian Joseph Eutych Kopp dared to question the legend in the 1830s, his effigy was burnt on the Rütli, a meadow above Lake Lucerne where — according to the legend — the oath was sworn that concluded the alliance between the founding cantons of the Swiss confederacy.

Historians continued to argue over the saga until well into the 20th century. In 1891 Wilhelm Öchsli published a scientific account of the founding of the confederacy (commissioned by the government for the celebration of the first National holiday of Switzerland on August 1, 1891), dismissing the story as fiction. Still, 50 years later in 1941, when Tell had again become a national identification figure, historian Karl Meyer tried to tie the saga's events to known places and events. Modern historians generally regard the saga to be fiction, since neither Tell's nor Gessler's existence can be proven. The legend also tells of a Burgenbruch, a coordinated uprising including the slighting of many forts; however, archeological evidence shows that many of these forts were abandoned and destroyed long before 1307–1308.

A possible historical basis of the legend was suggested by Arnold Schärer in 1986. He identified a Wilhelm Gorkeit of Tellikon (modern Dällikon in the Canton of Zurich) as the real William Tell. "Gorkeit", he claimed, was a version of the surname Armbruster (crossbow maker). Historians were not convinced, but the theory was once referred to by Rudolf Keller, at the time president of the nationalistic right Swiss Democrats, on 1 August 2004 in Basel.^[18]

Comparative mythology[link]

The Tell legend has been compared to a number of other myths or legends, specifically in Norse mythology, involving a magical marksman coming to the aid of a suppressed people under the sway of a tyrant. The story of a great hero successfully shooting an apple from his child's head is an archetype present in the story of Egil in the Thidreks saga (associated with the god Ullr in Eddaic tradition) as well as in the stories of Adam Bell from England, Palnatoki from Denmark and a story from Holstein.

Such parallels were pointed out as early as 1760 by Gottlieb Emmanuel von Haller and the pastor Simeon Uriel Freudenberger in a short leaflet with the title William Tell, a Danish Fable (German: Der Wilhelm Tell, ein dänisches Mährgen).^[19]

Rochholz (1877) connects the similarity of the Tell legend to the stories of Egil and Palnatoki with the legends of a migration from Sweden to Switzerland during the Middle Ages. He also adduces parallels in folktales among the Finns and the Lapps (Sami). From pre-Christian Norse mythology, Rochholz compares Ullr, who bears the epithet of Boga-As ("bow-god"), Heimdall and also Odin himself, who according to the Gesta Danorum (Book 1, chapter 8.16) assisted Haddingus by shooting ten bolts from a crossbow in one shot, killing as many foes. Rochholz further compares Indo-European and oriental traditions and concludes (pp. 35–41) that the legend of the master marksman shooting an apple (or similar small target) was known outside the Germanic sphere (Germany, Scandinavia, England) and the adjacent regions (Finland and the Baltic) in India, Arabia, Persia and the Balkans (Serbia).

The Danish legend of Palnatoki, first attested in the twelfth-century Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus.^[20] is the earliest known parallel to the Tell legend. As with William Tell, Palnatoki is forced by the ruler, (in this case King Harald Bluetooth), to shoot an apple off his son's head as proof of his marksmanship.^[21] A striking similarity between William Tell and Palnatoki is that both heroes take more than one arrow out of their quiver.^[20] When asked why he pulled several arrows out of his quiver, Palnatoki, too, replies that if he had struck his son with the first arrow, he would have shot King Harald with the remaining two arrows.^[20]

See also[link]

• Historiography of Switzerland
• Robin Hood
• William Wallace
• Arnold Winkelried

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Bergier, Jean-François. Wilhelm Tell: Realität und Mythos. München: Paul List Verlag, 1990.
• Fiske, John. Myths and Myth-Makers: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology, 1877. Ch. 1: (On-line) Quotes Saxo Grammaticus, the ballad of William of Cloudeslee, and instances other independent occurrences.
• Head, Randolph C. "William Tell and His Comrades: Association and Fraternity in the Propaganda of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Switzerland." in The Journal of Modern History 67.3 (1995): 527–557.
• Keightley, Thomas. Tales and Popular Fictions: Their Resemblance and Transmission from Country to Country. London: Whittaker, 1834.
• Öchsli, W. Die Anfänge der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. Zürich, 1891.
• Rochholz, Ernst Ludwig, Tell und Gessler in Sage und Geschichte. Nach urkundlichen Quellen, Heilbronn, 1877 (online copy).
• Salis, J.-R. v.: Ursprung, Gestalt, und Wirkung des schweizerischen Mythos von Tell; Bern, 1973.
• Schärer, Arnold Claudio, Und es gab Tell doch, Lucerne, 1986, ISBN 3-85725-106-9, OCLC 19264018.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: William Tell

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Tell, William.

