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[
"John Maulbetsch",
"1914 Harvard game",
"What happened in the 1914 harvard game",
"Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard."
] |
C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_1
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Did he attend harvarrd
| 2 |
Did John Maulbetsch attend Harvard?
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John Maulbetsch
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Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7-0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line." While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts. Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out." When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough." CANNOTANSWER
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A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements.
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John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan
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[
"This is a list of dignitaries at the state memorial service of Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa. Mr Mandela died on 5 December 2013. Many heads of state and government attended the state memorial service on Tuesday, 10 December 2013 at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. The memorial service was one of the largest gatherings of world leaders. It was also the largest funeral in the history of South Africa, and the African continent itself.\n\nTwo UN Secretary Generals, both presidents of EU (Council and Commission), two French presidents, four United States Presidents and four UK Prime Ministers attended the funeral service. In total, more than 500 VIP dignitaries from 19 supranational organizations and approximately 190 countries had arrived for this event. Some of the dignitaries later attend the Burial ceremony on 15 December 2013 at Mandela's hometown, Qunu.\n\nThis memorial event is the largest in the world in terms of foreign leaders, surpassing the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.\n\nDignitaries\n\nHeads of state and government\n\nOther royalty\n\nGovernment representatives\n\nInternational organisations\n\nFormer heads of state\n\nOther guests\n\nThis section is a partial list of notable guests who attended the memorial service.\nBono, Irish U2 vocalist and activist\nRichard Branson, British businessman, founder of Virgin Group\nLaura Bush, Former First Lady, spouse of former US President George W. Bush\nNaomi Campbell, British model\nChelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President Bill Clinton\nHillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State (Governmental representatives).\nPeter Gabriel, British singer\nBill Gates, American businessman, founder and president of Microsoft\nJesse Jackson, American civil rights activist, minister, and politician\nHenry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State (Governmental representatives).\nAnnie Lennox, British singer-songwriter\nFrancois Pienaar, South African rugby player\nCharlize Theron, South African-American actress\nDesmond Tutu, South African Anglican Archbishop\nOprah Winfrey, American television personality and actress\n\nNon-attendance\n: Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who frequently attended funerals of world leaders during his term of office, did not attend. Germany's former leaders did not usually attend world leaders's funeral.\n: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was expected to attend the service but had to cancel his visit due to the visit of his Russian counterpart in Tehran. \n: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not attend the memorial service citing financial and security reasons.\n: The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to not send a delegation because of the time constraint. Instead, Foreign Minister David Lin personally visited the Liaison Office of South Africa to convey condolences over the death of Mandela. In addition, the Representative of the ROC to South Africa visited the Union Buildings in Pretoria to view the remains of Mandela and pay respects on behalf of the ROC government.\n: Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was expected to attend but declined due to ongoing protests against her government.\n: The 14th Dalai Lama was expected to attend the service but was denied a visa by the South African government.\n: Pope Francis was sent an invitation to attend either the memorial or state funeral. He did not attend either because it was against the tradition that Popes do not usually attend funerals of world leaders.\n: President Trương Tấn Sang did not attend the service due to the time constraint. The country was represented by Mr Đào Việt Trung, Chairman of the Presidential Office.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\nNelson Mandela",
"This is an incomplete list of presidential electors in the United States presidential election of 1792.\n\nMaryland \nAll 8 electors who attended voted for George Washington and John Adams.\nWestern Shore\nJohn Eager Howard\nThomas Sim Lee\nAlexander Contee Hanson\nRichard Potts \nWilliam Smith, elected but did not attend\nSamuel Hughes, elected but did not attend\nEastern Shore\nWilliam Richardson \nDonaldson Yates \nJohn Seney \nLevin Winder\n\nRhode Island\n Samuel J. Potter\n\nSee also \n 1792 United States presidential election\n\nReferences \n\n \n1792"
] |
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"1914 Harvard game",
"What happened in the 1914 harvard game",
"Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard.",
"Did he attend harvarrd",
"A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as \"reinforcements."
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C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_1
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did he play for Michigan
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Did John Maulbetsch play for Michigan?
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John Maulbetsch
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Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7-0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line." While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts. Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out." When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough." CANNOTANSWER
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" Though Harvard prevailed, 7-0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country.
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John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan
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"John W. Fischer (March 10, 1912 – May 25, 1984) was an American amateur golfer in the 1930s.\n\nFischer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He won the 1932 NCAA individual golf championship and the Big Ten Conference individual championship in 1932, 1933 and 1935 while playing at the University of Michigan. He also won the 1936 U.S. Amateur.\n\nFischer played on the Walker Cup team in 1934, 1936, and 1938, and captained the team in 1965.\n\nFischer was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1980 as part of the third induction class. Only one Michigan golfer (Chuck Kocsis) was inducted into the Hall of Honor before Fischer.\n\nTournament wins\nthis list may be incomplete\n1932 NCAA Championship\n1932 Big Ten Championship\n1933 Big Ten Championship\n1935 Big Ten Championship\n1936 U.S. Amateur\n\nMajor championships\n\nAmateur wins (1)\n\nResults timeline\n\nSource for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur: USGA Championship Database\n\nSource for 1934 British Amateur: The Glasgow Herald, May 24, 1934, pg. 12.\n\nSource for 1938 British Amateur: The Glasgow Herald, May 25, 1938, pg. 21.\n\nM = Medalist\nNT = No tournament\nDNP = Did not play\nDNQ = Did not qualify for match play portion\nR128, R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play\n\"T\" indicates a tie for a place\nGreen background for wins. Yellow background for top-10\n\nU.S. national team appearances\nAmateur\nWalker Cup: 1934 (winners), 1936 (winners), 1938, 1965 (non-playing captain, tied, cup retained)\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican male golfers\nAmateur golfers\nMichigan Wolverines men's golfers\nGolfers from Ohio\nSportspeople from Cincinnati\n1912 births\n1984 deaths",
"Matthew Shepard (born August 15, 1965) is an American television play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Tigers on Bally Sports Detroit. He has also covered professional, collegiate and high school sports on both television and radio in Metro Detroit since the 1990s.\n\nCareer\n\nShepard has served in a variety of roles since being hired by Fox Sports Detroit in 1999. Shepard has done CCHA play-by-play, MHSAA championships (Football & Basketball) play-by-play and fill-in play-by-play for the Pistons and Tigers. He also hosted the Pistons pregame show and the Lions postgame show. He also contributes as a features reporter for the network, and formerly did sports updates at WWJ from 1993–2001, and at WDFN for the Jamie & Brady show from 2001-2007.\n\nShepard is the host of the Shep, Shower 'N' Shave sports radio morning show syndicated by Michigan Media Network and heard on 1130 WDFN in Detroit, 1660 WQLR in Kalamazoo, and 101.1 WGRY in Northern Michigan (Grayling/Roscommon), and is a sports reporter for Fox Sports Detroit. He is currently the radio announcer for University of Michigan basketball and Eastern Michigan University football. He is also currently the play-by-play announcer for Detroit Lions pre-season games, as well as the host of The Ford Lions Report during the regular season, on the Detroit Lions Television Network. Shepard was the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting presented by Detroit Sports Media (formerly Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association.)\n\nOn January 15, 2019, Shepard was named the play-by-play announcer for the Tigers starting during the 2019 season.\n\nPersonal\nShepard currently resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he is married to Lisa, with four children.\n\nEducation\n\nHigh school\nShepard graduated from North Farmington High School in 1983 where he played football and baseball.\n\nCollege\nShepard graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in journalism.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nProfile at WWJ-TV.com\n\n1965 births\nLiving people\nAmerican radio sports announcers\nAmerican television sports announcers\nAmerican television talk show hosts\nCentral Michigan University alumni\nCollege baseball announcers in the United States\nCollege basketball announcers in the United States\nCollege football announcers\nCollege hockey announcers in the United States\nDetroit Lions announcers\nDetroit Pistons announcers\nDetroit Tigers announcers\nHigh school basketball announcers in the United States\nHigh school football announcers in the United States\nMajor League Baseball broadcasters\nNational Basketball Association broadcasters\nNational Football League announcers\nPeople from Farmington Hills, Michigan"
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] |
C_263bcc5e0b4349d8a4de0526b164f1ce_1
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What was he studying
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What was John Maulbetsch studying?
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John Maulbetsch
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Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7-0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line." While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts. Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out." When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough." CANNOTANSWER
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John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan
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"Jens Christian Spidberg was a Norwegian theologian and priest. He served as a bishop of the Diocese of Christianssand from 1759 until 1762. He was also a noted cartographer and student of the natural sciences. He wrote a dissertation that tried to reconcile theology and the natural sciences. He particularly spent time studying the northern lights, earthquakes, and volcanoes.\n\nPersonal life and education\nJens Christian Spidberg was born on 8 December 1684 in Skiptvet, Norway to the parish priest Anders Lauritsen Spidberg and his wife Susanne Olufsdatter. He was married in 1728 in Christianssand to Birgitte Topdal. He was educated at home and he took his theology exam in 1708 while studying in Copenhagen. After graduation, he spent some time studying abroad at the University of Kiel and the University of Groningen. He earned his Master's degree in 1722. He received his doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 1760.\n\nCareer\nIn 1710, Spidberg was hired as the chaplain in his father's parish in Spydeberg. The following year, he got a job as a military chaplain in Bohuslän during the Great Northern War. He was stationed in Tanum (in what is now part of Sweden). After some time, he became the ship's priest on the flagship of the navy of Denmark-Norway, Elephanten. This put him in contact with many high ranking military and government officials. In 1721, he was named the Dean of the Kristiansand domprosti and Mandal prosti (deaneries). In 1759, he was appointed to be the Bishop of the Diocese of Christianssand.\n\nReferences\n\n1684 births\n1762 deaths\nBishops of Agder og Telemark\n18th-century Lutheran bishops",
"Vasiliy Egorovich Tairov (or Vasyl or Vasil; 1859-1938) was a Soviet and Armenian viticulturist and scientist. After studying winemaking in France, he and his cousin Nerses Tairan opened the first brandy factory in Armenia. Tairov founded the Winemaking Bulletin, a journal, in Odessa, Ukraine in 1892. In 1905, he founded what would become the V.Ye. Tairov Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking. It was the first scientific winemaking institution in Odessa. A memorial in his honor was erected in Odessa to celebrate his 185th birthday.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nViticulturists\n1859 births\nPlace of birth missing\nYear of death missing"
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Did they win any accomplishments such as championship game?
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Did John Maulbetsch win any accomplishments such as a championship game?
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John Maulbetsch
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Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7-0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line." While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts. Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out." When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough." CANNOTANSWER
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A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
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John Frederick Maulbetsch (June 20, 1890 – September 14, 1950) was an All-American football halfback at Adrian College in 1911 and for the University of Michigan Wolverines from 1914 to 1916. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
After playing with an independent football team in Ann Arbor and at Adrian College, Maulbetsch became one of the most famous American football players in 1914 while playing for the University of Michigan. Maulbetsch became known as the "Human Bullet" because of his unusual low, line-plunging style of play, and was also known as the "Featherweight Fullback" because of his light weight and small size. After his performance against Harvard in 1914, in which some reports indicated he gained more than 300 yards, eastern writers, including Damon Runyon, wrote articles touting Maulbetsch. Maulbetsch was also selected by Walter Camp to his All-American team.
In 1915, Maulbetsch underwent surgery for appendicitis and did not perform to the same level as he had in 1914. He made a comeback as a senior in 1916 and was again one of the leading players in college football.
Between 1917 and 1920, Maulbetsch was the head football coach at Phillips University. With Maulbetsch's name recognition, he was able to recruit big name talent to Phillips, including future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, and future United States Olympic Committee President Doug Roby. Maulbetsch quickly turned Phillips into one of the top programs in the southwest, as his teams beat Oklahoma and Texas and lost only one game in the 1918 and 1919 seasons. Maulbetsch was later the football coach at Oklahoma A&M (later known as Oklahoma State) and Marshall College in the 1920s. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and the University of Michigan awards the John F. Maulbetsch Award each year to a freshman football player based on desire, character, and capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.
Ann Arbor High School and the Independents
Maulbetsch was born and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He attended Ann Arbor High School where he led the football team to consecutive state championships in 1908 and 1909. One account of the 1908 playoffs noted: "Ann Arbor's smashing play in the first half was wholly due to Maulbetsch, Ann Arbor's fullback, and his terrific line bucking. He clearly outshone his team mates."
After graduating from high school, Maulbetsch joined the Ann Arbor Independents, a football team made up of Michigan "varsity eligibles" and "townies." Maulbetsch was once reportedly called upon to drive across the goal line for the Independents in a game in which a large crowd, including a farmer with his plow-horse, gathered in the end zone. "Head down and legs working like piston rods, Maulbetsch plowed ahead until head struck the plow horse amidships. Down went the horse Mauly on top of him."
College football player
Transfer from Adrian College
Maulbetsch started his college football career at age 21, leading Adrian College to an 8–0 record in 1911, including a 15–0 win over the University of Michigan freshman team. Maulbetsch's performance drew the attention of Michigan Coach Fielding H. Yost. After watching Maulbetsch dominate Michigan's freshman team, Yost concluded: "If I could get that kid into Michigan and keep him up in his studies I’d make an All-American place for him his first year." Yost persuaded Maulbetsch to transfer, and he played with "the scrubs" in 1912. Yost told the press at the time he had "another (Willie) Heston" in Maulbetsch.
1914 season
Maulbetsch did not play for the varsity team until the fall of 1914 when he was 24 years old. Before the season began, Maulbetsch was "touted as one of the fastest halfbacks who ever donned moleskins. He weighs 155 pounds, is built low, has a powerful pair of shoulders and his dashes are characterized by lightning speed." Another pre-season account said he was "a wonder as a line plunger and a wizard in the open field." From the outset, considerable attention was paid to his unusual running style. Observers noted "the peculiar manner in which he runs. . . . He has a corkscrew style of dashing, and even when tackled squarely has such a sturdy pair of legs that his assailant is usually carried back several yards."
Michigan opened the season with a 58–0 win over DePauw, followed by a 69–0 victory over Case Institute of Technology. Maulbetsch was the offensive star against Case, as he twice "carried several would-be tackles across the goal." Playing Vanderbilt the following week, Maulbetsch had runs of 25 and 35 yards, scored two touchdowns, "was worked overtime and probably advanced the pigskin more than any two other players." After starting the season 5–0, Michigan lost three of four games against top eastern schools: Syracuse, Harvard, Penn, and Cornell.
1914 Harvard game
Maulbetsch's breakthrough came on October 31, 1914, in front of 30,000 fans at Harvard. The game was one of the most anticipated matches of the year. A special train brought Michigan fans to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hundreds of Michigan alumni from the East were on hand as "reinforcements." Though Harvard prevailed, 7–0, Maulbetsch was the big story in papers across the country. Writers from Ring Lardner to Damon Runyon told the story of Maulbetsch's performance. Lardner said: "If anyone tells you the East plays the best brand of football, Maulbetsch shot that theory full of holes." According to Runyon, the Wolverines used "the mighty Maulbetsch as their battering ram", and he "gained enough ground against Harvard to bury a German army corps." Football writer Frank G. Menke said: "No westerner ever created half the stir in the east as did this Michigander . . . His peculiar, baffling style of attack, backed by phenomenal strength almost always earned for him gains of 5 to 20 yards every time he was called upon to carry the ball." Another writer noted Maulbetsch's skill as a "line breaker" as he "carried the ball repeatedly through the Harvard line and into the secondary defense with bullet-like rushes that upset tackler after tackler." Maulbetsch was responsible for four-fifths of Michigan's ground gains, and on several occasions his dives reportedly "had so much power that he dove right through a double line of crimson players and went sprawling on the ground twelve to twenty feet clear of the double line."
While every report indicates that Maulbetsch had a big day, the accounts vary dramatically as to exactly how many yards he gained. Frank Menke reported after the game that Maulbetsch gained 300 yards. A 1938 newspaper account said he "gained 350 yards from scrimmage." Yet, his 1951 obituary indicated he gained 133 yards in 30 attempts.
Despite Maulbetsch's efforts, Michigan was never able to punch the ball across the goal line. Many blamed Michigan's quarterback who switched to another back every time after Maulbetsch "took the ball to the shadow of the Crimson goal posts." In answer to the question why Michigan was unable to score, Frank Menke said: "Ask the fellow who quarterbacked for Michigan that day. His actions were too mystifying for the spectators to figure out."
When Harvard reneged on an agreement to play a game in Ann Arbor in 1915, sports writers concluded it was to avoid facing Maulbetsch again. Said one reporter: "When faih Hahvahd [sic] saw what Maulbetsch did in the first clash, it decided it cared to see no more of him. He was too rough."
"Human Bullet"
Much of the attention on Maulbetsch focused on his diminutive size and unique running style. At , and , Maulbetsch was a small back, even by the standards of his day. And his running style saw him bend his torso and propel himself like a projectile into the opposing line. Indeed, he won several nicknames based on his size, running style, and fighting spirit, including the "Human Bullet," "Mauly", the "Human Shrapnel", the "Featherweight Fullback", the "Michigan Cannon Ball," and the "German bullet." Comparisons of Maulbetsch to military armaments were common. In addition to the "bullet", "shrapnel", and "cannonball" nicknames, the Syracuse Herald observed: "Standing up in front of a Krupp gun has its dangers, but it is not to be compared with the dangers of standing in front of Maulbetsch when he is going full speed ahead."
Maulbetsch's style was described as "line-plunging." A New York newspaper noted: "When the ball is snapped to him he almost doubles himself up, and, with his head aimed at the knees of the opposing line, he dives head first. Those who have seen Maulbetsch in action marvel at the great momentum he can get up in two or three steps." Noted football writer Walter Eckersall said: "Mauly is a little fellow, being built close to the ground. They say that when he plunges at the line his head is almost on a level with his shoe tops – that he hits so low that it's well nigh impossible to stop him." An Iowa newspaper wondered how it was possible "for a man to smash into a line of human bodies with the force that Maulbetsch does and come out of the game without a broken neck."
Maulbetsch was said to run "so low that he could dash under an ordinary table without losing his feet." At a coaching conference in the 1920s, a coach doubted the table-ducking story and challenged Maulbetsch. The doubter later recalled: "I began ribbing him about this table-ducking stuff and finally offered to bet him he couldn’t do it. Well, we got a table up in a room, Johnny tucked a water pitcher under his arm and backed against the wall. Darned if he didn’t do it, the only thing, that water pitcher broke in a million pieces." Asked about the incident, Maulbetsch said it was true, except one part. Maulbetsch insisted there wasn’t a nick on the pitcher.
Maulbetsch makes All-American
After the loss to Harvard in 1914, Michigan rebounded with a 34–3 win over Penn. Walter Eckersall reported that the Wolverines were "led by the redoubtable Johnny Maulbetsch." Despite being "a marked man" by the Penn defense, he was not thrown for a loss in the entire game, and he scored three touchdowns. Before Michigan lost to Cornell in the final game of the season, a scandal arose when it was revealed that the owner of an Ann Arbor pool room, Joe Reinger, had written a letter intimating that he could buy Maulbetsch and Michigan's quarterback to throw the Cornell game, and win US$50,000 from students willing to bet on Michigan. The letter was turned in to the Michigan athletic officials, and Reinger went to the athletic office "to try to hush the matter up." Reinger became abusive and was thrown out of the office by Coach Yost. The incident caused "the biggest stir of the season on the campus," as students demolished Reinger's pool room, and police had to guard Reinger's residence against threatening demonstrations that continued to "a late hour." Although Michigan did lose to Cornell, Maulbetsch was said to be "practically the only successful ground gainer for Michigan." Over the course of the 1914 season, Maulbetsch was said to have scored about half of Michigan's 252 points. A Wisconsin newspaper noted that, "when it comes time to write a resume of the 1914 football season", Maulbetsch's play "will live in the minds of men . . . for years to come." As a reward for his efforts, Maulbetsch was named a first-team All-American at the end of the 1914 season.
Pie and coffee diet
As public attention focused on Maulbetsch as "the greatest line-plunger of a decade," the press could not get enough of Maulbetsch, even interviewing his family. His sister revealed that Maulbetsch had a fondness for home cooking and received permission from the team trainer to eat at his family's Ann Arbor home. "Now, Johnny's sister explains that each day his mother baked two pies for the athlete's supper, and that in addition he had everything else his appetite craved, including coffee." Confronted by reporters about the revelation, Maulbetsch replied: "The story was slightly exaggerated. I rarely ate more than one and one half pies for dinner." Joking references to Maulbetsch's diet continued when it was reported in 1915 that he was suffering from "acute indigestion." One reporter quipped, "Those much advertised pies of his maw's evidently aren’t as great training dope as they were cracked up to be." It turned out that the indigestion was appendicitis, and Maulbetsch was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Sanitarium in Ann Arbor in April 1915, where he underwent an operation.
1915 season
As the 1915 season was set to get underway, Coach Yost reported, "Johnny told me he was feeling fine when I saw him recently, although he doesn’t weigh as much as he used to." Despite Yost's hopes, Maulbetsch fell far short of the prior year's performance in 1915. He was several pounds lighter after the illness and surgery, and it was noted that "a few pounds means much to a man of Maulbetsch's weight." In the opening game against Lawrence, Maulbetsch scored three touchdowns, but he was "woefully weak on interference." Playing against Mount Union, Maulbetsch made several big gains, including a 50-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. His difficulties returned in the season's third game against Marietta, as "Maulbetsch was powerless to stop the Marietta forward pass, all of the successful ones being directed toward his side of the line."
After The Michigan Daily criticized his performance following the Marietta game, Maulbetsch "threatened to desert the Michigan squad and give up football for good." It reportedly took Yost several hours to coax Maulbetsch to report for practice again, and in the next game against Case, Maulbetsch did not play until the third quarter. In the season's first big game, Michigan was soundly beaten by Michigan Agricultural College, 24–0, and most of Maulbetsch's runs "didn’t even get as far as his own line." In the final four games of the season, matters got worse for Michigan and Maulbetsch, as the team went 0–3–1, scoring only 14 points in four games.
In Maulbetsch's defense, some writers noted the weakness of the Michigan line, often allowing rushers into the backfield before Maulbetsch even had the ball. But some of those same observers noted that "Mauly" was not carrying the ball "at his usual pace." Sports writer Frank Menke described Maulbetsch's 1915 performance this way: "[The] Wolverine halfback skidded from the heights of greatness to the level of mediocre. . . . The lines that he had crumpled like eggshells a year before stood up under his charges, often dumping him back for losses. The once 'unstoppable' Maulbetsch not only was stopped but forced to retract." Despite the subpar performance in 1915, Michigan's varsity letter-winners elected him captain of the team for 1916.
1916 comeback
Maulbetsch made a strong comeback in 1916. Instead of spending the summer recovering from appendicitis, he spent the summer working as an assistant barkeeper on a steamship plying between Chicago and St. Joseph, Michigan. Maulbetsch spent his afternoons swimming and running sprints up and down the beach. On one trip, a giant coal passer claimed to be the strongest man in the world, and Maulbetsch agreed to a wrestling match on the boat. "The coal passer rushed the stripling, who ducked, caught his opponent about the waist and crushed him to the deck. When the giant woke, he wanted to know if the boat hit a rock." As the season started, The New York Times wrote: "Michigan's come-back football team, headed by Bullet Maulbetsch, is going to be an eleven to be reckoned with on the gridiron this Fall." Maulbetsch returned to his prior form, and one of the writers who had criticized him in 1915 said "the great Michigander using the same method of attack, has repeatedly broken in fragments this year the lines that he couldn’t dent in 1915."
Professional football
After the 1916 football season ended, Maulbetsch considered his options. There was a report that he had been engaged as a high school football coach (and math instructor) in Toledo, Ohio. Even more prevalent were reports that he had signed to play for a professional football team. Professional football was still in its infancy in 1917, and landing a well-known star would have been a boost to any of the budding franchises. In January 1917 newspapers reported that Maulbetsch had signed a contract to play professional football for Detroit Tigers owner, Frank Navin. Navin was supporting efforts to organize a professional football league in all the important Midwestern cities, including a Detroit franchise to play at Navin Field. As late as November 1917, newspapers reported Maulbetsch had played professional football after graduating and was offered "a handsome fee" to play with the Akron Burkhardts in November 1917. Although professional football records prior to 1920 are scarce, it appears unlikely that Maulbetsch played professional football, as press accounts show he was working as a college football coach starting in 1917.
Head football coach
Building Phillips University into a football power (1917–1920)
In June 1917, Maulbetsch announced that he had accepted a position as the football coach (and professor of chemistry) at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. Phillips was a small, private school without a well-known athletic program. In the fall, Enid residents were "leaving their work every afternoon to watch [Maulbetsch] and his husky young Oklahoma youths work out on campus." Within a year, Maulbetsch turned Phillips into one of the strongest teams in the southwest.
Maulbetsch landed his first big recruit before leaving Ann Arbor. While playing at Michigan, Maulbetsch became friends with Doug Roby, a football player at the Michigan Military Academy, and one of the state's top recruits. Roby followed Maulbetsch to Phillips and later went on to become a member of the International Olympic Committee in the 1950s and 1960s and president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1965 to 1968. Maulbetsch's next find was future Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Owen, who later spent 23 years with the New York Giants. Maulbetsch saw Owen watching football practice from under a tree and told him: "A fellow your size ought to be out for the squad." Owen showed up the next day and, when Maulbetsch used him to illustrate blocking fundamentals, Owen threw a block into Maulbetsch that threw him five yards through the air. Maulbetsch was satisfied, and Owen had a spot on the team. Because Phillips was not part of a conference, it was not subject to any eligibility limitations, an advantage Maulbetsch was accused of exploiting. A third key player recruited by Maulbetsch was a Native American halfback named Levi, and dubbed "Big Chief" by Phillips fans.
Having recruited top talent to Enid, Maulbetsch's teams lost only one game in 1918 and 1919, including a 10–0–1 record in 1919. In 1917 and 1918, Phillips came into the limelight when they beat the Oklahoma Sooners and the Henry Kendricks College team that had swept the west without allowing another team to score.
Maulbetsch arranged a game against the Texas Longhorns in 1919, the first meeting between the schools. When the game was announced The San Antonio Light reported: "Phillips University has one of the strongest teams in the Southwest. The only team to beat them in the past two years is Oklahoma and last year Phillips beat the Sooners 13–7." The report credited Maulbetsch for securing success at an institution little known in athletics before he arrived. The University of Texas had not lost a game since 1917 when the Phillips "Haymakers" arrived in Austin, Texas on October 11, 1919. Maulbetsch's team shocked the Longhorns, holding them scoreless and winning the contest, 10–0. One Texas newspaper reported that Phillips had "whitewashed the Longhorns in their own corral."
Others in Texas concluded that Phillips’ success was the result of lax or non-existent eligibility policies. The lack of eligibility rules almost certainly did play a part in Phillips’ success. When Phillips joined the Southwest Conference in 1920, it became bound by the conference's eligibility rules, and the team was outscored 97–0 in conference play against Texas A&M (47–0), Texas (27–0), Arkansas (20–0), and Texas Christian (3–0). The Galveston Daily News noted that Maulbetsch's 1920 team could not "compare with the strong team" he surprised Texas with in 1919. At the end of the 1920 season, Phillips withdrew from the Southwest Conference, and Maulbetsch accepted a new position at Oklahoma A&M.
Head coach at Oklahoma A&M (1921–1928)
In January 1921, Maulbetsch was hired as the head coach at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He served as the coach at Oklahoma A&M from 1921 to 1928, where his teams posted a 28–37–6 (.437) record. In 1924, his team went 6–1–2 and shut out Oklahoma (6–0), Arkansas (20–0) and Kansas (3–0). Maulbetsch's Aggies also shut out Phillips that year, 13–0. After the season, attempts were made to lure him to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, but Maulbetsch said he was satisfied with his position in Stillwater.
Maulbetsch arranged a game in Ann Arbor against his alma mater to start the 1926 season. Michigan beat the Aggies, 42–3. Despite an overall record of 3–4–1, Oklahoma A&M won its first conference football championship by going 3–0–1 in games against Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association opponents. Maulbetsch also drew attention in 1926 for his disciplinary methods. When the team lost two games due to fumbles, he ordered eight of his backfield players to carry footballs with them to classes throughout the week and instructed other team members to try knocking the balls from under their arms. The penalty for losing a ball was "a hard run around the stadium." He also ordered one of his ends to wear boxing gloves after he poked an opposing player in the eye.
The Aggies won only one game against seven defeats in 1928. In late November, the day after a 46–0 loss to Oklahoma, newspapers reported that "reliable sources" had said Maulbetsch intended to resign. Maulbetsch immediately denied the rumor, saying: "I have not resigned. I am aware that a faction here is trying to get me out, but I do not intend to throw up the sponge." In December, pressure to fire Maulbetsch grew, and one Oklahoma newspaper observed: "Coach Maulbetsch of the A. & M. football team is the object of attacks from many sides because of the rather poor showing made by his team during the past season. They are looking for a goat and just now Johnnie is cast in that role. Regardless of his past record, those who demand victory at any price and by any means whatsoever, are insisting that he be fired forthwith and a man be placed in the position who, by fair means or foul, will gather in a team that will win victories and never lose a game." Ultimately, Maulbetsch resigned at the end of May 1929 as Oklahoma A&M's coach in football, baseball, and basketball. It was announced that he would spend the remaining year of his contract on a leave of absence at half pay.
Head coach at Marshall College (1929–1930)
In July 1929, Maulbetsch was hired by Marshall College in Huntington, West Virginia to become head coach in charge of football and track. When Marshall's "Thundering Herd" got off to a 4–1 start, Maulbetsch won praise in the West Virginia press, but Marshall finished the season 1–2–1 in the second half. And in 1930, the Marshall team went 3–5–1, including a 65–0 loss to Penn State. Maulbetsch resigned as Marshall's coach in January 1931; his only comment at the time was that he had "other plans."
Later years and legacy
After retiring from football, Maulbetsch bought a drug store in Huntington, West Virginia. During World War II, Maulbetsch took a job building B-24 Liberator bombers at Ford Motor Company's famed Willow Run Plant near Ypsilanti, Michigan. From 1946 until his death, he owned an automobile sales company in Adrian, Michigan. Maulbetsch died of cancer in 1950 at his home in Ann Arbor. He was survived by his widow, Ida, a son John Maulbetsch, and a daughter Barbara. Maulbetsch had been married to Ida (maiden name Ida Elizabeth Cappon) since May 27, 1917.
Maulbetsch was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973. Since 1956, the John F. Maulbetsch Award has been given at the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field. The award was established by Frederick C. Matthaei – a former classmate of Maulbetsch who went on to become a Regent of the University. The award has been a good indicator of future success, as past recipients include Jim Mandich (1967), Rick Leach (1976), Charles Woodson (1996), Marlin Jackson (2002), and Jake Long (2004). Maulbetsch Avenue in Ypsilanti Township is presumably named after Maulbetsch.
Head coaching record
Football
Baseball
See also
List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans
References
External links
Profile at Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan Athletics History
1890 births
1950 deaths
American football halfbacks
Basketball coaches from Michigan
Adrian Bulldogs football players
Marshall Thundering Herd football coaches
Michigan Wolverines football players
Oklahoma State Cowboys football coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball coaches
Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball coaches
Phillips Haymakers football coaches
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Ann Arbor, Michigan
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"The Anoa'i family, originating from American Samoa, is a family of professional wrestlers. Family members have comprised several tag teams and stables within a variety of promotions. Famous members of the family include Rosey, WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi, Umaga, WWE Hall of Famer Yokozuna, Roman Reigns, The Usos, and WWE Hall of Fame brothers Afa and Sika Anoa'i, the Wild Samoans. Peter Maivia and grandson The Rock are considered honorary members. WWE Hall of Famer & former wrestler Jimmy Snuka also married into the family through his first wife, Sharon Georgi. Snuka's daughter, Tamina Snuka, is considered as part of the family as well, and WWE Superstar Naomi married into the family by marrying Jimmy Uso.\n\nReverend Amituana'i Anoa'i and Peter Maivia were blood brothers, a connection that continued with Afa and Sika, who regard Peter as their uncle. Peter married Ofelia \"Lia\" Fuataga, who already had a daughter named Ata, whom he adopted and raised as his own. Ata married wrestler Rocky Johnson, and the couple became the parents of Dwayne Johnson, who wrestled as \"Rocky Maivia\" and \"The Rock\" before establishing himself as an actor. Peter's first cousin Joseph Fanene was the father of Savelina Fanene, who was formerly known in WWE as Nia Jax.\n\nAnoa'i Family tree\n\nOther members \nHollywood stuntman Tanoai Reed (known as Toa on the new American Gladiators) is the great nephew of wrestling promoter Lia Maivia (Peter Maivia's wife), while professional wrestler Lina Fanene (Nia Jax) is Dwayne Johnson's cousin. Sean Maluta, nephew of Afa Anoa'i, was a participant in WWE's first Cruiserweight Classic tournament.\n\nTag teams and stables\n\nThe Wild Samoans\n\nThe Headshrinkers\n\n3-Minute Warning\n\nSamoan Gangstas \n\nSamoan Gangstas was a tag team in the independent promotion World Xtreme Wrestling (WXW). The tag team consisted of members from the Anoa'i family.\n\nSamoan Gangstas was a tag team made up of brothers from another mothers Matt E. Smalls and Sweet Sammy Silk (Matt and Samu Anoa'i). Their tag team was formed in 1997 in WXW, the promotion of one half of The Wild Samoans, Samu's father and Matt's uncle Afa Anoa'i. The duo received success in WXW in the tag team division. On June 24, they won their first WXW Tag Team Championship by beating Love Connection (Sweet Daddy Jay Love and Georgie Love). However, they were temporarily suspended and the title was declared vacant. Matt was repackaged as Matty Smalls. They returned in the summer of 1997 and defeated Siberian Express (The Mad Russian and Russian Eliminator), on September 17 to win their second WXW Tag Team Championship.\n\nProblems began between Smalls and Smooth. The two partners began feuding with each other and could not focus properly on their tag title. On March 27, 1998, Smooth defeated Smalls in a Loser Leaves Town match. As a result of losing this match, Smalls was forced to leave the promotion. He left WXW while Smooth focused on a singles career. After a short while, Smalls returned to WXW and the two partners reunited again as Samoan Gangstas and began teaming in the tag team division. They feuded with several tag teams in WXW and focused to regain the WXW Tag Team Championship. However, due to their family disputes and problems with each other, they did not take part in the tournament for the vacated tag title, and instead feuded with each other. Samoan Gangstas feuded with each other after their splitting until Smalls left WXW and began wrestling as Kimo. He began teaming with Ekmo (Eddie Fatu) as The Island Boyz and the duo worked in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) before signing with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and working in its developmental territories.\n\nThe Sons of Samoa \nThe Sons of Samoa are a tag team currently wrestling in the Puerto Rican wrestling promotion World Wrestling Council and WXW. The team consists of Afa Jr. and L.A. Smooth.\n\nThe team was formed at WXW in 1998, briefly as a stable with Samu. The team reformed in April 2009 at a WXW show with Afa Jr. and L.A. Smooth. In 2013, they began wrestling at the WWC promotion in Puerto Rico. At Euphoria 2013, they lost to Thunder and Lightning. They won the WWC World Tag Team Championship from Thunder and Lightning on February 9, before losing the titles back to Thunder and Lightning on March 30 at Camino a la Gloria. However, they won the titles on June 29, 2013, at Summer Madness.\n\nThe Usos \n\nThe Usos (born August 22, 1985) are a Samoan American professional wrestling tag team consisting of twin brothers Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso, who appear in WWE where they are former two-time WWE Tag Team Champions. They are also former five-time WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions. The pair were previously managed by Tamina Snuka and are one-time FCW Florida Tag Team Champions.\n\nThe Bloodline \n\nThe Bloodline is a professional wrestling stable currently performing in WWE on the SmackDown brand. The group is led by Roman Reigns, who is the current WWE Universal Champion, and is also composed of The Usos, and Paul Heyman, who acts as Reigns' on-screen \"special counsel\".\n\nChampionship and accomplishments \n Afa Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Sika Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Lloyd Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Rikishi\n Championships and accomplishments\n Sam Fatu\n Championships and accomplishments\n Umaga\n Championships and accomplishments\n Yokozuna\n Championships and accomplishments\n Rosey\n Championships and accomplishments\n Roman Reigns\n Championships and accomplishments\n The Usos\n Championships and accomplishments\n Dwayne Johnson\n Championships and accomplishments\n Peter Maivia\n Championships and accomplishments\n Jacob Fatu\n Championships and accomplishments\n Lance Anoa'i\n Championships and accomplishments\nNia Jax\n Championships and accomplishments\n\nSee also \nList of family relations in professional wrestling\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n Samoan Dynasty\n\n \nProfessional wrestling families\nAmerican families",
"The 2016–17 Monmouth Hawks men's basketball team represented Monmouth University during the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Hawks, led by sixth year head coach King Rice, played their home games at OceanFirst Bank Center as members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). They finished the season 27–7, 18–2 in MAAC play to win the regular season championship, their second consecutive conference title. As the No. 1 seed in the MAAC Tournament, they defeated Niagara before losing to Siena in the semifinals. As a regular season conference champions who did not win their conference tournament, Monmouth received an automatic bid the National Invitation Tournament. As a No. 4 seed, they lost to Ole Miss in the First Round.\n\nPrevious season \nThe Hawks finished the 2016–17 season 28–8, 17–3 in MAAC play to win the MAAC regular season championship. They defeated Rider and Fairfield to advance to the championship game of the MAAC Tournament where they lost to Iona. As a regular season conference champion who failed to win their conference tournament, they received an automatic bid to the National Invitation Tournament. As one of the last four teams left out of the NCAA Tournament, they received a No. 1 seed in the NIT where they defeated Bucknell in the first round before losing to George Washington in the second round.\n\nRoster\n\nSchedule and results\n\n|-\n! colspan=\"9\" style=| Regular season\n\n|-\n! colspan=\"9\" style=| MAAC Tournament\n\n|-\n! colspan=\"9\" style=| NIT\n\nRankings\n\nReferences\n\nMonmouth Hawks men's basketball seasons\nMonmouth\nMonmouth"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident"
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What is the pine tar incident?
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What is the pine tar incident?
