Coordinates: 55°49′14″N 37°38′22″E / 55.82062°N 37.63933°E / 55.82062; 37.63933

Cosmonauts Alley (Russian: аллея Космонавтов) is a wide avenue in northern Moscow leading to the Russian Museum of Cosmonautics and the Monument to the Conquerors of Space . The pedestrian-only avenue connects the museum and monument to the VDNKh subway station.^[1]

The park-like "alley" is punctuated by large stone memorials of important figures in the Soviet space program. At its terminus below the monument, a larger-than-life statue of Soviet rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) sits facing back down the path.

Monuments[link]

• Yuri Gagarin
• Valentina Tereshkova
• Pavel Belyayev
• Alexey Leonov
• Vladimir Komarov
• Valentin Glushko
• Mstislav Keldysh
• Sergey Korolyov
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

• 

  Memorial of Vladimir Komarov.

• 

  Memorial of Mstislav Keldysh.

• Cosmonauts Alley S.P. Korolyov.jpg

  Memorial of spaceship designer Sergey Korolyov.

• 

  Memorial of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Gallery[link]

• Cosmonauts Alley.jpg

  Cosmonauts Alley on Cosmonautics Day (2002).

• 

  Cosmonautics Day visitors gathered near bust of Yuri Gagarin

See also[link]

• Monument to the Conquerors of Space
• Memorial Museum of Astronautics

References[link]

Roger Knox is an Australian country singer known as the Black Elvis and the Koori King of Country. He is an Gamilaroi man (a group of Indigenous Australians), was born in Moree and grew up in the Toomelah Aboriginal Mission near Boggabilla near the border between New South Wales and Queensland.^[1][2]

In 1980s Knox was in a plane crash that killed his drummer Ken Ramsay. Knox was badly burnt and got pain relief from a natural bath oil made from the Eura bush. That bush and the settlement on which his father was born were inspirations for the name of his band, the Euraba band.

Roger Knox was given the Jimmy Little Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Music at the 2006 Deadlys.

Knox was scheduled to perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois on October 10, 2009 with Jon Langford and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts. However, his US visa was denied a week before the show and Knox did not make the trip.

Discography[link]

• Give It A Go (1983) - Enrec Records
• The Gospel Album (1986) - Enrec Records
• Warrior in Chains—The Best of Roger Knox (1998) - Enrec Records
• Goin' On, Still Strong (2004) - Trailblazer Records

References[link]

External links[link]

• Living Black Series 7: Episode 4

Jon Langford
Jon Langford performing with the Waco Brothers on July 9, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois
Background information
Born	October 11, 1957
Origin	Welsh
Genres	Alternative rock, Indie rock, Alt-Country, Country rock, Rock and Roll, Roots rock, Punk rock
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Guitar, drums
Labels	Bloodshot Records
Associated acts	Mekons, Waco Brothers, The Sadies, Wee Hairy Beasties

Jon Langford born October 11, 1957, Newport, Monmouthshire is a Welsh-born musician and artist who is presently based in Chicago. He is the younger brother of science-fiction author and critic David Langford. Langford is also an honorary board member of the Chicago based nonprofit organization Rock For Kids.

Biography[link]

Langford was originally the drummer for the punk band The Mekons when it formed at the University of Leeds in 1977, but he later took up the guitar as other band members left.^[1] Since the mid-1980s he has been one of the leaders in incorporating folk and country music into punk rock. He has released a number of solo recordings as well as recordings with other bands outside of The Mekons, most notably the Waco Brothers, which he co-founded after moving to Chicago in the early 1990s. He is involved with the Chicago-based independent record label Bloodshot.^[2]

Langford is also a prolific and respected visual artist best known for his striking portraits of country music icons including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. His paintings appear on bottles and other items for the Dogfish Head Brewery. His multimedia music/spoken-word/video performance, "The Executioner's Last Songs," premiered at Alverno College in 2005, and has been performed in several other cities. He illustrated the comic strip Great Pop Things under the pseudonym Chuck Death.^[3] Since 2005 he has co-hosted a weekly radio program, "The Eclectic Company," broadcast on WXRT 93.1 FM in Chicago.^[4] He has contributed to This American Life.^[5]

Among Langford's musical side projects have been the Three Johns (with John Hyatt and John (Phillip) Brennan), who released several albums of drum-machine-fueled punk in the 1980s; the country-punk Waco Brothers (with Dean Schlabowske, Tracey Dear, Alan Doughty, Mark Durante, and Mekons drummer Steve Goulding), who have been recording since 1995; the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, a revolving assortment of Chicago musicians who have backed both Langford and other musicians such as Kelly Hogan; and Ship and Pilot. He became a father figure to the local music scene, encouraging many of his labelmates on Bloodshot Records and championing anyone he thought worthy of scrutiny, often lending his services as a musician or visual artist or inviting local musicians to guest on his releases. Langford's first official solo album, Skull Orchard, a look back at his hometown of Newport, Wales, was released in 1998. He followed it with All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, in 2004, Gold Brick in 2006, and Old Devils in 2010.