• Wilhelm Tell Festival, New Glarus
• William Tell, Swissinfo special
• The Legend of William Tell by Markus Jud.
• The birth of the Swiss Confederation.
• William Tell is a lie; "Coopzeitung" 28/2004, interview with historian Sablonier, Zurich, translated
• Translation of Grimm's Saga No. 298 "The Three Tells"

Jim Croce
Jim Croce in 1968, photographed by Ingrid Croce.
Background information
Birth name	James Joseph Croce
Born	(1943-01-10)January 10, 1943 South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	September 20, 1973(1973-09-20) (aged 30) Natchitoches, Louisiana, U.S.
Genres	Folk Folk rock Pop[1]
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, vocals[1]
Years active	1966–1973
Labels	Capitol/EMI Records ABC Records Saja/Atlantic Records
Website	www.jimcroce.com

James Joseph "Jim" Croce (/ˈkroʊtʃi/; January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973) was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Croce was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 10, 1943, to Jim and Flora Croce, and grew up in a family of Italian background.^[2] Croce took a strong interest in music at a young age. At five, he learned to play his first song on the accordion, "Lady of Spain."

Croce attended Upper Darby High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. After his graduation in 1960, Croce went to Malvern Preparatory School for one year before deciding to enroll at Villanova University in 1961. During his time as a student, Croce became a member of the Villanova Singers and the Spires. When the Spires performed off-campus gigs or made professional recordings, it was under the name, "The Coventry Lads".^[3] Jim was also a student disc jockey at WKVU.^[4][5]

Croce did not take music seriously other than as a hobby until his time at Villanova, where he formed various bands, performing at fraternity parties, coffee houses, and at universities around Philadelphia, playing "anything that the people wanted to hear: blues, rock, a cappella, railroad music... anything." One of those bands was chosen for a foreign exchange tour of Africa and the Middle East. Croce later said of the experience that "we just ate what the people ate, lived in the woods, and played our songs. Of course they didn't speak English over there but if you mean what you're singing, people understand."

Croce met his future wife Ingrid Jacobson at this time during a hootenanny at Philadelphia Convention Hall where he was judging a contest.

Early career[link]

From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce performed with his wife as a duo. At first, their performances included songs by artists such as Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie, but in time, they began writing their own music. During this time, Croce got his first long-term gig at a rural bar and steak house in Lima, Pennsylvania, called "The Riddle Paddock". His set list included every genre from blues to country to rock 'n roll to folk.

In 1968, Jim and Ingrid Croce were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City. The couple spent time in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx and recorded their first album with Capitol Records. During the next two years, they drove more than 300,000 miles,^[6] playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album Jim & Ingrid Croce.

Becoming disillusioned by the music business specifically and New York City in general, they sold all but one guitar to pay the rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside where Jim got a job driving trucks and doing construction to pay the bills while continuing to write songs, often about the characters he would meet at the local bars and truck stops, and his experiences at work; these provided the material for such songs as “Big Wheels” and “Workin' at the Car Wash Blues”.

The couple returned to Philadelphia and Jim decided to be "serious" about becoming a productive member of society. But it was hard to make a living playing in a band, and his previous employment experiences had lost their appeal. "I'd worked construction crews, and I'd been a welder while I was in college. But I'd rather do other things than get burned," he would later say. His determination to be "serious" led to a job at a Philadelphia R&B AM radio station, WHAT, where he translated commercials into "soul". "I'd sell airtime to Bronco's Poolroom and then write the spot: "You wanna be cool, and you wanna shoot pool... dig it." Increasingly frustrated, he quit to teach guitar at a summer camp and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He did not have a very illustrious enlistment but said he would be prepared if "there's ever a war where we have to defend ourselves with mops".

Success[link]

In 1970, Croce met the classically trained pianist/guitarist and singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey through producer Joe Salviuolo (aka Sal Joseph). Salviuolo had been friends with Croce when they attended Villanova University together, and Salviuolo later discovered Muehleisen when he was teaching at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. Salviuolo brought the Croce and Muehleisen duo together at the production office of Tommy West and Terry Cashman in New York City. Initially, Croce backed Muehleisen on guitar at his gigs but in time their roles reversed, with Muehleisen adding lead guitar to Croce's down-to-earth music.

In 1972, Croce signed to a three-record deal with ABC Records and released two albums, You Don't Mess Around with Jim and Life and Times. The singles "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)", and "Time in a Bottle" (written for his then-unborn son, A. J. Croce) all received airplay. Croce's biggest single, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", hit No. 1 on the American charts in July 1973. That year, the Croces relocated to San Diego, California.