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George Brett
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On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
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[
"Pine tar is a form of tar produced by the high temperature carbonization of pine wood in anoxic conditions (dry distillation or destructive distillation). The wood is rapidly decomposed by applying heat and pressure in a closed container; the primary resulting products are charcoal and pine tar.\n\nPine tar consists primarily of aromatic hydrocarbons, tar acids, and tar bases. Components of tar vary according to the pyrolytic process (e.g. method, duration, temperature) and origin of the wood (e.g. age of pine trees, type of soil, and moisture conditions during tree growth). The choice of wood, design of kiln, burning, and collection of the tar can vary. Only pine stumps and roots are used in the traditional production of pine tar.\n\nPine tar has a long history as a wood preservative, as a wood sealant for maritime use, in roofing construction and maintenance, in soaps, and in the treatment of carbuncles and skin diseases, such as psoriasis, eczema, and rosacea. It is used in baseball to enhance the grip of a hitter's bat; it is also sometimes used by pitchers to improve their grip on the ball, in violation of the rules.\n\nHistory\nPine tar has long been used in Scandinavian nations as a preservative for wood which may be exposed to harsh conditions, including outdoor furniture and ship decking and rigging. The high-grade pine tar used in this application is often called Stockholm Tar since, for many years, a single company held a royal monopoly on its export out of Stockholm, Sweden. It is also known as \"Archangel Tar\". Tar and pitch for maritime use was in such demand that it became an important export for the American colonies, which had extensive pine forests. North Carolinians became known as \"Tar Heels.\"\n\nUse\nPine tar was used as a preservative on the bottoms of traditional Nordic-style skis until modern synthetic materials replaced wood in their construction. It also helped waxes adhere, which aided such skis’ grip and glide.\n\nPine tar is widely used as a veterinary care product, particularly as an antiseptic and hoof care treatment for horses and cattle. It also has been used when chickens start pecking the low hen. Applying a smear of pine tar on the hens' wound acts as a natural germicidal/antibacterial agent that discourages continued attacks on the affected hen due to its foreign texture.\n\nPine tar is used as a softening solvent in the rubber industry, for treating and fabricating construction materials, and in special paints.\n\nAs a wood preservative\nPine tar is combined with gum turpentine and boiled linseed oil to create a wood preservative. First, a thin coat is applied using a mixture with a greater proportion of turpentine. This allows it to permeate deeper into the oakum and fibre of the wood and lets the tar seep into any pinholes and larger gaps that might be in the planks. The tar weeps out to the exterior and indicates where the boat needs the most attention. This is followed with a thicker standard mix. Such treatments, while effective, must be continually reapplied.\n\nWeatherproofing rope\nTraditionally, hemp and other natural fibers were the norm for rope production. Such rope would quickly rot when exposed to rain, and was typically tarred to preserve it. The tar would stain the hands of ship's crews, and British Navy seamen became known as \"tars.\"\n\nBaseball\n\nPine tar is applied to the handles of baseball bats to improve a batter's grip.\n\nRule 1.10(c) of the 2002 Official rules of Major League Baseball restricts application to the lower 18 inches of a bat. The most famous example of the rule being applied is the Pine Tar Incident, which occurred during the July 24, 1983 game between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees which resulted in a George Brett go-ahead home run in the ninth inning being nullified and the game being protested.\n\nPine tar is also sometimes used illegally by pitchers to improve their grip on the ball in cold weather. This is not allowed due to a regulation prohibiting the application of any foreign substance to a ball (except grip-improving baseball rubbing mud applied by the umpires).\n\nMedical\nPine tar has historically been used for treating skin conditions, usually as an additive in cold process solid soap or lotions. Due to the high presence of phenol in the early manufacturing of pine tar, it was deemed carcinogenic. However, now much of the phenol has been removed. Pine tar was banned by the FDA along with many other ingredients categorized as over the counter drugs, due to a lack of evidence of safety and effectiveness for the specific uses named. However, clinical tests in Australia in 2017 demonstrated that the greatest risk comes from acute sensitivity for those with severe dermatological conditions, and if it comes in contact with the eyes. It is important to note that the number of positive reactions for wood tars was not significantly greater than those for other common allergens. In addition, the concentration of pine tar in topical products available in Australia is up to 2.3%, which is up to four times less than that tested in these studies.\n\nPine tar has been used to cover peck wounds in captive bird flocks such as chickens, to prevent continued pecking on a wound and cannibalism. Pine tar is also used in veterinary medicine as an expectorant and an antiseptic in chronic skin conditions.\n\nSee also\nCoal tar\nCreosote\nTarpaulin\nTarring and feathering (punishment)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nHistory of Pine Tar\n\nWood products\nFood additives\nNon-timber forest products\nBaseball bats\nMaritime culture",
"Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat.\n\nMineral products resembling tar can be produced from fossil hydrocarbons, such as petroleum. Coal tar is produced from coal as a byproduct of coke production.\n\nTerminology\n\"Tar\" and \"pitch\" can be used interchangeably; asphalt (naturally occurring pitch) may also be called either \"mineral tar\" or \"mineral pitch\". There is a tendency to use \"tar\" for more liquid substances and \"pitch\" for more solid (viscoelastic) substances. Both \"tar\" and \"pitch\" are applied to viscous forms of asphalt, such as the asphalt found in naturally occurring tar pits (e.g., the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles). \"Rangoon tar\", also known as \"Burmese oil\" or \"Burmese naphtha\", is also a form of petroleum. Oil sands, almost exclusively produced in Alberta, Canada, are colloquially referred to as \"tar sands\" but are in fact composed of asphalt, also called bitumen.\n\nWood tar \n\nIn Northern Europe, the word \"tar\" refers primarily to a substance that is derived from the wood and roots of pine. In earlier times it was often used as a water repellent coating for boats, ships, and roofs. It is still used as an additive in the flavoring of candy, alcohol, and other foods. Wood tar is microbicidal. Producing tar from wood was known in ancient Greece and has probably been used in Scandinavia since the Iron Age. Production and trade in pine-derived tar was a major contributor in the economies of Northern Europe and Colonial America. Its main use was in preserving wooden sailing vessels against rot. For centuries, dating back at least to the 14th century, tar was among Sweden's most important exports. Sweden exported 13,000 barrels of tar in 1615 and 227,000 barrels in the peak year of 1863. The largest user was the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Demand for tar declined with the advent of iron and steel ships. Production nearly stopped in the early 20th century, when other chemicals replaced tar, and wooden ships were replaced by steel ships. Traditional wooden boats are still sometimes tarred.\n\nThe heating (dry distilling) of pine wood causes tar and pitch to drip away from the wood and leave behind charcoal. Birch bark is used to make particularly fine tar, known as \"Russian oil\", suitable for leather protection. The by-products of wood tar are turpentine and charcoal. When deciduous tree woods are subjected to destructive distillation, the products are methanol (wood alcohol) and charcoal.\n\nTar kilns (, , , ) are dry distillation ovens, historically used in Scandinavia for producing tar from wood. They were built close to the forest, from limestone or from more primitive holes in the ground. The bottom is sloped into an outlet hole to allow the tar to pour out. The wood is split into dimensions of a finger, stacked densely, and finally covered tight with earth and moss. If oxygen can enter, the wood might catch fire, and the production would be ruined. On top of this, a fire is stacked and lit. After a few hours, the tar starts to pour out and continues to do so for a few days.\n\nUses\n\nTar was used as seal for roofing shingles and tar paper and to seal the hulls of ships and boats. For millennia, wood tar was used to waterproof sails and boats, but today, sails made from inherently waterproof synthetic substances have reduced the demand for tar. Wood tar is still used to seal traditional wooden boats and the roofs of historic, shingle-roofed churches, as well as painting exterior walls of log buildings. Tar is also a general disinfectant. Pine tar oil, or wood tar oil, is used for the surface treatment of wooden shingle roofs, boats, buckets, and tubs and in the medicine, soap, and rubber industries. Pine tar has good penetration on the rough wood. An old wood tar oil recipe for the treatment of wood is one-third each genuine wood tar, balsam turpentine, and boiled or raw linseed oil or Chinese tung oil.\n\nIn Finland, wood tar was once considered a panacea reputed to heal \"even those cut in twain through their midriff\". A Finnish proverb states that \"if sauna, vodka and tar won't help, the disease is fatal.\" Wood tar is used in traditional Finnish medicine because of its microbicidal properties.\n\nWood tar is also available diluted as tar water, which has numerous uses:\nAs a flavoring for candies (e.g., Terva Leijona) and alcohol (Terva Viina).\nAs a spice for food, like meat.\nAs a scent for saunas. Tar water is mixed into water, which is turned into steam in the sauna.\nAs an anti-dandruff agent in shampoo.\nAs a component of cosmetics.\n\nMixing tar with linseed oil varnish produces tar paint. Tar paint has a translucent brownish hue and can be used to saturate and tone wood and protect it from weather. Tar paint can also be toned with various pigments, producing translucent colors and preserving the wood texture.\n\nTar was once used for public humiliation, known as tarring and feathering. By pouring hot wood tar onto somebody's bare skin and waiting for it to cool, they would remain stuck in one position. From there, people would attach feathers to the tar, which would remain stuck on the tarred person for the duration of the punishment. That person would then become a public example for the rest of the day.\n\nTar was used in 9th-century Baghdad, which had streets paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region.\n\nCoal tar\n\nCoal tar was formerly one of the products of gasworks. Tar made from coal or petroleum is considered toxic and carcinogenic because of its high benzene content, though coal tar in low concentrations is used as a topical medicine. Coal and petroleum tar has a pungent odour.\n\nCoal tar is listed at number 1999 in the United Nations list of dangerous goods.\n\nSee also\n Creosote\n Pitch (resin)\n Resin\n Rollins Tars\n Tar Heels\n Tar pit\n Tarmac\n Tar (tobacco residue)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \nDetails history and uses of \"Rangoon Tar\" \n\nMaterials\nPolymers\nChemical mixtures\nArab inventions"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
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What happened after that?
| 2 |
What happened after Martin cited to umpires a rule stating that foreign substance on a bat could extend 18 inches or less from the knob?
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George Brett
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On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"What Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
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What did he do?
| 3 |
What did George Brett do in reaction to the measurement pine tar on Brett's bat?
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George Brett
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On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
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"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
What did Brett do?
| 4 |
What did Brett do when McClelland ended the game as a Yankee win?
|
George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.
|
George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| false |
[
"\"What Do Ya Think About That\" is a song written by Anthony Smith and Brett Jones, and recorded by American country music duo Montgomery Gentry. It was released in July 2007 as the third single from their album Some People Change.\n\nContent\nThe song is an up-tempo in which the narrator states that he stands by his beliefs, and will not let himself be persuaded by the comments made by his peers (\"I don't give a durn what other people think / What do ya think about that?\").\n\nCritical reception\nChris Willman described the song negatively in his review, saying that its \"defense of the American right to piss off your neighbors\" conflicted with the message of the album's title track.\n\nOfficial versions\n \"What Do Ya Think About That\" (Album Version) – 3:40\n\nChart performance\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMontgomery Gentry songs\nSongs written by Anthony Smith (singer)\nColumbia Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Mark Wright (record producer)\n2006 songs\nSongs written by Brett Jones (songwriter)",
"George Edward Brett (1829–1890) opened the first American office of Macmillan Publishing called Macmillan & Co. of New York.\n\nCareer\nBrett was assigned by Alexander Macmillan (publisher) to create the New York Office in August 1869. Brett was aided in the creation of the New York office, by American firm Messrs Pott & Amery. Frederick Macmillan commenting on Brett resignation letter said \"We have all been profoundly touched by your letter . . . it is a great achievement for a man to go through this life with a spotless reputation & to be successful in what he sets himself to do. You will have succeeded in both these aims, and whatever fortune may have in store for the New York Agency, we shall not forget who it was that brought it through troublous times.\" The Bretts remained in control of the American offices of Macmillan from its creation in 1869 to the early 1960s, “a span matched by few other families in the history of United States business.”\n\nBrett opened the New York branch of Macmillan Publishing at Clayton Hall., 53 Bleecker Street, New York, NY.\n\nOn May 1, 1890, Brett's son George Platt Brett Sr., succeeded him as head of the New York office of Macmillan.\n\nPrior to joining Macmillan, Brett worked for Simpkin Marshall & Co.\n\nSee also\nGeorge Platt Brett Sr.\nGeorge Platt Brett\nRichard M. Brett\nMacmillan Publishing\n\nReferences\n\nSources\nChronicles of Barabbas (1884–1934) by George H. Doran\nThe House of Macmillan (1843–1943) by Charles Morgan\n\nAmerican book publishers (people)\nBritish book publishers (people)\n1829 births\n1890 deaths\n19th-century English businesspeople\n19th-century American businesspeople"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
What were the consequences?
| 5 |
What were the consequences for Brett needing to be physically restrained?
|
George Brett
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On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| false |
[
"Consequences is an old parlour game in a similar vein to the Surrealist game exquisite corpse and Mad Libs.\n\nEach player is given a sheet of paper, and all are told to write down a word or phrase to fit a description (\"an animal\"), optionally with some extra words to make the story. Each player then folds the paper over to hide the most recent line, and hands it to the next person. At the end of the game, the stories are read out.\n\nExample game\nThe exact sequence varies, but an example sequence given in Everyman's Word Games is:\n An adjective\n A man's name\n The word met followed by an adjective\n A woman's name\n The word at followed by where they met\n The word to followed by what they went there for\n The words he wore followed by what he wore\n The words she wore followed by she wore\n What he did\n What she did\n The words and the consequence was followed by details of what happened as a result\n The words and the world said followed by what it said\n\nThe same reference book gives the following example of a completed story:\n\nVariations\nConsequences can also be played in a drawing version, sometimes known as picture consequences, where the first player draws the head, passes it unseen (by means of folding) to the second player who draws the body, then on to the third player who draws the legs. The composite person or creature is then revealed to all by unfolding the paper.\n\nAlthough Consequences originally is an analogue game there are digital versions available, some of which are slightly modified and adjusted to a digital roam. Examples: FoldingStory™, Unfolding Stories, etc.\n\nReferences\n\nComedy games\nPaper-and-pencil games\nParty games\nRandom text generation",
"The consequence argument is an argument against compatibilism popularised by Peter van Inwagen. The argument claims that if agents have no control over the facts of the past then the agent has no control of the consequences of those facts.\n\nThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives the following version of the argument, in the form of a syllogism:\n\nNo one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.\nNo one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true)\nTherefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.\n\nOr in van Inwagan's own words, in An Essay on Free Will:\n\nIf determinism is true, then our acts are the consequence of laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it's not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us (p. 56).\n\nReferences\n\nFree will\nPhilosophical arguments\nMetaphysics"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,"
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
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What was the resolution?
| 6 |
What was the resolution to the Royals protested game?
|
George Brett
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On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
|
Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.
|
George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
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[
"\"Resolution\" is a song by American singer-songwriter Nick Lachey, released as the third and final single from his second solo album What's Left of Me in 2006. An exclusive EP of the song, titled Resolution (Full Band Mix) - EP, was released on iTunes on February 20, 2007. The single went for adds at mainstream radio in January 2007. The song was not released as a full single because Lachey at the time was working on his third studio album (he later released A Father's Lullaby and re-formed 98 Degrees), and as a result the song only peaked #77 on the Billboard Pop 100 and failed to match up to the success of \"What's Left of Me\". The original version of \"Resolution\" that appears on What's Left of Me was recorded as a demo, on the day it was written. Jive loved it so much, they insisted on it being the final version on the record.\n\nTrack list\nResolution (Full Band Mix) - EP:\n\"Resolution\" (full band version)\n\"What's Left of Me\" (The Passengerz remix) [radio edit]\n\"What's Left of Me\" (Jack D. Elliot remix)\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2006 singles\nNick Lachey songs\nSongs written by Lindy Robbins\nSongs written by Nick Lachey\nSongs written by Jess Cates\nSongs written by Rob Wells",
"Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (, officially changed from Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month) is a period for the duration of the month of May for recognizing the contributions and influence of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States.\n\nBackground\n\nThe first Asians documented in the Americas arrived in 1587, when Filipinos landed in California; from 1898 to 1946, the Philippines was an American possession. The next group of Asians documented in what would be the United States were Indians in Jamestown, documented as early as 1635. In 1778, the first Chinese to reach what would be the United States, arrived in Hawaii. In 1788, the first Native Hawaiian arrived on the continental United States, in Oregon; in 1900, Hawaii was annexed by the United States. The next group of Asians documented in what would be the United States were Japanese, who arrived in Hawaii in 1806. In 1884, the first Koreans arrived in the United States. In 1898, Guam was ceded to the United States; beginning in the 1900s, Chamorros began to migrate to California and Hawaii. In 1904, what is now American Samoa was ceded to the United States; beginning in the 1920s, Samoans began to migrate to Hawaii and the continental United States, with the first Samoans documented in Hawaii in 1920. In 1912, the first Vietnamese was documented in the United States.\n\nHistory\nA former congressional staffer in the 1970s, Jeanie Jew, first approached Representative Frank Horton with the idea of designating a month to recognize Asian Pacific Americans, following the bicentennial celebrations. In June 1977 Representatives Horton, and Norman Y. Mineta, introduced a United States House of Representatives resolution to proclaim the first ten days of May as Asian-Pacific Heritage Week. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate a month later by Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga. \n\nThe proposed resolutions sought that May be designated for two reasons. For on May 7, 1843, the first Japanese immigrant arrived in the United States. More than two decades later, on May 10, 1869, the golden spike was driven into the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed using Chinese labor.\n\nPresident Jimmy Carter signed a joint resolution for the celebration on October 5, 1978.\n\nFederal legislation\n\"A joint resolution authorizing the President to proclaim annually a week during the first 10 days in May as Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week.\" was text in House Joint Resolution 540; this resolution as well as Senate Joint Resolution 72 did not pass. Ultimately, though, Rep. Horton's House Joint Resolution 1007 was passed by both the House and the Senate, and was signed by President Jimmy Carter on October 5, 1978, to become Public Law 95-419. In 1990, George H.W. Bush signed a bill passed by Congress to extend Asian-American Heritage Week to a month; May was officially designated as Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month two years later.\n\nObservances\nDuring Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, communities celebrate the achievements and contributions of Asian and Pacific Americans with community festivals, government-sponsored activities and educational activities for students.\n\nFootnotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nAsian-American culture\nCommemorative months\nMay observances\nObservances in the United States\nPacific Islands American history"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,",
"What was the resolution?",
"Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
What was the impact?
| 7 |
What was the impact of the resumed game and Royals win?
|
George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| true |
[
"One Night Only is a series of professional wrestling events held by Impact Wrestling (formally known as Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling, and briefly rebranded to Global Force Wrestling) in 2017.\n\nOne Night Only: Live!\n\nOne Night Only: Live! was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). It took place on January 6, 2017, at the Impact Zone in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.\n\n TNA X Division Championship match\n\nJoker's Wild 2017\n\nOne Night Only: Joker's Wild 2017 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). The tournament consists of tag team matches in which the partners are randomly drawn in a lottery, with the winning teams advancing to the main event battle royal, for a grand prize of $100,000. It aired on February 10, 2017, from the Impact Zone in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.\n\n Gauntlet Battle Royal\n\nRivals 2017\n\nOne Night Only: Rivals 2017 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). The event includes wrestlers with current and past rivalries facing-off with one another in matches. The event featured the return of Angelina Love. It was the final event produced under the TNA Wrestling brand.\n\nVictory Road – Knockouts Knockdown\n\nOne Night Only: Victory Road – Knockouts Knockdown was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling, where a series of matches are held, featuring eight Knockouts going up against eight independent wrestlers. The winner of these matches would advance to a four-on-four tag team match at the end of the night, with the last Knockout standing receiving an Impact Wrestling contract. Matches were filmed on March 3–4, 2017, from the Impact Zone in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.\n\nTurning Point 2017\n\nOne Night Only: Turning Point 2017 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling, matches were filmed on April 22, 2017, from the Impact Zone in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.\n\nNo Surrender 2017\n\nOne Night Only: No Surrender 2017 was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling, matches were filmed on April 23, 2017, from the Impact Zone in Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.\n\nGFW Amped Anthology\n\nGFW Amped Anthology – Part 1\n\nOne Night Only: GFW Amped Anthology – Part 1 was produced by Global Force Wrestling (GFW) and consists of matches that were taped for what would have been GFW's television series, Amped. The matches were filmed on July 24, 2015, from the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada.\n\nGFW Amped Anthology – Part 2\n\nOne Night Only: GFW Amped Anthology – Part 2 was produced by Global Force Wrestling (GFW) and consists of matches that were taped for what would have been GFW's television series, Amped. Matches were filmed on July 25, 2015, from the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada.\n\nGFW Amped Anthology – Part 3\n\nOne Night Only: GFW Amped Anthology – Part 3 was produced by Global Force Wrestling (GFW) and consists of matches that were taped for what would have been GFW's television series, Amped. Matches were filmed on August 21, 2015, from the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada.\n\nGFW Amped Anthology – Part 4\n\nOne Night Only: GFW Amped Anthology – Part 4 was produced by Global Force Wrestling (GFW) and consists of matches that were taped for what would have been GFW's television series, Amped. Matches were filmed on October 23, 2015, from the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada.\n\nReferences\n\n2017 in professional wrestling\nProfessional wrestling in Orlando, Florida\nProfessional wrestling in the Las Vegas Valley\n2017\n2017 in professional wrestling in Florida\n2017 in Nevada\nGlobal Force Wrestling",
"Slammiversary XVII was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling. It took place on July 7, 2019 at the Gilley's Dallas in Dallas, Texas. It was the fifteenth event under the Slammiversary chronology.\n\nProduction\n\nBackground\nAt Rebellion, Impact Wrestling announced the date for Slammiversary XVII, but did not announce a venue.\n On May 14, 2019 via its website and on social media, IMPACT Wrestling announced that the event would be held at Gilley's Dallas, and would be the first event held in Dallas.\n\nStorylines \nThe event featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.\n\nReception \nSlammiversary received widespread critical acclaim. Bob Kapur of Canoe.ca declared that \"if Impact Wrestling can put great PPV shows like Slammiversary every time they go there, then they should never leave\". He gave the Tessa-Sami match a perfect 10/10, Cage-Elgin 9/10, Monsters Ball Knockouts 4-way match 9/10 and the Swann-Impact match 8/10. He rated the event 9/10. He stated the match of the night – and there were many contenders for that honour – was an intergender match, Tessa-Sami with the Vile Sami Callihan and arguably the best female wrestler in any company, Tessa Blanchard. The match was historic in that it was the first intergender match to ever headline a PPV event. And what a great precedent it set. He further emphasized While that match had many hard-hitting moments, it may have been rivaled on that front by the Impact World Championship match, Cage-Elgin that saw Brian Cage defend against “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin. He gave credit to the Monsters Ball knockouts four-way match labeling it 'a good, violent affair'.\n\nThe writer of the Slammiversary report on 411 Mania, Larry Csonka, rated the event an 8 out of 10. Csonka stated that Impact Slammiversary 2019 was another good PPV from the company, with nothing bad, a great X-Division title match, Cage vs. Elgin in Impact’s match of the year, and Tessa Blanchard getting a chance to shine in the main event. This was a really entertaining and easy to watch show that flew by.\"\n\nJason Powell from Pro Wrestling Dot Net praised the event stating \"Overall, this was a very good pay-per-view. Impact continues to be at its best when they focus on the more traditional pro wrestling approach. \nHe praised the main event calling it \"A very good main event. Intergender wrestling isn’t for everyone and I haven’t been a big fan of it over the years, but they made this feel like a big deal throughout the show and the broadcast team did a nice job of putting over the effort of Blanchard and what a POS Callihan was throughout the match.\"\n\nDave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter rated the Tessa/Sami match at 4.25 stars out of 5, Cage/Elgin match at 4.25 stars, Swann/Impact match at 4 stars and the Knockouts Monsters Ball 4-way match at 3.25 stars.\n\nResults\n\nSee also\n2019 in professional wrestling\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nimpactwrestling.com\n\nSlammiversary\nProfessional wrestling in Texas\n2019 in Texas\nEvents in Dallas\nJuly 2019 events in the United States\n2019 Impact Wrestling pay-per-view events"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,",
"What was the resolution?",
"Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.",
"What was the impact?",
"In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
What else changed as a result?
| 8 |
What else changed as a result of the Pine Tar Incident in addition to Brett's American League Championship win?
|
George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
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[
"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer",
"In computer programming, is a ternary operator that is part of the syntax for basic conditional expressions in several programming languages. It is commonly referred to as the conditional operator, inline if (iif), or ternary if. An expression evaluates to if the value of is true, and otherwise to . One can read it aloud as \"if a then b otherwise c\".\n\nIt originally comes from CPL, in which equivalent syntax for e1 ? e2 : e3 was e1 → e2, e3.\n\nAlthough many ternary operators are possible, the conditional operator is so common, and other ternary operators so rare, that the conditional operator is commonly referred to as the ternary operator.\n\nVariations\nThe detailed semantics of \"the\" ternary operator as well as its syntax differs significantly from language to language.\n\nA top level distinction from one language to another is whether the expressions permit side effects (as in most procedural languages) and whether the language provides short-circuit evaluation semantics, whereby only the selected expression is evaluated (most standard operators in most languages evaluate all arguments).\n\nIf the language supports expressions with side effects but does not specify short-circuit evaluation, then a further distinction exists about which expression evaluates first—if the language guarantees any specific order (bear in mind that the conditional also counts as an expression).\n\nFurthermore, if no order is guaranteed, a distinction exists about whether the result is then classified as indeterminate (the value obtained from some order) or undefined (any value at all at the whim of the compiler in the face of side effects, or even a crash).\n\nIf the language does not permit side-effects in expressions (common in functional languages), then the order of evaluation has no value semantics—though it may yet bear on whether an infinite recursion terminates, or have other performance implications (in a functional language with match expressions, short-circuit evaluation is inherent, and natural uses for the ternary operator arise less often, so this point is of limited concern).\n\nFor these reasons, in some languages the statement form can have subtly different semantics than the block conditional form } (in the C language—the syntax of the example given—these are in fact equivalent).\n\nThe associativity of nested ternary operators can also differ from language to language. In almost all languages, the ternary operator is right associative so that evaluates intuitively as , but PHP in particular is notoriously left-associative, and evaluates as follows: , which is rarely what any programmer expects. (The given examples assume that the ternary operator has low operator precedence, which is true in all C-family languages, and many others.)\n\nEquivalence to map\nThe ternary operator can also be viewed as a binary map operation.\n\nIn R—and other languages with literal expression tuples—one can simulate the ternary operator with something like the R expression (this idiom is slightly more natural in languages with 0-origin subscripts).\n\nHowever, in this idiom it is almost certain that the entire tuple expression will evaluate prior to the subscript expression, so there will be no short-circuit semantics.\n\nNested ternaries can be simulated as where the function returns the index of the first true value in the condition vector. Note that both of these map equivalents are binary operators, revealing that the ternary operator is ternary in syntax, rather than semantics. These constructions can be regarded as a weak form of currying based on data concatenation rather than function composition.\n\nIf the language provides a mechanism of futures or promises, then short-circuit evaluation can sometimes also be simulated in the context of a binary map operation.\n\nConditional assignment\n is used as follows:\n\n condition ? value_if_true : value_if_false\n\nThe condition is evaluated true or false as a Boolean expression. On the basis of the evaluation of the Boolean condition, the entire expression returns value_if_true if condition is true, but value_if_false otherwise. Usually the two sub-expressions value_if_true and value_if_false must have the same type, which determines the type of the whole expression. The importance of this type-checking lies in the operator's most common use—in conditional assignment statements. In this usage it appears as an expression on the right side of an assignment statement, as follows:\n\n variable = condition ? value_if_true : value_if_false\n\nThe ?: operator is similar to the way conditional expressions (if-then-else constructs) work in functional programming languages, like Scheme, ML, and Haskell, since if-then-else forms an expression instead of a statement in those languages.\n\nUsage\nThe conditional operator's most common usage is to make a terse simple conditional assignment statement. For example, if we wish to implement some C code to change a shop's normal opening hours from 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock on Sundays, we may use\n\nint opening_time = (day == SUNDAY) ? 12 : 9;\n\ninstead of the more verbose\n\nint opening_time;\n\nif (day == SUNDAY)\n opening_time = 12;\nelse\n opening_time = 9;\n\nThe two forms are nearly equivalent. Keep in mind that the is an expression and if-then-else is a statement. Note that neither the true nor false portions can be omitted from the conditional operator without an error report upon parsing. This contrasts with if-then-else statements, where the else clause can be omitted.\n\nMost of the languages emphasizing functional programming don't need such an operator as their regular conditional expression(s) is an expression in the first place e.g. the Scheme expression is equivalent in semantics to the C expression . This is also the case in many imperative languages, starting with ALGOL where it is possible to write , or Smalltalk () or Ruby (, although works as well).\n\nNote that some languages may evaluate both the true- and false-expressions, even though only one or the other will be assigned to the variable. This means that if the true- or false-expression contain a function call, that function may be called and executed (causing any related side-effects due to the function's execution), regardless of whether or not its result will be used. Programmers should consult their programming language specifications or test the ternary operator to determine whether or not the language will evaluate both expressions in this way. If it does, and this is not the desired behaviour, then an if-then-else statement should be used.\n\nActionScript 3\ncondition ? value_if_true : value_if_false\n\nAda\nThe 2012 edition of Ada has introduced conditional expressions (using and ), as part of an enlarged set of expressions including quantified expressions and expression functions. The Rationale for Ada 2012 states motives for Ada not having had them before, as well as motives for now adding them, such as to support \"contracts\" (also new).\n\nPay_per_Hour := (if Day = Sunday\n then 12.50\n else 10.00);\n\nWhen the value of an if_expression is itself of Boolean type, then the part may be omitted, the value being True. Multiple conditions may chained using .\n\nALGOL 68\nBoth ALGOL 68's choice clauses (if and the case clauses) provide the coder with a choice of either the \"bold\" syntax or the \"brief\" form.\n\n Single if choice clause:\n if condition then statements [ else statements ] fi\n \"brief\" form: ( condition | statements | statements )\n\n Chained if choice clause:\n if condition1 then statements elif condition2 then statements [ else statements ] fi\n \"brief\" form: ( condition1 | statements |: condition2 | statements | statements )\n\nAPL\nWith the following syntax, both expressions are evaluated (with evaluated first, then , then ):\n\nresult ← value_if_true ⊣⍣ condition ⊢ value_if_false\n\nThis alternative syntax provides short-circuit evaluation:\n\nresult ← { condition : expression_if_true ⋄ expression_if_false } ⍬\n\nAWK\nresult = condition ? value_if_true : value_if_false\n\nBash\nA true ternary operator only exists for arithmetic expressions:\n\n((result = condition ? value_if_true : value_if_false))\n\nFor strings there only exist workarounds, like e.g.:\n\nresult=$([[ \"$a\" = \"$b\" ]] && echo \"value_if_true\" || echo \"value_if_false\")\n\nWhere can be any condition construct can evaluate. Instead of the there can be any other bash command. When it exits with success, the first echo command is executed, otherwise the second one is executed.\n\nC\nA traditional if-else construct in C, Java and JavaScript is written:\n\nif (a > b) {\n result = x;\n}\nelse {\n result = y;\n}\n\nThis can be rewritten as the following statement:\n\nresult = a > b ? x : y;\n\nAs in the if-else construct only one of the expressions 'x' and 'y' is evaluated. This is significant if the evaluation of 'x' or 'y' has side effects. The behaviour is undefined if an attempt is made to use the result of the conditional operator as an lvalue.\n\nA GNU extension to C allows omitting the second operand, and using implicitly the first operand as the second also:\n\na == x ? : y;\n\nThe expression is equivalent to\n\na == x ? (a == x) : y;\n\nexcept that if x is an expression, it is evaluated only once. The difference is significant if evaluating the expression has side effects. This shorthand form is sometimes known as the Elvis operator in other languages.\n\nC#\nIn C#, if condition is true, first expression is evaluated and becomes the result; if false, the second expression is evaluated and becomes the result. As with Java only one of two expressions is ever evaluated.\n\n// condition ? first_expression : second_expression;\n\nstatic double sinc(double x) \n{\n return x != 0.0 ? Math.Sin(x) / x : 1.0;\n}\n\nC++\nUnlike in C, the precedence of the operator in C++ is the same as that of the assignment operator ( or ), and it can return an lvalue. This means that expressions like and are both legal and are parsed differently, the former being equivalent to .\n\nIn C++ there are conditional assignment situations where use of the if-else statement is impossible, since this language explicitly distinguishes between initialization and assignment. In such case it is always possible to use a function call, but this can be cumbersome and inelegant. For example, to pass conditionally different values as an argument for a constructor of a field or a base class, it is impossible to use a plain if-else statement; in this case we can use a conditional assignment expression, or a function call. Bear in mind also that some types allow initialization, but do not allow assignment, or even that the assignment operator and the constructor do totally different things. This last is true for reference types, for example:\n\n#include <iostream>\n#include <fstream>\n#include <string>\n\nint main(int argc, char *argv[])\n{\n std::string name;\n std::ofstream fout;\n\n if (argc > 1 && argv[1])\n {\n name = argv[1];\n fout.open(name.c_str(), std::ios::out | std::ios::app);\n }\n\n std::ostream &sout = name.empty() ? std::cout : fout;\n\n sout << \"Hello, world!\\n\";\n\n return 0;\n}\n\nIn this case there is no possibility of using an if-else statement in place of the operator (Although we can replace the use of with a function call, inside of which can be an if-else statement).\n\nFurthermore, the conditional operator can yield an lvalue, i.e. a value to which another value can be assigned. Consider the following example:\n\n#include <iostream>\n\nint main(int argc, char *argv[]) \n{\n int a = 0;\n int b = 0;\n\n (argc > 1 ? a : b) = 1;\n\n std::cout << \"a: \" << a\n << \" b: \" << b\n << '\\n';\n\n return 0;\n}\n\nIn this example, if the boolean expression yields the value on line 8, the value is assigned to the variable , otherwise the value is assigned to the variable .\n\nIn C++ and other various languages, ternary operators like are also possible but are very rare.\n\nCFML\nExample of the operator in CFML:\n\nresult = randRange(0,1) ? \"heads\" : \"tails\";\n\nRoughly 50% of the time the expression will return 1 (true) or 0 (false); meaning result will take the value \"heads\" or \"tails\" respectively.\n\nLucee, Railo, and ColdFusion 11-specific\nLucee, Railo, and ColdFusion 11 also implement the Elvis operator, which will return the value of the expression if it is not-null, otherwise the specified default.\n\nSyntax:\n\nresult = expression ?: value_if_expression_is_null\n\nExample:\n\nresult = f() ?: \"default\";\n\n// where...\nfunction f(){\n if (randRange(0,1)){ // either 0 or 1 (false / true)\n return \"value\";\n }\n}\n\nwriteOutput(result);\n\nThe function will return roughly 50% of the time, otherwise will not return anything. If returns \"value\", will take that value, otherwise will take the value \"default\".\n\nCoffeeScript\nExample of using this operator in CoffeeScript:\n\nif 1 is 2 then \"true value\" else \"false value\"\n\nReturns \"false value\".\n\nCommon Lisp\nAssignment using a conditional expression in Common Lisp:\n\n(setf result (if (> a b) x y))\n\nAlternative form:\n\n(if (> a b)\n (setf result x)\n (setf result y))\n\nCrystal\nExample of using this operator in Crystal:\n\n1 == 2 ? \"true value\" : \"false value\"\n\nReturns .\n\nThe Crystal compiler transforms conditional operators to expressions, so the above is semantically identical to:\n\nif 1 == 2\n \"true value\"\nelse\n \"false value\"\nend\n\nDart\nThe Dart programming language's syntax belongs to the C family, primarily inspired by languages like Java, C# and JavaScript, which means it has inherited the traditional syntax for its conditional expression.\n\nExample:\n\nreturn x.isEven ? x ~/ 2 : x * 3 + 1;\n\nLike other conditions in Dart, the expression before the must evaluate to a Boolean value.\n\nThe Dart syntax uses both and in various other ways, which causes ambiguities in the language grammar. An expression like:\n\n{ x as T ? [1] : [2] }\n\ncould be parsed as either a \"set literal\" containing one of two lists or as a \"map literal\" {((x as T?)[1]) : [2]}. The language always chooses the conditional expression in such situations.\n\nDart also has a second ternary operator, the operator commonly used for setting values in lists or maps, which makes the term \"the ternary operator\" ambiguous in a Dart context.\n\nDelphi\nIn Delphi the function can be used to achieve the same as . If the library is used, the function returns a numeric value such as an Integer, Double or Extended. If the library is used, this function can also return a string value.\n\nUsing \n\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: Integer; const AFalse: Integer): Integer;\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: Int64; const AFalse: Int64): Int64;\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: UInt64; const AFalse: UInt64): UInt64;\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: Single; const AFalse: Single): Single;\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: Double; const AFalse: Double): Double;\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: Extended; const AFalse: Extended): Extended;\n\nUsing the library\n\nfunction IfThen(AValue: Boolean; const ATrue: string; AFalse: string = ''): string;\n\nUsage example:\n\nfunction GetOpeningTime(Weekday: Integer): Integer;\nbegin\n { This function will return the opening time for the given weekday: 12 for Sundays, 9 for other days }\n Result := IfThen((Weekday = 1) or (Weekday = 7), 12, 9);\nend;\n\nUnlike a true ternary operator however, both of the results are evaluated prior to performing the comparison. For example, if one of the results is a call to a function which inserts a row into a database table, that function will be called whether or not the condition to return that specific result is met.\n\nF#\n\nIn F# the built-in syntax for if-then-else is already an expression that always must return a value.\n\nlet num = if x = 10 then 42 else 24\n\nF# has a special case where you can omit the else branch if the return value is of type unit. This way you can do side-effects, without using a else branch.\n\nif x = 10 then\n printfn \"It is 10\"\n\nBut even in this case, the if expression would return unit. You don't need to write the else branch, because the compiler will assume the unit type on else.\n\nFORTH\nSince FORTH is a stack-oriented language, and any expression can leave a value on the stack, all // sequences can generate values:\n\n: test ( n -- n ) 1 AND IF 22 ELSE 42 THEN ;\n\nThis word takes 1 parameter on the stack, and if that number is odd, leaves 22. If it's even, 42 is left on the stack.\n\nFortran\nWith the additions to the code in the 1995 release, the ternary operator was added to the Fortran compiler as the intrinsic function :\n\nvariable = merge(x,y,a>b)\n\nNote that both x and y are evaluated before the results of one or the other are returned from the function. Here, x is returned if the condition holds true and y otherwise.\n\nFreeMarker \nThis built-in exists since FreeMarker 2.3.20.\n\nUsed like booleanExp?then(whenTrue, whenFalse), fills the same role as the ternary operator in C-like languages.\n\n<#assign x = 10>\n<#assign y = 20>\n<#-- Prints the maximum of x and y: -->\n${(x > y)?then(x, y)}\n\nGo\nThere is no ternary if in Go, so use of the full if statement is always required.\n\nHaskell\nThe built-in if-then-else syntax is inline: the expression\n\nif predicate then expr1 else expr2\n\nhas type\n\nBool -> a -> a -> a\n\nThe base library also provides the function :\n\nbool :: a -> a -> Bool -> a\n\nIn both cases, no special treatment is needed to ensure that only the selected expression is evaluated, since Haskell is non-strict by default. This also means an operator can be defined that, when used in combination with the operator, functions exactly like in most languages:\n\n(?) :: Bool -> a -> a -> a\n(?) pred x y = if pred then x else y\ninfix 1 ?\n\n-- example (vehicle will evaluate to \"airplane\"):\narg = 'A'\nvehicle = arg == 'B' ? \"boat\" $\n arg == 'A' ? \"airplane\" $\n arg == 'T' ? \"train\" $\n \"car\"\n\nHowever, it is more idiomatic to use pattern guards\n\n-- example (vehicle will evaluate to \"airplane\"):\narg = 'A'\nvehicle | arg == 'B' = \"boat\"\n | arg == 'A' = \"airplane\"\n | arg == 'T' = \"train\"\n | otherwise = \"car\"\n\nJava\nIn Java this expression evaluates to:\n\n// If foo is selected, assign selected foo to bar. If not, assign baz to bar.\nObject bar = foo.isSelected() ? foo : baz; \n\nNote that Java, in a manner similar to C#, only evaluates the used expression and will not evaluate the unused expression.\n\nJulia\nIn Julia, \"Note that the spaces around and are mandatory: an expression like is not a valid ternary expression (but a newline is acceptable after both the and the ).\"\n\nJavaScript\nThe conditional operator in JavaScript is similar to that of C++ and Java, except for the fact the middle expression cannot be a comma expression. Also, as in C++, but unlike in C or Perl, it will not bind tighter than an assignment to its right— is equivalent to instead of .\n\nvar timeout = settings !== null ? settings.timeout : 1000;\n\nJust like C# and Java, the expression will only be evaluated if, and only if, the expression is the matching one for the condition given; the other expression will not be evaluated.\n\nKotlin \nKotlin does not include the traditional ternary operator, however, s can be used as expressions that can be assigned, achieving the same results. Note that, as the complexity of your conditional statement grows, you might consider replacing your - expression with a expression.\n\nval max = if (a > b) a else b\n\nLua \nLua does not have a traditional conditional operator. However, the short-circuiting behaviour of its and operators allows the emulation of this behaviour:\n\n-- equivalent to var = cond ? a : b;\nvar = cond and a or b\n\nThis will succeed unless is logically false (i.e. or ); in this case, the expression will always result in . This can result in some surprising behaviour if ignored.