Topeka (/tɵˈpiːkə/; Kansa: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 127,473. The Topeka Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Shawnee, Jackson, Jefferson, Osage, and Wabaunsee counties, had an estimated population of 230,824 in the year 2009. The city is well known for the landmark United States Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson and declared segregation in public schools on account of race to be unconstitutional. Three ships of the US Navy have been named USS Topeka in honor of the city.

Topeka means "to dig good potatoes" in the languages of the Kansa and the Ioway. The potato referred to is the prairie potato (Psoralea esculenta), a perennial herb which is an important food for many Native Americans. As a placename, Topeka was first recorded in 1826 as the Kansa name for what is now called the Kansas River. Topeka's founders chose the name in 1855 because it "was novel, of Indian origin and euphonious of sound." The mixed-blood Kansa Indian, Joseph James, called Jojim, is credited with suggesting the name of Topeka. The city, laid out in 1854, was one of the Free-State towns founded by Eastern antislavery men immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. In 1857, Topeka was chartered as a city.

Jon Gomm is an English singer-songwriter and virtuoso performer, using a single acoustic guitar to create drum sounds, bass lines and melodies simultaneously. His songs draw on a range of influences and styles, including blues and soul. Michael Hedges is an important source of inspiration.^{[citation needed]} To date he has two solo albums and has toured full-time since 2004.

Jon Gomm started playing ukulele at the age of two.Classical guitar lessons began at the age of six, and at twelve he was accompanying his father, a music critic, to blues gigs in his hometown of Blackpool. As a teenager he played electric guitar in the style of the rock greats.

On leaving school, Jon Gomm turned down a place at Oxford University studying English to attend The Guitar Institute (now part of the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance) in London.^{[citation needed]} While there, he paid his way through college playing jazz in café-bars, recording as a session guitarist, and playing Country music in Working men's clubs for line-dancers. He moved to the Yorkshire city of Leeds, where he is now based,^[when?] to study on the Jazz degree course at Leeds College of Music.

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time. He wrote the lyrics to more than fifteen hundred songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Award nominations, and won four. Mercer was also a co-founder of Capitol Records.

Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia. His father, George Anderson Mercer, was a prominent attorney and real estate developer, and his mother, Lillian Elizabeth (née Ciucevich), George Mercer’s secretary and then second wife, was the daughter of Croatian-Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1850s. Lillian's father was a merchant seaman who ran the Union blockade during the U.S. Civil War. Mercer was George's fourth son, first by Lillian. His great-grandfather was Confederate General Hugh Weedon Mercer and he was a direct descendant of American Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer, a Scottish soldier-physician who died at the Battle of Princeton. Mercer was also a distant cousin of General George S. Patton. The construction of Mercer House in Savannah was started by General Hugh Weedon Mercer in 1860 (although never finished by him; the next owners of the house finished it), later the home of Jim Williams, whose trial for murder was the centerpiece of John Berendt's book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, although neither the General nor Johnny ever lived there.

Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer and vaudevillian. Renowned for her contralto voice, she attained international stardom through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the remake of A Star is Born and for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1961 film, Judgment at Nuremberg. At 39 years of age, she remains the youngest recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.

After appearing in vaudeville with her two older sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, she was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a return to acting beginning with critically acclaimed performances.