Langford is an accomplished artist and is renowned for his multi-layered paintings of famous and forgotten figures from the dawn of country music.^[6] Nashville Radio, a collection of his artwork and writings, was published in 2006.^[7]

In January and February 2009, Chicago's Walkabout Theater Company and Collaboraction premiered a stage adaptation of Langford's Goldbrick that featured a live band, two actors and video projections.^[8] In November and December 2009, The House Theatre of Chicago staged a production of "All the Fame of Lofty Deeds", written by rock journalist Mark Guarino and based on Langford's art and 2004 solo album.^[9]

In a 2010 interview, Langford said his earliest influences were Tom Jones, Slade, T.Rex, The Kinks, Johnny Cash, Man and Black Sabbath.^[10]

Collaborations with other musicians[link]

Langford initiated a project, the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, which performs the music of other country music groups. Several alternative country musicians have guested on these recordings.

Langford has guested on numerous recordings, including with Dutch punk band the Ex, The Old 97s, Chip Taylor, as well as Austin, Texas legend Alejandro Escovedo, and has recorded joint albums with Sally Timms, Kevin Coyne, Richard Buckner, Kat Ex^[11] and Rosie Flores. He also contributed and worked with Doorika, a defunct performance arts collective based in Chicago and New York City.^[7]

In the late 2000s Langford came into contact with the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus based near Toronto, featuring the dulcet tones of Barry "Satchmo" Hyslop, invited them first to accompany him at a CeltFest in Chicago in 2007, then to re-record the whole of the Skull Orchard. The album Skull Orchard Revisited (credited to Jon Langford and the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus) was released on June 3, 2011 by Bloodshot Records.^[12]

Solo Discography[link]

• Skull Orchard (1998)
• All the Fame of Lofty Deeds (2004)
• Gold Brick (2006)
• Old Devils (2010)
• Skull Orchard Revisited (2011, debut album Skull Orchard re-recorded with the Burlington Welsh Male Choir)

See also[link]

• Wee Hairy Beasties

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jon Langford at Allmusic
• Interview from The Onion A.V. Club (2005)
• Jon Langford collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive
• Jon Langford's art at Yard Dog

Allen Wilford Brimley (born September 27, 1934)^[1] is an American actor.^[2] He has appeared in such films as The China Syndrome,^[2] Cocoon, The Thing and The Firm.^[2] He had a recurring role on the 1970s television series The Waltons. Brimley has also done television commercials, including advertisements for Quaker Oats^[2] and Liberty Medical.^[2]

Career[link]

Brimley was born as Allen Wilford Brimley in Salt Lake City, Utah,^[2] where his father worked as a real estate broker.^[3]

Prior to his career in acting, Brimley worked as a ranch hand, wrangler, blacksmith, and a bodyguard for Howard Hughes.^[1] He then began shoeing horses for film and television. He began acting in the 1960s as a riding extra in Westerns and as a stunt man at the urging of his friend, actor Robert Duvall.^[4]

Brimley was cast in the popular 1970s television series The Waltons as Walton's Mountain resident Horace Brimley, in seven appearances from 1974 through 1977.

Brimley became famous later in life for appearing in such films as The Hotel New Hampshire,^[5] John Carpenter's The Thing,^[6] and Cocoon.^[6] In 2001, he starred in the Turner Network Television film Crossfire Trail^[6] with Tom Selleck. He had an important role in The China Syndrome.^[6] He often plays a gruff or stodgy old man, notably on the 1980s drama series Our House. His first characterization was in Absence of Malice, in which he played a small but key role as a curmudgeonly, outspoken James A. Wells,^[7] Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He expanded on this characterization as the world-weary manager of a hapless baseball team in The Natural, a film in which his friend Duvall appeared as an antagonistic sportswriter.