\n\nSQL\nThe SQL expression is a generalization of the ternary operator. Instead of one conditional and two results, n conditionals and n+1 results can be specified.\n\nWith one conditional it is equivalent (although more verbose) to the ternary operator:\n\nSELECT (CASE WHEN a > b THEN x ELSE y END) AS CONDITIONAL_EXAMPLE\n FROM tab;\n\nThis can be expanded to several conditionals:\n\nSELECT (CASE WHEN a > b THEN x WHEN a < b THEN y ELSE z END) AS CONDITIONAL_EXAMPLE\n FROM tab;\n\nMySQL\nIn addition to the standard expression, MySQL provides an function as an extension:\n\nIF(cond, a, b);\n\nSQL Server\nIn addition to the standard expression, SQL Server (from 2012) provides an function:\n\nIIF(condition, true_value, false_value)\n\nOracle SQL\nIn addition to the standard expression, Oracle has a variadic functional counterpart which operates similarly to a switch statement and can be used to emulate the conditional operator when testing for equality.\n\n-- General syntax takes case-result pairs, comparing against an expression, followed by a fall-back result:\nDECODE(expression, case1, result1,\n ...\n caseN, resultN,\n resultElse)\n\n-- We can emulate the conditional operator by just selecting one case:\nDECODE(expression, condition, true, false)\n\nThe function is, today, deprecated in favour of the standard expression. This can be used in both Oracle SQL queries as well as PL/SQL blocks, whereas can only be used in the former.\n\nPerl\nA traditional if-else construct in Perl is written:\n\nif ($a > $b) {\n $result = $x;\n} else {\n $result = $y;\n}\n\nRewritten to use the conditional operator:\n\n$result = $a > $b ? $x : $y;\n\nThe precedence of the conditional operator in perl is the same as in C, not as in C++. This is conveniently of higher precedence than a comma operator but lower than the precedence of most operators used in expressions within the ternary operator, so the use of parentheses is rarely required.\n\nIts associativity matches that of C and C++, not that of PHP. Unlike C but like C++, perl allows the use of the conditional expression as an L-value; for example:\n\n$a > $b ? $x : $y = $result;\n\nwill assign to either or depending on the logical expression's boolean result.\n\nThe respective precedence rules and associativities of the operators used guarantee that the version absent any parentheses is equivalent to this explicitly parenthesized version:\n\n(($a > $b) ? $x : $y) = $result;\n\nThis is equivalent to the if-else version:\n\nif ($a > $b) {\n $x = $result;\n} else {\n $y = $result;\n}\n\nPHP\nA simple PHP implementation is this:\n\n$abs = $value >= 0 ? $value : -$value;\n\nDue to an unfortunate design of the language grammar, the conditional operator in PHP is left associative in contrast to other languages, thus given a value of T for arg, the PHP code in the following example would yield the value horse instead of train as one might expect:\n\n<?php\n$arg = \"T\";\n$vehicle = ( ( $arg == 'B' ) ? 'bus' : \n ( $arg == 'A' ) ? 'airplane' : \n ( $arg == 'T' ) ? 'train' : \n ( $arg == 'C' ) ? 'car' : \n ( $arg == 'H' ) ? 'horse' : \n 'feet' );\necho $vehicle;\n\nThe reason is that nesting two conditional operators produces an oversized condition with the last two options as its branches: is really . This is acknowledged and will probably not change. To avoid this, nested parenthesis are needed, as in this example:\n\n<?php\n$arg = \"T\";\n$vehicle = $arg == \"B\" ? \"bus\" :\n ($arg == \"A\" ? \"airplane\" :\n ($arg == \"T\" ? \"train\" :\n ($arg == \"C\" ? \"car\" :\n ($arg == \"H\" ? \"horse\" :\n \"feet\"))));\necho $vehicle;\n\nThis will produce the result of train being printed to the output, analogous to a right associative conditional operator.\n\nPHP 5.3\n\nSince PHP 5.3 there is a shorthand of the conditional operator, sometimes referred to as the \"Elvis Operator\". The syntax for this shorthand is below:\n\n$c = $a ?: $b; // equivalent to $c = $a ? $a : $b;\n\nPython\nThough it had been delayed for several years by disagreements over syntax, an operator for a conditional expression in Python was approved as Python Enhancement Proposal 308 and was added to the 2.5 release in September 2006. Python's conditional operator differs from the common operator in the order of its operands. The general form is:\n\nresult = x if a > b else y\n\nThis form invites considering as the normal value and as an exceptional case. \n\nPrior to Python 2.5 there were a number of ways to approximate a conditional operator (for example by indexing into a two element array), all of which have drawbacks as compared to the built-in operator.\n\nR\nThe traditional if-else construct in R (which is an implementation of S) is:\n\nif (a < b) {\n x <- \"true\"\n} else {\n x <- \"false\"\n}\n\nIf there is only one statement in each block, braces can be omitted, like in C:\n\nif (a < b)\n x <- \"true\"\nelse\n x <- \"false\"\n\nThe code above can be written in the following non-standard condensed way:\n\nx <- if (a < b) \"true\" else \"false\"\n\nThere exists also the function that allows rewriting the expression above as:\n\nx <- ifelse(a < b, \"true\", \"false\")\n\nThe function is automatically vectorized. For instance:\n\n> ifelse(c (0, 2) < 1, \"true\", \"false\")\n[1] \"true\" \"false\"\n\nRaku\nRaku uses a doubled symbol instead of single \nand a doubled symbol instead of \n\n$result = $a > $b ?? $x !! $y;\n\nRuby\nExample of using this operator in Ruby:\n\n1 == 2 ? \"true value\" : \"false value\"\n\nReturns \"false value\".\n\nA traditional if-else construct in Ruby is written:\n\nif a > b\n result = x\nelse\n result = y\nend\n\nThis could also be written as:\n\nresult = if a > b\n x\nelse\n y\nend\n\nThese can be rewritten as the following statement:\n\nresult = a > b ? x : y\n\nRust\nBeing an expression-oriented programming language, Rust's existing if expr1 else expr2 syntax can behave as the traditional ternary operator does. Earlier versions of the language did have the operator but it was removed due to duplication with .\n\nNote the lack of semi-colons in the code below compared to a more declarative ... block, and the semi-colon at the end of the assignment to .\n\nlet x = 5;\n\nlet y = if x == 5 {\n 10\n} else {\n 15\n};\n\nThis could also be written as:\n\nlet y = if x == 5 { 10 } else { 15 };\n\nNote that curly braces are mandatory in Rust conditional expressions.\n\nYou could also use a expression:\n\nlet y = match x {\n 5 => 10,\n _ => 15,\n};\n\nScheme\nSame as in Common Lisp. Every expression has a value. Thus the builtin can be used:\n\n(let* ((x 5)\n (y (if (= x 5) 10 15)))\n ...)\n\nSmalltalk\nEvery expression (message send) has a value. Thus can be used:\n\n|x y|\n\nx := 5.\ny := (x == 5) ifTrue:[10] ifFalse:[15].\n\nSwift\nThe ternary conditional operator of Swift is written in the usual way of the C tradition, and is used within expressions.\n\nlet result = a > b ? a : b\n\nTcl\nIn Tcl, this operator is available in expr expressions only:\n\nset x 5\nset y [expr {$x == 5 ? 10 : 15}]\n\nOutside of expr, if can be used for a similar purpose, as it also returns a value:\npackage require math\n\nset x 5\nset y [if {$x == 5} {\n ::math::random $x\n} else {\n ::math::fibonacci $x\n}]\n\nTestStand\nIn a National Instruments TestStand expression, if condition is true, the first expression is evaluated and becomes the output of the conditional operation; if false, the second expression is evaluated and becomes the result. Only one of two expressions is ever evaluated.\n\ncondition ? first_expression : second_expression\n\nFor example:\n\nRunState.Root.Parameters.TestSocket.Index == 3 ? Locals.UUTIndex = 3 : Locals.UUTIndex = 0\n\nSets the local variable to 3 if is 3, otherwise it sets to 0.\n\nSimilar to other languages, first_expression and second_expression do not need to be autonomous expressions, allowing the operator to be used for variable assignment:\n\nLocals.UUTIndex = ( RunState.Root.Parameters.TestSocket.Index == 3 ? 3 : 0 )\n\nVerilog\nVerilog is technically a hardware description language, not a programming language though the semantics of both are very similar. It uses the syntax for the ternary operator.\n\n// using blocking assignment\nwire out;\nassign out = sel ? a : b;\n\nThis is equivalent to the more verbose Verilog code:\n\n// using blocking assignment\nwire out;\nif (sel === 1) // sel is 1, not 0, x or z\n assign out = a;\nelse if (sel === 0) // sel is 0, x or z (1 checked above)\n assign out = b;\nelse // sel is x or z (0 and 1 checked above)\n assign out = [comment]; // a and b are compared bit by bit, and return for each bit\n // an x if bits are different, and the bit value if the same\n\nVisual Basic\nVisual Basic doesn't use per se, but has a very similar implementation of this shorthand statement. Using the first example provided in this article, it can do:\n\n' variable = IIf(condition, value_if_true, value_if_false)\nDim opening_time As Integer = IIf((day = SUNDAY), 12, 9)\n\nIn the above example, is a ternary function, but not a ternary operator. As a function, the values of all three portions are evaluated before the function call occurs. This imposed limitations, and in Visual Basic .Net 9.0, released with Visual Studio 2008, an actual conditional operator was introduced, using the keyword instead of . This allows the following example code to work:\n\nDim name As String = If(person Is Nothing, \"\", person.Name)\n\nUsing , would be evaluated even if person is (Nothing), causing an exception. With a true short-circuiting conditional operator, is not evaluated unless person is not .\n\nVisual Basic Version 9 has added the operator in addition to the existing function that existed previously. As a true operator, it does not have the side effects and potential inefficiencies of the function.\n\nThe syntaxes of the tokens are similar: vs . As mentioned above, the function call has significant disadvantages, because the sub-expressions must all be evaluated, according to Visual Basic's evaluation strategy for function calls and the result will always be of type variant (VB) or object (VB.NET). The operator however does not suffer from these problems as it supports conditional evaluation and determines the type of the expression based on the types of its operands.\n\nResult type\nClearly the type of the result of the operator must be in some sense the type unification of the types of its second and third operands. In C this is accomplished for numeric types by arithmetic promotion; since C does not have a type hierarchy for pointer types, pointer operands may only be used if they are of the same type (ignoring type qualifiers) or one is void or NULL. It is undefined behaviour to mix pointer and integral or incompatible pointer types; thus\n\nnumber = spell_out_numbers ? \"forty-two\" : 42;\n\nwill result in a compile-time error in most compilers.\n\n?: in style guidelines\nConditional operators are widely used and can be useful in certain circumstances to avoid the use of an statement, either because the extra verbiage would be too lengthy or because the syntactic context does not permit a statement. For example:\n\n #define MAX(a, b) (((a)>(b)) ? (a) : (b))\n\nor\n\n for (i = 0; i < MAX_PATTERNS; i++)\n c_patterns[i].ShowWindow(m_data.fOn[i] ? SW_SHOW : SW_HIDE);\n\n(The latter example uses the Microsoft Foundation Classes Framework for Win32.)\n\nInitialization\nAn important use of the conditional operator is in allowing a single initialization statement, rather than multiple initialization statements. In many cases this also allows single assignment and for an identifier to be a constant.\n\nThe simplest benefit is avoiding duplicating the variable name, as in Python:\n\nx = 'foo' if b else 'bar'\n\ninstead of:\n\nif b:\n x = 'foo'\nelse:\n x = 'bar'\n\nMore importantly, in languages with block scope, such as C++, the blocks of an if/else statement create new scopes, and thus variables must be declared before the if/else statement, as:\n\nstd::string s;\nif (b)\n s = \"foo\";\nelse\n s = \"bar\";\n\nUse of the conditional operator simplifies this:\n\nstd::string s = b ? \"foo\" : \"bar\";\n\nFurthermore, since initialization is now part of the declaration, rather than a separate statement, the identifier can be a constant (formally, of type):\n\nconst std::string s = b ? \"foo\" : \"bar\";\n\nCase selectors\nWhen properly formatted, the conditional operator can be used to write simple and coherent case selectors. For example:\n\nvehicle = arg == 'B' ? bus :\n arg == 'A' ? airplane :\n arg == 'T' ? train :\n arg == 'C' ? car :\n arg == 'H' ? horse :\n feet;\n\nAppropriate use of the conditional operator in a variable assignment context reduces the probability of a bug from a faulty assignment as the assigned variable is stated just once as opposed to multiple times.\n\nProgramming languages without the conditional operator\nThe following are examples of notable general-purpose programming languages that don't provide a conditional operator:\n\n CoffeeScript\n Go programming language\n MATLAB\n Pascal although Object Pascal / Delphi do have a function to do the same (with caveats)\n Rust The construct is an expression and can be used to get the same functionality.\n \n PowerShell (in old versions) an elegant workaround is to use (<value for true>,<value for false>)[!(<condition>)]\n\nSee also\n IIf, inline if function\n Null coalescing operator, operator\n Elvis operator, , or sometimes , as a shorthand binary operator\n Conditioned disjunction, equivalent ternary logical connective.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Description of If operator in Visual Basic\n Description of Conditional Expression in Python (PEP 308)\n Description in the Java Language Specification\n Description in the PHP Language Documentation\n\nConditional constructs\nOperators (programming)\nTernary operations\nArticles with example code\n\nde:Bedingte Anweisung und Verzweigung#Auswahloperator"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,",
"What was the resolution?",
"Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.",
"What was the impact?",
"In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship.",
"What else changed as a result?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
Did he contineu to play after?
| 9 |
Did Brett continue to play after his American League Championship win following the Pine Tar Incident?
|
George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
|
He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| true |
[
"is a former Japanese football player.\n\nPlaying career\nIwamaru was born in Fujioka on December 4, 1981. After graduating from high school, he joined the J1 League club Vissel Kobe in 2000. However he did not play as much as Makoto Kakegawa until 2003. In 2004, he played more often, after Kakegawa got hurt. In September 2004, he moved to Júbilo Iwata. In late 2004, he played often, after regular goalkeeper Yohei Sato got hurt. In 2005, he moved to the newly promoted J2 League club, Thespa Kusatsu (later Thespakusatsu Gunma), based in his home region. He competed with Nobuyuki Kojima for the position and played often. \n\nIn 2006, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Avispa Fukuoka. However he did not play as much as Yuichi Mizutani. In 2007, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Yokohama FC. However he did not play as much as Takanori Sugeno and the club was relegated to J2 within a year. Although he did not play as much as Kenji Koyama in 2008, he played often in 2009. He did not play at all in 2010. \n\nIn 2011, he moved to the J2 club Roasso Kumamoto. He did not play as much as Yuta Minami. In 2013, he moved to the newly promoted J2 club, V-Varen Nagasaki. Although he played in the first three matches, he did play at all after the fourth match, when Junki Kanayama played in his place. In 2014, he moved to the J2 club Thespakusatsu Gunma based in his local region. However he did not play at all, and retired at the end of the 2014 season.\n\nClub statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1981 births\nLiving people\nAssociation football people from Gunma Prefecture\nJapanese footballers\nJ1 League players\nJ2 League players\nVissel Kobe players\nJúbilo Iwata players\nThespakusatsu Gunma players\nAvispa Fukuoka players\nYokohama FC players\nRoasso Kumamoto players\nV-Varen Nagasaki players\nAssociation football goalkeepers",
"is a former Japanese football player.\n\nPlaying career\nHasegawa was born in Adachi, Tokyo on August 17, 1979. He joined J1 League club Kashiwa Reysol from youth team in 1998. On March 28, he debuted against Consadole Sapporo. In 1999, he played often and the club won the championship in the J.League Cup. However he did not play much after 2000. In 2002, he moved to the J2 League club Albirex Niigata. However he did not play much there, either. In 2003, he moved to the J2 club Ventforet Kofu. Although he did not play much until 2004, he played all matches as left winger and scored 17 goals. The club also won third place and was promoted to J1 in 2006. However he did not play much in 2006. In August 2007, he moved to the J2 club Tokushima Vortis. He played all matches as regular player. In 2008, he moved to the J2 club Yokohama FC. However he did not play much. In 2009, he moved to the Japan Football League club New Wave Kitakyushu (later Giravanz Kitakyushu). He played as a regular player and the club was promoted to J2 in 2010. In 2011, he moved to Urayasu SC. In 2014, he move to the Indian club Mohammedan. He retired in December 2014.\n\nClub statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1979 births\nLiving people\nAssociation football people from Tokyo\nJapanese footballers\nJ1 League players\nJ2 League players\nJapan Football League players\nI-League players\nKashiwa Reysol players\nAlbirex Niigata players\nVentforet Kofu players\nTokushima Vortis players\nYokohama FC players\nGiravanz Kitakyushu players\nBriobecca Urayasu players\nMohammedan SC (Kolkata) players\nJapanese expatriate sportspeople in India\nExpatriate footballers in India\nAssociation football forwards"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,",
"What was the resolution?",
"Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.",
"What was the impact?",
"In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship.",
"What else changed as a result?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he contineu to play after?",
"He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
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What else did he do?
| 10 |
What else did Brett do in addition to his MVP playoff series in 1985?
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George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history.
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| false |
[
"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums",
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books"
] |
[
"George Brett",
"Pine Tar Incident",
"What is the pine tar incident?",
"Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob.",
"What happened after that?",
"The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches.",
"What did he do?",
"The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win.",
"What did Brett do?",
"an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach.",
"What were the consequences?",
"The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest,",
"What was the resolution?",
"Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win.",
"What was the impact?",
"In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship.",
"What else changed as a result?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he contineu to play after?",
"He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3.",
"What else did he do?",
"The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history."
] |
C_72aaea71957c4d3f80442e9a61e0684c_1
|
Is there anything else significant?
| 11 |
Is there anything else significant in addition to Brett's World Series win following the Pine Tar Incident?
|
George Brett
|
On July 24, 1983, the Royals played the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5-4. Upon Brett crossing the plate, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule that stated that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. In a now famous image, an enraged Brett charged out of the dugout sprinting directly toward McClelland and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and a Royals coach. The Royals protested the game, and American League president Lee MacPhail upheld the protest, reasoning that the bat should have been excluded from future use but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18 from the point of Brett's home run and ended with a Royals win. In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first time in Royals history. CANNOTANSWER
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he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories,
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George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953) is an American former professional baseball player who played 21 seasons, primarily as a third baseman, in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Kansas City Royals.
Brett's 3,154 career hits are second most by any third baseman in major league history (after Adrian Beltre's 3,166) and rank 18th all-time. He is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others being Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 on the first ballot and is the only player in MLB history to win a batting title in three different decades. He was also a member of the Royals' 1985 World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Brett was named the Royals' interim hitting coach in 2013 on May 30, but stepped down from the position on July 25 in order to resume his position of vice president of baseball operations.
Early life
Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included Ken, the second oldest, a major league pitcher who pitched in the 1967 World Series at age 19. Brothers John (eldest) and Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues. Although his three older brothers were born in Brooklyn, George was born in the northern panhandle of West Virginia.
Jack and Ethel Brett then moved the family to the Midwest and three years later to El Segundo, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, just south of Los Angeles International Airport. George grew up hoping to follow in the footsteps of his three older brothers. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the baseball draft. He was high school teammates with pitcher Scott McGregor. He lived in Mission Hills, Kansas when he moved to the Midwest.
Playing career
Minor leagues
Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for more than 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were with the Billings Mustangs for the Rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, the San Jose Bees of the Class A California League in 1972, and the Omaha Royals of the Class AAA American Association in 1973, batting .291, .274, and .284, respectively.
Kansas City Royals (1973–1993)
1973
The Royals promoted Brett to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, when he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125) at age 20.
1974
Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charley Lau, the Royals' batting coach. Spending the All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were exploiting. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.
1975–1979
Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975, hitting .308 and leading the league in hits and triples. He then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. Brett won the title when a fly ball dropped in front of Twins left fielder Steve Brye, bounced on the Royals Stadium AstroTurf and over Brye's head to the wall; Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. McRae, batting just behind Brett in the line up, grounded out and Brett won his first batting title.
From May 8 through May 13, 1976, Brett had three or more hits in six consecutive games, a major league record. A month later, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for a feature article, and made his first of 13 All-Star teams. The Royals won the first of three straight American League West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees—whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six—only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Yankees a 7–6 win. Brett finished second in American League MVP voting to Thurman Munson.
A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter, clubbing 22 home runs, as the Royals headed to another ALCS. He is shown in archive footage batting against the New York Yankees in Game Two of those playoffs in the 2007 television miniseries The Bronx is Burning. In Game 5 of the 1977 ALCS, following an RBI triple, Brett got into an altercation with Graig Nettles which ignited a bench-clearing brawl.
In , Brett batted .294 (the only time between 1976 and in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive AL West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming the second player to hit three home runs in an LCS game (Bob Robertson was the first, having done so in Game two of the 1971 NLCS).
Brett followed with a successful 1979 season, in which he finished third in AL MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42–20–23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.
1980
All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to , when Brett won the American League MVP and batted .390, a modern record for a third baseman. Brett's batting average was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19, and the country closely followed his quest to bat .400 for an entire season, a feat which has not been accomplished since Ted Williams in .
Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's average of .394 (Gwynn played in 110 games and had 419 at-bats in the strike-shortened season, compared to Brett's 449 at bats in 1980) for the highest single season batting average since 1941. Brett also recorded 118 runs batted in, while appearing in just 117 games; it was the first instance of a player averaging one RBI per game (in more than 100 games) since Walt Dropo thirty seasons prior. He led the American League in both slugging and on-base percentage.
Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27-year-old third baseman hit .472 (17–36) to raise his season average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the lineup until after the All-Star Break on July 10.
In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games and hit .494 (42–85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30-game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0–3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-for-3). During those 30 games, Brett hit .467 (57–122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when Brett's batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-for-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with five weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, and August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit .459 (111–242), most of it after a return from a monthlong injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBIs and 14 home runs.
Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had a 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went 10-for-19, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-place votes in the MVP race. Since Al Simmons also batted .390 in 1931 for the Philadelphia Athletics, the only higher averages subsequent to 1931 were by Ted Williams of the Red Sox (.406 in 1941) and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres (.394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season).
More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.
1980 postseason
During the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. During Game 2 of the 1980 ALCS, Willie Randolph was on second base in the top of the eighth with two outs and the Royals up by just one run. Bob Watson hit a ball to the left field corner of Royals Stadium. The ball bounced right to Willie Wilson, but Wilson was not known for having a great arm, and third base coach Mike Ferraro waved Randolph home. Wilson overthrew U L Washington, the cut-off man, but Brett was in position behind him to catch the ball, then throw to Darrell Porter, who tagged out Randolph in a slide. TV cameras captured a furious George Steinbrenner fuming immediately after the play. The Royals won 3–2. Brett claimed after the game that he had deliberately positioned himself to cut off the throw in case Washington missed it, but Tommy John of the Yankees disagreed, thinking that if Brett had been backing up Washington, he would have been between shortstop and home plate, not over behind third base. Either way, he was in the perfect position to throw out Randolph. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off Yankees closer Goose Gossage. Gossage's previous pitch had been timed at 97 mph, leading ABC broadcaster Jim Palmer to say, "I doubt if he threw that ball 97 miles an hour." A moment later Palmer was given the actual reading of 98. "Well, I said it wasn't 97", Palmer replied. Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines after leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain. Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as the Royals won in 10 innings 4–3. After the game, Brett was famously quoted "...my problems are all behind me". In 1981 he missed two weeks of spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.
Pine Tar Incident
On July 24, 1983, with the Royals playing against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, in the top of the ninth inning with two out, Brett hit a go-ahead two-run homer off of Goose Gossage to put the Royals up 5–4. After the home run, Yankees manager Billy Martin cited to the umpires a rule, stating that any foreign substance on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches from the knob. The umpires measured the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat; the pine tar extended about 24 inches. The home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out, ending the game as a Yankees win. Enraged, Brett charged out of the dugout directly toward McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by two umpires and Royals manager Dick Howser.
The Royals protested the game, which was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat should have been excluded from future use, but the home run should not have been nullified. Amid much controversy, the game was resumed on August 18, 1983, from the point of Brett's home run, and ended with a Royals win.
1985
In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped propel the Royals to their second American League Championship. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove, which broke Buddy Bell's six-year run of the award, and finished second in American League MVP voting to Don Mattingly. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as the Royals closed the gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible Game 3. With KC down in the series two games to none, Brett went 4-for-4, homering in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Royals' comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a four-hit performance in Game 7. The Royals again rallied from a 3–1 deficit to become World Series champions for the first time in their history.
1986–1993
In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another top-notch season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 103 RBI. But after batting just .282 with 12 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This feat made Brett the only major league player to win batting titles in three different decades.
Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992, though he was picked off by Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti after stepping off the base to start enjoying the moment. Brett retired after the 1993 season; in his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by now teammate Gaetti. His last game was also notable as being the final game ever played at Arlington Stadium.
Hall of Fame
Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. His voting percentage was higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio.
Brett's No. 5 was retired by the Royals on May 14, 1994. His number was the second number retired in Royals history, preceded by former Royals manager, Dick Howser (No. 10), in 1987. It was followed by second baseman and longtime teammate Frank White's No. 20 in 1995.
He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a two-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He was one of the few players to receive more than 400,000 votes.
Legacy
His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 16th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. In 1999 he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is sixth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, and Craig Biggio).
A photo in the July 1976 edition of National Geographic showing Brett signing baseballs for fans with his team's name emblazoned across his shirt was the inspiration for New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde's 2013 song "Royals," which won the 2014 Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Brett was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.
Brett was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
The Mendoza Line
George Brett is credited with popularizing the phrase the Mendoza Line, which is used to represent a sub-.200 batting average regarded as unacceptable at the Major League level. It derives from shortstop Mario Mendoza, a career .215 hitter who finished below .200 five times in his nine seasons in the big leagues - including at .198 the year the term is claimed to have been coined by a pair of his teammates.
Brett referred to the Mendoza Line in an interview, which was picked up by ESPN baseball anchor Chris Berman and then expanded into the world of SportsCenter.
Post-baseball activities
Following his playing career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, as an interim batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. He also runs a baseball equipment and glove company named Brett Bros. with Bobby and, until his death, Ken Brett. He has also lent his name to a restaurant that failed on the Country Club Plaza.
In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport, and they reside in the Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, Kansas. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after George's father), Dylan (named after Bob Dylan), and Robin (named after fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).
Brett has continued to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Brett started to raise money for the Keith Worthington Chapter during his playing career in the mid-1980s.
He and his dog Charlie appeared in a PETA ad campaign, encouraging people not to leave their canine companions in the car during hot weather. He also threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Mike Napoli at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On May 30, 2013, the Royals announced that Brett and Pedro Grifol would serve as batting coaches for the organization. On July 25, 2013 (the day following the 30th anniversary of the pine tar incident, the Royals announced that Brett would serve as vice president of baseball operations.
In 2015, Brett was the National Baseball Hall of Fame recipient of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award for his support of current and former service members of the United States Military.
Brett appeared as himself in the ABC sitcom Modern Family on March 28, 2018, alongside main cast member Eric Stonestreet, a Kansas City native and Royals fan, whose character on the show is also an avid fan.
Brett appeared as himself in the Brockmire episode "Player to Be Named Later", in which he is dating Jules (Amanda Peet), much to Brockmire's despair; in the episode "Low and Away", Jules informs Brockmire that she and her now-husband Brett are getting a divorce. Series creator Joel Church-Cooper said in a statement, "When I created a show about a fake Kansas City legend, Jim Brockmire, I thought it only appropriate to have him worship the biggest Kansas City legend of them all -- George Brett."
He is also a recurring guest on the podcast Pardon My Take'' which is presented by Barstool Sports.
Team ownership
In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals. Brett is the principal owner of the Tri-City Dust Devils, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He and his brother Bobby also co-own the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Los Angeles Dodgers Single-A partner, and lead ownership groups that control the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, the West Coast League's Bellingham Bells, and the High Desert Mavericks of the California League.
See also
20–20–20 club
3,000 hit club
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball batting champions
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball hit records
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
References
Further reading
External links
, or Baseball-Almanac.com
1953 births
Living people
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
Billings Mustangs players
San Jose Bees players
Omaha Royals players
Kansas City Royals players
Gold Glove Award winners
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
American League All-Stars
American League batting champions
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball third basemen
Baseball players from California
Baseball players from West Virginia
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American League Championship Series MVPs
El Segundo High School alumni
Silver Slugger Award winners
American sportsmen
People from Glen Dale, West Virginia
People from Mission Hills, Kansas
| true |
[
"In baseball, a fair ball is a batted ball that entitles the batter to attempt to reach first base. By contrast, a foul ball is a batted ball that does not entitle the batter to attempt to reach first base. Whether a batted ball is fair or foul is determined by the location of the ball at the appropriate reference point, as follows:\n\n if the ball leaves the playing field without touching anything, the point where the ball leaves the field;\n else, if the ball first lands past first or third base without touching anything, the point where the ball lands;\n else, if the ball rolls or bounces past first or third base without touching anything other than the ground, the point where the ball passes the base;\n else, if the ball touches anything other than the ground (such as an umpire, a player, or any equipment left on the field) before any of the above happens, the point of such touching;\n else (the ball comes to a rest before reaching first or third base), the point where the ball comes to a rest.\n\nIf any part of the ball is on or above fair territory at the appropriate reference point, it is fair; else it is foul. Fair territory or fair ground is defined as the area of the playing field between the two foul lines, and includes the foul lines themselves and the foul poles. However, certain exceptions exist:\n\n A ball that touches first, second, or third base is always fair.\n Under Rule 5.09(a)(7)-(8), if a batted ball touches the batter or his bat while the batter is in the batter's box and not intentionally interfering with the course of the ball, the ball is foul.\n A ball that hits the foul pole without first having touched anything else off the bat is fair.\n Ground rules may provide whether a ball hitting specific objects (e.g. roof, overhead speaker) is fair or foul.\n\nOn a fair ball, the batter attempts to reach first base or any subsequent base, runners attempt to advance and fielders try to record outs. A fair ball is considered a live ball until the ball becomes dead by leaving the field or any other method.\n\nReferences\n\nBaseball rules",
"Transcendent truths are those unaffected by time or space. They define the world, but are not defined by the world. An example of a transcendent truth is \"God is good\", or \"there is no God\". Either way, how one looks at things contained by time and space is a result of the transcendent truth. One is true; both cannot be true at the same time.\n\nWorld views are made up of transcendent truths, things we believe are true before we question whether or not anything else is true.\n\nTheories of truth"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics"
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
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What happened in 2011?
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What happened in 2011 to Oscar Pistorius?
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Oscar Pistorius
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Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
2010s murders in South Africa
2013 crimes in South Africa
21st-century South African criminals
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Amputee sportspeople
Amputee track and field athletes
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Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
Crime in South Africa
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Medalists at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
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Murder in South Africa
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People convicted of murder by South Africa
People stripped of honorary degrees
People with phocomelia
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South African people with disabilities
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Sportspeople convicted of murder
Sportspeople from Pretoria
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles"
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
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What events did he win?
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What events did Oscar Pistorius win in 2011?
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Oscar Pistorius
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Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
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[
"Michael Plooy (born 16 June 1984) is a professional Dutch darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation events.\n\nHe tried to earn a PDC Tour Card in 2017, but didn't earn enough points to qualify. He did qualify for three PDC European Tour events, although he didn't win a game in any of them.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nProfile and stats on Darts Database\n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nDutch darts players",
"The Men's featherweight -57 kg amputee was an event in weightlifting at the 1980 Summer Paralympics, for amputee athletes. Indonesia's R. S. Arlen was the only competitor in the event and only needed to record a valid lift to win the gold. And thus he did, recording a lift of 65 kg to win gold.\n\nResults\n\nSee also\n Weightlifting at the 1980 Summer Paralympics\n\nReferences \n\n1980 Summer Paralympics events\n1980\nPara"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds"
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
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What was the second event he won?
| 3 |
What was the second event Oscar Pistorius won in 2011?
|
Oscar Pistorius
|
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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100 metres in 11.04 seconds
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
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[
"The men's triple jump was a track & field athletics event at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. It was held on July 16, 1900. 13 athletes from six nations competed in the triple jump. The event was won by Myer Prinstein of the United States, the nation's second consecutive victory in the men's triple jump. Prinstein became the first, and through the 2016 Games, only, person to have won both the long jump and the triple jump. James Brendan Connolly took second, making him the first man to medal twice in the triple jump (he had won in 1896). Lewis Sheldon finished third, completing what would later be known as a medal sweep.\n\nBackground\n\nThis was the second appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. James Brendan Connolly of the United States, the defending champion, was the only jumper to return after the 1896 Games. There was no favorite as \"the event was rarely held at that time\" and was not even on the original program.\n\nGreat Britain and Sweden each appeared for the first time in the event. France, Germany, Hungary, and the United States all appeared for the second time.\n\nCompetition format\n\nThere was a single round of jumping.\n\nRecords\n\nThese were the standing world and Olympic records (in metres) prior to the 1900 Summer Olympics.\n\n(*) unofficial\n\nMyer Prinstein set a new Olympic record with 14.47 metres.\n\nSchedule\n\nResults\n\nPrinstein defeated the defending champion Connolly to win the second Olympic triple jump competition. Distances for most of the competitors are unknown, as are placings after sixth.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n International Olympic Committee.\n De Wael, Herman. Herman's Full Olympians: \"Athletics 1900\". Accessed 18 March 2006. Available electronically at .\n \n\nMen's jumping triple\nTriple jump at the Olympics",
"The Women's Tour de Yorkshire is a women's road cycling race in Yorkshire, England. From 2015 to 2017, the event was a one-day race. From 2018 onwards, the event has been a two-day event, with a UCI race classification of 2.1. The event is the female equivalent of the Tour de Yorkshire.\n\nHistory\nThe first Women's Tour de Yorkshire was run in 2015. The course consisted of four laps of a course, and was won by Britain's Louise Mahé.\n\nThe 2016 event was run on the same course as a stage of the men's event, from Otley to Doncaster. The event had a prize fund of £15,000, and was broadcast live on ITV. The race was won by Dutch rider Kirsten Wild in a bunch sprint, after the breakaway was caught with to go. \n\nThe 2017 event was run on the same course as the second stage of the men's race on 29 April. The event was won by Lizzie Deignan, who defied team orders to wait for the sprint finish, and broke away from the peloton from the end of the race. In September 2017, it was announced that the 2018 Women's Tour de Yorkshire would be increased to two days.\n\nThe first stage of the 2018 event was from Beverley to Doncaster, and the second stage was a hilly route from Barnsley to Ilkley. Defending champion Deignan did not compete due to her pregnancy. The event was won by American Megan Guarnier.\n\nThe two stages of the 2019 women's race were run on the same course as the second and third days of the four-day men's race. Defending champion Megan Guarnier did not compete as she is only racing in North America during the 2019 season. The general classification was taken by Marianne Vos, who also won the second stage.\n\nThe 2020 race was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and was later postponed again to 2022. The 2022 race was cancelled in September 2021 due to financial uncertainties.\n\nWinners\n\nReferences\n\nTour de Yorkshire\nCycling in Yorkshire\nWomen's cycle races\nCycle races in England\nRecurring sporting events established in 2015\n2015 establishments in England"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds",
"What was the second event he won?",
"100 metres in 11.04 seconds"
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
|
What was the final event he won?
| 4 |
What was the final event Oscar Pistorius won in 2011?
|
Oscar Pistorius
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Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
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"The 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe.\n\nPreliminary events\n\nMain Event\nThere were 839 entrants to the main event. Each paid $10,000 to enter what was the largest poker tournament ever played in a brick and mortar casino at the time. Many entrants, including the overall winner Chris Moneymaker, won their seat in online poker tournaments. The 2003 Main Event was the first tournament to pay out at least $2,500,000 to the winner. Dan Harrington made the final table and looked to win his second Main Event championship, but fell short in third place.\n\nFinal table\n\n*Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2003 Main Event.\n\nFinal table results\n\nOther Notable Finishes\n\nWorld Series of Poker\nWorld Series of Poker",
"\n\nThe Men's combined road race / time trial cycling events at the 2004 Summer Paralympics were held at Vouliagmeni between 24 & 27 September.\n\nEach class cycled in a time trial and a road race, held on different days. Rankings were determined by adding the finishing positions in the two races, if this produced ties the aggregate times were used as tie-breakers.\n\nB 1-3\n\nThe B1-3 event was won by Vasili Shaptsiaboi and his sighted pilot Aliaksandr Danilik, representing .\n\nRoad race 25 Sept. 2004, 10:00. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 14:05.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nCP 3\n\nThe CP3 event was won by Javier Otxoa, representing .\n\nRoad race 24 Sept. 2004, 11:50. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 11:40.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nCP 4\n\nThe CP4 event was won by Christopher Scott, representing .\n\nRoad race 24 Sept. 2004, 11:50. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 11:50.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nLC 1\n\nThe LC1 event was won by Wolfgang Eibeck, representing .\n\nRoad race 25 Sept. 2004, 13:10. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 11:23.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nLC 2\n\nThe LC2 event was won by Jirí Ježek, representing .\n\nRoad race 25 Sept. 2004, 15:30. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 11:08.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nLC 3\n\nThe LC3 event was won by Antonio Garcia, representing .\n\nRoad race 25 Sept. 2004, 13:10. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 10:53.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nLC 4\n\nThe LC4 event was won by Michael Teuber, representing .\n\nRoad race 25 Sept. 2004, 15:30. Time trial 27 Sept. 2004, 10:45.\n\nFinal ranking\n\nReferences\n\nM\n2004 in road cycling\nVouliagmeni Olympic Centre events"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds",
"What was the second event he won?",
"100 metres in 11.04 seconds",
"What was the final event he won?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
|
What events did he qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in?
| 5 |
What events did Oscar Pistorius qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in?
|
Oscar Pistorius
|
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races.
