A free Negro or free black is the term used prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States to describe African Americans who were not slaves. Almost all African Americans came to the United States as slaves, but from the earliest days of American slavery, slaveholders set men and women free for various reasons. Sometimes an owner died and the heirs did not want slaves, or a slave was freed as reward for his or her good service, or the slave was able to pay in order to be freed. Free blacks in the antebellum period—those years from the formation of the Union until the Civil War—were quite outspoken about the injustice of slavery.
Free blacks in America were first documented in Northampton County, Virginia, in 1662. By 1776, approximately 8 percent of African Americans were free.
In the two decades after the Revolution, many slaveholders in the Chesapeake Bay area freed slaves. For instance, in Virginia, the number of free blacks increased from a few thousand before the war to 13,000 by 1790 and 20,000 by 1800. The numbers were more dramatic in Delaware and Maryland, where a higher percentage of slaves were freed, in part because of changing economies that decreased the need for slave labor and immigration by free blacks to Delaware from Maryland and Virginia. By 1810, 75 percent of blacks in Delaware were free, compared to 7.2 percent of the blacks in Virginia.
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.
In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.
Black Stone Cherry is an American rock band that formed in 2001 in Edmonton, Kentucky. They are signed to Roadrunner Records. The band consists of Chris Robertson (lead vocals, lead guitar), Ben Wells (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Jon Lawhon (bass guitar, backing vocals), and John Fred Young (drums, backing vocals). Black Stone Cherry has released three studio albums and three EPs, and has charted eight singles on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.
The band Black Stone Cherry originated from Edmonton, Kentucky. Chris Robertson and John Fred Young, son of The Kentucky Headhunters's rhythm guitarist Richard Young, started to play music together early in their teens and Wells and Lawhon soon followed. Black Stone Cherry officially formed on June 4, 2001. They then took over the practice house that had been used by The Kentucky Headhunters since 1968 and began to record tracks. They also began holding shows at clubs in the area, and after a short while they gained a large following of people of all ages in the town.
Lisa Gerrard (born 12 April 1961) is an Australian musician, singer, and composer who rose to prominence as part of the music group Dead Can Dance with former music partner Brendan Perry.
Since her career began in 1981, she has been involved in a wide range of projects. Gerrard received a Golden Globe Award for the music score to the film Gladiator, on which she collaborated with Hans Zimmer. In addition to singing, she is an instrumentalist for much of her work, most prolifically using the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer).
Lisa Gerrard was born 12 April 1961 in Melbourne and grew up in the suburb of Prahran with her Irish immigrant parents. On her upbringing, she has said she grew up with "Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses" and that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works.
Gerrard's first foray into forming bands and creative music-making was the highly experimental Little Band scene. It was at one of these little band events that she first met Dead Can Dance cofounder Brendan Perry. Perry recalls, "It never occurred to me that we would one day collaborate musically together because at the time I thought her music was too avant garde. I particularly remember one song that she sang about finding a man in the park and asking her mother if she could bring him home to keep in her wardrobe as she attacked this chinese dulcimer with two bamboo sticks."
Free like a bumblebee
Free like the open sea
Free like a flying dove
Free like the moon above
Free like the four letters that spell out L-O-V-E loveree like the
second,minute, moment when you hold me only
Free like the bluest sky
Free like mountain's eye
Free like... free like...free like....free like
Free like the brown in my eye
Free like the tears that I cry
Free like...free like....free like... free like
Free like a willow tree
Free like a summers eve
Free like the waves are crashing on the side of a solitary beach
Free like a bumblebee
Free like the open sea
Free like the minute, second, moment when you hold me closely
Free like a flying dove
Free like the moon above
Free like... free like...free like....free like (fades out)
Last chance at dying young
Last love, I was never enough
Stand cold, and cast your stones
Drink, dry lip, lighting up
Stargazers, I don't give a fuck
It's all on hold from here
What comes easy to me is shit
Open your doors, just let me in
Fuck it, I'll sleep on the floor, in the cold
A place doesn't make you who you are
Fuck fate. Bring your own drinks back to the bar
The whole world is waiting
Let the wounds start to mend
Let them heal, let it begin
And let love follow for where you've been
Let it be what it needs to be
Dress nice for the casualties
Let love look for you where you'll be
The world's still waiting