Brimley was cast in the 1983 film Tender Mercies due to the urging of Robert Duvall, who was not getting along well with director Bruce Beresford and wanted "somebody down here that's on my side, somebody that I can relate to."^[8] Beresford felt Brimley was too old for the part, but eventually agreed to the casting. Brimley, like Duvall, clashed with the director; during one instance when Beresford tried to advise Brimley on how Harry would behave, Duvall recalled Brimley responding: "Now look, let me tell you something, I'm Harry. Harry's not over there, Harry's not over here. Until you fire me or get another actor, I'm Harry, and whatever I do is fine 'cause I'm Harry."^[8]

In a change from his "good guy" roles such as those in Our House, he played William Devasher, the ominous head of security for Bendini, Lambert & Locke in the Tom Cruise film The Firm^[9] (1993), based on the novel by John Grisham.

Brimley has frequently appeared in commercials, notably a series of commercials he did for Quaker Oats^[10] Oatmeal throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Quaker commercials were famous for their slogan: "It's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it." Brimley is also known for appearing in numerous television advertisements for Liberty Medical, a company specializing in home delivery of medical products such as diabetes testing supplies.

Brimley has also been described as "a fine singer with a warm, rich voice".^[11] In 1993, Brimley sang with the Cal State Northridge Jazz Band for a concert benefiting the college's Jazz Endowment Scholarship Fund; in 2004, he released This Time, The Dream's On Me, an album of jazz standards named after the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer-penned title track.^[11][12]

Personal life[link]

Diagnosed with diabetes in 1979, Brimley began working to raise awareness of the disease. The American Diabetes Association^[13] (ADA) honored Brimley in 2008^[13] with an award to recognize his lifetime of service.^[13] Brimley has been active visiting Veterans Administration hospitals and communities to advise patients on how to manage their diseases. The ADA presented the award to the actor at the Port St. Lucie headquarters of Liberty Medical on December 19, 2008.^[14]

Brimley is an activist, paying from his own funds for advertisements to have Utah allow horse-race gambling.^[15] He spoke against the banning of cockfighting in New Mexico on the basis of his support of individual rights.^[16] Brimley enjoys playing poker^[17] and has played in the World Series of Poker Main Event.^[18] Brimley lent his support to John McCain in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.^[19] In the days leading up to his selection for vice president, McCain jokingly stated that he would pick Brimley: "He's a former Marine and great guy and he's older than I am, so that might work."^[20] Brimley is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Brimley has resided in Greybull, Wyoming, since 2006.^[21]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

	United States Marine Corps portal
	Biography portal

• Wilford Brimley at the Internet Movie Database
• Wilford Brimley at AllRovi

Woody Herman
1976
Background information
Birth name	Woodrow Charles Herman
Born	(1913-05-16)May 16, 1913
Origin	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Died	October 29, 1987(1987-10-29) (aged 74) West Hollywood, California, United States
Genres	Big band music swing, cool jazz
Occupations	Bandleader, saxophonist, clarinetist, singer
Instruments	Saxophone, clarinet, vocals
Associated acts	Isham Jones

Woodrow Charles "Woody" Herman (May 16, 1913 – October 29, 1987), was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders. His bands often played music that was experimental for their time. He was a featured halftime performer for Super Bowl VII.

Early life and career[link]

Herman was born Woodrow Charles Thomas Herrman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 16, 1913.^[1] His parents were Otto and Myrtle Herrman.^[2][3] His father had a deep love for show business and this influenced Woody Herman at an early age.^[4] As a child he worked as a singer in vaudeville, then became a professional saxophone player at age 15. In 1931, he met Charlotte Neste, an aspiring actress;^[5] they married on September 27, 1936.^[6] Woody Herman joined the Tom Gerun band and his first recorded vocals were "Lonesome Me" and "My Heart's At Ease".^[7] Herman also performed with the Harry Sosnick orchestra,^[8] Gus Arnheim and Isham Jones.^[9] Isham Jones wrote many popular songs, including "It Had To Be You" and at some point was tiring of the demands of leading a band. Jones wanted to live off the residuals of his songs; Woody Herman saw the chance to lead his former band,^[10] and eventually acquired the remains of the orchestra after Jones' retirement.