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
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2013 crimes in South Africa
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Amputee sportspeople
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"Panagiotis Samilidis (born 9 August 1993) is a Greek swimmer. He won two bronze medals at the 2012 European Aquatics Championships.\n\nAt the 2016 Summer Olympics, he competed in the men's 100 metre breaststroke and the men's 200 metre breaststroke events. In the heats for the 100 m breaststroke, he finished 19th with a time of 1:00.35 and did not advance to the semifinals. In the heats for the 200 m breaststroke, he finished 27th with a time of 2:12.68 and did not qualify for the semifinals. He was also part of the men's 4 × 100 m medley relay team which finished 15th in the heats and did not qualify for the final.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nGreek male swimmers\nMale breaststroke swimmers\nSwimmers at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics\nSwimmers at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nSwimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics\nOlympic swimmers of Greece\nEuropean Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming\n\nMediterranean Games gold medalists for Greece\nMediterranean Games silver medalists for Greece\nMediterranean Games bronze medalists for Greece\nSwimmers at the 2013 Mediterranean Games\nMediterranean Games medalists in swimming",
"Ole-Kristian Bryhn (born 1 May 1989) is a Norwegian sport shooter.\n\nCareer\nHe qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London in the 50 m rifle 3 positions, finishing in 7th place.\n\nAt the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he competed in 10 metre air rifle, 50 metre rifle prone, and 50 m rifle 3 positions events. In the 10 m air rifle competition, he finished in 40th place in the qualification round and did not qualify for the finals. In the 50 m rifle prone competition, he finished 43rd in the qualification round and did not qualify for the final. In the 50 m rifle 3 positions competition, he finished 3rd in the qualification round and advanced to the finals where he finished in 8th place. He was the flagbearer for Norway during the Parade of Nations.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nNorwegian male sport shooters\n1989 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Drammen\nShooters at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nOlympic shooters of Norway\nEuropean Games competitors for Norway\nShooters at the 2015 European Games\nShooters at the 2016 Summer Olympics\nISSF rifle shooters"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds",
"What was the second event he won?",
"100 metres in 11.04 seconds",
"What was the final event he won?",
"I don't know.",
"What events did he qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in?",
"Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races."
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
|
Were these the special olympics?
| 6 |
Were the 2012 Summer Olympics that Oscar Pistorius qualified for the special olympics?
|
Oscar Pistorius
|
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
2010s murders in South Africa
2013 crimes in South Africa
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| true |
[
"The Special Olympics World Games also known as Special Olympiad are an international sporting competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities, organized by the IOC-recognised Special Olympics organisation.\n\nPrinciples \nAlthough local Special Olympics events and competitions are held around the world every day, the World Games are flagship events. The goal is to showcase the skills and accomplishments of people with intellectual disabilities on a global stage. The World Games feature more than a week of competitions involving thousands of athletes. Through media coverage of the Games, the stories and achievements of children and adults with intellectual disabilities are made known to millions of people worldwide.\n\nSpecial Olympics World Games take place every two years and alternate between Summer and Winter Games, a schedule similar to the Olympics and Paralympics. Attracting as many as 350,000 volunteers and coaches, plus several thousands of athletes, these World Games can be the world's largest sporting event of the year.\n\nSpecial Olympics athletes can compete in 32 Olympic-style summer or winter sports. The athletes are adults and children with intellectual disabilities who can range from gifted, world-class competitors to average athletes to those with limited physical ability. It's a fundamental rule of Special Olympics competitions that athletes are matched up according to their ability and age. This “divisioning” process is an effort to make every competition fair, competitive and exciting for athletes as well as fans.\n\nHistory \nThe first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held in Chicago, Illinois, US, in 1968, while the first International Special Olympics Winter Games were held in February 1977 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, US. In 1991, the name was officially changed from International Special Olympics Summer/Winter Games to Special Olympics World Summer/Winter Games.\n\nIn 2011, Special Olympics World Summer Games were held on June 25 – July 4 in Athens, Greece, involving 6,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 170 countries.\n\nIn 2013, the Special Olympics World Winter Games were held in PyeongChang, South Korea from Jan. 29 – Feb. 5. The Host Town program, in which families host Special Olympics athletes from around the world to help them acclimate to the host country and customs, began on Jan. 26, 2013.\n\nIn 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games . These games were the first Special Olympics World Summer Games held in the United States in 16 years since the 1999 Summer Games held in Raleigh, North Carolina.\n\nIn 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Graz and Schladming in Styria, Austria. This marked a return: Salzburg and Schladming, Austria hosted the fifth Special Olympics World Winter Games in 1993. These were the first Special Olympics World Games held outside the United States. The 2017 World Winter Games were held on March 14–25, 2017.\n\nKazan, Russia will host the next World Winter Games between, January 22–28, 2022. Originally to be held in Åre and Östersund, Sweden however the Swedish Government withdrew its hosting rights in December 2019 due to financial problems. The event has been postponed to january 2023 due to the delta variant of Covid-19. \n\nThe recent Special Olympics World Summer Games were held March 14–21, 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. These were the first Special Olympics World Games to be held in the Middle East/North Africa region. Competitions were held in 24 sports.\n\nBerlin, Germany will host the next World Summer Games between June 16–25, 2023. It will mark the first time that Germany has ever hosted the Special Olympics World Games.\n\nEditions\n\nSpecial Olympics World Summer Games\n\nSpecial Olympics World Winter Games \n\n1 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, was originally selected to host the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games. Due to financial problems and the constant delay in reconstruction of the venues that originally hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, Sarajevo gave up hosting the Special Olympics and Boise, Idaho, was invited to host instead.\n\n2 It was planned that Åre and Östersund, Sweden, would host the 2021 World Winter Games between February 2 to 13, 2021. However, on December 20, 2019, it was announced that the Swedish Paralympic Committee vetoed the necessary financing for the continuity of the event in the country, invalidating a promise made during the bid process. On June 29, 2020, it was announced that Kazan would host the Winter Games in 2022.\n\nOfficial summer sports \nSee footnote\n\n Athletics (track and field)\n Badminton\n Basketball\n Bocce\n Bowling\n Cycling\n Equestrian\n Football (Soccer)\n Golf\n Gymnastics — artistic and rhythmic\n Handball\n Judo\n Powerlifting\n Roller skating\n Sailing\n Softball\n Swimming\n Table tennis\n Tennis\n Volleyball\n\nOfficial winter sports \nSee footnote\n\n Alpine skiing\n Cross-country skiing\n Figure skating\n Floorball\n Floor hockey\n Short track speed skating\n Snowboarding\n Snowshoeing\n Speedskating\n\nRecognized sports \n Cricket\n Kayaking\n\nDemonstration sports \n Stick Shooting\n\nUnified Cup\nhttps://www.specialolympics.org/our-work/games-and-competition/unified-cup\n\n 2018: https://www.specialolympics.org/our-work/50th/unified-cup?locale=en\n 2022: https://www.specialolympics.org/unified-cup-2022?locale=en\n\nRegional games\n\nZones\n204 Countries in 7 Zones (Updated at 17 Dec 2021):\n\nAsia Pacific Games \nIn 2013, Australia hosted the first ever Special Olympics Asia Pacific Games.\n 2013 Newcastle\n 2025 Utsunomiya\n 2029 Tianjin\n\nSpecial Olympics European Games \n\nJuly 1990 - The Third European Special Olympics Summer Games is held in Strathclyde, Scotland. https://www.sotx.org/sotx-history-timeline\n\nEuropean Special Olympics Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium 2014. https://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/society/2308813.html\n\n 2024 Montreux, Nyon and Lausanne\n\nUSA Games\nhttps://www.2022specialolympicsusagames.org/\n\nMENA Games\nhttps://www.abudhabi2019.org/about/special-olympics-mena\n\nhttps://dotorg.brightspotcdn.com/e2/a0/d8f5fd8c42fa9e5c0ea87efae722/egypt-factsheet-2018.pdf\n\nREGIONAL EVENTS:\n\n 1st MENA Regional Games in Cairo, Egypt, 1999\n\n 2nd MENA Regional Games in Rabat, Morocco, 2000\n\n 3rd MENA Regional Games in Beirut, Lebanon, 2002\n\n 4th MENA Regional Games in Tunis, Tunisia, 2004\n\n 5th MENA Regional Games in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2006\n\n 6th MENA Regional Games in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2008\n\n 7th MENA Regional Games in Damascus, Syria, 2010\n\n 1999 : The first MENA Games were held in 1999 in Egypt.\n 2000 : 2nd MENA Regional Games in Rabat, Morocco, 2000.\n 2002 : 3rd MENA Regional Games in Beirut, Lebanon, 2002.\n 2004 : 4th MENA Regional Games in Tunis, Tunisia, 2004\n 2006 : 5th MENA Regional Games in Dubai, UAE, 2006.\n 2008 : 6th MENA Regional Games in Abu-Dhabi, UAE, 2008.\n 2010 : 7th MENA Regional Games in Damascus, Syria, 2010\n 2014 : 8th Special Olympics MENA Regional Games in cairo, egypt. https://sana.sy/en/?p=21306\n 2018 : https://www.specialolympics.org/stories/news/2018-special-olympics-middle-east-north-africa-9th-regional-games\n 2022:\n\nPan African Games\nFirst ever Pan African Games in 2020 in Cairo, Egypt.\n 2020 Cairo\n 2024 TBA\n\nArab Games\nno events.\n\nSee also \n Ancient Olympic Games\n Deaflympics\n Flame of Hope (Special Olympics)\n Camp Shriver\n Special Olympics USA National Games\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Special Olympics\n\n \nParasports competitions\nMulti-sport events\nRecurring sporting events established in 1968",
"Special Olympics Ireland is a sporting organisation for children and adults with intellectual disabilities that operates in the Island of Ireland. It is part of the global Special Olympics movement.\n\nHistory\nThe organization was founded in 1978 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver to provide children and adults with a year-round sports program. The organisation was made up of 27,000 athletes. At the time, it was one of the first European programmes of the international Special Olympics movement.\n\nPurpose \nSpecial Olympics Ireland creates opportunities for children and adults with learning (intellectual) disabilities to take part in various sports training and competition year-round. To be eligible to take part in the Special Olympics programmes, participants have to have an intellectual/learning disability.\n\nOrganisation \nIn 2021, there were more than 8,000 Special Olympics athletes, aged 4 to 84, participating in 15 sports in 290 clubs throughout the island of Ireland. These athletes benefit from taking regular sport training and competition programmes. It is broken up into five regions: Special Olympics Connaught, Special Olympics Leinster, Special Olympics Munster, Special Olympics Ulster and Special Olympics Eastern Region, which is for the Dublin Clubs.\n\nSpecial Olympics Ireland Games\nThe Special Olympics Ireland Games are held every four years.\n\nEditions\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nSpecial Olympics\nSports organisations of Ireland\nParasports organizations\nDisability organisations based in the Republic of Ireland\nSports organizations established in 1978"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds",
"What was the second event he won?",
"100 metres in 11.04 seconds",
"What was the final event he won?",
"I don't know.",
"What events did he qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in?",
"Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races.",
"Were these the special olympics?",
"South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee"
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
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What was notable about his performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics?
| 7 |
What was notable about Oscar Pistorius' performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics?
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Oscar Pistorius
|
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
2010s murders in South Africa
2013 crimes in South Africa
21st-century South African criminals
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Amputee sportspeople
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Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
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Murder in South Africa
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| false |
[
"Roop Singh Bais (8 September 1908 – 16 December 1977) was an Indian hockey player. He was part of the Indian field hockey team which won gold medals for India at 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games. He was the younger brother of Dhyan Chand.\n\nCareer\nHis 3 goals against Japan and 10 goals against USA, in the Los Angeles Summer Olympics 1932, are remembered as his best in his sports career. He was in the armed forces.\n\nPersonal life\nRoop Singh was the younger brother of Dhyan Chand Playing for India, he won the gold medal in the 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games.\n\nRoop Singh's family was based in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. His son, Bhagat Singh played hockey for India and his grandson Uday Singh also play Hockey. His father Subedar Sameshwar Dutt Singh was in army.\n\nRecognition\nThe Captain Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior, named after Singh, was originally a hockey stadium before it was converted into a cricket venue in 1988. A street in Munich was named after him following his impressive performance at the 1936 Olympics. He was also among the only three Indian players, the others being Dhyan Chand and Leslie Claudius to have the tube stations in London renamed in the run-up to the 2012 Summer Olympics.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Profile at Sports Reference\n Profile at databaseOlympics.com\n\n1908 births\n1977 deaths\nOlympic field hockey players of India\nField hockey players at the 1932 Summer Olympics\nField hockey players at the 1936 Summer Olympics\nIndian male field hockey players\nOlympic gold medalists for India\nPeople from Madhya Pradesh\nField hockey players from Madhya Pradesh\nOlympic medalists in field hockey\nPeople from Jabalpur\nMedalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics\nMedalists at the 1932 Summer Olympics",
"David (also \"Davyd\") Abramovich Tyshler (; 13 June 1927 – 7 June 2014) was a Russian sabreur, part of the first generation of internationally successful Soviet fencers (Olympic bronze medalist in 1956, and five-time World Championship finalist between 1955 and 1959). He is also known as a successful and innovative fencing coach. His notable pupils included Sergey Sharikov, Mark Midler, Mark Rakita, Viktor Sidjak, Viktor Krovopuskov, and Viktor Bazhenov. He choreographed stage and screen combat, and made cameo appearances in Russian cinema.\n\nEarly and personal life\nTyshler was Jewish, and was born in Kherson in what is now Ukraine. During World War II his family fled to Moscow, where Tyshler took up fencing. \n\nHis son Gennady became a notable fencing coach. His daughter-in-law, epee fencer Natalia Tychler, competed for South Africa at the 2004 Olympics.\n\nCompetitive record\nTyshler was a member of the Soviet national sabre team for 11 years. He was the Soviet individual sabre champion in 1960, and team sabre champion in 1953, 1954, 1956, 1958, and 1959.\n\nOlympics\n\nTyshler won a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne at the age of 29 in the team sabre competition.\n\nTyshler reached the final round in individual sabre at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome at the age of 34, finishing in seventh place. He also competed in the team sabre event.\n\nWorld championship medals\n\nTyshler won medals in the:\n\n 1955 World Fencing Championships (bronze medal in team sabre) \n 1956 World Fencing Championships\n 1957 World Fencing Championships (silver medal in team sabre) \n 1958 World Fencing Championships (silver medals in individual and team sabre), and \n 1959 World Fencing Championships (bronze medal in team sabre).\n\nCoaching career\n\nFrom 1961-73 Tyshler was the head coach of the Soviet national sabre team, and among his notable pupils were Sergey Sharikov, Viktor Krovopuskov, Mark Midler, Mark Rakita, Viktor Sidyak, and Viktor Bazhenov. He coached five Olympic champions. He became a Merited Master of Sports of the USSR, and Honoured Trainer of the USSR.\n\nTyshler opened fencing schools in Russia and South Africa.\n\nRené Roch, President of the FIE, honoured Tysher with a gold medal of the FIE for his untiring dedication to the sport of fencing.\n\nAcademic career\n\nIn 1949 Tyshler graduated from Central State Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Culture (CGOLIFK). In 1983 he was awarded a PhD degree of Doctor of Science in Paedogogical Sciences. In 1984 Tyshler became a professor in the Fencing and Modern Pentathlon Department at what is currently Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism (RGUFKSiT; CGOLIFK, but after several name changes). He became Head of the Cathedra of Fencing. In 1995 he won the All-Russian \"Sports Elite 1995\" contest as \"Russia's best scholar in the sphere of Olympic training\".\n\nTyshler wrote over 170 academic publications, including over 40 books, many of which have been translated into English, Spanish, German, French, Polish, Romanian, and Chinese. He also wrote a book on fencing on stage and screen, and an autobiography. He staged the fencing scenes in a number of Moscow theaters, as well as in Soviet movies including How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor (1978), 31 June (1978), and The Very Same Munchhausen (1979). \n\nTyshler was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Charity Fund for Future of Fencing.\n\nHall of Fame\nTyshler was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.\n\nSee also\nList of select Jewish fencers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Biography\nTyshler Fencing School - homepage\nJews in Sports bio\n Fencing: What a Sportsman Should Know about Refereeing, Tyshler, 1996, , 9780620214087\n\n1927 births\n2014 deaths\nFencers at the 1956 Summer Olympics\nFencers at the 1960 Summer Olympics\nJewish male sabre fencers\nUkrainian male sabre fencers\nOlympic bronze medalists for the Soviet Union\nOlympic fencers of the Soviet Union\nOlympic medalists in fencing\nPeople from Kherson\nSoviet Jews\nSoviet male sabre fencers\nJewish Ukrainian sportspeople\nMedalists at the 1956 Summer Olympics\nRussian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism alumni"
] |
[
"Oscar Pistorius",
"2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympics",
"What happened in 2011?",
"In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles",
"What events did he win?",
"He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds",
"What was the second event he won?",
"100 metres in 11.04 seconds",
"What was the final event he won?",
"I don't know.",
"What events did he qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in?",
"Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races.",
"Were these the special olympics?",
"South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee",
"What was notable about his performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_29afe8a351d4496c84fc8a4fa5e0b74d_1
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Is there anything else important in the article?
| 8 |
Is there anything else important about Oscar Pistorius other than his performance in the 2012 Summer Olympics?
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Oscar Pistorius
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Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is actually classified in T43 (double below knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners both possessing a single amputation, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure. In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007, he became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds respectively. Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, but was ultimately not selected by the South African Olympic Committee (see below). Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Ossur. On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last. In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the Cologne Sports University under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Bruggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible with the IAAF of all technical issues. After two days of tests, Bruggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Bruggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympics. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager Peet van Zyl said his appeal would be based on advice from United States experts who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration". Pistorius subsequently appealed against the adverse decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Dr Bruggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics." In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by American Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter. Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark. Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world. On 8 August 2011 it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semifinal. However, in the semifinal, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated. In the heats of the 4 x 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals based on having the slowest split time of 46.20. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added "Well done to the SA 4x400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to be part of it." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals. In the relay I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come." On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 x 400 metres relay races. CANNOTANSWER
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I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semifinals.
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Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (; ; born 22 November 1986) is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and arguments that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius prevailed in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Pistorius was the first double-leg amputee participant.
On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder. At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Pistorius was temporarily released on house arrest in 2015 while the case was presented on appeal to a panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, which overturned the culpable homicide verdict and convicted him of murder. In July 2015, Judge Thokozile Masipa extended Pistorius's sentence to six years. On appeal by the state for a longer prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Appeal increased the prison term to a total of 15 years. Pistorius will be eligible for parole in 2023.
Early life
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He grew up in a Christian home and has an elder brother, Carl, and a younger sister, Aimée. Pistorius credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when Pistorius was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life. Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather, who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.
Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school's third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks's garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius "had no legs" but nonetheless was able to do many exercises including "boxing, skipping and doing press-ups".
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and "never looked back". His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
Pistorius began studying for a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) in business management with sports science at the University of Pretoria in 2006. In a June 2008 interview for his University's website, he joked: "I won't graduate soon. With all the training I have had to cut down on my subjects. Hopefully I'll finish by the time I'm 30!" Asked by a journalist for his "sporting motto", he said: "You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."
Sporting career
Pistorius competed in T44 (single below-knee amputees) events though he is classified in T43 (double below-knee amputee). Sometimes referred to as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs", Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating a pair of American runners, Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure, both with single amputations.
In 2005, Pistorius finished sixth in the non-disabled South African Championships over 400 metres with a world-record time of 47.34 seconds, and at the Paralympic World Cup in the same year, he won gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres, beating his previous 200-metre world record. At the 2006 IPC Athletics World Championships, Pistorius won gold in the 100-, 200- and 400-metre events, breaking the world record over 200 metres. On 17 March 2007, he set a disability sports world record for the 400 metres (46.56 seconds) at the South African Senior Athletics Championships in Durban; and at the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled held in Johannesburg in April 2007. He became the world record holder of the 100- and 200-metre events with times of 10.91 and 21.58 seconds, respectively.
Pistorius was invited by the IAAF to take part in what would have been his first international non-disabled event, the 400-metre race at the IAAF Grand Prix in Helsinki, Finland, in July 2005. He was unable to attend, however, because of school commitments. On 13 July 2007, Pistorius ran in the 400-metre race at Rome's Golden Gala and finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds. This was a warm-up for his appearance at the 400 metres at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix at the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield on 15 July 2007. As American Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner stumbled at the start of the race and stopped running, Pistorius took seventh place in a field of eight in wet conditions with a time of 47.65 seconds. However, he was later disqualified for running outside his lane. The race was won by American Angelo Taylor with a time of 45.25 seconds. Pistorius had ambitions of competing in other non-disabled events. In particular, he had set his sights on competing at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but was not selected by the South African Olympic Committee.
Dispute over prostheses
Pistorius has been the subject of criticism because of claims that his artificial limbs give him an advantage over runners with natural ankles and feet. He runs with J-shaped carbon-fibre prostheses called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.
On 26 March 2007, the IAAF amended its competition rules to include a ban on the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". The IAAF stated that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius. To decide whether he was running with an unfair advantage, the IAAF monitored his track performances using high-definition cameras to film his race against Italian club runners in Rome on 13 July, and his 400 metres in Sheffield on 15 July 2007, at which he placed last.
In November 2007, Pistorius was invited to take part in a series of scientific tests at the German Sports University Cologne under the guidance of Professor of Biomechanics Dr Peter Brüggemann in conjunction with Elio Locatelli, who was responsible for all technical issues in the IAAF. After two days of tests, Brüggemann reported on his findings on behalf of the IAAF. The report claimed that Pistorius's limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs running at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. In December, Brüggemann told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius "has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs who were tested by us. It was more than just a few percentage points. I did not expect it to be so clear." Based on these findings, on 14 January 2008, the IAAF ruled Pistorius's prostheses ineligible for use in competitions conducted under the IAAF rules, including the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Pistorius called the decision "premature and highly subjective" and pledged to continue fighting for his dream. His manager, Peet van Zylm said his appeal would be based on advice from experts in the United States who had said that the report "did not take enough variables into consideration".
Pistorius subsequently appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appeared before the tribunal at the end of April 2008. After a two-day hearing, on 16 May 2008, CAS upheld Pistorius's appeal and the IAAF council decision was revoked with immediate effect. The CAS panel unanimously determined that Brüggemann tested Pistorius's biomechanics only at full-speed when he was running in a straight line (unlike a real 400-metre race); that the report did not consider the disadvantages that Pistorius suffers at the start and acceleration phases of the race; and that overall there was no evidence that he had any net advantage over non-disabled athletes. In response to the announcement, Pistorius said: "My focus throughout this appeal has been to ensure that disabled athletes be given the chance to compete and compete fairly with non-disabled athletes. I look forward to continuing my quest to qualify for the Olympics."
Attempts to qualify for 2008 Summer Olympic Games
To have a chance of representing South Africa at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in the individual 400-metre race, Pistorius had to attain the Olympic "A" standard time of 45.55 seconds; the "B" qualifying time of 45.95 seconds, which applies if no other athlete from his country achieved the faster time, did not apply. Each national athletics federation is permitted to enter three athletes in an event if the "A" standard is met, and only one athlete if the "B" standard is met. However, he was eligible for selection as a member of the relay squad without qualifying. His best chance was to try for a time of close to 46 seconds to make the 4 × 400-metre relay team. However, he said: "If I make the team I don't want to be the reserve for the relay, I want to be in the top four. I want to bring something to the race and make the relay stronger." To give him a chance of making the South African Olympic team, selectors delayed naming the team until 17 July.
On 2 July 2008, Pistorius competed in the 400 metres in the B race of the Notturna International in Milan but was "disappointed" when at 47.78 seconds his fourth place finish was over the minimum Olympic qualifying time. His performance on 11 July 2008 at the Rome Golden Gala was an improvement of more than a second, though his sixth-place time of 46.62 seconds in the B race was still over the Olympic qualification time. Nonetheless, he was pleased with his performance, commenting that he felt he could improve on it.
On 15 July 2008, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss commented that the world athletics body preferred that the South African Olympic Committee not select Pistorius for its 4 × 400 metres relay team "for reasons of safety", saying that Pistorius could cause "serious damage" and risk the physical safety of himself and other athletes if he ran in the main pack of the relay. Pistorius branded this as the IAAF's "last desperate attempt" to get him not to qualify, and threatened legal action if the IAAF did not confirm that it had no objections to his participation in the relay. The IAAF responded by issuing a statement saying that Pistorius was welcome to seek qualification for the Olympics and future competitions under IAAF rules: "The IAAF fully respects the recent CAS decision regarding the eligibility of Oscar Pistorius to compete in IAAF competitions, and certainly has no wish to influence the South African Olympic Committee, who has full authority to select a men's 4 × 400m relay team for the Beijing Olympics."
Coming third, with a personal best time of 46.25 seconds, at the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 16 July 2008, Pistorius failed to qualify for the 400 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games by 0.70 seconds. Athletics South Africa later announced that he would also not be selected for the 4 × 400 metres relay team as four other runners had better times. Pistorius would not have been the debut leg amputee to participate in the Olympic Games as George Eyser had competed earlier. Pistorius's compatriot Natalie du Toit, a swimmer whose left leg was amputated above the knee after a traffic accident, was the debut amputee Olympian, at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Asked about the possibility of the IAAF offering him a wild card to take part in the Olympics, Pistorius responded: "I do not believe that I would accept. If I have to take part in the Beijing Games I should do it because I qualified." He expressed a preference for focusing on qualification for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, stating that it was a more realistic target as "sprinters usually reach their peak between 26 and 29. I will be 25 in London and I'll also have two, three years' preparation."
2008 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing in the 100, 200 and 400 metres (T44). On 9 September, in the heats of the 100 metres, he set a Paralympic record with his time of 11.16 seconds. Later, following a slow start, he rallied to snatch gold from the United States' Jerome Singleton in the 100 metres in a time of 11.17 seconds, 0.03 seconds ahead of the silver medallist. Four days later, on 13 September, the defending Paralympic champion in the 200-metre sprint won his second gold in the event in a time of 21.67 seconds, setting another Paralympic record. He completed a hat-trick by winning gold in the 400 metres in a world-record time of 47.49 seconds on 16 September, calling it "a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life".
2011 and qualification for 2012 Summer Olympic Games
In January 2011, a slimmer, trimmer Pistorius won three IPC Athletics World titles in New Zealand but was beaten for the first time in seven years in the 100 metres by Jerome Singleton. He subsequently won the T44 400 metres in 47.28 seconds and the 100 metres in 11.04 seconds at the BT Paralympic World Cup in May to reassert himself as the world's leading Paralympic sprinter.
Pistorius competed across a number of non-disabled races in the summer of 2011 and posted three times under 46 seconds, but it was at the 19th Internazionale di Atletica Sports Solidarity Meeting in Lignano, Italy, on 19 July, that he set a personal best of 45.07 seconds in the 400 metres, attaining the World Championships and Olympic Games "A" standard qualification mark.
Pistorius won the 400-metres event with a posted time that ranked him as 15th fastest in the world.
On 8 August 2011, it was announced that he had been included in the South African team for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, and had been selected for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metre relay squad. In the heats of the 400 metres, Pistorius ran in 45.39 seconds and qualified for the semi-final. However, in the semi-final, he ran 46.19 seconds and was eliminated.
In the heats of the 4 × 400 metres relay, Pistorius ran the opening leg as South Africa advanced to the finals with a national record time of 2 minutes 59.21 seconds. However, he was not selected to run in the finals since he had the slowest split time of 46.20 seconds. This caused a controversy, as the first leg is normally Pistorius's slowest since it requires a start from blocks, and he was restricted to the first leg by Athletics South Africa "on safety grounds". He initially tweeted: "Haven't been included in final. Pretty gutted.", but later added: "Well done to the SA 4×400m team. Was really hard watching, knowing I deserved to ." Pistorius still won the silver medal because he ran in the heats, becoming the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. Reflecting on his World Championship debut, Pistorius said: "I really enjoyed the whole experience. I ran my second fastest time ever in the heats and was really pleased to have reached the semi-finals. In the relay, I was unbelievably chuffed to have broken the South African record, and hopefully my name will stay on that for a long time to come."
On 4 July 2012, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) announced that Pistorius had been included in the Olympic team for the 400-metre and the 4 × 400 metres relay races.
2012 Summer Olympic Games
At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on 4 August 2012, Pistorius became the debut amputee runner to compete at an Olympic Games. In the 400-metre race, he took second place in the first heat of five runners, finishing with a time of 45.44 seconds (his best time that season) to advance to the semi-finals on 5 August. He ran in the second semi-final, where he finished eighth and last with a time of 46.54 seconds.
In the first semi-final of the 4 × 400 metres relay race on 9 August, the second leg runner of the South African team, Ofentse Mogawane, fell and was injured before reaching the third leg runner, Pistorius. South Africa was passed into the final on appeal to the IAAF, due to interference by Vincent Kiilu, the Kenyan athlete who downed Mogawane. The South African relay team eventually finished eighth out of the field of nine in the final on 10 August. However, it established a season's best time for the team of 3 minutes 3.46 seconds, with Pistorius running the final leg in 45.9 seconds. Pistorius was chosen to carry the South African flag for the closing ceremony.
2012 Summer Paralympics
Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius's apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prostheses after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of
11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
Achievements
Disability sports events
Non-disabled sports events
Other awards and accolades
In 2006, Pistorius was conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his conviction for murder.
In May 2008, Pistorius made the "Time 100" – Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people – appearing third in the "Heroes & Pioneers" section. Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was "on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius's success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion." In 2012, he made the list again.
In February 2012, Pistorius was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability for 2012. On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.
On 9 September 2012, Pistorius was shortlisted by the IPC for the Whang Youn Dai Achievement Award as a competitor "who is fair, honest and is uncompromising in his or her values and prioritises the promotion of the Paralympic Movement above personal recognition". According to director Craig Spence, he was nominated by an unnamed external organisation from South Korea. The award went to two other athletes.
After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the University revoked the honorary degree.
Sponsorship and charitable activities
In 2012 Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with Össur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns.
Following the murder charge, sponsors were initially hesitant to abandon him, but after a week sponsors began to withdraw their support.
In 2008, Pistorius collaborated in the release of a music CD called Olympic Dream. Produced in Italy, it consists of disco remixes of music pieces that Pistorius finds inspirational, and two tracks written for him, "Olympic Dream" and "Run Boy Run", for which he provided voiceovers. Part of the CD's proceeds of sale went to charity. Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.
Personal life
Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother's birth and death ("LVIII V VIII – II III VI" – 8 May 1958 – 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse which begins, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly." He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses.
Pistorius's autobiography, Dream Runner, was published in Italian in 2007 with Gianni Merlo, a journalist with La Gazzetta dello Sport. An English version titled Blade Runner was released in 2008. In 2010, Pistorius appeared on L'isola dei famosi, an Italian version of Celebrity Survivor. On 7 January 2012, he appeared as a special guest on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars called Ballando con le Stelle at Auditorium Rai in Rome, where he danced a tango with Annalisa Longo to ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All". On 9 October 2012, Pistorius appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He was also scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight and the Larry King Now show at later dates.
In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw. There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year.
Pistorius was scheduled as an amateur golfer in the 2012 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship held at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns in Scotland. Pistorius has a 21 handicap in South Africa, but played off an 18 handicap for the Championship. In 2010, he played in the Laureus World Sports Awards Golf Challenge at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and the Help-net Fund Celebrity Charity Golf Day.
Pistorius is related to the South African psychological profiler, Micki Pistorius, who is his aunt.
Murder of Reeva Steenkamp
In the early morning of Thursday, 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Pretoria. Pistorius acknowledged that he shot Steenkamp four times, causing her death, but claimed that he mistook her for a possible intruder.
Pistorius's trial for murder began on 3 March 2014, in the Pretoria High Court. On 20 May 2014, the trial proceedings were adjourned until 30 June to enable Pistorius to undergo psychiatric evaluation to establish whether he could be held criminally responsible for shooting Steenkamp. Judge Thokozile Masipa agreed to a request for the evaluation by prosecutor Gerrie Nel after forensic psychiatrist Merryll Vorster testified for the defence that she had diagnosed Pistorius with generalised anxiety disorder. On 30 June 2014, the trial resumed after the evaluation reports said Pistorius could be held criminally responsible. The state prosecutor was quoted as saying, "Mr. Pistorius did not suffer from a mental illness or defect that would have rendered him not criminally responsible for the offence charged". The defense closed its case on 8 July and closing arguments were heard on 7 and 8 August.
On 12 September, Pistorius was found guilty of culpable homicide and one firearm-related charge of reckless endangerment related to discharging a firearm in a restaurant. He was found not guilty of two other firearm-related charges relating to possession of illegal ammunition and firing a firearm through the sunroof of a car. On 21 October 2014, he received a prison sentence of a maximum of five years for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended prison sentence for the separate reckless endangerment conviction.
Prison term
In June 2015, Pistorius was recommended for early release, as early as August. South African Commissioner of Correctional Services Zach Modise told the BBC of the decision by the case management committee at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, where Pistorius was being held: "Under South African law he is eligible for release under 'correctional supervision' having served a sixth of his sentence."
After Pistorius served approximately one-sixth of his prison term, his release date to house arrest was announced for 21 August 2015. This release was based on good behaviour and the fact that he was not considered a danger to the community. Pistorius was expected to remain under house arrest and correctional supervision, and was expected to perform community service as part of his continuing sentence. Regardless of his release from prison, Pistorius could not return to official athletic competition until the whole five years of his sentence was complete. On 19 August 2015, his release was unexpectedly blocked by South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha. According to Masutha, the parole board's decision for early release was "premature." Legal experts noted that the move could have been due to political pressure and had implications for other cases of pending early release. He was released from prison on 19 October 2015.
Case appeal
On 4 November 2014, prosecutors applied to the sentencing judge for permission to appeal the culpable homicide verdict, stating that the five-year prison term was "shockingly light, inappropriate and would not have been imposed by any reasonable court". Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled on 10 December 2014 that the prosecution could challenge her ruling of acquitting Pistorius of premeditated murder and convicting him of the lesser charge of culpable homicide; however she ruled that the state could not appeal the length of the sentence. The case was then set for appeal in front of a five-person panel at the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The date for prosecutors to submit court papers outlining their arguments was set for 17 August 2015, and the date for the defence team's response was set for 17 September 2015. The date for the appeal hearing was set for November 2015. The prosecutors' argument rested on Judge Masipa's application of the legal principle of dolus eventualis (whether an accused did actually foresee the outcome of his actions, rather than whether he or she should have), and that the judge made an error in concluding Pistorius had not foreseen that by firing four shots through the closed door of the toilet cubicle, he would kill or injure whoever was behind the door.
The appeal was heard on 3 November 2015, in the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein. The matter was heard before five Supreme Court judges. By a unanimous decision, the court overturned Pistorius's culpable homicide conviction and found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. Judge Eric Leach read the summary of judgment. The panel of five judges found for the prosecutor's argument that Pistorius must have known that someone would die if he fired through the closed door into a small toilet cubicle. In the words of Judge Leach, "Although he may have been anxious, it is inconceivable that a rational person could have believed he was entitled to fire at this person with a heavy-calibre firearm, without taking even that most elementary precaution of firing a warning shot, which the accused said he elected not to fire as he thought the ricochet might harm him."
According to the judgment, the person who Pistorius thought was in the cubicle had nothing to do with the results of his actions. The culpable homicide verdict was replaced with a murder conviction, and the case was referred back to the trial court for a sentencing hearing when it reconvened on 18 April 2016.
On 8 December 2015, it was announced Pistorius would continue to remain free on bail but under house arrest pending his appeal to the Constitutional Court. On 3 March 2016, it was announced Pistorius had been denied his right to appeal, and would next be due in court on 13 June 2016 to begin a five-day sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, concluding on 17 June 2016.
On 15 June 2016, the sentencing was adjourned by Judge Thokozile Masipa until 6 July 2016.
Second prison term
On 6 July 2016, Judge Thokozile Masipa sentenced Pistorius to six years' imprisonment for murder, rather than his original sentencing of five years imprisonment for culpable homicide; once again he was incarcerated in the hospital wing at the Kgosi Mampuru II jail. It was anticipated that Pistorius would be eligible for release on parole, after serving three years of his sentence, in 2019.
On 7 August 2016, Pistorius was treated at Kalafong Hospital, in Pretoria, after sustaining minor injuries to his wrists after slipping in his cell. Media reports of Pistorius injuring himself intentionally were said to be "completely untrue" by his brother Carl who said he was "doing well given the circumstances".
On 21 July 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed that they would appeal against Judge Thokozile Masipa's "shockingly lenient" 6-year jail sentence. The appeal hearing took place on 26 August 2016 and the bid to appeal the sentence was rejected by Masipa who said that the NPA had "no reasonable prospect of success" of securing a longer prison sentence for Pistorius. The NPA were then given 21 days to take their appeal bid to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). On 15 September 2016 it was confirmed that the NPA would make a fresh bid to extend Pistorius's jail sentence and would file papers to the SCA on 16 September. After this announcement, sources associated with Pistorius's family and the defence team accused Gerrie Nel and the NPA of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against Pistorius.
