Proud Mary

"Proud Mary" is a rock song written by John Fogerty and first recorded by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song was released by Fantasy Records as a single from the band's second studio album, Bayou Country, which was released by the same record company in January 1969. The single is generally considered to have been released in early January 1969 although at least one source states that it came out just before Christmas 1968. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five non-consecutive singles to peak at #2 for the group.

Background and recording

In a 1969 interview, Fogerty said that he wrote it in the two days after he was discharged from the National Guard. In the liner notes for the 2008 expanded reissue of Bayou Country, Joel Selvin explained that the songs for the album started when John Fogerty was in the National Guard, that the riffs for "Proud Mary," "Born on the Bayou," and "Keep on Chooglin'" were conceived by Fogerty at a concert in the Avalon Ballroom, and "Proud Mary" was arranged from parts of different songs, one of which was about a "washerwoman named Mary." The line "Left a good job in the city" was written following Fogerty's discharge from the National Guard, and the line "rollin' on the river" was from a movie by Will Rogers.

China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

Tina Turner

Tina Turner (born November 26, 1939), née Anna Mae Bullock, is a singer, dancer, actress, and author, whose career has spanned more than half a century, earning her widespread recognition and numerous awards. Born and raised in the Southeastern United States, she is now a Swiss citizen.

She began her musical career in the mid-1950s as a featured singer with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, first recording in 1958 under the name "Little Ann". Her introduction to the public as Tina Turner began in 1960 as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of notable hits credited to the duo, including "A Fool in Love", "River Deep – Mountain High" (1966), "Proud Mary" (1971) and "Nutbush City Limits" (1973), a song which she herself wrote. In her autobiography, I, Tina, she revealed several instances of severe domestic abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. Raised as a Baptist, she melded her faith with Buddhism in 1971, crediting the religion and its spiritual chant of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for helping her to endure during difficult times.

Your Face

Your Face is a 1987 animated short film by Bill Plympton. It involves a man seated in a chair crooning about the face of his lover, and as he sings, his own face starts to distort in various ways. Along with several other shorts by Bill Plympton, it was also aired on MTV's Liquid Television.

The vocals were that of Maureen McElheron, known for composing the songs in The Tune, also by Bill Plympton. After the song was recorded, it was slowed by one-third, giving the desired and unusual effect, also making the voice more masculine. His face is distorted into many different shapes, such as a balloon, a cube and an ice cream cone.

The song is all original, made specifically for this short film, and the lyrics depict a metaphorical description of someone's face by using musical vocabulary to describe the beauty of their features.

The short received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 60th Academy Awards.

External links

China Blue

China Blue is a 2005 documentary film directed by Micha Peled. It follows the life of Jasmine Li, a young seventeen-year-old worker from Sichuan province, in a Chinese jeans factory, Lifeng Clothes Factory (丽锋服饰制衣有限公司) in Shaxi, Guangdong producing Vigaze Jeans (a company based in Istanbul, Turkey ), hence the title. Jasmine earned about half a yuan for one hour's work (which amounted to about six US cents).

The documentary discusses both the sweatshop conditions in factories in China and the growing importance of China as an exporting country on a global scale.

At the 2005 Amnesty International film festival, it won the Amnesty International-DOEN Award. In April 2007 China Blue aired on the award winning PBS series Independent Lens.

References

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