The Band That Plays The Blues and the First Herd 1936-1946[link]

Woody Herman's first band became known for its orchestrations of the blues and was sometimes billed as "The Band That Plays The Blues". This band recorded for the Decca label, at first serving as a cover band, doing songs by other Decca artists.^[11] The first song recorded was "Wintertime Blues" on November 6, 1936. In January 1937, George T. Simon closed a review of the band with the words: "This Herman outfit bears watching; not only because it's fun listening to in its present stages, but also because its bound to reach even greater stages."^[12] After two and a half years on the label, the band had its first hit, "Woodchopper's Ball" recorded in 1939.^[13] Woody Herman remembered that "Woodchopper's Ball" started out slowly at first. "[I]t was really a sleeper. But Decca kept re-releasing it, and over a period of three or four years it became a hit. Eventually it sold more than five million copies—the biggest hit I ever had."^[14] Other hits for the band include "The Golden Wedding" and "Blue Prelude".^[15] Musicians and arrangers that stand out include Cappy Lewis on trumpet and Dean Kincaide, a noted big band arranger.^[15]

In jazz, swing was gradually being replaced by bebop. Dizzy Gillespie, a trumpeter and one of the originators of bop, wrote three arrangements for Woody Herman, "Woody'n You", "Swing Shift" and "Down Under". These were arranged in 1942.^[16] "Woody'n You" was not used at the time. "Down Under" was recorded November 8, 1943. The fact that Herman commissioned Dizzy Gillespie to write arrangements for the band and that Herman hired Ralph Burns as a staff arranger, heralded a change in the style of music the band was playing.^[17]

In February 1945, the band started a contract with Columbia Records.^[18] Herman liked what drew many artists to Columbia, Liederkrantz Hall, at the time the best recording venue in New York City. The first side Herman recorded was "Laura", the theme song of the 1944 movie of the same name.^[19] Herman's version was so successful that it made Columbia hold from release the arrangement that Harry James had recorded days earlier.^[20] The Columbia contract coincided with a change in the band's repertoire. The First Herd's music was heavily influenced by Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Its lively, swinging arrangements, combining bop themes with swing rhythm parts, were greatly admired. As of February 1945 the personnel included Sonny Berman, Pete Candoli, Billy Bauer (later replaced by Chuck Wayne), Ralph Burns, Davey Tough and Flip Phillips.^[21] On February 26, 1945 in New York City, the Woody Herman band recorded "Caldonia".^[22]

Neal Hefti and Ralph Burns collaborated on the arrangement of "Caldonia" that the Herman band used.^[23] "Ralph caught Louis Jordan [singing "Caldonia"] in an act and wrote the opening twelve bars and the eight bar tag."^[22] "But the most amazing thing on the record was a soaring eight bar passage by trumpets near the end." These eight measures have wrongly been attributed to a Dizzy Gillespie solo, but were in fact originally written by Neal Hefti.^[21] George T. Simon compares Neal Hefti with Dizzy Gillespie in a 1944 review for Metronome magazine saying, "Like Dizzy [...], Hefti has an abundance of good ideas, with which he has aided Ralph Burns immensely [...][.]"^[24]

In 1946 the band won Down Beat, Metronome, Billboard and Esquire polls for best band, nominated by their peers in the big band business.^[25] Along with the high acclaim for their jazz and blues performances, classical composer Igor Stravinsky wrote the Ebony Concerto, one in a series of compositions commissioned by Woody with solo clarinet, for this band. Woody Herman recorded this work in the Belock Recording Studio at Bayside New York.^[26]

Throughout the history of jazz, there have always been musicians who sought to combine it with classical music.^[27] Ebony Concerto is one in a long line of music from the twenties to the present day that seeks to do this. Woody Herman said about the Concerto: "[The Ebony Concerto is a] very delicate and a very sad piece."^[28] Stravinsky felt that the jazz musicians would have a hard time with the various time signatures. Saxophonist Flip Philips said, "During the rehearsal [...] there was a passage I had to play there and I was playing it soft, and Stravinsky said 'Play it, here I am!' and I blew it louder and he threw me a kiss!"^[29] In his own original way Stravinsky noticed the massive amount of smoking at the recording session: "the atmosphere looked like Pernod clouded by water."^[30] Ebony Concerto was performed live by the Herman band on March 25, 1946 at Carnegie Hall.[2]

Despite the Carnegie Hall success and other triumphs, Herman was forced to disband the orchestra in 1946 at the height of its success. This was his only financially successful band; he left it to spend more time with his wife and family. During this time, he and his family had just moved into the former Hollywood home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. One reason Herman may have disbanded was his wife Charlotte's growing problems with alcoholism and pill addiction. Charlotte Herman joined Alcoholics Anonymous and gave up everything she was addicted to. Woody said, laughing, "I went to an AA meeting with Charlotte and my old band was sitting there."^[31] Many critics cite December 1946 as the actual date the big-band era ended, when seven other bands, in addition to Herman's, dissolved.^[32]