Pistorius was briefly released from prison for four hours on 14 October 2016 through a compassionate leave license to attend the funeral service of his grandmother, who died on 8 October 2016.
In November 2016, Pistorius was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru jail to Atteridgeville Correctional Centre which is smaller and better adapted for disabled prisoners, as it has better facilities for inmates including bath tubs in cells. It also holds prisoners who are serving six-year sentences or less.
Sentence appeals
On 19 September 2017, it was confirmed that the SCA would hear the state's arguments appealing to extend Pistorius's sentence on 3 November 2017, with their final ruling being confirmed on 24 November 2017.
On 24 November 2017, the SCA increased Pistorius's jail sentence to 13 years and five months. Prosecutors had argued that the six-year term was too short. The SCA ruled his sentence be increased to 15 years, less time already served.
On 19 December 2017, it was confirmed that Pistorius had filed papers with the Constitutional Court to appeal the newly increased sentence and have his previous six-year sentence reinstated. On 9 April 2018, it was confirmed that on 28 March 2018 the appeal was dismissed by the courts; Pistorius will not be eligible for parole until at least 2023.
Steenkamp Foundation
Reeva Steenkamp's mother forgave Pistorius during his trial. She founded the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation to help prevent similar cases in the future.
In popular culture
An unofficial biopic based on public records titled Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner Killer, was aired on 18 November 2017 on South African TV. The movie was made without the consent of either the Pistorius or Steenkamp families. The Pistorius family threatened legal action against Lifetime Movies, the American television network that produced the movie.
On 1 August 2018, Amazon Prime released a four-part documentary series on its video service titled Pistorius; the episodes are titled "The Dream", "Valentine's Day", "A Good Day to Tell You That I Love You" and "The Man Who Wasn't There".
Notes
References
Further reading
Van Hilvoorde, Ivo; Landeweerd, Laurens (2008), "Disability or Extraordinary Talent – Francesco Lentini (Three Legs) versus Oscar Pistorius (No Legs)", Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (2): 97–111,
External links
1986 births
Living people
2010s murders in South Africa
2013 crimes in South Africa
21st-century South African criminals
Afrikaner people
Amputee sportspeople
Amputee track and field athletes
Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Paralympics
Crime in South Africa
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Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Male murderers
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Murder in South Africa
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People convicted of murder by South Africa
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South African prisoners and detainees
Sportspeople convicted of murder
Sportspeople from Pretoria
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World record holders in Paralympic athletics
| false |
[
"In ecology, a feeding frenzy occurs when predators are overwhelmed by the amount of prey available. The term is also used as an idiom in the English language.\n\nExamples in nature\nFor example, a large school of fish can cause nearby sharks, such as the lemon shark, to enter into a feeding frenzy. This can cause the sharks to go wild, biting anything that moves, including each other or anything else within biting range. Another functional explanation for feeding frenzy is competition amongst predators. This term is most often used when referring to sharks or piranhas.\n\nEnglish language uses\nIt has also been used as a term within journalism.\n\nThe term is occasionally used to describe a plethora of something. For instance, a 2016 Bloomburg News article is entitled: \"March Madness Is a Fantasy Sports Feeding Frenzy.\"\nIn economics the term can be used to describe the economics of the music industry, as large music companies acquired smaller music companies.\n\nSee also\n Bait ball\n Adage\n Comprehension of Idioms\n Idiom in English language\n Media feeding frenzy\n Phrasal verb\n Metaphor\n\nReferences\n\nEating behaviors\nIdioms\nAdages\n\nfr:Attaque de requin#La frénésie alimentaire",
"In Caspar Hare's theory of perspectival realism, there is a defining intrinsic property that the things that are in perceptual awareness have. Consider seeing object A but not object B. Of course, we can say that the visual experience of A is present to you, and no visual experience of B is present to you. But, it can be argued, this misses the fact that the visual experience of A is simply present, not relative to anything. This is what Hare's perspectival realism attempts to capture, resulting in a weak version of metaphysical solipsism.\n\nAs Hare points out, the same type of argument is often used in the philosophy of time to support theories such as presentism. Of course, we can say that A is happening on [insert today's date]. But, it can be argued, this misses the fact that A is simply happening (right now), not relative to anything.\n\nHare's theory of perspectival realism is closely related to his theory of egocentric presentism.\nSeveral other philosophers have written reviews of Hare's work on this topic.\n\nSee also\n Metaphysical subjectivism\n Centered worlds\n Benj Hellie's vertiginous question\n J.J. Valberg's personal horizon\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Hare, Caspar. Self-Bias, Time-Bias, and the Metaphysics of Self and Time. Preprint of article in The Journal of Philosophy (2007).\n Hare, Caspar. On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects. Early draft of book published by Princeton University Press (2009).\n Hare, Caspar. Realism About Tense and Perspective. Preprint of article in Philosophy Compass (2010).\n\nEpistemological theories\nMetaphysics of mind\nPhilosophical realism\nPhilosophy of time\nTheory of mind"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)"
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
How did Color Me Badd get together?
| 1 |
How did Color Me Badd get together?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Young, Gifted, & Badd: The Remixes is the first remix album by American group Color Me Badd. It also featured another hit single \"Forever Love\" (U.S. number 15), featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Color Me Badd [Mark Murray Remix]\" (Straite, Elliot) - 5:03\n \"I Wanna Sex You Up [Howie Tee Remix]\" (Wright, Betty/Straite, Elliot/Clarke, Willie) - 4:23\n \"Forever Love\" (Color Me Badd/Lewis, Terry/Harris, James Producer) - 5:12\n \"Slow Motion [Howie Tee Remix]\" (Color Me Badd/Thompson, Howard) - 4:35\n \"Thinkin' Back [D.C. Go Mix]\" (Color Me Badd/Taylor, Troy/Lee, Hamza) - 5:28\n \"Your da One I Onena Love [T-Bone & Mr. Woody Remix]\" (Color Me Badd/Thompson, Howard) - 4:09\n \"I Adore Mi Amor [Prelude]\" - :57\n \"I Adore Mi Amor [Hamza's Mix]\" (Color Me Badd/Lee, Hamza) - 5:17\n \"Roll the Dice [Nick Mundy Remix]\" (Mundy, Nick/Gomez, Gina) - 5:08\n \"All 4 Love [Howie Tee Remix]\" (Color Me Badd/Cropper, Steve/Hayes, Isaac/Thompson, Howard) - 4:19\n \"C.M.B. [Postlude]\" (Color Me Badd/Murray, Mark) - :55\n\nSingles\n Forever Love - September 24, 1992\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Amazon.com\n\nColor Me Badd albums\n1992 remix albums\nGiant Records (Warner) remix albums\nReprise Records remix albums\nAlbums produced by Howie Tee",
"Time and Chance is platinum-selling R&B quartet Color Me Badd's second full-length studio album. Released in 1993, it was an extremely versatile album. Combining elements of jazz, Latin, adult contemporary and hip hop while still staying true to their R&B roots. The album peaked at No. 56 on the Billboard albums chart. It was released after high-profile appearances on the Beverly Hills 90210 and Mo' Money soundtracks, the latter producing the top 20 single \"Forever Love\". While eventually reaching gold status, the album was initially considered a disappointment due to the enormous success of their first album. The album received high praise from critics and contains two major hits in both the lead single \"Time and Chance\" and the Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis-produced \"Choose\". The former's music video was directed by rapper Ice Cube.\n\nBackground\n\nThe group wanted to make an album tied to more retro genres, that would show their vocal prowess and growth as producers and songwriters, co-writing 11 of the 14 songs, and co-producing 6 songs. The album's production started in late 1992, and before meeting with Giant executives, they started working on the songs, where the first songs that were completed were \"Trust Me\" and \"God Is Love\", since the group wanted to go for a more adult sound.\n\nAfter choosing new producers like David Foster, and the duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to work on the album, the execs at Giant Records brought in DJ Pooh to have someone \"close to the streets\" work on the project. They also had some of their prior collaborators like Howie Tee, and Hamza Lee work on the album. Ice Cube was enlisted to direct the music video for the first single, since their A&R team \"didn't want the group to come across as too slick. We wanted to send a signal that Color Me Badd is very much a part of the street\".\n\nThe head of marketing at Giant Records named Steve Backer stated that the label \"didn't want to overhype the record. Our approach was to capture a new audience while reclaiming the audience who bought the first album. Our set-up campaign has had a heavy emphasis on retail and press. We've been geared to taking the group back to the street, where the first album took off.\".\n\nListening parties were held in the beginning of October 1993 for key retailers and press, and Giant also did extensive sniping of 15 markets nation-wide, two weeks before the album release. Promotion overseas in Europe and Asia also started in October, where they did television appearances and press for the album. The launch party for the album took place in New York on November 15th, 1993, and an appearance on \"The Arsenio Hall\" to perform the title track took place on November 18th, 1993. There were plans for a December 22nd, 1993 appearance on \"The Tonight Show\", but it was rescheduled for February 8th, 1994.\n\nDespite the promotion of the record, the album would end up underperforming, and not living up to the financial expectations they had, especially compared to the sales of their first album. The group later surmised that the record underperformed due to the mixed signals of the marketing and imagery of the album, as the imagery and photos promoted the group as \"hard\" and \"street\", but most of the songs in the album did not reflect what was being marketed.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Intro (Ecclesiastes 9:11)\" [read by Ossie Davis] - 0:21\n\"Time and Chance\" (Color Me Badd, DJ Pooh, Mark Denard) - 4:22\n\"Groovy Now\" (Color Me Badd, DJ Pooh) - 4:09\n\"Let Me Have It All\" (Sylvester Stewart) - 4:21\n\"Rosanna's Little Sister\" (Geoffrey Williams, Chuck Norman) - 3:53\n\"How Deep\" (Color Me Badd, Prince, Hamza Lee, Mark Murray) - 4:58\n\"La Tremenda (Intro)\" - 0:27\n\"In the Sunshine\" (Color Me Badd, Hamza Lee, Howie Tee, Bootsy Collins) - 4:50\n\"Choose\" (Color Me Badd, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis) - 4:23\n\"The Bells\" (Marvin Gaye, Anna Gordy Gaye, Iris Gordy, Elgie Stover) - 3:31\n\"Wildflower\" (David Richardson, Douglas Edwards) - 4:35\n\"Livin' Without Her\" (Color Me Badd, Hamza Lee) - 4:56\n\"Close to Heaven\" (Color Me Badd) - 4:17\n\"Trust Me\" (Color Me Badd, Hamza Lee) - 3:57\n\"Let's Start With Forever\" (Diane Warren) - 4:26\n\"God Is Love\" (Color Me Badd, Ernie Calderon) - 5:12\n\"Let Love Rule\" (God Is Love Outro) - 1:38\n\n\"Let Me Have It All\" is a remake of the Sly & the Family Stone song featured on the 1973 album Fresh.\n\n\"The Bells\" is a remake of The Originals' song featured on the 1970 album The Portrait of the Originals, written, in part, by Marvin Gaye and his wife Anna Gordy Gaye.\n\n\"Wildflower\" is a remake of the Skylark song originally released in 1973.\n\nSingles\n \"Time and Chance\" – December 9, 1993\n \"Choose\" – February 3, 1994\n \"The Bells\" – April 7, 1994\n \"Let's Start with Forever\" – April 14, 1994\n\nFirst single \"Time and Chance\" spent 19 weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 with a peak position of 23. Second single \"Choose\" spent 17 weeks on the Hot 100 with a peak position of 23 as well. The third and fourth singles failed to make the chart.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n1993 albums\nColor Me Badd albums\nReprise Records albums\nWarner Records albums\nGiant Records (Warner) albums"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s"
] |
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How did they decide on the band name?
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How did Color Me Badd decide on the band name?
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Color Me Badd
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Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
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The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.
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Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
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| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
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| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
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| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
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[
"Ryan Eric Seaman (born September 23, 1983) is an American musician and singer who is known as the longest tenured drummer for the band Falling in Reverse. He is also the drummer and backing vocalist of the rock duo I Dont Know How But They Found Me.\n\nMusical career\n\nEarly years (2002–2011)\nIn 2002, Seaman got his first touring opportunity to play on the Vans Warped Tour, drumming for Lookout Records artist The Eyeliners.\n\nIn 2005, Seaman joined the post-hardcore band I Am Ghost, recording some tracks for their debut album, Lovers' Requiem, released in 2006. In April 2009 he joined the pop rock band The Bigger Lights, participating in two albums and an EP, leaving the band in May 2011. He has also participated as a drummer with artists such as The Brobecks, My Favorite Highway, and Aiden.\n\nFalling in Reverse (2011–2017)\nIn late May 2011, Seaman officially joined the post-hardcore band, Falling in Reverse, replacing Scott Gee. The band released their first album, The Drug in Me Is You on July 26. Although he did not participate in the recording of the album, he is credited as part of the band. Seaman performed on the band's second studio album Fashionably Late, released on June 18, 2013. The band released their third studio album Just Like You on February 24, 2015.\n\nAround the time of the band's fourth and more recent release with Seaman, Coming Home, it was rumored that he had parted ways with the band. This was confirmed when the band performed on May 8, without Seaman and with Chris Kamrada now playing drums for the band.\n\nIcon for Hire (2017–2018)\nPrior to his departure from Falling in Reverse, Seaman announced on April 6, 2017 that he would play supporting drums for rock band Icon for Hire starting May 3, 2017.\n\nI Dont Know How But They Found Me (2016–present)\nSeaman performed drums on Dallon Weekes' various solo efforts, which led to Weekes proposing the idea to present themselves as a duo under the name I Dont Know How But They Found Me. Seaman and Weekes started playing small shows in late 2016, but kept the group secret. They officially debuted at Emo Nite Los Angeles' 2-year anniversary event on December 6, 2016. After the show, different sources wrote about a \"new side project\" by Seaman and Weekes, and confirmed the band name. Even when confronted with photos and videos taken at the shows, the duo denied the whole project for months, as they did not want to exploit their name recognition and association with the well-known bands they played in.\n\nOther projects\nIn November 2014, Seaman was featured on Dallon Weekes' Christmas song titled \"Sickly Sweet Holidays\". Seaman also performed on Weekes' second Christmas single titled \"Please Don't Jump (It's Christmas)\", released in November 2016.\n\nDiscography\n With Aiden\n Aiden (2016)\n\n With I Am Ghost\n Lovers' Requiem (2006) – Tracks 2–12\n\n With The Bigger Lights\n The Bigger Lights (2010)\n Battle Hymn (2011)\n\n With Dallon Weekes\n Xmas Jambz (2015)\n\n With Falling in Reverse\n The Drug in Me Is You (2011; credit only)\n Fashionably Late (2013) \n Just Like You (2015)\n Coming Home (2017)\n\n With I Dont Know How But They Found Me\n 1981 Extended Play (2018)\n Christmas Drag (2019)\n Razzmatazz (2020)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Official Facebook\n\nAmerican rock singers\nAmerican multi-instrumentalists\nLiving people\nMusicians from Oxnard, California\n1983 births\nPost-hardcore musicians\nFalling in Reverse members",
"I Decide (stylized as i DECIDE) is the third extended play by South Korean boy band iKON. It is the first release of the band since the departure of B.I on June 12, 2019. It was released by YG Entertainment on February 6, 2020. The mini-album includes a total of five tracks, including the lead single \"Dive\".\n\nBackground and release \nOn January 21, 2020, YG Entertainment announced the return of iKON on February 6 titled \"I Decide\" as well as a concept teaser for the EP. Two days later, a video teaser titled \"Definition of 'i Decide'\" was released through the band's official YouTube channel. The main poster was released in January 29. The next day, the label announced the name of the lead single of the album threw a title poster: \"Dive\". On January 31, a concept film for the song was released threw iKON's YouTube channel. The next day, the tracklist for the EP was released the name of the five tracks. On February 2, individual teaser pictures with lyrics for \"Dive\" were released in two versions: Red and Black. On February 3, the band released a first trailer of the music video for \"Dive\". The following day, iKON released a sampler for their album as well as a mood clip of the music video for the title track. The second trailer for \"Dive\" was uploaded on February 5 on their YouTube channel.\n\nThe EP was released in February 5 in CD and digital formats. The accompanying music video for \"Dive\" was released at the same time on their official YouTube channel.\n\nComposition \nAmong the five songs included in the album, four of them were written and composed by ex-member B.I, including the title track \"Dive\".\n\nMember Bobby participated in writing the lyrics for the songs \"Ah Yeah\", \"All the World\" and \"Flower\" while DK co-wrote the lyrics for \"Flower\" among with him and composed it as well.\n\nCommercial performance \nI Decide debuted at number 3 on the Gaon Album Chart in South Korea, selling 55,254 copies. In Japan, the mini-album debuted at number 15 on the Oricon Albums Chart, selling 1,000 digital copies and 3,306 physical copies in the country. It also debuted at number 5 on the Download Albums and number 16 ont the Hot Albums on Billboard Japan. In China, 74,457 copies of the EP have been sold.\n\nTrack listing \nCredits adapted from YG Entertainment's official website.\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2020 EPs\nKorean-language EPs\nYG Entertainment EPs\nGenie Music EPs\nIKon albums"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
How did they meet the other band members?
| 3 |
How did Color Me Badd meet the other band members?
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Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
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The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Gonna Meet A Rockstar was a 30-minute program on Canada's Much Music that gave fans of an artist or band a chance to spend the day with their idol. Rachel Perry, Namugenyi Kiwanuka and Bradford How were the hosts of many of the episodes. The lucky winner would have a Much Music VJ arrive at their door to surprise them with the news.\n\nThe Episodes Featured:\nGreen Day - Filmed at the 2000 Vans Warped Tour at Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario.\nBarenaked Ladies - A winner spent the day playing mini-golf and arcade games with the band.\nLinkin Park - Filmed in New York City where they spent the day bowling and then played a live show in front of thousands.\nPapa Roach - Filmed at the Warehouse concert venue in Toronto, Ontario.\nOur Lady Peace - Filmed at Summersault in 2000 at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta.\nMatthew Good Band - Filmed in the band's home town of Vancouver, British Columbia at a recording studio owned by Bryan Adams.\nAvril Lavigne - Filmed in Toronto, Ontario. They played arcade games and had pizza together with other band members.\nEverclear - Filmed in Salem, Massachusetts. They spend the day touring the famous witch museums. \nS Club 7 - A winner from Hamilton, Ontario goes to Los Angeles to meet S Club 7.\nBif Naked - A winner goes shopping with Bif in Vancouver, British Columbia.\nBlink 182 - Winner Janel, from Newfoundland goes to Las Vegas to meet and greet with the band.\n\nMuch (TV channel) original programming",
"The Specs was a new wave cover band from Lincoln, Nebraska, featuring a teenage Matthew Sweet, that played together from 1978–1980.\n\nHistory\n\nSweet grew up in Lincoln in a musical family, and as a child he learned to play multiple instruments; by his early teens he was already a very proficient bass player, having practiced the complicated bass lines of Yes records for hours every day. While in junior high school, he met some of the Specs' other band members, who were all college students, at a music store (Correction: he did not meet the other members at a music store but was invited to a band practice by David Snider, who was an acquaintance). The band had previously been called Spectrum and had been covering Top 40 songs. As the Specs, they started performing more new wave and 1960s music (Correction: these were songs The Specs were covering as Spectrum, prior to Mr. Sweet being invited to join the band), by bands such as the Jam, the Vibrators, the Yardbirds and the Who.\n\nAlthough they were a cover band, in 1980 they did release one original song, called \"Look Out Girl (You Need a Direction)\", on the compilation The KFMQ Homegrown Album Though a popular local song and the most requested song on the compilation, many of the lyrics were criticized as being plagiarized from The Jam's album, \"This Is The Modern World\".\n\nMembers\nThe band's members were as follows: \nRick Morris – guitar\nSara Kovanda – vocals, keyboards\nMatthew Sweet – bass guitar\nDon Holmquist – drums\nJeff Runnings – keyboards (final line-up)\nJohn Link – bass guitar\nDave Snider\n\nAfter the Specs\nThe Specs broke up in 1980. Rick Morris and Sara Kovanda went on to join the Click. Jeff Runnings became a member of Hymn to Joy; since 1984 he has been in For Against. In 1983, Sweet left Lincoln to be part of the Athens, Georgia music scene and became a member of Oh-OK, Community Trolls and the Buzz of Delight, before going on to have a successful solo career.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nMusical groups from Nebraska\nCulture of Lincoln, Nebraska\nMatthew Sweet"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
Did they tour?
| 4 |
Did Color Me Badd tour?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"\nThis is a list of the 29 players who earned their 2011 PGA Tour card through Q School in 2010. Note: Michael Putnam and Justin Hicks had already qualified for the PGA Tour by placing in the Top 25 during the 2010 Nationwide Tour season; they did not count among the Top 25 Q school graduates, but Putnam did improve his status.\n\nPlayers in yellow are 2011 PGA Tour rookies.\n\n2011 Results\n\n*PGA Tour rookie in 2011\nT = Tied \nGreen background indicates the player retained his PGA Tour card for 2012 (finished inside the top 125). \nYellow background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2012, but retained conditional status (finished between 126-150). \nRed background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2012 (finished outside the top 150).\n\nWinners on the PGA Tour in 2011\n\nRunners-up on the PGA Tour in 2011\n\nSee also\n2010 Nationwide Tour graduates\n\nReferences\nShort bios from pgatour.com\n\nPGA Tour Qualifying School\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates",
"\nThis is a list of the 29 players who earned their 2012 PGA Tour card through Q School in 2011. Note: Roberto Castro and Mark Anderson had already qualified for the PGA Tour by placing in the Top 25 during the 2011 Nationwide Tour season; they did not count among the Top 25 Q school graduates.\n\nPlayers in yellow were 2012 PGA Tour rookies.\n\n2012 Results\n\n*PGA Tour rookie in 2012\nT = Tied \nGreen background indicates the player retained his PGA Tour card for 2013 (won or finished inside the top 125). \nYellow background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2013, but retained conditional status (finished between 126-150). \nRed background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2013 (finished outside the top 150).\n\nWinners on the PGA Tour in 2012\n\nRunners-up on the PGA Tour in 2012\n\nSee also\n2011 Nationwide Tour graduates\n\nReferences\nResults from pgatour.com\n\nPGA Tour Qualifying School\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates"
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C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
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When did they start getting successful?
| 5 |
When did Color Me Badd start getting successful?
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Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| false |
[
"The May Bumps 2007 were a series of rowing races held at Cambridge University from Wednesday 13 June 2007 until Saturday 16 June 2007. The races were run as a bumps race in the series of May Bumps which have been held annually in mid-June in this form since 1887. See May Bumps for the format of the races. In 2007, a total of 168 crews took part (93 men's crews and 75 women's crews), with around 1500 participants in total.\n\nHead of the River crews \n\n men started from head station, and rowed-over to retain the headship for the 9th time since 1998, and 6th consecutive year.\n\n women bumped on the first day regain the headship they lost in 2006.\n\nHighest 2nd VIIIs \n\n bumped on the 1st day to regain the highest 2nd VIII place that they lost in 2006.\n\n were the highest 2nd women's VIII at the start of the week, and managed to get into the first division - the first time that any women's 2nd VIII has achieved this since the women's Mays were rowed in eights in 1990.\n\nLinks to races in other years\n\nBumps Charts \n\nBelow are the bumps charts all 6 men's and all 5 women's divisions, with the men's event on the left and women's event on the right. The bumps chart represents the progress of every crew over all four days of the racing. To follow the progress of any particular crew, simply find the crew's name on the left side of the chart and follow the line to the end-of-the-week finishing position on the right of the chart.\n\nNote that this chart may not be displayed correctly if you are using a large font size on your browser. A simple way to check is to see that the first horizontal bold line, marking the boundary between divisions, lies between positions 17 and 18.\n\n Addenbrooke's men were meant to start at 78th, but were sent home without rowing for incompetence.\n\nThe Getting-on Race \n\nThe Getting-on Race (GoR) allows a number of crews which did not already have a place from last year's races to compete for the right to race this year. Up to ten crews are removed from the bottom of last year's finishing order, who must then race alongside new entrants to decide which crews gain a place (with one bumps place per 3 crews competing, subject to the maximum of 10 available places).\n\nThe 2007 May Bumps Getting-on Race took place on 8 June 2007.\n\nSuccessful crews \n\nThe successful crews, which competed in the bumps, are (displayed in alphabetical order);\n\nMen\n\nWomen\n\nReferences \n\n CUCBC - the organisation that runs the bumps\n 1st & 3rd Trinity Boat Club - instant results service\n Cambridge University Radio (CUR1350) - live commentary, instant results, downloadable MP3s of race commentary\n\nMay Bumps results\nMay Bumps\nMay Bumps\nMay Bumps",
"Swag is a crime novel by Elmore Leonard, first published in 1976 and since also released as an audio recording. The first paperback edition was published under the alternative title of Ryan's Rules.\n\nErnest Stickley, Jr. reappears in Stick.\n\nPlot summary\nFrank Ryan is an almost honest used car salesman, who after deliberately not testifying against car thief Ernest \"Stick\" Stickley, Jr., thinks of a foolproof plan for them to perform armed robberies.\nThe plan is about simple everyday armed robbery. Supermarkets, bars, liquor stores, gas stations, etc. Because the statistics prove that this armed robbery pays the most for the least amount of risk, they start their business and earn three to five thousand dollars a week.\nTo prevent getting caught Frank introduces 10 golden rules for successful armed robbery:\n\n Always be polite on the job and say please and thank you.\n Never say more than necessary. Less is more.\n Never call your partner by name-unless you use a made-up name.\n Never look suspicious or like a bum and dress well.\n Never use your own car.\n Never count the take in the car.\n Never flash money in a bar or with women.\n Never go back to an old bar or hangout once you have moved up.\n Never tell anyone your business and never tell a junkie even your name.\n Never associate with people known to be in crime.\n\nFor a while, Frank and Stick are able to follow the rules and the plan and they are extremely successful. They even rob the robber who just robbed the bar they were in. But, inevitably, the rules start falling by the wayside and when they see a chance for a big score, the rules go out the window, with predictably disastrous results.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nSwag at Elmore Leonard.com\n\nNovels by Elmore Leonard\n1976 American novels\nNovels set in Detroit"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
Did they have any hit songs?
| 6 |
Did Color Me Badd have any hit songs?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Return of the 1 Hit Wonder is the fourth album by rapper, Young MC. The album was released in 1997 for Overall Records and was Young MC's first release on an independent record label. While the album did not chart on any album charts, it did have two charting singles; \"Madame Buttafly\" reached No. 25 on the Hot Rap Songs and \"On & Poppin\" reached No. 23. The title refers to Young MC's only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, \"Bust A Move\".\n\nTrack listing\n\"One Hit\" \n\"Freakie\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" \n\"You Ain't Gotta Lie Ta Kick It\" \n\"Madame Buttafly\" \n\"Lingerie\" \n\"Coast 2 Coast\" \n\"Fuel to the Fire\" \n\"Bring It Home\" \n\"Intensify\" \n\"Mr. Right Now\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" (Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nYoung MC albums\n1997 albums",
"Here Comes That Sound Again is a 1979 disco single by Love De-Luxe, a dance studio group formed by British producer, Alan Hawkshaw. Vicki Brown and Jo-Ann Stone were the lead vocalists on the single.\nThe single hit number one on the dance charts in the middle of 1979, for one week. The single did not cross over to any other chart and Love De-Luxe had no other charted singles in the United States. However, elements from the song were used for the intro to the Sugarhill Gang's hit single \"Rapper's Delight\".\n\nThe song’s chorus would later be sampled in another Billboard Dance Club Songs number one single, \"That Sound\" by Pump Friction, in 1997.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1979 singles\n1979 songs\nDisco songs\nSongs about dancing\nWarner Records singles"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.",
"Did they have any hit songs?",
"They wrote \"I Adore Mi Amor\" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
What was the inspiration for the song?
| 7 |
What was the inspiration for theI Adore Mi Amor song?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Sweet Inspiration is the title of a Dan Penn/ Spooner Oldham composition written for and first recorded in 1967 by the Sweet Inspirations for whom it had afforded a Top 20 hit reaching #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1968: a live version by Barbra Streisand - in medley with \"Where You Lead\" - would also become a Top 40 hit.\n\nBackground\nThe song was recorded in April 1967 at American Sound Studio in Memphis in the sessions for the Sweet Inspiration's self-titled debut album produced by Tommy Cogbill and Tom Dowd. Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn had observed the recording session for two tracks intended for The Sweet Inspirations album, which moved Oldham to suggest to Penn that they two could write a stronger song for the group - (Oldham quote:) \"As we walked [from the studio] up the steps to [the company's] offices, Dan said: 'You got any ideas?' I said: 'What's wrong with 'Sweet Inspiration'?\" Working with a single guitar Oldham and Penn wrote \"Sweet Inspiration\" in between an hour to ninety minutes upstairs, then returned to the studio and ran through the song for the Sweet Inspirations and the other session personnel, Penn singing the song to Oldham's guitar accompaniment. Although Tom Dowd called for a lunch break (Dan Penn quote:) \"Spooner had [the opening rolling guitar] lick down so good the musicians wouldn't go eat...They knew by what was happening we could [immediately] cut [the track]\" which was completed in a single take: Dowd and his coterie on returning to the studio from their lunch break were played the completed track of \"Sweet Inspiration\" - (Oldham quote:) \"We basically gave 'em a gift. It was fun to see a creative idea come to fruition in about three hours time.\"\n\nIssued as the fourth single from The Sweet Inspirations album, \"Sweet Inspiration\" reached a Billboard Hot 100 peak of #18 in the spring of 1968 also ranking as high as #5 on Billboard'''s R&B chart.\n\nBarbra Streisand versionMain article:Sweet Inspiration/ Where You Lead live medley \nBarbra Streisand would reach #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her 1972 single \"Sweet Inspiration/ Where You Lead\" a medley of \"Sweet Inspiration\" with \"Where You Lead\" which was the advance single from Streisand's live album Live Concert at the Forum.\n\nOther versions\nThe first evident recorded \"cover\" of \"Sweet Inspiration\" was that by Diana Ross and The Supremes in collaboration with The Temptations on Diana Ross and The Supremes Join The Temptations a collaborative album by the two groups released November 1968 for which \"Sweet Inspiration\" was recorded with Diana Ross and Eddie Kendricks as lead vocalists.\n\nKing Curtis recorded the song on his 1968 album Sweet Soul\n\nWilson Pickett recorded \"Sweet Inspiration\" for his March 1970 album release Right On, Picket having recorded \"Sweet Inspiration\" in a 29 August 1969 session at Criteria Studios (Miami) produced by Dave Crawford, which yielded five album tracks. \n\nIn the autumn and winter of 1975-76 the Yandall Sisters would have a Top 40 hit in New Zealand with their remake of \"Sweet Inspiration\" which would peak at #8 on 31 October 1975.\n\nRita Coolidge recorded \"Sweet Inspiration\" for her May 1978 album release Love Me Again.\n\nIn 1989 Dutch female quartet Sisters would have reach #58 on the Nederlands Single Top 100 with their remake of \"Sweet Inspiration\" taken from the group's album Near Me.\n\nVonda Shepard recorded \"Sweet Inspiration\" for her 9 November 1999 album release Heart and Soul: New Songs from Ally McBeal.\n\nJackie DeShannon recorded \"Sweet Inspiration\" in a 2 December 1970 session at Capitol Recording Studio (Hollywood): the track was first issued as a bonus track on the 2006 CD release of DeShannon's 1971 album Songs''. \n\nThe Derek Trucks Band on their 2009 release, Already Free, did a cover of Sweet Inspiration, creating a blues version of the song.\n\nThe song has been sampled by Ice Cube in his 1992 track \"Check Yo Self\" and by Salt-n-Pepa on 1993's \"Shoop\".\n\nReferences\n\n1967 songs\nSongs written by Dan Penn\nSongs written by Spooner Oldham\nSweet Inspirations songs",
"\"I Will Wait\" is a song by American singer and songwriter Nick Carter. The song was released in U.S and Canada as a digital download on September 12, 2015. It was the first single from his third solo album All American.\n\nBackground\n\"When I wrote the song, I think we wrote it with the intention going back to what the Backstreet Boys and what we were known for, which is love songs. As a writer and an artist, sometimes as your career goes on, you try to make points, and you try to be overly creative.\" Nick Carter said, \"I just wanted to go back to the basics, and tap into what our fans knew us for.\" He also claimed this song was inspired by Ed Sheeran's songwriting.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"I Will Wait\" was filmed and released on YouTube and Vevo on September 22, 2015. Nick stated that the inspiration of the video was based on The Notebook.\n\nLive performance\nOn November 24, Carter first performed the song on the finale of Dancing with the Stars, where he was one of the four finalists. After the promotion, the song climbed to Top 100 on iTunes but dropped out of the chart sooner.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n\n2015 singles\n2015 songs\nSongs written by Nick Carter (musician)\nSongs written by Dan Muckala"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.",
"Did they have any hit songs?",
"They wrote \"I Adore Mi Amor\" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee.",
"What was the inspiration for the song?",
"The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
Was the song successful?
| 8 |
Was the song I Adore Mi Amor successful?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"\"Remote Control\" is a 1980, debut single by The Reddings. The song was written by Nick Mann, Bill Beard and Chet Fortune and appeared on their album, The Awakening. It was the group's most successful hit on the soul chart peaking at number six and one of two entries on the Hot 100 peaking at number eighty-nine. \"Remote Control\" was the group's most successful entry on the dance charts where the song peaked at number twenty-two.\n\nReferences\n\n1980 singles\nDance-pop songs\n1980 songs",
"\"Taffy\" is a song written and sung by Lisa Loeb. The song was recorded in 1995. It is featured on her album Tails, and her 2006 greatest hits album, The Very Best of Lisa Loeb. \n\nThe lyrics are addressed to a person who is habitually dishonest in dealing with others, with the line \"Sometimes you tell the truth like you're pulling taffy\" serving as an accusation of stretching the truth.\n\nAlthough the song was not a very successful single, it was moderately successful on radio. It peaked at #6 on U.S Billboard Bubbling Under The Hot 100 in early 1996, and the single's video was popular on VH1 and MTV. The song charted in the New Zealand RIANZ Top 40 at #39, #96 on the Australian singles chart and #61 in Canada.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1995 songs\n1995 singles\nLisa Loeb songs\nSongs written by Lisa Loeb\nGeffen Records singles"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.",
"Did they have any hit songs?",
"They wrote \"I Adore Mi Amor\" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee.",
"What was the inspiration for the song?",
"The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song.",
"Was the song successful?",
"Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
Who managed the band?
| 9 |
Who managed the Color Me Badd band?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"The Candymen (or the Candy Men) were an American pop quintet active 1965-1972 which prefigured the Atlanta Rhythm Section. The group were managed by Dothan, Alabama producer-songwriter Buddy Buie, and included guitarists John Rainey Adkins (who was the mainstay of the live band), plus Barry Bailey and J.R. Cobb, singer Rodney Justo, drummer Robert Nix and keyboard player Dean Daughtry. The band's chart singles included \"Georgia Pines\" (1967) and \"Ways\" (1968). They often performed as the backing band of Roy Orbison.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican pop music groups",
"Brian Lane (born Harvey Freed) is a British music manager. Lane has managed a variety of acts including Katherine Jenkins, Donovan, Alan O'Day, Asia, Yes, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, A-ha, Vangelis, The Buggles, It Bites, A*Teens and Heather Small. He currently manages Rick Wakeman. He also managed Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman.\n\nBiography\nLane, who worked for the Hemdale Company, began managing Yes in 1970, taking over from Roy Flynn, who secured a deal with Lane. Lane was instrumental in arranging for The Buggles, another group he managed, to join Yes for their 1980 album Drama. Lane managed Yes until the end of their 1980 tour supporting that album.\n\nLane helped form the group Asia, which emerged from the collapse of Yes in early 1981, having introduced vocalist/bassist John Wetton to ex-Yes guitarist Steve Howe. Lane managed the band and came up with their name. In the late 1980s, Lane managed a rival group of former Yes members, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH). He also managed GTR, which also included Steve Howe. Lane began managing Katherine Jenkins in 2003, but the two parted ways acrimoniously in 2009.\n\nIn the 2010s, he became the manager of Rick Wakeman (a member of Yes and then ABWH), and in January 2016, Lane was announced as the manager of a new supergroup of former Yes members, Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman.\n\nFor much of his career, Lane worked in the UK, before moving to Scandinavia in the 2000s. In 2015, he became head of United Stage International, the global arm of Swedish artist management company United Stage, with an office in London.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nBritish music managers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nYes (band)"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.",
"Did they have any hit songs?",
"They wrote \"I Adore Mi Amor\" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee.",
"What was the inspiration for the song?",
"The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song.",
"Was the song successful?",
"Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.",
"Who managed the band?",
"Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
When did htey move to New York City?
| 10 |
When did Color Me Badd move to New York City?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
move to New York City to pursue a record deal.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Edwin Joseph O'Malley (August 22, 1881 – April 10, 1953) was the Commissioner of Public Markets for New York City.\n\nBiography\nEdwin was born on August 22, 1881 in Manhattan, New York City to Thomas Francis O'Malley (1854–1918) and Georgiana Reynolds (1855–1941). He married Alma Feltner (1883–1940) on January 16, 1902 and had one child, a son, Walter Francis O'Malley (1903–1979), who would become the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1950 to 1979, and who would oversee their controversial move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.\n\nIn 1910 Edwin was living in the Bronx, New York and working as a cotton goods salesman. Around 1911 he moved the family from the Bronx to Hollis, Queens. He registered for the draft on September 12, 1918, but did not serve in World War I. He became a Democratic party ward heeler for Tammany Hall, and was appointed as the Commissioner of Public Markets for New York City by mayor John F. Hylan. He testified on August 18, 1922 before the Kings County, New York Grand Jury, which was investigating the mishandling of the fees paid by vendors to the Public Markets office. No charges were filed.\n\nHe died of a heart attack in Amityville, New York on April 10, 1953.\n\nFurther reading\nRoger Kahn; The Era 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World. \nBurton Alan Boxerman; Ebbets to Veeck to Busch: Eight Owners Who Shaped Baseball. \nHenry D. Fetter; Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball, 1903-2003. .\n\nCourt cases\nSchumaker v. O'Malley; May 1, 1920\nMatter of Joerger v. O'Malley; December 1, 1923\n\nReferences\n\n1881 births\n1955 deaths\nEdwin Joseph\nPeople from the Bronx\nPeople from Long Island\nCommissioners of Public Markets\nPoliticians from New York City\nPeople from Hollis, Queens\nNew York (state) Democrats",
"The Mohawk Valley Comets were a semi-professional ice hockey team in the North Eastern Hockey League (NEHL) based in Whitestown, New York.\n\nThe franchise was a strong team of mostly local talent coming from the Mohawk Valley. The Comets had a 16-4 record and were in first place during the regular season. When concerns of Comets players not being available for the final month of the season or playoffs due to their summer jobs starting, Coach Brett Boake requested a schedule change and the season was shortened by a month. The Comets decided 2 days before the playoff weekend that they were not going to participate as not enough players were available and they had financial concerns.\n\nThe team did not return for the 2005-06 season.\n\nIn 2007-08 Wayne Premo offered to purchase the rights to the Mohawk Valley that were held by the IceCats when league president Jim Cashman wanted to move the IceCats closer to his hometown of Fort Erie, Ontario. Premo located the team in Rome, New York and started the Copper City Chiefs who went 4-4 in their 8 games before the league suspended operations.\n\nRegular season records\n\nNorth Eastern Hockey League teams\nIce hockey teams in New York (state)\nIce hockey clubs established in 2003\n2003 establishments in New York (state)\nSports clubs disestablished in 2004\n2004 disestablishments in New York (state)\nOneida County, New York"
] |
[
"Color Me Badd",
"Formation (1985-90)",
"How did Color Me Badd get together?",
"Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s",
"How did they decide on the band name?",
"The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6.",
"How did they meet the other band members?",
"The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City.",
"Did they tour?",
"They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show,",
"When did they start getting successful?",
"They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988.",
"Did they have any hit songs?",
"They wrote \"I Adore Mi Amor\" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee.",
"What was the inspiration for the song?",
"The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song.",
"Was the song successful?",
"Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.",
"Who managed the band?",
"Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal.",
"When did htey move to New York City?",
"move to New York City to pursue a record deal."
