- published: 04 Aug 2011
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Vine Street is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself. The famed intersection fell into disrepair during the 1970s but has since begun gentrification and renewal with several high valued projects currently in progress. Three blocks of the Hollywood Walk of Fame lie along this street with names such as John Lennon and Deborah Kerr. Vine Street continues for one block as a residential street in Torrance, renamed as Vine Avenue. However, it is a strictly residential street which terminates at Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance. South of Melrose, Vine turns into Rossmore Avenue, a residential Hancock Park thoroughfare that ends at Wilshire Boulevard.
The Capitol Records Building, Capitol Tower, is located just north of the intersection of Hollywood & Vine.Miss Brewster's Millions (1926) starring Bebe Daniels, was shot on Vine Street at Franklin Avenue, near the site what is now the Capitol Records Building. The Hollywood/Vine Station for the Metro Red Line serves the intersection with the station entrance located at Hollywood Boulevard and Argyle Avenue, located one block east. Metro Local line 210 serves Vine Street.
Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter,arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.
Newman often writes lyrics from the perspective of a character far removed from his own experiences, sometimes using the point of view of an unreliable narrator. For example, the 1972 song "Sail Away" is written as a slave trader's sales pitch to attract slaves, while the narrator of "Political Science" is a U.S. nationalist who complains of worldwide ingratitude toward America and proposes a brutally ironic final solution. One of his biggest hits, "Short People" was written from the perspective of "a lunatic" who hates short people. Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog. He has scored six Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars and most recently Toy Story 3.
William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother first taught him piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and improvised to accompany silent films at a local theater in his town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16, he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his performing career expanded; he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1929 he joined Bennie Moten's band in Kansas City, and played with them for years, until Moten's death in 1935.
That year Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump," developed in 1935 in the early days of his band, and "April In Paris".
That's the tape that we made,
But I'm sad to say it never made the grade.
That was me, third guitar;
I wonder where the others are.
I sold the guitar today...
I never did play much anyway.
Vine Street.
We used to live there on Vine Street.
She made perfume in the back of the room
And me and my group, we'd sit out on the stoop
And we'd play for her the songs she liked best
To have us play, on Vine Street.
Vine Street, the crack of the backbeat on Vinestreet.
Swingin' along on the wings of a song
And I'll lie in, secure, self-righteous, and sure