Galt MacDermot

Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot (born December 18, 1928) is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair (1967; its cast album also won a Grammy) and Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971). MacDermot has also written music for film soundtracks, jazz and funk albums, and classical music, and his music has been sampled in hit hip-hop songs and albums.

Biography

MacDermot was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of a Canadian diplomat. He was educated at Upper Canada College and Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada). He received a Bachelor of Music from Cape Town University, South Africa and made a study of African music his specialty. He also studied the piano privately with Neil Chotem.

MacDermot won his first Grammy Award for the Cannonball Adderley recording of his song "African Waltz" (the title track of the album of the same name) in 1960. He moved to New York City in 1964 where, three years later, he wrote the music for the hit musical Hair, which he later adapted for the 1979 film. Its Broadway cast album won a Grammy Award in 1969. His next musicals were Isabel's a Jezebel (1970) and Who the Murderer Was (1970), which featured British progressive rock band Curved Air. MacDermot had another hit with the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971), which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. For that show, MacDermot was nominated for a Tony for best music and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music. His later musicals, however, including Dude and Via Galactica (both 1973) and The Human Comedy (1984), have not been successful on Broadway.

For the Taken

For the Taken is the debut album by American rock band Mercy Fall released on May 9, 2006. First single "I Got Life" was released to radio stations on March 4. The song spent eight weeks on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart where it peaked at number 36. Corey Apar of Allmusic called the album "a competent debut that could be the start of better things for them."

Track listing

Personnel

References

External links

'For the Taken' at Discogs

Nina Simone

Nina Simone (/ˈniːnə sᵻˈmoʊn/; born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist who worked in a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Born in North Carolina, the sixth child of a preacher, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of her supporters in Tryon, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York but was unable to continue because of the high fees. She was later denied a scholarship to study at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone became fully convinced her rejection had been entirely due to her race, a statement that has been a matter of controversy.

To make a living, Simone chose to play "cocktail piano" at a night club in Atlantic City, where she was told she had to sing to her own accompaniment, effectively launching her career as a jazz vocalist. She recorded more than forty albums, mostly between 1958, when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue, and 1974, and had a hit in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy".

Ain

Ain (French pronunciation: ​[ɛ̃]; Arpitan: En) is a department named after the Ain River on the eastern edge of France. Being part of the region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and bordered by the rivers Saône and Rhône, the department of Ain enjoys a privileged geographic situation. It has an excellent transport network (TGV, highways) and benefits from the proximity to the international airports of Lyon and Geneva.

Ain is composed of four geographically different areas (Bresse, Dombes, Bugey and Pays de Gex) which – each with its own characteristics – contribute to the diversity and the dynamic economic development of the department. In the Bresse agriculture and agro-industry are dominated by the cultivation of cereals, cattle breeding, milk and cheese production as well as poultry farming. In the Dombes, pisciculture assumes greater importance as does wine making in the Bugey. The high diversification of the department's industry is accompanied by a strong presence of the plastics sector in and around Oyonnax (so-called "Plastics Valley").

James Rado

James Rado (born James Alexander Radomski; January 23, 1932) is an American actor, writer and composer, best known as the co-author, along with Gerome Ragni, of 1967's groundbreaking American tribal love-rock musical Hair. He and Ragni were nominated for the 1969 Tony Award for best musical, and they won for best musical at the Grammy Awards in 1969.

Early life

He was raised in Rochester, N.Y. and Washington, D.C. In college, Rado majored in Speech and Drama and began writing songs. He co-authored two musical shows at the University of Maryland, Interlude and Interlude II. After graduation, followed by two years in the U.S. Navy, he returned to school in Washington, D.C. for graduate work at The Catholic University of America, where he co-authored a musical revue called Cross Your Fingers. He wrote the lyrics and music for all of his early songs.

He then moved to New York where he studied acting with Lee Strasberg and also wrote pop songs which he recorded with his own band, James Alexander and the Argyles. Rado's first Broadway show was Marathon '33 in 1963. In 1966, Rado originated the Broadway role of Richard Lionheart in The Lion in Winter by James Goldman, starring Robert Preston and Rosemary Harris.