] |
C_fb35f9c2c6974ea5a56cdea69060cdd7_1
|
What was the biggest (most famous)act they performed for?
| 11 |
What was the biggest (most famous)act Color Me Badd performed for?
|
Color Me Badd
|
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops. The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Tone! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sung the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members. They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Tone!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990. CANNOTANSWER
|
Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
|
Color Me Badd is an American contemporary R&B group that was formed in 1985 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by lead singer Bryan Abrams (born November 16, 1969), tenor Mark Calderon (born September 27, 1970), second tenor Sam Watters (born July 23, 1970) and baritone Kevin Thornton (born June 17, 1969). Color Me Badd broke up in 1998 before reuniting in 2010, with various lineups since.
Best known for their singles "I Wanna Sex You Up", "I Adore Mi Amor" and "All 4 Love", the group has sold over 12 million records worldwide, had two number 1 hit singles, nine Top 40 hits and a triple-platinum album. They were nominated for two Grammy Awards, won two Soul Train Music Awards and one American Music Award, and were nominated for five others. Their songs have been featured in movies and on television programs including New Jack City, Mo' Money, No Strings Attached and Glee. They made a cameo appearance as themselves on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
History
Formation (1985-90)
Thornton and Abrams became friends in junior high school, and Watters and Calderon became friends in grade school. The four met in the mid-1980s while attending Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. They were all members of the school choir. The group originally formed in 1985 as Take One, but changed their name to Color Me Badd to avoid confusion with an a cappella band named Take 6. Watters selected the name, after a horse at the racetrack named Color Me Bad. They aimed to be a vocal group in the vein of New Edition and New Kids on the Block. They first performed together in a school talent show, influenced by doo-wop a cappella groups of the past, such as Sam Cooke, The Temptations and the Four Tops.
The group came up with a plan to spontaneously audition for any big-name acts playing in Oklahoma City. They met Robert Bell of Kool & the Gang on May 27, 1987, when they were in Oklahoma City for a performance. They auditioned for him and he introduced them to his then-road manager, Adil Bayyan, who would become Color Me Badd's manager and convince them to move to New York City to pursue a record deal. They also sang for Huey Lewis and the News, Sheila E. and Ronnie Milsap, and opened for Tony! Toni! Toné! in Oklahoma City in 1988. One afternoon in 1989, Thornton saw Jon Bon Jovi in a movie theater and called the other band members to join him. They waited for him to leave the theater and then sang the 1961 doo-wop hit "Daddy's Home" a cappella for him. Bon Jovi invited them to be his band's opening act the following night, to perform in front of 20,000 audience members.
They moved to New York City on September 23, 1989. In 1990, they bumped into Tony! Toni! Toné!, who got them into the ASCAP Music Awards. There, Color Me Badd approached producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and started singing for them. The producers advised that, being a multicultural group, they write a half-English, half-Spanish song. They wrote "I Adore Mi Amor" back in Oklahoma City with their producer and friend Hamza Lee. Giant Records executive Cassandra Mills heard a tape of the band singing the song, and they signed with Giant on August 11, 1990.
C.M.B. (1991-92)
After signing the group, Mills asked producer Dr. Freeze for a song for Color Me Badd to record for the New Jack City soundtrack, similar to "Do Me!" by Bell Biv DeVoe. Freeze offered "I Wanna Sex You Up", which would become Color Me Badd's debut single, released on March 2, 1991. The song wasn't originally intended to be a single, and had been turned down by other acts including Bell Biv DeVoe, Keith Sweat and Christopher Williams. The biggest hit on the New Jack City soundtrack, it peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Due to the song's popularity, Giant Records wanted Color Me Badd to quickly record an album. At the time, they only had four or five finished songs. They were flown out to Los Angeles to work in the studio, recording the album in two or three weeks.
Their debut album, C.M.B., was released on July 23, 1991. It would go on to sell over 6 million copies worldwide and become certified triple-platinum in the US, spending 77 weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 3. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was included on the album. The follow up single "I Adore Mi Amor" hit number 1 on the Hot 100 and on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, "All 4 Love" hit number 1 on the Hot 100, "Thinkin Back" reached number 16 on the Hot 100 and number 31 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and "Slow Motion" reached number 18 on the Hot 100.
Color Me Badd performed at the 1991 Smash Hits Poll Winners' Awards in the United Kingdom, winning the Best New Group trophy. They won the Best R&B/Soul Single and R&B/Soul Song of the Year in the Group, Band or Duo categories for “I Wanna Sex You Up” at the sixth annual Soul Train Music Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("I Wanna Sex You Up") at the 1992 Grammy Awards. They won Favorite Soul/R&B Single at the 1992 American Music Awards for "I Wanna Sex You Up", and were also nominated in that category for "I Adore Mi Amor". They were also nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group, Favorite Pop/Rock Single, Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist at the 1992 American Music Awards. Color Me Badd opened for Paula Abdul on her 1991 tour, singing some of their set a cappella. The New York Times described the group as "somewhere between George Michael's pop-soul and the group dynamics of The Temptations." At halftime of Super Bowl XXVI between the Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills on January 26, 1992, the group performed "I Wanna Sex You Up" on In Living Color as part of Fox's counter-programming special live-from-Hollywood football-themed edition of the show.
The group made a cameo appearance on a 1992 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 (season two, episode 26). The episode revolved around Color Me Badd, beginning with a clip from the "I Adore Mi Amor" music video. Later in the episode, the 90210 gang stakes out the Bel Age Hotel in hopes of meeting the group, and Kelly visits their penthouse suite. She invites them to join her at the Peach Pit, where they serenade the gang a cappella.
On November 24, 1992, Color Me Badd released a remix album entitled Young, Gifted & Badd: The Remixes. It contained the single "Forever Love", which reached number 15 on the Hot 100 and was also featured on the Mo' Money soundtrack. The remix album peaked at number 189 on the Billboard 200.
Time and Chance (1993-94)
Color Me Badd's second studio album, Time and Chance, was released in November 1993. An ambitious project, with 19 new tracks, the album represented a shift in musical style for the group. Working with producers including David Foster, DJ Pooh, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it was more soulful and funky than their previous work, but lacked a cohesive sound. With the music industry at the time embracing grunge music and West Coast hip hop, it was difficult for Color Me Badd to deliver the same success on the singles charts as they had done before, and the group started to lose momentum.
The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard 200, spending 17 weeks on the chart. Ice Cube directed the music video for the lead single, the title track "Time and Chance", which peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100 and number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. The follow-up single, "Choose", also peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100.
Later albums and breakup (1996-98)
The group re-emerged in 1996 with their third studio album, Now & Forever. Producers included Narada Michael Walden, Babyface, Jon B. and Boyz II Men's Nathan Morris. Now & Forever reached number 113 on the Billboard 200, spending 14 weeks on the chart and eventually going platinum. It went to number 1 in Japan. The album produced one hit single, "The Earth, The Sun, The Rain", which peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100, remaining on the chart for 22 weeks, and reached number 69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The second single, "Sexual Capacity", was a minor hit, it appeared on the soundtrack to the Demi Moore film Striptease. This song was produced and co-written by Robin Thicke under the name Rob Thicke. Album sales for Now & Forever weren't as strong as their previous albums, and the group was released from their contract with Giant to sign with Epic Records.
After moving to Epic (under Sony Music Entertainment), Color Me Badd's fourth studio album, Awakening, was released on July 28, 1998. Behind Sony head Tommy Mottola, the label chose "Remember When" as the next single. Abrams and Calderon disliked the choice. The song peaked at number 48 on the Hot 100. Around this time, Abrams had developed an alcohol problem, and the group was beginning to fall apart. The newly married Thornton decided to leave the band to pursue the ministry, and Watters wanted to go off on his own to write and produce. With Abrams and Calderon the only remaining members, the group split up.
Solo years (1998-2010)
Kevin Thornton left the group in October 1998 to pursue the ministry. He became a licensed minister and has since served as an evangelist, youth pastor and worship leader at his home church, Without Walls Church, in Fort Worth, Texas. He operates Kevin Thornton Ministries in Texas. In 2008, he released a solo album, Conversions, blending contemporary hip-hop/rap with gospel and soul music.
Sam Watters pursued a career as a record producer, achieving success producing for Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Fantasia, Anastacia, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, 98 Degrees, Blake Lewis, and others. Watters is a member of the production/songwriting team The Runaways, which also includes Rico Love, Wayne Wilkins, Ryan Tedder, and Louis Biancaniello. He married R&B singer and former American Idol contestant Tamyra Gray in 2006.
Mark Calderon worked with artists such as Stevie Brock, whose 2002 remake of "All 4 Love" reached number 1 on the Disney charts; and with IPV, who is signed with Wright Entertainment and had songs played on the television series House and Knight Rider. In 1992, Calderon married Lisa Smedley-Calderon, who was formerly Color Me Badd's fashion stylist.
In 2001, Bryan Abrams released a solo album entitled Welcome to Me. In 2007, he co-starred on the VH1 reality TV series Mission: Man Band, which also included former boy band members Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees, Chris Kirkpatrick of *NSYNC and Rich Cronin of Lyte Funkie Ones, seeing if they could make it as a new group. The show was canceled after seven episodes. In 2007, after being approached by Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, Abrams co-wrote and recorded an appearance on the Insane Clown Posse song "Truth Dare", which was released on the compilations Psychopathics from Outer Space 3 (2007) and Featuring Freshness (2011). In 2010, Abrams wrote three songs for Kool & the Gang, singing lead on all three tracks.
On August 22, 2000, Giant Records released the compilation album The Best of Color Me Badd.
Reunion (2010-present)
In July 2010, Color Me Badd re-emerged as a duo consisting of Bryan Abrams and Mark Calderon. They headlined a concert in Hawaii, which also featured All-4-One and Shai. Later that year, Kevin Thornton rejoined Color Me Badd. In early 2012, Calderon and Abrams collaborated with the Insane Clown Posse on the song "Ghetto Rainbows (Soft Ass R-N-B Remix)" on The Mighty Death Pop! bonus CD called Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium. Credited to Insane Clown Posse and Color Me Badd, the song features Abrams and Calderon, and was also co-written by the duo. In June 2013, the group released "Skywalkin'", their first new song in nearly 15 years. On August 16, 2013, Abrams announced his departure from Color Me Badd through a post on his website. The group continued on, with Calderon and Thornton. Abrams was replaced by Martin Kember. Color Me Badd performed with the lineup of Calderon, Thornton and Kember at the 2014 BET Awards.
In 2015, Abrams and Calderon reunited as Color Me Badd, less Thornton and Kember, and began a tour in Singapore. Thornton was briefly back in Color Me Badd in 2015, before leaving the group that same year. In the winter of 2015, Adam Emil joined the group, and they went on a US tour with Bell Biv DeVoe. By 2016, the group was officially a trio, with Calderon, Abrams, and Emil. That year, they recorded a new song, "In Case You Didn't Know". On April 30, 2016, Color Me Badd played a concert for U.S. Armed Forces at Okuma Beach, Okinawa, Japan. In the fall and winter of 2016, Color Me Badd was on the inaugural I Love the ‘90s Tour, a year-long tour across the US that also featured Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC.
On July 22, 2018, Abrams was arrested for assaulting Calderon on stage during a concert in Waterloo, New York. A video shows Abrams walk across the stage at the completion of the song "I Wanna Sex You Up" and firmly shoves Calderon to the floor. Abrams allegedly screamed, “I’m motherfucking Color Me Badd!” as he pushed Calderon to the floor. Officers stated that alcohol may have been a factor.
On August 31, 2019, Color Me Badd performed at a Beverly Hills, 90210 charity event to benefit Generosity Water organized by Brian Austin Green and his podcast's cohost Derek Russell.
Legacy
Along with Boyz II Men, Hi-Five, Shai, Silk and All-4-One, Color Me Badd were considered the leaders of a resurgence of post-doo-wop harmony group singing in the early 1990s. Color Me Badd invented the term "hip-hop doo-wop" to describe its sound, which combines four-part pop-soul harmonies with a hip-hop influence. In the 1990s, they were known for wearing bright-colored suits and for their choreography, as well as for being a racially diverse group, which was rare at the time. Calderon is Mexican-American, Abrams is Caucasian and Native American, Watters is Caucasian and Thornton is African-American. The group was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Color Me Badd has had a lasting influence on R&B music. The Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg Saturday Night Live Digital Short "Dick in a Box" which debuted on December 16, 2006, is a parody of early '90s R&B, and is considered a spoof of the style of Color Me Badd in particular. "I Wanna Sex You Up" was performed by cast members on an episode of the first season of Glee in 2009. The music video for "I Wanna Sex You Up" was on an episode of Beavis and Butthead on MTV. The song has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including, New Jack City, You Don't Mess with the Zohan and No Strings Attached. On a November 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Color Me Badd's Abrams, Calderon and Watters joined with country singer Brad Paisley in a performance of "I Wanna Sex You Up" for Kimmel's "Mash-Up Monday" series. The artists were renamed Color Me Bradd for the occasion.
Discography
Studio albums
C.M.B. (1991)
Time and Chance (1993)
Now & Forever (1996)
Awakening (1998)
Awards
|-
| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="10"| 1992
| Color Me Badd
| Grammy Award for Best New Artist
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single – Group, Band or Duo
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| Soul Train Music Award for R&B/Soul Song of the Year
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| rowspan="2"| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single
|
|-
| "I Adore Mi Amor"
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group
|
|-
| "I Wanna Sex You Up"
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single
|
|-
| Color Me Badd
| American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock New Artist
|
|-
References
External links
American hip hop groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
New jack swing music groups
Epic Records artists
Giant Records (Warner) artists
Northwest Classen High School alumni
Musical groups from Oklahoma
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1998
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
Singers from Oklahoma
| true |
[
"Oceanic were a 1990s pop group from Wallasey, Merseyside, England, consisting of David Harry, Frank Crofts and singer Jorinde Williams.\n\nBiography\nThey were most famous for the dance hit song, \"Insanity\", which was released in 1991. This was the group's biggest commercial success, reaching No. 3 in the UK singles chart for three weeks and the ninth biggest-selling UK single of 1991. The track also made the Australian Top 40.\n\nLater that year they released the follow-up, \"Wicked Love\", which reached No. 25 in the UK singles chart. In 1992 the act released their first and only album, entitled That Compact Disc By Oceanic, (also, That Cassette/LP By Oceanic for the audio cassette/LP versions respectively) which featured two different versions of \"Insanity\", and reached a chart position of No. 49 before dropping out of the UK Albums Chart after only 2 weeks. A third single, \"Controlling Me\", made No. 14 in the UK chart. Their final song to appear on the charts was \"Ignorance\" (with Siobhan Maher Kennedy), which was on the UK chart at No. 72 for one week in November 1992.\n\nThe group performed on several TV shows between 1991–1993, including four appearances on Top of the Pops, plus The Hitman and Her and an episode of Frank Sidebottom's Fantastic Shed Show.\n\nIn 2006, the track \"Insanity\" featured on The Hitman and Her compilation CD.\n\nSingles in charts\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\nDavid Harry's website\nOceanic's Facebook page\n[ Discography at AllMusic]\n\nEnglish electronic music groups\nEnglish techno music groups\nEnglish house music groups\nWarner Music Group artists",
"Chantelle was a popular merengue musical group from Puerto Rico, which performed from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The group's name comes from the popular French feminine given name (translated to \"Chantal\" in Spanish and English).\n\nFormed in 1988, Chantelle was an all-female music group, which is somewhat of a rarity for tropical music bands. One of their few predecessors in that respect was \"Las Chicas Del Can\", a Merengue group from Dominican Republic, that performed during the middle 1980s.\n\nIn 1989, Chantelle became known on the Puerto Rican and Latin American airwaves with their biggest hit, \"Aunque Tú No Quieras\" (\"Even if you Don't Want to\"). That song was about a girl telling her boyfriend that they had to separate, despite their feelings. This song gave Chantelle television and radio coverage, and the three girls in the group (Olga Tañón, Sandra Torres and Daly Fontanez) became famous women, although Olga Tañón became the most famous of the three. The group received a Lo Nuestro award for \"Tropical New Artist of the Year\" at the 1990 Lo Nuestro Awards.\n\nReferences\n\nPuerto Rican musical groups\nMerengue music groups\nMusical groups established in 1988\nMusical groups disestablished in 1991\nAll-female bands"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn"
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
|
What was the Trip to Saturn about?
| 1 |
What was Sun Ra's Trip to Saturn about?
|
Sun Ra
|
Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
|
His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947
|
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
African-American pianists
American conscientious objectors
American jazz bandleaders
American male jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
American jazz organists
American male organists
American jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz musicians
Avant-garde jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz pianists
Big band bandleaders
BYG Actuel artists
Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
Experimental big band pianists
Free improvisation pianists
Free jazz pianists
Hard bop pianists
Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
New-age pianists
Musicians from Birmingham, Alabama
Savoy Records artists
ESP-Disk artists
Sun Ra Arkestra members
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturists
20th-century American composers
Progressive big band musicians
20th-century American pianists
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Jazz musicians from Alabama
20th-century American keyboardists
Improvising Artists Records artists
Burials at Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)
Egyptian mythology in music
Leo Records artists
Sub Rosa Records artists
Atavistic Records artists
20th-century jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
20th-century African-American male singers
| true |
[
"The Saturn C-5N was a conceptual successor to the Saturn V launch vehicle which would have had a nuclear thermal third stage instead of the S-IVB used on the Saturn V. This one change would have increased the payload of the standard Saturn V to Low Earth orbit from 118,000 kg to 155,000 kg.\n\nThe conceptual Saturn C-5N was designed as an evolutionary successor to the Saturn V, intended for the planned crewed mission to Mars by 1980, it would have cut crewed transit times to Mars to about 4 months, instead of the 8–9 months of chemical rocket engines. However the Mars mission, along with all work related to the evolutionary successors of the Saturn V, was cancelled in 1972-3 by the Nixon Administration.\n\nThe ground testing of the Nuclear thermal rocket engines intended for the Saturn C-5N's, in-space 3rd stage, still hold a number of combined rocket thrust and specific impulse records. The concept of nuclear thermal rockets serving as the in-space rocket stage influenced the 1990s Project Timberwind.\n\nSee also\nNERVA\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nEncyclopedia Astronautica\n\nC5N",
"Spaceship to Saturn is a juvenile science fiction novel, the tenth in Hugh Walters' \"Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A.\" series. It was published in 1967 in the UK by Faber and in the US by Criterion Books and in Portugal under the title Voo para Saturno by Edições Dêagã in 1975.\n\nPlot summary\nThe length of the trip to Saturn means that the crew will undergo 'hypothermia' for the duration of the flight, however a massive increase in meteor activity around Saturn threatens to cancel the mission as the computer on Earth will be unable to manoeuvre the craft at such long distances to avoid collisions. The solution - instantaneous telepathy; twins Gill and Gail maintain a telepathic carrier-wave even under hypothermia which can be modulated to carry telemetry. A landing is attempted on Titan but problems arise requiring the ship to be flown through the Cassini division, a narrow gap in the rings of Saturn...\n\nExternal links\nSpaceship to Saturn page\nReview\n\n1967 British novels\n1967 science fiction novels\nChris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. series\nFaber and Faber books\nRings of Saturn in fiction\nFiction set on Saturn\nFiction set on Titan (moon)"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947"
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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What happened in 1947?
| 2 |
What happened in 1947 on the trip to saturn?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
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[
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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What were the flying saucers?
| 3 |
What were the flying saucers encountered on the trip to saturn?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
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American conscientious objectors
American jazz bandleaders
American male jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
American jazz organists
American male organists
American jazz keyboardists
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Avant-garde jazz pianists
Big band bandleaders
BYG Actuel artists
Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
Experimental big band pianists
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Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
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Sun Ra Arkestra members
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturists
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Burials at Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)
Egyptian mythology in music
Leo Records artists
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20th-century jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
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| false |
[
"Flying Saucers from Outer Space (Holt, 1953) is a non-fiction book by Donald Keyhoe about unidentified flying objects, aka UFOs.\n\nAdaptation\nIn 1956 a science-fiction film credited as \"suggested by\" the book was made under the title Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers.\nThe working titles of the film were Attack of the Flying Saucers, Invasion of the Flying Saucers and Flying Saucers from Outer Space. In a letter contained in the film's production file at the AMPAS Library, blacklisted screenwriter Bernard Gordon stated that he wrote the screenplay for this picture using the pseudonym Raymond T. Marcus.\n\nSee also \n The Flying Saucers Are Real (also by Keyhoe)\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links \n Flying Saucers from Outer Space on line version at NICAP\n\n1953 non-fiction books\nBooks about extraterrestrial life",
"A flying saucer is an unidentified flying object (UFO) that is saucer-shaped. The term may also generally refer to any UFO.\n\nFlying saucer(s) may also refer to:\n\nBooks \n The Flying Saucers Are Real, by Donald Keyhoe (1950)\nFlying Saucers from Outer Space, by Donald Keyhoe (1953)\nThe Flying Saucer Mystery, Nancy Drew (1980)\n Military flying saucers, about a number of aircraft that have been proposed over the years\n\nPeriodicals \n Flying Saucers (magazine)\n\nFilms \n The Flying Saucer, science fiction by Mikel Conrad (1950)\n Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, science fiction by Fred Sears (1956)\n Flying Saucer Daffy, Three Stooges (1958)\n Flying Saucer Rock'n'Roll, science fiction spoof (1997)\n Summer of the Flying Saucer, Irish family film (2008)\n\nMusic \n The Crew of the Flying Saucer, Mike Watt band\n \"The Flying Saucer\" (song), Buchanan and Goodman record (1956)\n \"The Flying Saucer Goes West\", Dickie Goodman record (1958)\n \"Presidential Interview (Flying Saucer '64)\", Dickie Goodman record (1964)\n Flyin' Saucers Rock and Roll, record by Billy Lee Riley (1957)\n Flying Saucer Attack, David Pearce band from Bristol, England\n \"Flying Saucer Dudes\", song by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (1991)\n Flying Saucer Blues, Peter Case album (2000)\n\nSpacecraft \n British Rail flying saucer, proposed by Charles Osmond Frederick\n Flying Saucer Working Party, UK Ministry of Defence study\n Kissinger-Crookes Flying Saucer, homebuilt glider (1958)\n Nazi flying saucers, various stories or claims\n Ralph Horton flying saucer crash, Ralph Horton's farm, Fulton County, Georgia (1952)\n\nTV episodes \n \"The Flying Saucer\", The Beverly Hillbillies \n \"The Flying Saucer\", Maude \n \"Flying Sauces\", Home Improvement \n \"The Joker's Flying Saucer\", Batman\n\nOther \n Fatman the Human Flying Saucer, comic book superhero (1960s)\n Flying saucer (confectionery), sherbet-filled confectionery\n Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1, comedy album by Bill Hicks (2002)\n Flying Saucers (attraction), Disneyland (1961-1966)\n KULT: The Temple of Flying Saucers, Exxos game (1989)\n Flying Saucer (library), a Java programming library\n The Flying Saucer, Sharjah, a Brutalist building restored as a community art space\n\nSee also \n Flying disc \n Flying Flapjack \n Flying Pancake \n UFO (disambiguation)\n Unidentified flying object (disambiguation)"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Other than Saturn, Are there any other interesting planetary aspects about this article regarding Sun Ra's trip?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
African-American pianists
American conscientious objectors
American jazz bandleaders
American male jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
American jazz organists
American male organists
American jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz musicians
Avant-garde jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz pianists
Big band bandleaders
BYG Actuel artists
Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
Experimental big band pianists
Free improvisation pianists
Free jazz pianists
Hard bop pianists
Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
New-age pianists
Musicians from Birmingham, Alabama
Savoy Records artists
ESP-Disk artists
Sun Ra Arkestra members
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturists
20th-century American composers
Progressive big band musicians
20th-century American pianists
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Jazz musicians from Alabama
20th-century American keyboardists
Improvising Artists Records artists
Burials at Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)
Egyptian mythology in music
Leo Records artists
Sub Rosa Records artists
Atavistic Records artists
20th-century jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
20th-century African-American male singers
| false |
[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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What did he learn from his college experience?
| 5 |
What did Sun Ra learn from his college experience?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
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| true |
[
"The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. \n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.\n Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions? Did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience? Have you used this learning since?\n\nThe STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique.\n\nThe STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions\nThe STAR method explained\n\nJob interview",
"SOARA (Situation, Objective, Action, Results, Aftermath) is a job interview technique developed by Hagymas Laszlo, Professor of Language at the University of Munich, and Alexander Botos, Chief Curator at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It is similar to the Situation, Task, Action, Result technique. In many interviews, SOARA is used as a structure for clarifying information relating to a recent challenge.\n\nDetails\n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenge and situation you found yourself in.\n Objective: What did you have to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what were the alternatives.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your objectives.\n Aftermath: What did you learn from this experience and have you used this learning since?\n\nJob interview"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:"
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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What did he say?
| 6 |
What did Sun Ra say while on the trip to saturn?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage
|
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
African-American pianists
American conscientious objectors
American jazz bandleaders
American male jazz composers
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
American jazz organists
American male organists
American jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz musicians
Avant-garde jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz pianists
Big band bandleaders
BYG Actuel artists
Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
Experimental big band pianists
Free improvisation pianists
Free jazz pianists
Hard bop pianists
Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
New-age pianists
Musicians from Birmingham, Alabama
Savoy Records artists
ESP-Disk artists
Sun Ra Arkestra members
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturists
20th-century American composers
Progressive big band musicians
20th-century American pianists
Jazz musicians from Pennsylvania
Jazz musicians from Alabama
20th-century American keyboardists
Improvising Artists Records artists
Burials at Elmwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Alabama)
Egyptian mythology in music
Leo Records artists
Sub Rosa Records artists
Atavistic Records artists
20th-century jazz composers
African-American jazz musicians
20th-century African-American male singers
| false |
[
"Say What may refer to:\n\nBooks\nSay What? - Talk like a local without putting your foot in it, by Lonely Planet, 2004 \n\nSay What? by Margaret Peterson Haddix and James Bernardin 2005\n\nFilm and TV\n Say What?, an MTV television series in the 1990s\n\nGames\n Say What?! (video game) Sony music game\n\nMusic\n Say What! (Stevie Ray Vaughan song), a track by Stevie Ray Vaughan from the album Soul to Soul, 1985\n Say What! (Trouble Funk album), 1986 live album\n \"Say What\" (LL Cool J song), a song by LL Cool J\n \"Say What\", a song by Kovas (musician) \n\"Say What\", single by Jesse Winchester, 1981",
"\"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" is the debut single by Australian rock band the Sports. The song was written by band members Stephen Cummings and Ed Bates and produced by Joe Camilleri. Released in March 1978 as the lead single from the band's debut studio album Reckless (1978), the song peaked at number 55 on the Australian Kent Music Report.\n\nJohn Magowan of Woroni described the song as \"adolescent bravado\".\n\nTrack listing\n Australian 7\" single (K 7089)\nSide A \"Boys! (What Did the Detective Say?)\" - 2:25\nSide B \"Modern Don Juan\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1978 songs\n1978 debut singles\nThe Sports songs\nSong recordings produced by Joe Camilleri\nMushroom Records singles\nSongs written by Stephen Cummings"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:",
"What did he say?",
"I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage"
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
|
What happened at the stage?
| 7 |
What happened at the stage encountered during Sun Ra's trip to saturn?
|
Sun Ra
|
Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
|
They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me.
|
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
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Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
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Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
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Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
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Sun Ra Arkestra members
Afrofuturism
Afrofuturists
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Progressive big band musicians
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"Karen Sillas is an American stage and film actress.\n\nEarly life\nThe daughter of a Greek father and a Swedish mother, Sillas was born in Brooklyn. She graduated from the Acting Conservatory of the State University of New York at Purchase.\n\nCareer\nSillas appeared in Hal Hartley's 1992 film Simple Men. In 1994, she starred in What Happened Was..., which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and launched Sillas into primetime television. In CBS's critically acclaimed detective series Under Suspicion, Sillas portrayed Rose Phillips, the only female detective in an otherwise male-dominated squad room.\nSillas and Tom Noonan appeared in a virtual interview conducted by the film critic Sheila O'Malley, hosted by Film Forum, February 9, 2021, discussing the re-release of the digitized version of What Happened Was... on Film Forum's YouTube channel.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Karen Sillas Current Month TV Schedule\n\nLiving people\nPeople from Brooklyn\nState University of New York at Purchase alumni\nActresses from New York City\nAmerican film actresses\nAmerican stage actresses\nAmerican television actresses\n20th-century American actresses\n21st-century American actresses\nSpeech coaches\nAmerican people of Greek descent\nAmerican people of Swedish descent\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Nina Romano (born Isabel Craven Dilworth) was an American actress in films and on stage.\n\nEarly years\nRomano was the daughter of glass manufacturer J. Dale Dilworth of Salem, New Jersey, and his wife. Her interest in acting developed while she was in high school at Ward–Belmont College in Nashville, and she went on to attend a dramatic school in New York.\n\nCareer\nRomano's initial professional acting experience came in a stage production of Don Juan. She initially focused on dramatic roles, but in 1924 she had her first comedic role in the farce The Whole Town's Talking. Her Broadway credits included The Love Call (1927) and The Warrior's Husband (1932).\n\nAfter being a leading woman on stage for years, Romano made her screen debut in the film Titans for Universal Pictures. That work led to her signing a long-term contract with Universal in 1925. Her other films included The Palace of Pleasure (1926), What Happened to Jones (1926), and Lost at the Front (1927).\n\nPersonal life\nOn December 17, 1923, Romano married Lou Tellegen in Rutherford, New Jersey. Tellegen was an actor with whom Romano had performed in Blind Youth. The couple kept the marriage secret until February 1925, when their son was born. On August 30, 1928, Tellegen and Romano filed for bankruptcy, and in November 1928 the couple was divorced in Los Angeles.\n\nOn October 24, 1931, Romano married Count S. Danneskiold-Samsøe of Denmark. The two later divorced, with Romano suing the count in 1955 to recover $171,000 that she said she had advanced to him.\n\nFilmography\n The Storm Breaker (1925)\n The Palace of Pleasure (1926)\n What Happened to Jones (1926)\n The Midnight Sun (1926)\n Money to Burn (1926)\n Lost at the Front (1927)\n Her Husband's Women (1929)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n20th-century American actresses\nAmerican film actresses\nAmerican stage actresses\nActresses from New Jersey"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:",
"What did he say?",
"I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage",
"What happened at the stage?",
"They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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What did they say to him?
| 8 |
What did the encountered beings say to Sun Ra on the trip to saturn?
|
Sun Ra
|
Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos...
|
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
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American male jazz composers
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Big band bandleaders
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Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
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Afrofuturism
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20th-century African-American male singers
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[
"To Your Good Health! () is a Russian fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Crimson Fairy Book.\n\nSynopsis\n\nEveryone in a king's country had to say \"To your good health!\" whenever he sneezed, but a shepherd with the staring eyes would not say it. The king summoned him and demanded it, but the shepherd would only say, \"To my good health.\" The chamberlain told him he would be killed if he did not, and the shepherd said that he would say it only if he married the princess. The princess thought him handsome enough to marry, but the king was enraged. He had the shepherd thrown in the white bear's pit, but the shepherd's eyes scared it off. Then he had him thrown into a pit of wild boars, but the shepherd played a pipe and made them dance, so they did not harm him. Then he was to have him thrown into a well of scythes, but the shepherd told the guard to give him a minute to look down the well, he might decide to say it after all, and in that minute, he whipped up a dummy that the soldier threw down instead of him. \n\nThen the king offered him a silver wood, a golden castle, and a diamond lake to say it, but the shepherd still said he would say it only he had the princess to wife. The king married him to the princess. At the wedding feast, he sneezed, and the shepherd said, first of all, \"To your good health!\" which so delighted the king that he did not mind the marriage.\n\nIn time, the shepherd succeeded the king. He did not order his people to wish him well against their wills, but everyone did wish him well because he was a good king.\n\nExternal links\nTo your Good Health!\n\nRussian fairy tales",
"John 1:33 is the 33rd verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.\n\nContent\nIn the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort this verse is:\nΚἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν· ἀλλ᾿ ὁ πέμψας με βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι, ἐκεῖνός μοι εἶπεν, Ἐφ᾿ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς τὸ πνεῦμα καταβαῖνον καὶ μένον ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ.\n\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nAnd I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.\n\nThe New International Version translates the passage as:\nI would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'\n\nAnalysis\nMacEvilly comments on the phrase \"I knew Him not,\" saying that since John had been in the wilderness he did not personally know Christ. However\nGod, who sent him to baptize, revealed Jesus apart from the large crowds by divine revelation in the same way that he revealed him in\nhis mother's womb to John. And so John responded with the words of Matthew 3:14, \"I ought to be baptized by you.\"\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nAugustine: \"But who sent John? If we say the Father, we say true; if we say the Son, we say true. But it would be truer to say, the Father and the Son. How then knew he not Him, by Whom he was sent? For if he knew not Him, by Whom he wished to be baptized, it was rash in him to say, I have need to be baptized by Thee. So then he knew Him; and why saith he, I knew Him not?\"\n\nChrysostom: \"When he saith, I knew Him not, he is speaking of time past, not of the time of his baptism, when he forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee.\"\n\nAugustine: \"Let us turn to the other Evangelists, who relate the matter more clearly, and we shall find most satisfactorily, that the dove descended when our Lord ascended from the water. If then the dove descended after baptism, but John said before the baptism, I have need to be baptized of Thee, he knew Him before His baptism also. How then said he, I knew him not, but He which sent me to baptize? Was this the first revelation made to John of Christ's person, or was it not rather a fuller disclosure of what had been already revealed? John knew the Lord to be the Son of God, knew that He would baptize with the Holy Ghost: for before Christ came to the river, many having come together to hear John, he said unto them, He that comes after me is mightier than I: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (Matt. 3:11) What then? He did not know that our Lord (lest Paul or Peter might say, my baptism, as we find Paul did say, my Gospel,) would have and retain to Himself the power of baptism, the ministering of it however passing to good and bad indiscriminately. What hindrance is the badness of the minister, when the Lord is good? So then we baptize again after John's baptism; after a homicide's we baptize not: because John gave his own baptism, the homicide gives Christ's; which is so holy a sacrament, that not even a homicide's ministration can pollute it. Our Lord could, had He so willed, have given power to any servant of His to give baptism as it were in His own stead; and to the baptism, thus transferred to the servant, have imparted the same power, that it would have had, when given by Himself. But this He did not choose to do; that the hope of the baptized might be directed to Him, Who had baptized them; He wished not the servant to place hope in the servant. And again, had He given this power to servants, there would have been as many baptisms as servants; as there had been the baptism of John, so should we have had the baptism of Paul and of Peter. It is by this power then, which Christ retains in His own possession exclusively, that the unity of the Church is established; of which it is said, My dove is one. (Cant. 6:9) A man may have a baptism besides the dove; but that any besides the dove should profit, is impossible.\"\n\nChrysostom: \"The Father having sent forth a voice proclaiming the Son, the Holy Spirit came besides, bringing the voice upon the head of Christ, in order that no one present might think that what was said of Christ, was said of John. But it will be asked: How was it that the Jews believed not, if they saw the Spirit? Such sights however require the mental vision, rather than the bodily. If those who saw Christ working miracles were so drunken with malice, that they denied what their own eyes had seen, how could the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove overcome their incredulity? Some say however that the sight was not visible to all, but only to John, and the more devotional part. But even if the descent of the Spirit, as a dove, was visible to the outward eye, it does not follow that because all saw it, all understood it. Zacharias himself, Daniel, Ezechiel, and Moses saw many things, appearing to their senses, which no one else saw: and therefore John adds, And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God. He had called Him the Lamb before, and said that He would baptize with the Spirit; but he had no where called Him the Son before.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOther translations of John 1:33 at BibleHub\n\n01:33"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:",
"What did he say?",
"I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage",
"What happened at the stage?",
"They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me.",
"What did they say to him?",
"They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos..."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
|
Anything else that was interesting?
| 9 |
Other than the trip to saturn, Anything else that was interesting about Sun Ra?
|
Sun Ra
|
Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life.