Death[link]

On September 20, 1973, the day that his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce, Muehleisen, and four others were killed in the crash of a chartered Beechcraft E18S upon takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana.^[7] Croce had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University's Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches and was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College, when the plane crashed about an hour after the end of the concert.

According to results of an investigation, upon takeoff the plane did not gain enough altitude to clear, and the pilot did not maneuver to avoid a pecan tree at the end of the runway, which investigators said was the only tree for hundreds of yards. The flight conditions were reported as dark, clear sky, calm winds, and over five miles of visibility with haze. The official report from the NTSB^[8] lists the probable cause as pilot failure to see and avoid objects or obstructions with factors of pilot physical impairment and fog obstructing vision. The report remarks that the 57-year-old charter pilot had just run about three miles to the airport from a motel and suffered a heart attack. The pilot had an ATP Certificate, 14,290 hours total flight time and 2,190 hours in the Beech 18 type.^[8] A later investigation, source unknown, placed sole blame for the accident on pilot error due to his downwind takeoff into a "black hole".^[9]

Croce is buried at Haym Salomon Cemetery in Malvern, Pennsylvania.^[10] Muehleisen is buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey.^[11]

Legacy[link]

The album I Got a Name was released on December 1, 1973.^[12] Croce had just finished recording the album just over a week before his death.^[13] The posthumous release included three hits: "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues", "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song", and the title song, which had been used as the theme to the film The Last American Hero which was released two months prior to his death. The album reached No. 2 and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" reached No. 9 on the singles chart.

The song "Time in a Bottle" had been featured over the opening and closing credits and during a scene in which Desi Arnaz Jr. is opening the 'Don't Mess Around With Jim' album in the ABC made-for-television movie She Lives!, which aired on September 12, 1973,^[14] That appearance had generated significant interest in Croce and his music in the week just prior to the plane crash. That, combined with the news of the death of the singer, sparked a renewed interest in Croce's previous albums. Consequently, three months later, "Time in a Bottle", originally released on Croce's first album the year before, hit number-one on December 29, 1973, the third posthumous chart-topping song of the rock era following Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" and Janis Joplin's recording of "Me and Bobby McGee".

A greatest hits package entitled Photographs & Memories, released in 1974, proved to be extraordinarily popular. Later posthumous releases have included Home Recordings: Americana, Facets, Jim Croce: Classic Hits, Down the Highway, and DVD and CD releases of Croce's television performances, Have You Heard: Jim Croce Live.

Croce's catalog became a staple of radio play for years, and still receives significant airplay on a variety of radio formats into the second decade of the 21st century. In 1990, Croce was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.^[15]

Jim and Ingrid Croce's son Adrian James Croce was born September 28, 1971, and is now an accomplished singer-songwriter, musician, and pianist, performing under the name A.J. Croce, as well as serving as the owner/operator of his own record label, Seedling Records.^[16]

Ingrid Croce owns and manages Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar---a project she and Jim had jokingly discussed a decade earlier—in the historic Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego. She opened the business in 1985.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jim Croce Official Website
• Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar
• NTSB Identification: FTW74AF017; 14 CFR Part 135 Nonscheduled operation of ROBERT AIRWAYS; Aircraft: BEECH E18S, registration: N50JR (Report). NTSB.gov. September 20, 1973. http://ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=84416&key=0&print=1. Retrieved November 27, 2011.  – US NTSB Report on plane crash
• "Wall of Fame". Upper Darby High School. Archived from the original on October 9, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071009225810/http://www.udsd.k12.pa.us/alumni/wof.php. Retrieved October 17, 2007. 
• Seedling Records – A.J. Croce's Record Label
• Jim Croce at Find a Grave
• Jim Croce at VH1

Jasmine Choi (born 1983, Korea) is a flutist.

She graduated from Curtis Institute of Music, and was trained under Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner. As a student in 2002, she was the senior division winner of the Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition, sponsored by the Philadelphia Orchestra.^[1] In 2006, Symphony Magazine included her as one of two flautists in their list of emerging artists.^[2]

A recording of her performances of Mozart's flute concertos, Jasmine Choi plays Mozart, was released in 2006 in Korea by Sony BMG.^[3] She is a member of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra^[4] and has played on tour in Korea, Austria,^[5] and the Czech Republic. Starting with the 2012-13 season she will be Principal Flute of the Vienna Symphony.

One reviewer called her "a major talent with a robust tone".^[6] As well as classical and modern flute compositions, her concert repertoire includes compositions for violin transcribed to the flute.^[7]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Choi's web site

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