The Second Herd and other bands 1947-1987[link]

In 1947, Herman organized the Second Herd. This band was also known as "The Four Brothers Band". This derives from the song recorded December 27, 1947 for Columbia records, "Four Brothers", written by Jimmy Giuffre.^[33] "The 'Four Brothers' chart is based on the chord changes of 'Jeepers Creepers', and features the three-tenor, one-baritone saxophone section[...]."^[34] The order of the saxophone solos is Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, Herbie Steward, and Stan Getz.^[34] Some of the notable musicians of this band were also Al Cohn, Gene Ammons, Lou Levy, Oscar Pettiford, Terry Gibbs, and Shelly Manne.^[35] Among this band's hits were "Early Autumn," and "The Goof and I". The band was popular enough that they went to Hollywood in the mid-nineteen forties. Herman and his band appear in the movie New Orleans in 1947 with Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong.^[36] From the late 1940s to the end of his life, record labels Herman recorded for include RCA,^[37] Capitol,^[37] MGM^[38] and Verve.^[39]

Herman's other bands include the Third Herd (1950–1956) and various editions of the New Thundering Herd (1959–1987).^[40] In the 1950s, the Third Herd went on a successful European tour.^[41] He was known for hiring the best young musicians and using their arrangements.^[42] In the early and mid 1960s, Woody gained a wider recognition by fronting one of the most exciting Herds to date that featured future stellar names like drummer Jake Hanna, tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, trombonists Phil Wilson and Henry Southall and trumpeters like Bill Chase, Paul Fontaine and Dusko Goykovitch. By 1968, the Herman library came to be heavily influenced by rock and roll.^[43] He was also known to feature brass and woodwind instruments not traditionally associated with jazz, such as the bassoon, oboe or French horn.

In 1974, Woody Herman's "Young Thundering Herd" appeared without their leader for Frank Sinatra's television special The Main Event and subsequent album, The Main Event – Live. Both were recorded mainly on October 13, 1974 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.^[44] On November 20, 1976, a reconstituted Woody Herman band played at Carnegie Hall in New York City, celebrating Herman's fortieth anniversary as a bandleader.^[45] By the 1980s, Herman had returned to straight-ahead jazz, dropping some of the newer rock and fusion approaches.^[46] Woody Herman signed a recording contract with Concord Records around 1980, now called the Concord Music Group.^[47] In 1981, John S. Wilson warmly reviewed one of Herman's first Concord recordings "Woody Herman Presents a Concord Jam, Vol. I". Wilson's review says that the recording presents a band that is less frenetic than his bands from the forties to the seventies. Instead it takes the listener back to the relaxed style of Herman's first band of the thirties that recorded for Decca.^[48]

Last years[link]

Herman continued to perform into the 1980s, after the death of his wife and with his health in decline, chiefly to pay back taxes caused by his business manager's bookkeeping in the 1960s.^[49] With the added stress, Herman still kept performing. In a December 5, 1985 review of the band at the Blue Note jazz club for The New York Times, John S. Wilson pointed out: "In a one-hour set, Mr. Herman is able to show off his latest batch of young stars — the baritone saxophonist Mike Brignola, the bassist Bill Moring, the pianist Brad Williams, the trumpeter Ron Stout — and to remind listeners that one of his own basic charms is the dry humor with which he shouts the blues." Wilson also spoke about arrangements by Bill Holman and John Fedchock for special attention. Wilson spoke of the continuing influence of Duke Ellington on the Woody Herman bands from the nineteen forties to the nineteen eighties.^[50] Before Woody Herman died in 1987 he delegated most of his duties to leader of the reed section, Frank Tiberi.[3] Tiberi leads the current version of the Woody Herman orchestra.[4] Frank Tiberi said at the time of Herman's death that he would not change the band's repertoire or library.^[51] Woody Herman was buried in a Catholic funeral, November 2, 1987 in West Hollywood, California.^[52] He is interred in a crypt outside the west end of Cathedral Mausoleum in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, CA.

Concord Music Group's website mentions these awards won by the various Woody Herman orchestras: "Voted best swing band in 1945 Down Beat poll; Silver Award by critics in 1946 and 1947 Esquire polls; won Metronome poll, band division, 1946 and 1953; won NARAS Grammy Award for Encore as best big band jazz album of 1963; won NARAS Grammy Award for Giant Steps as best big band jazz album of 1973."[5] Woody Herman was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• PBS - JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns
• Woody Herman Biography
• Woody Herman at Find a Grave