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
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"\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" is a 2010 science fiction/magical realism short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in Realms of Fantasy.\n\nPlot summary\nA scientist creates a tiny man. The tiny man is initially very popular, but then draws the hatred of the world, and so the tiny man must flee, together with the scientist (who is now likewise hated, for having created the tiny man).\n\nReception\n\"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, tied with Kij Johnson's \"Ponies\". It was Ellison's final Nebula nomination and win, of his record-setting eight nominations and three wins.\n\nTor.com calls the story \"deceptively simple\", with \"execution (that) is flawless\" and a \"Geppetto-like\" narrator, while Publishers Weekly describes it as \"memorably depict(ing) humanity's smallness of spirit\". The SF Site, however, felt it was \"contrived and less than profound\".\n\nNick Mamatas compared \"How Interesting: A Tiny Man\" negatively to Ellison's other Nebula-winning short stories, and stated that the story's two mutually exclusive endings (in one, the tiny man is killed; in the other, he becomes God) are evocative of the process of writing short stories. Ben Peek considered it to be \"more allegory than (...) anything else\", and interpreted it as being about how the media \"give(s) everyone a voice\", and also about how Ellison was treated by science fiction fandom.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAudio version of ''How Interesting: A Tiny Man, at StarShipSofa\nHow Interesting: A Tiny Man, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database\n\nNebula Award for Best Short Story-winning works\nShort stories by Harlan Ellison",
"Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä is a bog region in Savukoski, Lapland in Finland. Its name is 35 letters long and is the longest place name in Finland, and also the third longest, if names with spaces or hyphens are included, in Europe. It has also been the longest official place name in the European Union since 31 January 2020, when Brexit was completed, as the record was previously held by Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a village in Wales, United Kingdom.\n\nOverview\nA pub in Salla was named Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsi-baari after this bog region. According to an anecdote, the owner of the pub tried two different names for it, but both had already been taken. Frustrated, he registered the pub under a name he knew no one else would be using. The pub also had the longest name of a registered commercial establishment in Finland. The bar was in practice known as Äteritsi-baari. The pub was closed in April 2006.\n\nThe etymology is not known, although the name has been confirmed as genuine. Other than jänkä \"bog\", lauta \"board\" and puoli \"half\", it does not mean anything in Finnish, and was probably never intended to be anything else than alliterative gibberish.\n\nReferences \n\nSavukoski\nBogs of Finland\nLandforms of Lapland (Finland)"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:",
"What did he say?",
"I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage",
"What happened at the stage?",
"They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me.",
"What did they say to him?",
"They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos...",
"Anything else that was interesting?",
"Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life."
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C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
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Did he win any awards?
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Did Sun Ra win any awards?
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Sun Ra
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Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
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American conscientious objectors
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American male jazz composers
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American male pianists
American jazz organists
American male organists
American jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz musicians
Avant-garde jazz keyboardists
Avant-garde jazz pianists
Big band bandleaders
BYG Actuel artists
Contactees
Experimental big band bandleaders
Experimental big band pianists
Free improvisation pianists
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Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama
Jive singers
Mainstream jazz pianists
Musicians from Philadelphia
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Afrofuturism
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Egyptian mythology in music
Leo Records artists
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20th-century jazz composers
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[
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The 23rd Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony presented for horror films that were released in 2020. The nominees were announced on January 20, 2021. The film The Invisible Man won five of its five nominations, including Best Wide Release, as well as the write-in poll of Best Kill. Color Out Of Space and Possessor each took two awards. His House did not win any of its seven nominations. The ceremony was exclusively livestreamed for the first time on the SHUDDER horror streaming service.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\nFangoria Chainsaw Awards"
] |
[
"Sun Ra",
"Trip to Saturn",
"What was the Trip to Saturn about?",
"His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947",
"What happened in 1947?",
"flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold.",
"What were the flying saucers?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him.",
"What did he learn from his college experience?",
"in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:",
"What did he say?",
"I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage",
"What happened at the stage?",
"They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me.",
"What did they say to him?",
"They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos...",
"Anything else that was interesting?",
"Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life.",
"Did he win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_88da9c030fa446be861a6e91fcd9089c_0
|
Did he have any influences?
| 11 |
Did Sun Ra have any influences while on the trip to saturn?
|
Sun Ra
|
Sun Ra soon left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said: My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up... I wasn't in human form... I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn... they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools... the world was going into complete chaos... I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me. Sun Ra said that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Sun Ra also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology." CANNOTANSWER
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they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them.
|
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up.
Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym."
His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and early New Orleans hot jazz, to swing music, bebop, free jazz and fusion. His compositions ranged from keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians, along with electronic excursions, songs, chants, percussion pieces, and anthems. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra (which featured artists such as Marshall Allen, John Gilmore and June Tyson throughout its various iterations). Its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the Space Age. Following Ra's illness-forced retirement in 1992, the band remained active as The Sun Ra Arkestra, and, as of 2021, continues performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Though his mainstream success was limited, Sun Ra was a prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, and remained influential throughout his life for his music and persona. He is now widely considered an innovator; among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz and his early use of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. Over the course of his career, he recorded dozens of singles and over one hundred full-length albums, comprising well over 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific recording artists of the 20th century.
Biography
Early life
He was born Herman Blount on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular vaudeville stage magician Black Herman, who had deeply impressed his mother. He was nicknamed "Sonny" from his childhood, had an older sister and half-brother, and was doted upon by his mother and grandmother.
For decades, very little was known about Sun Ra's early life, and he contributed to its mystique. As a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was distantly related to Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. His birthday for years remained unknown, as his claims ranged from 1910 to 1918. Only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ra's birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnie's notes for Blue Delight (1989) said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old. But Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22, 1914.
As a child, Blount was a skilled pianist. By the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw prominent musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, and others now forgotten. Sun Ra once said, "The world let down a lot of good musicians".
In his teenage years, Blount demonstrated prodigious musical talent: many times, according to acquaintances, he went to big band performances and then produced full transcriptions of the bands' songs from memory. By his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. He attended Birmingham's segregated Industrial High School (now known as Parker High School), where he studied under music teacher John T. "Fess" Whatley, a demanding disciplinarian who was widely respected and whose classes produced many professional musicians.
Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect. Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books. Its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him.
By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism. It left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation.
Early professional career and college
In 1934, Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper, his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer. Blount joined a musicians' trade union and toured with Harper's group through the US Southeast and Midwest. When Harper left the group mid-tour to move to New York (she later was a member of the modestly successful singing group the Ginger Snaps), Blount took over leadership of the group, renaming it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. They continued touring for several months before dissolving as unprofitable. Though the first edition of the Sonny Blount Orchestra was not financially successful, they earned positive notice from fans and other musicians. Blount afterward found steady employment as a musician in Birmingham.
Birmingham clubs often featured exotic trappings, such as vivid lighting and murals with tropical or oasis scenes. Some believe these influenced the elements Sun Ra incorporated in his later stage shows. Playing for the big bands gave black musicians a sense of pride and togetherness, and they were highly regarded in the black community. They were expected to be disciplined and presentable, and in the segregated South, black musicians had wide acceptance in white society. They often played for elite white society audiences (though they were typically forbidden from associating with the audience).
In 1936, Whatley's intercession led to Blount's being awarded a scholarship at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. He was a music education major, studying composition, orchestration, and music theory. He dropped out after a year.
Trip to Saturn
Blount left college because, he claimed, he had a visionary experience as a college student that had a major, long-term influence on him. In 1936 or 1937, in the midst of deep religious concentration, Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him, and, as he later said:
Blount claimed that this experience occurred in 1936 or 1937. According to Szwed, the musician's closest associates cannot date the story any earlier than 1952. (Blount also said that the incident happened when he was living in Chicago, where he did not settle until the late 1940s). Sun Ra discussed the vision, with no substantive variation, to the end of his life. His trip to Saturn allegedly occurred a full decade before flying saucers entered public consciousness with the 1947 encounter of Kenneth Arnold. It was earlier than other public accounts: about 15 years before George Adamski wrote about contact with benevolent beings; and almost 20 years before the 1961 case of Barney and Betty Hill, who recounted sinister UFO abductions. Szwed says that, "even if this story is revisionist autobiography... Sonny was pulling together several strains of his life. He was both prophesizing his future and explaining his past with a single act of personal mythology."
New devotion to music (late 1930s)
After leaving college, Blount became known as the most singularly devoted musician in Birmingham. He rarely slept, citing Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and Napoleon as fellow highly productive cat-nappers. He transformed the first floor of his family's home into a conservatory-workshop, where he wrote songs, transcribed recordings, rehearsed with the many musicians who drifted in and out, and discussed Biblical and esoteric concepts with whoever was interested.
Blount became a regular at Birmingham's Forbes Piano Company, a white-owned company. Blount visited the Forbes building almost daily to play music, swap ideas with staff and customers, or copy sheet music into his notebooks. He formed a new band, and like his old teacher Whatley, insisted on rigorous daily rehearsals. The new Sonny Blount Orchestra earned a reputation as an impressive, disciplined band that could play in a wide variety of styles with equal skill.
Draft and wartime experiences
In October 1942, Blount received a selective service notification that he had been drafted into the Military of the United States. He quickly declared himself a conscientious objector, citing religious objections to war and killing, his financial support of his great-aunt Ida, and his chronic hernia. The local draft board rejected his claim. In an appeal to the national draft board, Blount wrote that the lack of black men on the draft appeal board "smacks of Hitlerism." Sonny's refusal to join the military deeply embarrassed his family, and many relatives ostracized him. He was eventually approved for alternate service at Civilian Public Service camp in Pennsylvania, but he did not appear at the camp as required on December 8, 1942. Shortly after, he was arrested in Alabama.
In court, Blount said that alternate service was unacceptable; he debated the judge on points of law and Biblical interpretation. The judge ruled that Blount was violating the law and was at risk for being drafted into the U.S. military. Blount responded that if inducted, he would use military weapons and training to kill the first high-ranking military officer possible. The judge sentenced Blount to jail (pending draft board and CPS rulings), and then said, "I've never seen a nigger like you before." Blount replied, "No, and you never will again."
In January 1943, Blount wrote to the United States Marshals Service from the Walker County, Alabama jail in Jasper. He said he was facing a nervous breakdown from the stress of imprisonment, that he was suicidal, and that he was in constant fear of sexual assault. When his conscientious objector status was reaffirmed in February 1943, he was escorted to Pennsylvania. He did forestry work as assigned during the day and was allowed to play piano at night. Psychiatrists there described him as "a psychopathic personality [and] sexually perverted," but also as "a well-educated colored intellectual."
In March 1943, the draft board reclassified Blount as 4-F because of his hernia, and he returned to Birmingham, embittered and angered. He formed a new band and soon was playing professionally. After his beloved great-aunt Ida died in 1945, Blount felt no reason to stay in Birmingham. He dissolved the band, and moved to Chicago—part of the Second Great Migration, southern African Americans who moved north during and after World War II.
Chicago years (1945–61)
In Chicago, Blount quickly found work, notably with blues singer Wynonie Harris, with whom he made his recording debut on two 1946 singles, Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse, and My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself. Dig This Boogie was also Blount's first recorded piano solo. He performed with the locally successful Lil Green band and played bump-and-grind music for months in Calumet City strip clubs.
In August 1946, Blount earned a lengthy engagement at the Club DeLisa under bandleader and composer Fletcher Henderson. Blount had long admired Henderson, but Henderson's fortunes had declined (his band was now made of up middling musicians rather than the stars of earlier years) in large part because of his instability, due to Henderson's long-term injuries from a car accident. Henderson hired Blount as pianist and arranger, replacing Marl Young. Ra's arrangements initially showed a degree of bebop influence, but the band members resisted the new music, despite Henderson's encouragement.
In 1948, Blount performed briefly in a trio with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and violinist Stuff Smith, both preeminent musicians. There are no known recordings of this trio, but a home recording of a Blount-Smith duet from 1953 appears on Sound Sun Pleasure, and one of Sun Ra's final recordings in 1992 was a rare sideman appearance on violinist Billy Bang's Tribute to Stuff Smith.
In addition to enabling professional advancement, what he encountered in Chicago changed Blount's personal outlook. The city was a center of African-American political activism and fringe movements, with Black Muslims, Black Hebrews, and others proselytizing, debating, and printing leaflets or books. Blount absorbed it all and was fascinated with the city's many ancient Egyptian-styled buildings and monuments. He read books such as George G.M. James's Stolen Legacy (which argued that classical Greek philosophy had its roots in ancient Egypt). Blount concluded that the accomplishments and history of Africans had been systematically suppressed and denied by European cultures.
By 1952, Blount was leading the Space Trio with drummer Tommy "Bugs" Hunter and saxophonist Pat Patrick, two of the most accomplished musicians he had known. They performed regularly, and Sun Ra began writing more advanced songs.
On October 20, 1952, Blount legally changed his name to Le Sony'r Ra. Sun Ra claimed to have always been uncomfortable with his birth name of Blount. He considered it a slave name, from a family that was not his. David Martinelli suggested that his change was similar to "Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali... [dropping] their slave names in the process of attaining a new self-awareness and self-esteem".
Patrick left the group to move to Florida with his new wife. His friend John Gilmore (tenor sax) joined the group, and Marshall Allen (alto sax) soon followed. Patrick was in and out of the group until the end of his life, but Allen and Gilmore were the two most devoted members of the Arkestra. In fact, Gilmore is often criticized for staying with Sun Ra for over forty years when he could have been a strong leader in his own right. Saxophonist James Spaulding and trombonist Julian Priester also recorded with Sun Ra in Chicago, and both went on to careers of their own. The Chicago tenor Von Freeman also did a short stint with the band of the early 1950s.
In Chicago, Sun Ra met Alton Abraham, a precociously intelligent teenager and something of a kindred spirit. He became the Arkestra's biggest booster and one of Sun Ra's closest friends. Both men felt like outsiders and shared an interest in esoterica. Abraham's strengths balanced Ra's shortcomings: though he was a disciplined bandleader, Sun Ra was somewhat introverted and lacked business sense (a trait that haunted his entire career). Abraham was outgoing, well-connected, and practical. Though still a teenager, Abraham eventually became Sun Ra's de facto business manager: he booked performances, suggested musicians for the Arkestra, and introduced several popular songs into the group's repertoire. Ra, Abraham and others formed a sort of book club to trade ideas and discuss the offbeat topics that so intrigued them. This group printed a number of pamphlets and broadsides explaining their conclusions and ideas. Some of these were collected by critic John Corbett and Anthony Elms as The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets (2006).
In the mid-1950s, Sun Ra and Abraham formed an independent record label that was generally known as El Saturn Records. (It had several name variations.) Initially focused on 45 rpm singles by Sun Ra and artists related to him, Saturn Records issued two full-length albums during the 1950s: Super-Sonic Jazz (1957) and Jazz In Silhouette (1959). Producer Tom Wilson was the first to release a Sun Ra album, through his independent label Transition Records in 1957, entitled Jazz by Sun Ra. During this era, Sun Ra recorded the first of dozens of singles as a band-for-hire backing a range of doo wop and R&B singers; several dozen of these were reissued in a two-CD set, The Singles, by Evidence Records.
In the late 1950s, Sun Ra and his band began to wear outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age, they provided a recognizable uniform for the Arkestra, they provided a new identity for the band onstage, and comic relief. (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously.)
New York years (1961–68)
Sun Ra and the Arkestra moved to New York City in the fall of 1961. To save money, Sun Ra and his band members lived communally. This enabled Sun Ra to request rehearsals spontaneously and at any time, which was his established habit. It was during this time in New York that Sun Ra recorded the album The Futuristic Sound of Sun Ra.
In March 1966, the Arkestra secured a regular Monday night gig at Slug's Saloon. This was a breakthrough to new audiences and recognition. Sun Ra's popularity reached an early peak during this period, as the beat generation and early followers of psychedelia embraced him. Regularly for the next year and a half (and intermittently for another half-decade afterwards), Sun Ra and company performed at Slug's for audiences that eventually came to include music critics and leading jazz musicians. Opinions of Sun Ra's music were divided (and hecklers were not uncommon).
High praise, however, came from two of the architects of bebop. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie offered encouragement, once stating, "Keep it up, Sonny, they tried to do the same shit to me," and pianist Thelonious Monk chided someone who said Sun Ra was "too far out" by responding, "Yeah, but it swings."
Also in 1966, Sun Ra, with members of the Arkestra and Al Kooper's Blues Project, recorded the album Batman and Robin under the pseudonym, The Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale. The album consisted primarily of instrumental variations on the Batman Theme and public domain classical music, with an uncredited female vocalist singing the "Robin Theme."
Despite their planned management of money, the costs of New York eventually became too high and motivated the group to move to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia years (1968)
In 1968, when the New York building they were renting was put up for sale, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Sun Ra moved into a house on Morton Street that became the Arkestra's base of operations until his death. Apart from occasional complaints about the noise of rehearsals, they were soon regarded as good neighbors because of their friendliness, drug-free living, and rapport with youngsters. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson owned and operated the Pharaoh's Den, a convenience store in the neighborhood. When lightning struck a tree on their street, Sun Ra took it as a good omen. James Jacson fashioned the Cosmic Infinity Drum from the scorched tree trunk. They commuted via railroad to New York for the Monday night gig at Slug's and for other engagements.
Sun Ra became a fixture in Philadelphia, appearing semi-regularly on WXPN radio, giving lectures to community groups, or visiting the city's libraries. In the mid-1970s, the Arkestra sometimes played free Saturday afternoon concerts in a Germantown park near their home. At their mid-1970s shows in Philadelphia nightclubs, someone stood at the back of the room, selling stacks of unmarked LPs in plain white sleeves, pressed from recordings of the band's live performances.
California and world tours (1968–93)
In late 1968, Sun Ra and the Arkestra made their first tour of the US West Coast. Reactions were mixed. Hippies accustomed to long-form psychedelia like the Grateful Dead were often bewildered by the Arkestra. By this time, the performance included 20–30 musicians, dancers, singers, fire-eaters, and elaborate lighting. John Burks of Rolling Stone wrote a positive review of a San Jose State College concert. Sun Ra was featured on the April 19, 1969 cover of Rolling Stone magazine, which introduced his inscrutable gaze to millions. During this tour, Damon Choice, then an art student at San Jose, joined the Arkestra and became its vibraphonist.
Starting with concerts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in 1970, the Arkestra began to tour internationally. They played to audiences who had known his music only through records. Sun Ra continued playing in Europe almost to the end of his life. The saxophonist Danny Ray Thompson became a de facto tour and business manager during this era, specializing in what he called "no bullshit C.O.D.," preferring to take cash before performing or delivering records.
In early 1971, Sun Ra was appointed as artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching a course called The Black Man In the Cosmos. Few students enrolled, but his classes were often full of curious people from the surrounding community. One half-hour of each class was devoted to a lecture (complete with handouts and homework assignments), the other half-hour to an Arkestra performance or Sun Ra keyboard solo. Reading lists included the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, The Book of Oahspe, and assorted volumes concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs, African American folklore, and other topics.
In 1971, Sun Ra traveled throughout Egypt with the Arkestra at the invitation of the drummer Salah Ragab. He returned to Egypt in 1983 and 1984, when he recorded with Ragab. Recordings made in Egypt were released as Live in Egypt, Nidhamu, Sun Ra Meets Salah Ragab, Egypt Strut and Horizon.
In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screenwriter Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce an 85-minute feature film, entitled Space Is the Place, with Sun Ra's Arkestra and an ensemble of actors assembled by the production team. It was filmed in Oakland and San Francisco. A 1975 show concert by the Arkestra in Cleveland featured an early lineup of Devo as the opening act. On May 20, 1978, Sun Ra and the Arkestra appeared on the TV show Saturday Night Live (S3 E20).
In New York City in the fall of 1979, Sun Ra and the Arkestra played as the "house band" at the Squat Theatre on 23rd Street, which was the performance venue of the avant-garde Hungarian theater troupe. Janos, their manager, transformed the theater into a nightclub while most of the troupe was away that season performing in Europe. Debbie Harry, The Velvet Underground's John Cale and Nico (from Andy Warhol's Factory days), John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, and other pop and avant-garde musicians were regulars. Sun Ra was disciplined and drank only club soda at the gigs, but did not impose his strict code on his musicians. They respected his discipline and authority. Soft-spoken and charismatic, Sun Ra turned Squat Theater into a universe of big band "space" jazz backed by a floor show of sexy Jupiterettes. He directed while playing three synthesizers at the same time. In those days, "Space Is The Place" was the space at Squat.
The Arkestra continued their touring and recording through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Death
Sun Ra had a stroke in 1990, but kept composing, performing, and leading the Arkestra. Late in his career, he opened a few concerts for the New York–based rock group Sonic Youth. When too ill to perform and tour, Sun Ra appointed Gilmore to lead the Arkestra. (Gilmore was frail from emphysema; after his death in 1995, Allen took over leadership of the Arkestra.)
In late 1992, Sun Ra returned to his birth city of Birmingham to live with his older sister, Mary Jenkins, who (along with various Blount cousins) became his caretaker. In January, he was admitted to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, suffering from congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, strokes, circulatory problems, and other serious maladies. He died in the hospital on May 30, 1993, and was buried at the Elmwood Cemetery. The footstone reads "Herman Sonny Blount aka Le Sony'r Ra".
The Arkestra
Following Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and later performed under the direction of alto saxophonist Marshall Allen. A 1999 album led by Allen, Song for the Sun, featured Jimmy Hopps and Dick Griffin. In the summer of 2004 the Arkestra became the first American jazz band to perform in Tuva, in southern Siberia, where they played five sets at the Ustuu-Huree Festival.
As of July 2019, the Arkestra continues to tour and perform. In September 2008 they played for 7 days in a row at the ZXZW festival, each day emphasizing different aspects of the musical legacy of Sun Ra. In 2009, they performed at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art in conjunction with an exhibition that explored the intersection of the Arkestra's performing legacy and the practice of contemporary art. In 2011, they ventured to Australia for the first time, for the 2011 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Tasmania. In 2017, the Arkestra performed at the 31st Lowell Folk Festival in Lowell Massachusetts. In 2019, it was announced that the Arkestra would perform at Portland, Oregon's Hollywood Theater for three nights on July 14, 15, and 16. On October 22, 2021, they performed at the BRIC JazzFest in Downtown Brooklyn.
Music
Sun Ra's piano technique touched on many styles: his youthful fascination with boogie woogie, stride piano and blues, a sometimes refined touch reminiscent of Count Basie or Ahmad Jamal, and angular phrases in the style of Thelonious Monk or brutal, percussive attacks like Cecil Taylor. Often overlooked is the range of influences from classical music – Sun Ra cited Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Shostakovich as his favorite composers for the piano.
Sun Ra's music can be roughly divided into three phases, but his records and performances were full of surprises and the following categories should be regarded only as approximations.
Chicago phase
The first period occurred in the 1950s when Sun Ra's music evolved from big band swing into the outer-space-themed "cosmic jazz" for which he was best known. Music critics and jazz historians say some of his best work was recorded during this period and it is also some of his most accessible music. Sun Ra's music in this era was often tightly arranged and sometimes reminiscent of Duke Ellington's, Count Basie's, or other important swing music ensembles. However, there was a strong influence from post-swing styles like bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, and touches of the exotic and hints of the experimentalism that dominated his later music. Notable Sun Ra albums from the 1950s include Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways, The Nubians of Plutonia and Jazz In Silhouette.
Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra's bassist, has been described as "the pivot around which much of Sun Ra's music revolved for eight years." This is especially pronounced on the key recordings from 1965 (The Magic City, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two) where the intertwining lines of Boykins' bass and Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion.
New York phase
After the move to New York, Sun Ra and company plunged headlong into the experimentalism that they had only hinted at in Chicago. The music was often extremely loud and the Arkestra grew to include multiple drummers and percussionists. In recordings of this era, Ra began to use new technologies—such as extensive use of tape delay—to assemble spatial sound pieces that were far removed from earlier compositions such as Saturn. Recordings and live performances often featured passages for unusual instrumental combinations, and passages of collective playing that incorporated free improvisation. It is often difficult to tell where compositions end and improvisations begin.
In this era, Sun Ra began conducting using hand and body gestures. This system inspired cornetist Butch Morris, who later developed his own more highly refined way to conduct improvisers.
Though often associated with avant-garde jazz, Sun Ra did not believe his work could be classified as "free music": "I have to make sure that every note, every nuance, is correct... If you want to call it that, spell it p-h-r-e, because ph is a definite article and re is the name of the sun. So I play phre music – music of the sun."
Seeking to broaden his compositional possibilities, Sun Ra insisted all band members double on various percussion instruments – predating world music by drawing on various ethnic musical forms – and most saxophonists became multireedists, adding instruments such as flutes, oboes, or clarinets to their arsenals. In this era, Sun Ra was among the first of any musicians to make extensive and pioneering use of synthesizers and other various electronic keyboards; he was given a prototype Minimoog by its inventor, Robert Moog. According to the Bob Moog Foundation: "Sun Ra first met Robert Moog after Downbeat journalist and Sun Ra acquaintance Tam Fiofori arranged for a visit to Moog’s factory in Trumansburg in the Fall of 1969....it was during this visit that Moog loaned Sun Ra a prototype Minimoog (Model B), several months before the commercial instrument (Model D) was introduced in March 1970. Ra immediately added the instrument to his repertoire of keyboards, later acquired a second, and featured the Minimoog prominently on many of his recordings of the early 1970s."
Notable titles from this period include The Magic City, Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, When Sun Comes Out, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One, Atlantis, Secrets of the Sun and Other Planes of There.
Philadelphia phase
During their third period, beginning in the 1970s, Sun Ra and the Arkestra settled down into a relatively conventional sound, often incorporating swing standards, although their records and concerts were still highly eclectic and energetic, and typically included at least one lengthy, semi-improvised percussion jam. Sun Ra was explicitly asserting a continuity with the ignored jazz tradition: "They tried to fool you, now I got to school you, about jazz, about jazz" he chanted in concerts, framing the inclusion of pieces by Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton.
In the 1970s Sun Ra took a liking to the films of Walt Disney. He incorporated smatterings of Disney musical numbers into many of his performances from then on. In the late 1980s the Arkestra performed a concert at Walt Disney World. The Arkestra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade" is available on Stay Awake, a tribute album of Disney tunes played by various artists and produced by Hal Willner. A number of Sun Ra's 1970s concerts are available on CD, but none have received a wide release in comparison to his earlier music. In 1978–80 performances, Sun Ra added a large electronic creation, the Outerspace Visual Communicator, which produced images rather than sounds; this was performed at a keyboard by its inventor, Bill Sebastian. During concerts, the OVC usually was positioned at center stage behind the Arkestra while Sebastian sat on stage with the musicians.
Musicians
Dozens of musicians—perhaps hundreds—passed through Sun Ra's bands over the years. Some stayed with him for decades, while others played on only a few recordings or performances.
Sun Ra was personally responsible for the vast majority of the constant changes in the Arkestra's lineup. According to contrabassist Jiunie Booth, a member of the Arkestra, Sun Ra did not confront any musician whose performance he was unsatisfied with. Instead, he would simply gather the entire Arkestra minus the offending musician, and skip town—leaving the fired musician stranded.
The following is a partial list of musical collaborators, and the eras when they played with Sun Ra or the Arkestra:
Yahya Abdul-Majid, tenor saxophone (1980–2020)
Fred Adams, trumpet (1981–?)
Luqman Ali (Edward Skinner), drums (1960, 1977–?)
Marshall Allen, alto saxophone, flute, oboe (1957–present)
Atakatune (Stanley Morgan), percussion (1972–1992)
Ayé Aton (Robert Underwood), drums and percussion (1972–1976)
Robert Barry, drums (1955–1968, 1979)
Ronnie Boykins, double bass (1957–1974)
Arthur "Jiunie" Booth, double bass
Darryl Brown, drums (1970–1972)
Owen "Fiidla" Brown, violin, dance, vocals (1987–1990s and later appearances)
Tony Bunn, electric bass (1976)
Francisco Mora Catlett, drums (1973–1980)
Samarai Celestial (Eric Walker), drums (1979–1997)
Don Cherry, pocket trumpet (1983–1990)
Vincent Chancey, French horn (1976–1995)
Damon Choice, vibraphone (1974–?)
Phil Cohran, trumpet (1959–1961)
India Cooke, violin (1990–1995)
Danny Davis, alto saxophone, flute (1962–1977, 1985)
Dave Davis, trombone (1997–present)
Joey DeStefano, alto saxophone (1968–1969)
Arthur Doyle, saxophone (1968, 1989)
Bruce Edwards. guitar (1983–1993)
Eddie Gale, trumpet (1960s)
John Gilmore, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet (1954–1964, 1965–1995)
Kwame Hadi (Lamont McClamb), trumpet, conga, vibraphone (1969–1996)
Billy Higgins, drums, (1989)
Tyrone Hill, trombone (1979–present)
Tommy "Bugs" Hunter, drums, sound engineer (1951–1990)
Ahmed Abdullah, trumpet, (1976–1993)
James Jacson, bassoon, oboe, flute, Ancient Egyptian infinity drum (1963–1997)
Clifford Jarvis, drums, (1961–76, 1983)
Donald Jones, drums (1973–1974)
Dr. VonFiend (musician), various instruments, effects (2006-2009)
Wayne Kramer, guitar (2006)
Elson Nascimento, percussion, vocals (1987–present)
Bob Northern, french horn
Eloe Omoe, bass clarinet, oboe
John Ore, double bass
Taylor Richardson, guitar (1979–1983)
Pat Patrick, baritone saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet, flute (1950–1959, 1961–1977, 1985–1988)
Julian Priester, trombone (1955–1956, 1980s–1990s)
Rollo Radford, bass
Knoel Scott, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, singer and dancer (1979–present)
Buster Smith, drums
Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, drums
James Spaulding, alto sax, flute (1959)
Michael Ray, trumpet (1978–present)
Pharoah Sanders, saxophone (1964–1965)
Bill Sebastian, outerspace visual communicator (1978–1980)
Talvin Singh, tablas
Alan Silva, double bass, cello, violin (early 1970s)
Tani Tabbal, drums
Clifford Thornton, trombone
June Tyson, singer, violin
Outer Space Visual Communicator
The Outer Space Visual Communicator was a giant machine that was played with hands and feet to create light designs, similar to how musicians create and sound with their instruments. The name of the instrument arose from Bill Sebastian's collaboration with Sun Ra, who incorporated the OVC into the Arkestra from 1978 to 1980 and experimented on video applications from 1981 to 1987.
Philosophy
Sun Ra's world view was often described as a philosophy, but he rejected this term, describing his own manner as an "equation" and saying that while philosophy was based on theories and abstract reasoning, his method was based on logic and pragmatism. Many of the Arkestra cite Sun Ra's teachings as pivotal and for inspiring such long-term devotion to the music that they knew would never make them much money. His equation was rarely (if ever) explained as a whole; instead, it was related in bits and pieces over many years, leading some to doubt that he had a coherent message. However, Martinelli argues that, when considered as a whole, one can discern a unified world view that draws upon many sources, but is also unique to Sun Ra, writing:
He drew on sources as diverse as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, channeling, numerology, Freemasonry, Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, and Black nationalism. Sun Ra's system had distinct Gnostic leanings, arguing that the god of most monotheistic religions was not the creator god, not the ultimate god, but a lesser, evil being. Sun Ra was wary of the Bible, knowing that it had been used to justify slavery. He often re-arranged and re-worded Biblical passages (and re-worked many other words, names, or phrases) in an attempt to uncover "hidden" meanings. The most obvious evidence of this system was Ra's practice of renaming many of the musicians who played with him.
Bassoonist/multireedist James Jacson had studied Zen Buddhism before joining Sun Ra and identified strong similarities between Zen teachings and practices (particularly Zen koans) and Ra's use of non sequiturs and seemingly absurd replies to questions. Drummer Art Jenkins admitted that Sun Ra's "nonsense" sometimes troubled his thoughts for days until inspiring a sort of paradigm shift, or profound change in outlook. Drummer Andrew Cyrille said Sun Ra's comments were "very interesting stuff... whether you believed it or not. And a lot of times it was humorous, and a lot of times it was ridiculous, and a lot of times it was right on the money."
Sun Ra's philosophy can be further understood in viewing his film Space is the Place. The film opens with Sun Ra on a distant planet, where the music and vibrations are much different from Earth where the air is filled with the sounds of “guns, anger and frustration .” A colony is erected on this planet specifically for black people because only on a distant planet will the black race be free to return to their natural vibrations and live in harmony. This will give rise to an “altered destiny .” The film also discloses Sun Ra's ideas on how to get his people to another planet. This can be accomplished through, “isotopic teleportation, trans-molecularization, or better still – teleport the whole planet here through music .”
Sun Ra and black culture
According to Szwed, Sun Ra's view of his relationship to black people and black cultures "changed drastically" over time. Initially, Sun Ra identified closely with broader struggles for black power, black political influence, and black identity, and saw his own music as a key element in educating and liberating blacks. But by the heyday of Black Power radicalism in the 1960s, Sun Ra was expressing disillusionment with these aims. He denied feeling closely connected to any race. In 1970 he said:
I couldn't approach black people with the truth because they like lies. They live lies... At one time I felt that white people were to blame for everything, but then I found out that they were just puppets and pawns of some greater force, which has been using them... Some force is having a good time [manipulating black and white people] and looking, enjoying itself up in a reserved seat, wondering, "I wonder when they're going to wake up."
Afrofuturism
Sun Ra is considered to be an early pioneer of the Afrofuturism movement due to his music, writings and other works.
The influence of Sun Ra can be seen throughout many aspects of black music. He grounded his practice of Afrofuturism in a musical tradition of performing blackness that remains relevant today. Sun Ra lived out his beliefs of Afrofuturism in his daily life by embodying the movement not only in his music, but also in his clothes and actions. This embodiment of the narrative allowed him to demonstrate black nationalism as a counternarrative to the present culture.
It was in Chicago, as well, in the mid-fifties, that Ra began experimenting with extraterrestriality in his stage show, sometimes playing regular cocktail lounges dressed in space suits and ancient Egyptian regalia. By placing his band and performances in space and extraterrestrial environments Sun Ra built a world that was his own view of how the African diaspora connected.
Influence and legacy
Many of Sun Ra's innovations remain important and groundbreaking. Ra was one of the first jazz leaders to use two double basses, to employ the electric bass, to play electronic keyboards, to use extensive percussion and polyrhythms, to explore modal music and to pioneer solo and group freeform improvisations. In addition, he made his mark in the wider cultural context: he proclaimed the African origins of jazz, reaffirmed pride in black history and reasserted the spiritual and mystical dimensions of music, all important factors in the black cultural/political renaissance of the 1960s.
NRBQ recorded "Rocket #9" in 1968 for their debut album on Columbia. Sun Ra had given NRBQ's Terry Adams a copy of the song on 45 and told him, "This is especially for you," which Adams reported inspired him to reform the band after a period of inactivity. The band still includes Sun Ra's compositions in their performances, and besides "Rocket #9" have released recordings of "We Travel the Spaceways" and "Love in Outer Space." Several members of the Arkestra have toured with NRBQ over the years, including Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen, Knoel Scott, Tyrone Hill and Danny Thompson. Adams has joined the Arkestra as their pianist on several tours, most recently during a February 2016 tour of cities in the US southeast.
Detroit's MC5 played a handful of shows with Sun Ra and were influenced by his works immensely. One of their songs from their premiere album Kick Out the Jams featured a track called Starship, which was based on a poem by Ra.
Sun Ra was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1979.
The Sun Ra Repatriation Project was started in 2008 with the aim of using interplanetary communication with a view to facilitating Sun Ra's return to planet Earth.
Filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith has heavily researched the life and legacy of Sun Ra. Her 2013 exhibition "17" "arises out of [her] research into the legacy of Sun Ra, who was himself a student of numerology and achieved a kind of cultural immortality the number 17 might be said to refer to". Her project "The Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band" includes several components related to Sun Ra. "One component (2010) of the project is the production of five flash mob street performances involving a marching band inspired by Sun Ra's Arkestra. The second component of the project... is a full-length video that chronicles the urban legends of Sun Ra’s time in Chicago as well as the contemporary artists who live and work in this city".
The "Sun Ra Revival Post-Krautrock Archestra", formed in Australia during 2014, paid tribute to Sun Ra's philosophies and musical ideas within their albums Realm Beyond Realm and Sun Ra Kills the World.
The Spatial AKA Orchestra, formed in 2006 by Jerry Dammers (the main songwriter of British ska revival band The Specials), was originally created as a tribute to Sun Ra, borrowing many of the ideas, themes and tropes from Sun Ra's own performances.
The University of Chicago has an extensive collection of Sun Ra's works and personal items in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library. The collection was assembled by Ra's business manager Alton Abraham and is open to the public upon request. The Special Collections Research Center has also repeatedly exhibited Sun Ra's work.
Discography
Filmography
Space Is the Place (1974) is a feature-length film that stars Sun Ra and his band as themselves. The soundtrack, also by Sun Ra, is available on CD. The film follows Sun Ra after he returns to Chicago from many years of space travel with his Arkestra. In a meeting with "the Overseer" – a devil-like figure stationed in the desert – Sun Ra agrees to play a game of cards to "win" the black community. Sun Ra's goal is to transport the American black community to a new planet he discovered while on his journey, and that he hopes to use as a home for an entirely black population. The artist's mission is to "teleport the whole planet through music", but his attempts are often misunderstood by his supposed converts.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the subject of a few documentary films, including Robert Mugge's Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980). It interspersed passages of performances and rehearsals with Sun Ra's commentary on various subjects ranging from today's youth to his own place in the cosmos. More recently, Don Letts' Sun Ra – Brother from Another Planet (2005) incorporated some of Mugge's material, and includes some additional interviews. Points on a Space Age (2009) is a documentary by Ephrahaim Asili. "It's a 60-minute doc along the lines of the talking-head-intercut-with performance clips style."
Bibliography
Sun Ra wrote an enormous number of songs and material regarding his spiritual beliefs and music. A magazine titled Sun Ra Research was published irregularly for many years, providing extensive documentation of Sun Ra's perspectives on many issues. Sun Ra's collected poetry and prose is available as a book, published May 2005, entitled Sun Ra, The Immeasurable Equation. Another book of over 260 of Sun Ra's poems, Sun Ra: Collected Works Vol. 1: Immeasurable Equation was published by Phaelos Books in November 2005. The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets, was published in book form in 2005, by WhiteWalls. A collection of Sun Ra's poetry, This Planet Is Doomed, was published by Kicks Books in 2011.
Notes
References
External links
The Sun Ra Arkestra, Official site, under the direction of Marshall Allen
Space is the Place film, Outer Spaceways
1988 interview with Sun Ra
1968 Sun Ra interview by Dennis Irving (also known as Denys Irving)
The Sun Ra Arkestra "Live At The Squat Theatre" 8/24/1979
The Sun Ra Arkestra – Live At The Squat Theatre
1914 births
1993 deaths
A&M Records artists
African-American pianists
American conscientious objectors
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"John Wesley \"Dick\" Summers (1887-1976) was an old-time fiddler from Indiana. He learned to play from his family, but a Tom Riley of Kentucky was also an influence. Summers did not originally read music, but did learn to do so in his 70s. He was one of the only old-time Midwestern fiddlers to have a commercially distributed album in the post-World War II era. As indicated though his style had Southern, and as mentioned Kentucky, influences.\n\nReferences\n\nOld-time fiddlers\nMusicians from Indiana\n1887 births\n1976 deaths\nPlace of birth missing\n20th-century violinists",
"The Gurus were an American psychedelic rock band from the 1960s. They were among the first to incorporate Middle Eastern influences, maybe more than any other band of that era. The band broke up without making a large impact on the music scene of the time, although they did release two singles on United Artists Records in 1966 and 1967. Their album, The Gurus Are Hear, failed to be released in 1967, which was noted as the reason for the band splitting up.\n\nThe album was finally released in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican psychedelic rock music groups"
] |
[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life"
] |
C_157aad7f67974c55b20a22f3e235e87c_1
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where was hearst born
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Where was William Randolph Hearst born?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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1863 births
1951 deaths
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
19th-century art collectors
20th-century American newspaper founders
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20th-century American politicians
20th-century art collectors
American animated film producers
American art collectors
American magazine founders
American magazine publishers (people)
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Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from New Rochelle, New York
Businesspeople from San Francisco
California Democrats
Candidates in the 1904 United States presidential election
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Harvard College alumni
The Harvard Lampoon alumni
Hasty Pudding alumni
William Randolph
Land owners from California
Members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
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News agency founders
Old Right (United States)
People from Beverly Hills, California
People from San Luis Obispo County, California
People of the Spanish–American War
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Progressive Era in the United States
Publishers from California
St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) alumni
United States Independence Party politicians
Anti-Chinese sentiment
Anti-Asian sentiment
Anti–East Asian sentiment
Former yacht owners of New York City
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[
"George Randolph Hearst Sr. (April 23, 1904 – January 26, 1972) was an American heir and media executive. He was the son of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, and the vice president of the Hearst Corporation.\n\nEarly life\nHearst was born on April 23, 1904. He was the eldest son of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.\n\nCareer\nHearst first worked in advertising for The San Francisco Examiner from 1924 to 1928, when he became its publisher. He was appointed as the president of The New York American in 1929, and he was the vice president of the Los Angeles Examiner from 1932 to 1953.\n\nThough he never held a title higher than Vice-President at the Hearst Corporation, he was listed above many with higher-sounding titles when executives were listed in the company's publications. Hearst was one of the five family trustees of the trust established under his father's will (this ensured that eight non-family trustees would have majority control of the corporation). In the 1950s Hearst Sr secured a seat on the corporation's board for his son, George Randolph Hearst Jr.\n\nPersonal life, death and legacy\nHearst was married several times. He married and divorced Blanche Wilbur, Lora Velie, and Sally Alvarez Kirkham. Another marriage, to actress Sandra Rambeau, was annulled. Hearst married his fourth wife, actress Collette Lyons, twice because their first wedding in Mexico was invalid as Hearst was still married to Sally. They had two children together, a son and a daughter. Hearst was an amateur aviator. Hearst's last marriage was to Rosalie May Wynn born in Oklahoma City. They had a home in Palm Springs and were active philanthropists. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-23-mn-25365-story.html)\n\nHearst died on January 26, 1972 in Loma Linda, California. The California Senate passed a resolution in his memory sponsored by Sen. Gordon Cologne on February 2, 1972.\n\nAfter his death in 1972, his son succeeded him as a trustee. He served as chairman of the corporation's board from 1996 until his death in 2012.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nGeorge Randolph Hearst on Find a Grave\n\n1904 births\n1972 deaths\nAmerican newspaper executives\nAmerican socialites\nGeorge Randolph",
"William Randolph Hearst Jr. (January 27, 1908 – May 14, 1993) was an American businessman and newspaper publisher. He was the second son of the publisher William Randolph Hearst. He became editor-in-chief of Hearst Newspapers after the death of his father in 1951. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his interview with Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and associated commentaries in 1955.\n\nEarly life and education \nHearst was born on January 27, 1908, in Manhattan, New York City, to William Randolph Hearst and his wife, Millicent Willson.\n\nHearst attended the University of California, Berkeley and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.\n\nCareer \nHearst was instrumental in restoring some measure of family control to the Hearst Corporation, which under his father's will is (and will continue to be while any grandchild alive at William Randolph Hearst Sr.'s death in 1951 is still living) controlled by a board of thirteen trustees, five from the Hearst family and eight Hearst executives. When tax laws changed to prevent the foundations his father had established from continuing to own the corporation, he arranged for the family trust (with the same trustees) to buy the shares and for longtime chief executive Richard E. Berlin, who was going senile, to be eased out to become chairman of the trustees for a period. Later, William Randolph Hearst Jr. himself headed the trust and served as chairman of the executive committee of the corporation. Today, his branch of the family is represented on the trustees by his son, William Randolph Hearst III.\n\nHearst was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He makes a brief appearance in the musical adaptation of Newsies as Bill.\n\nPersonal life \nHearst was married three times. His first marriage was in 1928 to Alma Virginia Walker (December 20, 1906 Minneapolis – March 24, 1972 Monterey). The couple divorced in 1933. Later that same year, he married Lorelle McCarver (September 20, 1911 Cincinnati – December 14, 1999 Weston, Connecticut); they divorced in 1944. His third marriage was in 1948 to Austine Byrne McDonnell (January 28, 1920 Boston – December 15, 1991 New York City). They remained married until her death in 1991, and had two sons:\n William Randolph Hearst III (born 1949)\n John Augustine Hearst (born 1952).\n\nReferences\n\n Washington Post; May 15, 1993; William Randolph Hearst Jr., Newspaper Editor, Dies at Age 85.\n Michael Cieply and Lindsay Chaney; The Hearsts: family and empire: the later years. .\n\nExternal links\n\n Guide to the William Randolph Hearst, Jr. Papers at The Bancroft Library\n \n\n1908 births\n1993 deaths\n20th-century American newspaper publishers (people)\nAmerican newspaper executives\nPulitzer Prize for International Reporting winners\nAmerican socialites\nWilliam Randolph Jr.\nUniversity of California, Berkeley alumni\n20th-century American Episcopalians\nBurials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park"
] |
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"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst."
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Where did he grow up
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Where did William Randolph Hearst grow up?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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[
"Grow Up may refer to:\nAdvance in age\nProgress toward psychological maturity\nGrow Up (book), a 2007 book by Keith Allen\nGrow Up (video game), 2016 video game\n\nMusic\nGrow Up (Desperate Journalist album), 2017\nGrow Up (The Queers album), 1990\nGrow Up (Svoy album), 2011\nGrow Up, a 2015 EP by HALO\n\"Grow Up\" (Olly Murs song)\n\"Grow Up\" (Paramore song)\n\"Grow Up\" (Simple Plan song)\n\"Grow Up\", a song by Rockwell\n\"Grow Up\", a song from the Bratz album Rock Angelz\n\"Grow Up\", a song by Cher Lloyd from Sticks and Stones\n\nSee also\nGrowing Up (disambiguation)\nGrow Up, Tony Phillips, a 2013 film by Emily Hagins",
"\"When I Grow Up\" is the second single from Swedish recording artist Fever Ray's self-titled debut album, Fever Ray (2009).\n\nCritical reception\nPitchfork Media placed \"When I Grow Up\" at number 36 on the website's list of The Top 100 Tracks of 2009.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"When I Grow Up\" was directed by Martin de Thurah. He said of the video's visual statement:\n\n\"That initial idea was something about something coming out of water—something which was about to take form – a state turning into something new. And a double headed creature not deciding which to turn. But the idea had to take a simpler form, to let the song grow by itself. I remembered a photo I took in Croatia two years ago, a swimming pool with its shining blue color in a grey foggy autumn landscape.\"\n\nThe video premiered on Fever Ray's YouTube channel on 19 February 2009. It has received over 12 million views as of March 2016.\n\n\"When I Grow Up\" was placed at number three on Spins list of The 20 Best Videos of 2009.\n\nTrack listings\niTunes single\n\"When I Grow Up\" – 4:31\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Håkan Lidbo's Encephalitis Remix) – 5:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\n\"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:16\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Vocal Version by Pär Grindvik) – 6:02\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Inspiration - Take 2 - By Pär Grindvik) – 7:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's High Up Mix) – 6:17\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's Straight Down Mix) – 5:54\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Video) – 4:04\n\nSwedish 12\" single \nA1. \"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:10\nA2. \"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\nB1. \"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\nUK promo CD single \n\"When I Grow Up\" (Edit) – 3:42\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik Radio Edit) – 3:19\n\nNominations\n\nAppearances in other media\nThe song was used as part of the soundtrack for the video game Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.\n\nReferences\n\n2009 singles\n2009 songs\nFever Ray songs\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer"
] |
[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885."
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what did he study at harvard
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What did William Randolph Hearst study at Harvard College?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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1863 births
1951 deaths
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
19th-century art collectors
20th-century American newspaper founders
20th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
20th-century American politicians
20th-century art collectors
American animated film producers
American art collectors
American magazine founders
American magazine publishers (people)
American newspaper chain founders
American newspaper chain owners
American political party founders
American socialites
Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from New Rochelle, New York
Businesspeople from San Francisco
California Democrats
Candidates in the 1904 United States presidential election
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Harvard College alumni
The Harvard Lampoon alumni
Hasty Pudding alumni
William Randolph
Land owners from California
Members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
New York (state) Democrats
News agency founders
Old Right (United States)
People from Beverly Hills, California
People from San Luis Obispo County, California
People of the Spanish–American War
Philanthropists from New York (state)
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Philanthropists from California
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Progressive Era in the United States
Publishers from California
St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) alumni
United States Independence Party politicians
Anti-Chinese sentiment
Anti-Asian sentiment
Anti–East Asian sentiment
Former yacht owners of New York City
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[
"George Eman Vaillant (; born June 16, 1934) is an American psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder. Through 2003, he spent 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service. The study has prospectively charted the lives of 724 men and women for over 60 years.\n\nBiography\nGeorge Eman Vaillant's father, George Clapp Vaillant, committed suicide in 1945. George Eman was traumatized by his father's death and thus had deep emotional reasons for being interested in psychiatry. He graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, did his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and completed his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and has been an invited speaker and consultant for seminars and workshops throughout the world.\n\nA major focus of his work in the past has been to develop ways of studying defense mechanisms empirically; more recently, he has been interested in successful aging and human happiness.\nIn 2008, he took up a supervisory role for psychiatric trainees at St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. In June 2009, Joshua Wolf Shenk \npublished an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled \"What Makes Us Happy?\" which focused on Vaillant's work in the Grant Study, a study of 268 men over many decades.\n\nVaillant has been married four times. He was formerly married to late psychotherapist Leigh McCullough (1945-2012) on December 4, 1993 in Washington, Connecticut. It was her third marriage. He currently lives in California with his current wife, Diane Highum, MD, a psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School graduate, and step-daughter, Zoe, a college student.\n\nAwards\nVaillant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, the Strecker Award from The Pennsylvania Hospital, the Burlingame Award from The Institute for Living, and the Jellinek Award for research on alcoholism. In 1995 he received the research prize of the International Psychogeriatric Society.\n\nEditorial board membership\nVaillant sits on the Honorary International Advisory Board of the Mens Sana Monographs.\n\nHe joined the board of trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous as a Class A (non-alcoholic) trustee in 1998.\n\nBooks\nVaillant, GE (1977), Adaptation to Life, Boston, MA, Little, Brown, 1977 (also Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Hardcover, 396pp ) [also German, Korean and Chinese translations] (Reprinted with a new preface in 1995 by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)\nVaillant, GE (1983), Natural History of Alcoholism, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press\nVaillant, GE (1992), Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers, Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press\nVaillant, GE (1993), The Wisdom of the Ego, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, \nVaillant, GE (1995), The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, [also (Brazilian) Portuguese translation]\nVaillant, GE (2002), Aging Well, Boston, Little Brown, \nVaillant, GE (2008), Spiritual Evolution: A Scientific Defense of Faith, Broadway Books, \nVaillant, GE (2012), Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study, Belknap Press, \nVaillant, GE (2017), Heaven on My Mind: Using the Harvard Grant Study of Adult Development to Explore the Value of the Prospection of Life After Death, Nova Science Publishers, Inc.,\n\nSee also\n\n Postponement of affect\n Career consolidation\n Keeper of the Meaning\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\"Conversation with George Vaillant.\" Addiction. 2005 Mar; 100 (3):274-80.\n\"Interview: A Doctor Speaks\". AA Grapevine Magazine, May 2001, Vol. 57, No. 12.\n\n\"Vaillant on 'Spiritual Evolution'\". Brief review of most recent book.\n\"What Makes Us Happy?\". Article in the Atlantic.\n\n1934 births\nLiving people\nAmerican psychiatrists\nHarvard Medical School alumni\nResearchers in alcohol abuse\nThe Harvard Lampoon alumni\nAlcoholics Anonymous\nHarvard College alumni\nPhysicians of Brigham and Women's Hospital",
"William Warntz (1922–1988) was an American mathematical geographer based at the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis. He was a \"pioneer in mathematical approaches to spatial analysis\".\n\nLife\nWarntz studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania, gaining a PhD there. His papers are held at Cornell University Library.\n\nWorks\n Toward a geography of price; a study in geo-econometrics, 1959\n Geography now and then: some notes on the history of academic geography in the United States, 1964\n Geographers and what they do, 1964\n Macrogeography and income fronts, 1965\n Breakthroughs in geography, 1971\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n William Warntz at Hmolpedia\n Donald G. Janelle, William Warntz and the Legacy of Spatial Thinking at Harvard University, 2012.\n\n1922 births\n1988 deaths\nAmerican geographers\nHarvard University people\n20th-century geographers\nUniversity of Pennsylvania alumni"
] |
[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.",
"what did he study at harvard",
"While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled"
] |
C_157aad7f67974c55b20a22f3e235e87c_1
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why was he expelled
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Why was William Randolph Hearst expelled from Harvard College?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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"The 1917 New South Wales state election involved 90 electoral district returning one member each. If a candidate failed to achieve at least 50% of the vote in an electorate, a run-off election would take place in the following weeks. In this election, 8 electorates proceeded to second round elections.\n\nElection results\n\nAlbury \n\nThe sitting member John Cusack was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nAlexandria\n\nAllowrie\n\nAnnandale \n\nSitting member Arthur Griffith was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nArmidale\n\nAshburnham\n\nAshfield\n\nBalmain\n\nBathurst \n\nThe sitting member was Ernest Durack () who did not contest the election.\n\nBega\n\nBelmore \n\nThe sitting Labor member for Belmore, Patrick Minahan, lost preselection and unsuccessfully contested Cootamundra against Labor turned Nationalist Premier William Holman.\n\nBingara \n\nGeorge McDonald had been elected as a member in the 1913 election. He resigned from the party and his seat as a protest at the behaviour of the Easter 1916 NSW Labor conference and retained the seat at the by-election as an Independent.\n\nBondi\n\nBotany\n\nBurrangong \n\nThe sitting member George Burgess was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nBurwood\n\nByron\n\nCamden\n\nCamperdown\n\nCanterbury\n\nCastlereagh \n\nThe sitting member Guy Arkins was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nCessnock\n\nClarence\n\nCobar\n\nCootamundra \n\nThe sitting member William Holman was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription. Patrick Minahan was the sitting member for Belmore however he lost preselection for that seat.\n\nCorowa\n\nDarling Harbour\n\nDarlinghurst\n\nDrummoyne\n\nDulwich Hill\n\nDurham\n\nEnmore \n\nThe sitting member David Hall was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nGlebe\n\nGloucester \n\nRichard Price had been elected as a member in the 1913 election. He joined the Party however he was not endorsed by the party for the 1917 election and ran as an independent.\n\nGordon \n\nThe sitting member was Charles Wade () who did not contest the election.\n\nGough\n\nGoulburn\n\nGranville\n\nGwydir\n\nHartley\n\nHastings and Macleay\n\nHawkesbury\n\nHurstville\n\nKahibah \n\nThe sitting member Alfred Edden was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nKing \n\nThe sitting member James Morrish was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nLachlan\n\nLeichhardt\n\nLismore\n\nLiverpool Plains \n\nThe sitting member William Ashford was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nLyndhurst\n\nMacquarie\n\nMaitland\n\nMarrickville \n\nThe sitting member Thomas Crawford was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nMiddle Harbour\n\nMonaro\n\nMosman\n\nMudgee\n\nMurray \n\nThe sitting member Robert Scobie was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nMurrumbidgee \n\nThe sitting member Patrick McGarry was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nNamoi \n\nThe sitting member George Black was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nNewcastle \n\nThe sitting member Arthur Gardiner was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nNewtown \n\nThe sitting member Robert Hollis was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nOrange\n\nPaddington\n\nParramatta\n\nPetersham\n\nPhillip \n\nThe sitting member Richard Meagher was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nRaleigh\n\nRandwick\n\nRedfern \n\nThe sitting member James McGowen was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nRozelle \n\nThe sitting member was James Mercer () was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription, and did not contest the election.\n\nRyde\n\nSt George \n\nThe sitting member William Bagnall was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nSt Leonards\n\nSingleton\n\nSturt\n\nSurry Hills \n\nThe sitting member Henry Hoyle () was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription, and did not contest the election.\n\nTamworth\n\nTenterfield\n\nUpper Hunter\n\nWagga Wagga\n\nWallsend\n\nWaverley\n\nWickham \n\nThe sitting member William Grahame was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nWilloughby\n\nWillyama\n\nWollondilly\n\nWollongong \n\nThe sitting member John Nicholson was expelled from in the November 1916 Labor split split over conscription.\n\nWoollahra\n\nYass\n\nSee also \n Candidates of the 1917 New South Wales state election\n Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1917–1920\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\n1917",
"George Linder was a reverend and state representative in Georgia. He was elected to represent Laurens County in the Georgia House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era but was expelled along with the other elected African Americans. He and other African Americans were expelled. He was documented as a farmworker.\n\nHe founded the Strawberry AME Church in 1857.\n\nSee also\nOriginal 33\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people"
] |
[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.",
"what did he study at harvard",
"While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled",
"why was he expelled",
"expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls)."
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what did he do after harvard
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What did William Randolph Hearst do after leaving Harvard?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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1863 births
1951 deaths
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
19th-century art collectors
20th-century American newspaper founders
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20th-century American politicians
20th-century art collectors
American animated film producers
American art collectors
American magazine founders
American magazine publishers (people)
American newspaper chain founders
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Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from New Rochelle, New York
Businesspeople from San Francisco
California Democrats
Candidates in the 1904 United States presidential election
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Harvard College alumni
The Harvard Lampoon alumni
Hasty Pudding alumni
William Randolph
Land owners from California
Members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
New York (state) Democrats
News agency founders
Old Right (United States)
People from Beverly Hills, California
People from San Luis Obispo County, California
People of the Spanish–American War
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Philanthropists from California
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Progressive Era in the United States
Publishers from California
St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) alumni
United States Independence Party politicians
Anti-Chinese sentiment
Anti-Asian sentiment
Anti–East Asian sentiment
Former yacht owners of New York City
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[
"Milton Green (October 31, 1913 – March 30, 2005) was a world record holder in high hurdles during the 1930s.\n\nHe was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1913 and attended Harvard University.\n\nHe first equaled the world mark of 5.8 seconds in 45-yard high hurdles in 1935 at a track meet with Yale University and Princeton University.\n\nHe tied the world record for 60-Meter high hurdles of 7.5 seconds at an Olympic trial heat at Madison Square Garden in early 1936. Green was considered sure to make the team in 1936, but chose not to participate. He protested the event being held in Berlin, center of Nazi Germany.\n\nAlthough Green remained a world class hurdler for many years, he was convinced by his rabbi to boycott the Olympic Games based on what was happening in Nazi Germany. The boycott by Milton Green and Harvard teammate Norman Cahners was not publicized at the time.\n\nGreen had this to say on an interview transcribed by the US Holocaust Museum.\n\"Both Cahners and I decided that we would boycott the Olympics. We just felt it was the right thing to do. I spoke to the track coach at Harvard. We told him about our intention. He tried to persuade us not to do it. He said he didn't think it would do much good, and we should try to go to the final tryouts and try to make the team. But we didn't want to do that. After we boycotted the Olympics, no one came to speak to us or ask us if we'd make any statements about it. And I don't think anyone knew particularly that we did boycott it. I think back on making that decision and whether I would have won silver or gold or some sort of a medal, and every time I go to the Olympics—I've been to three of them—I particularly watch the high hurdles and the long jump, and I picture myself as maybe having won a medal in it.\"\n\nAfter service in the United States Army in World War II, Milton became a shopping center developer until he retired in 1971.\n\nHe was inducted into The Harvard Athletic Hall of Fame in 1961.\n\nHe was elected into The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.\n\nSee also\nList of select Jewish track and field athletes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBio on JewishSports.net\n\n\"Video clip of Milton Green racing in 1935\" - British Pathe archive footage: Milton Green races for Harvard and wins, 1935.\n\nJewish American sportspeople\nJewish male athletes (track and field)\nHarvard Crimson men's track and field athletes\n1913 births\n2005 deaths\nAmerican male hurdlers\nSportspeople from Lowell, Massachusetts\nUnited States Army soldiers\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II\n20th-century American Jews\n21st-century American Jews",
"The Harvard Mark IV was an electronic stored-program computer built by Harvard University under the supervision of Howard Aiken for the United States Air Force. The computer was finished being built in 1952. It stayed at Harvard, where the Air Force used it extensively.\n\nThe Mark IV was all electronic. The Mark IV used magnetic drum and had 200 registers of ferrite magnetic-core memory (one of the first computers to do so). It separated the storage of data and instructions in what is known as the Harvard architecture.\n\nSee also\n Harvard Mark I\n Harvard Mark II\n Harvard Mark III\n List of vacuum tube computers\n Howard Aiken\n Harvard (World War II advanced trainer aircraft)\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nA History of Computing Technology, Michael R. Williams, 1997, IEEE Computer Society Press,\n\nExternal links\n Harvard Mark IV 64-bit Magnetic Shift Register at ComputerHistory.org\n\n1950s computers\nComputer-related introductions in 1952\nVacuum tube computers\nOne-of-a-kind computers\nHarvard University"
] |
[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.",
"what did he study at harvard",
"While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled",
"why was he expelled",
"expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).",
"what did he do after harvard",
"I don't know."
] |
C_157aad7f67974c55b20a22f3e235e87c_1
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What else did he do in his early life
| 6 |
Besides being enrolled in Harvard College and later expelled, what else did William Randolph Hearst do in his early life?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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"Matt Bish (born 15 May 1975), also known as Matthew Bishanga, is a Ugandan filmmaker and the Creative Director at Bish Films. He directed the first Ugawood feature film, Battle of the Souls, in 2007.\n\nPersonal life and education\nThe first of four children born to Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bishanga, Bish obtained his early education in Uganda. There, as a boy, he grew to love film, attending the cinema but also being exposed to many movies at home with his family on his father's home video system. He credits his parents with inspiring his film career. After his primary education, he attended Makerere University in Kampala, where he studied Architecture, before moving to the Netherlands in 1998 and studying Digital Filmmaking at the SAE Institute in Amsterdam.\n\nCareer\nIn 2005, Bish returned to Uganda to start an audiovisual production company \"Bish Films Ltd\" with his younger brother Roger Mugisha. At first limited to music videos, it soon branched out into films. Bish worked on his first feature film in 2006. Battle of the Souls is the first feature film in Uganda.\n\nBish Films produces TV commercials and documentaries, as well as films and music videos as they did when they first began. He believes Ugandan films that try to maintain quality should not be categorised as kina-Uganda (like ki-Nigeria) but rather Nile Films, Ugawood or something else.\n\n\"A critic is someone who can't do what you do the way you do it...\" - Matt Bish\n\nFilmography\n\n Short films\n\n Documentaries\n\nReferences\n\n1975 births\nLiving people\nUgandan film directors\nUgandan film producers\nPlace of birth missing (living people)\nUgandan screenwriters",
"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums"
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"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.",
"what did he study at harvard",
"While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled",
"why was he expelled",
"expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).",
"what did he do after harvard",
"I don't know.",
"What else did he do in his early life",
"I don't know."
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Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?
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Aside from William Randolph Hearst's expulsion for various antics at Harvard College, are there any other interesting aspects of the article?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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1863 births
1951 deaths
19th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
19th-century art collectors
20th-century American newspaper founders
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20th-century American politicians
20th-century art collectors
American animated film producers
American art collectors
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Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from New Rochelle, New York
Businesspeople from San Francisco
California Democrats
Candidates in the 1904 United States presidential election
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Harvard College alumni
The Harvard Lampoon alumni
Hasty Pudding alumni
William Randolph
Land owners from California
Members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
New York (state) Democrats
News agency founders
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People from Beverly Hills, California
People from San Luis Obispo County, California
People of the Spanish–American War
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Progressive Era in the United States
Publishers from California
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Anti-Chinese sentiment
Anti-Asian sentiment
Anti–East Asian sentiment
Former yacht owners of New York City
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[
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
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[
"William Randolph Hearst",
"Ancestry and early life",
"where was hearst born",
"William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst.",
"Where did he grow up",
"Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885.",
"what did he study at harvard",
"While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled",
"why was he expelled",
"expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).",
"what did he do after harvard",
"I don't know.",
"What else did he do in his early life",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan"
] |
C_157aad7f67974c55b20a22f3e235e87c_1
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What did his father and grandfather do
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What did William Randolph Hearst's father and grandfather do?
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William Randolph Hearst
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William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco, to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator (1886-91) George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst, of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan as part of the Cahans Exodus with his wife and six children in 1766 and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting 400 and 100 acres (1.62 and 0.40 km2) of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon 100 acres (0.40 km2) to heads of household and 50 acres (20 ha) for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, nee Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.
After moving to New York City, Hearst acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Hearst sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendo. Hearst acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. Hearst controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines, and thereby often published his personal views. He sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Historians, however, reject his subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.
He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During his political career, he espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.
After 1918 and the end of World War I, Hearst gradually began adopting more conservative views and started promoting an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist after the Russian Revolution, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932–1934, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. Hearst's empire reached a peak circulation of 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s. He was a bad manager of finances and so deeply in debt during the Great Depression that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s. Hearst managed to keep his newspapers and magazines.
His life story was the main inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, the lead character in Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane (1941). His Hearst Castle, constructed on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean near San Simeon, has been preserved as a State Historical Monument and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Ancestry and early life
William R. Hearst was born in San Francisco to George Hearst, a millionaire mining engineer, owner of gold and other mines through his corporation, and his much younger wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst, from a small town in Missouri. The elder Hearst later entered politics, and served as a US Senator, first appointed for a brief period in 1886, then elected later that year. He served from 1887 to his death in 1891.
His paternal great-grandfather was John Hearst of Ulster Protestant origin. John Hearst, with his wife and six children, migrated to America from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland, as part of the Cahans Exodus in 1766, and settled in South Carolina. Their immigration to South Carolina was spurred in part by the colonial government's policy that encouraged the immigration of Irish Protestants, many of Scots origin. The names "John Hearse" and "John Hearse Jr." appear on the council records of October 26, 1766, being credited with meriting of land on the Long Canes (in what became Abbeville District), based upon to heads of household and for each dependent of a Protestant immigrant. The "Hearse" spelling of the family name never was used afterward by the family members themselves, or any family of any size. A separate theory purports that one branch of a "Hurst" family of Virginia (originally from Plymouth Colony) moved to South Carolina at about the same time and changed the spelling of its surname of over a century to that of the immigrant Hearsts. Hearst's mother, née Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson, was also of Scots-Irish ancestry; her family came from Galway. She was appointed as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, donated funds to establish libraries at several universities, funded many anthropological expeditions, and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
Hearst attended prep school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Lampoon before being expelled. His antics had ranged from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).
Publishing business
Searching for an occupation, in 1887 Hearst took over management of his father's newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, which his father had acquired in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Giving his paper the grand motto "Monarch of the Dailies", Hearst acquired the best equipment and the most talented writers of the time, including Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, and political cartoonist Homer Davenport. A self-proclaimed populist, Hearst reported accounts of municipal and financial corruption, often attacking companies in which his own family held an interest. Within a few years, his paper dominated the San Francisco market.
New York Morning Journal
Early in his career at the San Francisco Examiner, Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain, and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York". In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the failing New York Morning Journal, hiring writers such as Stephen Crane and Julian Hawthorne, and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of the New York World. Hearst "stole" Richard F. Outcault, the creator of color comics, and all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff as well. Another prominent hire was James J. Montague, who came from the Portland Oregonian and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned New York Evening Journal.
When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the Journal was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics. Hearst imported his best managers from the San Francisco Examiner and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was generous, paid more than his competitors, gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines, and was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents".
Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the Journal Acts."
Yellow journalism and rivalry with the New York World
The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "yellow journalism", after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation.
Within a few months of purchasing the Journal, Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho, and a young Arthur Brisbane, who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire, and a legendary columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the temperamental, domineering Pulitzer and the paranoid, back-biting office politics which he encouraged.
While Hearst's many critics attribute the Journals incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst: "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the Journal and the penny press upmarket. The Journal was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards." Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."
The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the Spanish–American War. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the Journal (figures are impossible to verify) but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the World.
Under Hearst, the Journal remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the Republican campaign and the dominating role played by William McKinley's political and financial manager, Mark Hanna, the first national party 'boss' in American history. A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the Journal's post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."
The Journal's political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page". At first he supported the Russian Revolution of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against Wilsonian internationalism, the League of Nations, and the World Court, thereby appealing to an isolationist audience.
Spanish–American War
The Morning Journal's daily circulation routinely climbed above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the and U.S. entry into the Spanish–American War, a war that some called The Journals War, due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain. Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the "yellow" papers regarded as the worst offenders. The Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish–American War is often cited as one of the most significant milestones in the rise of yellow journalism's hold over the mainstream media. Huge headlines in the Journal assigned blame for the Maine's destruction on sabotage, which was based on no evidence. This reporting stoked outrage and indignation against Spain among the paper's readers in New York.
The Journal's crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism, although "the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history," as are their "heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances." The Journal's journalistic activism in support of the Cuban rebels, rather, was centered around Hearst's political and business ambitions.
Perhaps the best known myth in American journalism is the claim, without any contemporary evidence, that the illustrator Frederic Remington, sent by Hearst to Cuba to cover the Cuban War of Independence, cabled Hearst to tell him all was quiet in Cuba. Hearst, in this canard, is said to have responded, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst was personally dedicated to the cause of the Cuban rebels, and the Journal did some of the most important and courageous reporting on the conflict—as well as some of the most sensationalized. Their stories on the Cuban rebellion and Spain's atrocities on the island—many of which turned out to be untrue—were motivated primarily by Hearst's outrage at Spain's brutal policies on the island. These had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cubans. The most well-known story involved the imprisonment and escape of Cuban prisoner Evangelina Cisneros.
While Hearst and the yellow press did not directly cause America's war with Spain, they inflamed public opinion in New York City to a fever pitch. New York's elites read other papers, such as the Times and Sun, which were far more restrained. The Journal and the World were local papers oriented to a very large working class audience in New York City. They were not among the top ten sources of news in papers in other cities, and their stories did not make a splash outside New York City. Outrage across the country came from evidence of what Spain was doing in Cuba, a major influence in the decision by Congress to declare war.
According to a 21st-century historian, war was declared by Congress because public opinion was sickened by the bloodshed, and because leaders like McKinley realized that Spain had lost control of Cuba. These factors weighed more on the president's mind than the melodramas in the New York Journal.
Hearst sailed to Cuba with a small army of Journal reporters to cover the Spanish–American War; they brought along portable printing equipment, which was used to print a single-edition newspaper in Cuba after the fighting had ended. Two of the Journal's correspondents, James Creelman and Edward Marshall, were wounded in the fighting. A leader of the Cuban rebels, Gen. Calixto García, gave Hearst a Cuban flag that had been riddled with bullets as a gift, in appreciation of Hearst's major role in Cuba's liberation.
Expansion
In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. In 1915, he founded International Film Service, an animation studio designed to exploit the popularity of the comic strips he controlled. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee. Hearst used this as an excuse for his mother Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner.
Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines. Several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.
In 1924, Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News. Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909. He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York; King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests inherited from his father.
Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many of Hearst's stars would not have been deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat. Not especially popular with either readers or editors when it was first published, in the 21st century, it is considered a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.
In 1929, he became one of the sponsors of the first round-the-world voyage in an airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin from Germany. His sponsorship was conditional on the trip starting at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey. The ship's captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, first flew the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic from Germany to pick up Hearst's photographer and at least three Hearst correspondents. One of them, Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay, by that flight became the first woman to travel around the world by air.
The Hearst news empire reached a revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression in the United States and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers. Hearst's conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers, worsened matters for the once great Hearst media chain. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937.
From that point, Hearst was reduced to being an employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over. The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.
Involvement in politics
Hearst won two elections to Congress, then lost a series of elections. He narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst's unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of "William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst", which was coined by Wallace Irwin.
Hearst was on the left wing of the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class (who bought his papers) and denouncing the rich and powerful (who disdained his editorials). With the support of Tammany Hall (the regular Democratic organization in Manhattan), Hearst was elected to Congress from New York in 1902 and 1904. He made a major effort to win the 1904 Democratic nomination for president, losing to conservative Alton B. Parker. Breaking with Tammany in 1907, Hearst ran for mayor of New York City under a third party of his own creation, the Municipal Ownership League. Tammany Hall exerted its utmost to defeat him.
An opponent of the British Empire, Hearst opposed American involvement in the First World War and attacked the formation of the League of Nations. His newspapers abstained from endorsing any candidate in 1920 and 1924. Hearst's last bid for office came in 1922, when he was backed by Tammany Hall leaders for the U.S. Senate nomination in New York. Al Smith vetoed this, earning the lasting enmity of Hearst. Although Hearst shared Smith's opposition to Prohibition, he swung his papers behind Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election. Hearst's support for Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1932 Democratic National Convention, via his allies William Gibbs McAdoo and John Nance Garner, can also be seen as part of his vendetta against Smith, who was an opponent of Roosevelt's at that convention.
Move to the right
During the 1920s Hearst was a Jeffersonian Democrat. He warned citizens against the dangers of big government and against unchecked federal power that could infringe on individual rights. Hearst supported FDR in 1932, but then became critical of the New Deal. More and more often, Hearst newspapers supported business over organized labor and condemned higher income tax legislation.
Hearst broke with FDR in spring 1935 when the president vetoed the Patman Bonus Bill for veterans and tried to enter the World Court. Hearst's papers were his weapon. They carried the publisher's rambling, vitriolic, all-capital-letters editorials, but he no longer employed the energetic reporters, editors, and columnists who might have made a serious attack. He reached 20 million readers in the mid-1930s, but they included much of the working class which Roosevelt had attracted by three-to-one margins in the 1936 election. The Hearst papers—like most major chains—had supported the Republican Alf Landon that year.
While campaigning against Roosevelt's policy of developing formal diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, in 1935 Hearst ordered his editors to reprint eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian famine (the Holdomor). These had been supplied in 1933 by Welsh freelance journalist Gareth Jones, and by the disillusioned American Communist Fred Beal. The New York Times, content with what it has since conceded was "tendentious" reporting of Soviet achievements, printed the blanket denials of its Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty, who was widely credited with facilitating the rapprochement with Moscow, dismissed the Hearst-circulated reports of made-made starvation as a politically-motivated "scare story".
In the articles, written by Thomas Walker, to better serve Hearst 's editorial line against Roosevelt's Soviet policy the famine was "updated"; placed in 1934 rather than 1932-1933. In The Nation, Louis Fischer accused Walker of pure invention. Fischer had been to the Ukraine in 1934 and had seen no famine. He interpreted the whole affair as merely an attempt by Hearst to "spoil Soviet-American relations" as part of "an anti-red campaign".
In 1934, after checking with Jewish leaders to ensure a visit would be to their benefit, Hearst visited Berlin to interview Adolf Hitler. When Hitler asked why he was so misunderstood by the American press, Hearst retorted: "Because Americans believe in democracy, and are averse to dictatorship." Hearst's papers ran columns without rebuttal by Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Hitler himself, as well as Mussolini and other dictators in Europe and Latin America. During that same year 1934, Japan / U.S. relations were unstable. In an attempt to remedy this, Prince Tokugawa Iesato traveled throughout the United States on a goodwill visit. During his visit, Prince Iesato and his delegation met with William Randolph Hearst with the hope of improving mutual understanding between the two nations.
Personal life
Millicent Willson
In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book, Hearst Over Hollywood, indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and protected brothel near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.
Marion Davies
Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with the film actress and comedian Marion Davies (1897–1961), former mistress of his friend Paul Block. From about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. After the death of Patricia Lake (1919/1923–1993), who had been presented as Davies's "niece," her family confirmed that she was Davies's and Hearst's daughter. She had acknowledged this before her death.
Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist. She was active in society and in 1921 created the Free Milk Fund for the poor.
California properties
Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he never completed, on a ranch at San Simeon, California, which he had inherited from his father. He furnished the mansion with art, antiques, and entire historic rooms purchased and brought from the great houses of Europe. He established an Arabian horse breeding operation on the grounds.
Hearst also had a property on the McCloud River in Siskiyou County, in far northern California, called Wyntoon. The buildings at Wyntoon were designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle and worked in collaboration with William J. Dodd on a number of other projects.
In 1947, Hearst paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion, (located at 1011 N. Beverly Dr.), on 3.7 acres three blocks from Sunset Boulevard. The Beverly House, as it has come to be known, has some cinematic connections. According to Hearst Over Hollywood, John and Jacqueline Kennedy stayed at the house for part of their honeymoon. The house appeared in the film The Godfather (1972).
In the early 1890s, Hearst began building a mansion on the hills overlooking Pleasanton, California, on land purchased by his father a decade earlier. Hearst's mother took over the project, hired Julia Morgan to finish it as her home, and named it Hacienda del Pozo de Verona. After her death, it was acquired by Castlewood Country Club, which used it as their clubhouse from 1925 to 1969, when it was destroyed in a major fire.
Art collection
Hearst was renowned for his extensive collection of international art that spanned centuries. Most notable in his collection were his Greek vases, Spanish and Italian furniture, Oriental carpets, Renaissance vestments, an extensive library with many books signed by their authors, and paintings and statues. In addition to collecting pieces of fine art, he also gathered manuscripts, rare books, and autographs. His guests included varied celebrities and politicians, who stayed in rooms furnished with pieces of antique furniture and decorated with artwork by famous artists.
Beginning in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the debt burden he had suffered from the Depression. The first year he sold items for a total of $11 million. In 1941 he put about 20,000 items up for sale; these were evidence of his wide and varied tastes. Included in the sale items were paintings by van Dyke, crosiers, chalices, Charles Dickens's sideboard, pulpits, stained glass, arms and armor, George Washington's waistcoat, and Thomas Jefferson's Bible. When Hearst Castle was donated to the State of California, it was still sufficiently furnished for the whole house to be considered and operated as a museum.
St Donat's Castle
After seeing photographs, in Country Life Magazine, of St. Donat's Castle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, Hearst bought and renovated it in 1925 as a gift to Davies. The Castle was restored by Hearst, who spent a fortune buying entire rooms from other castles and palaces across the UK and Europe. The Great Hall was bought from the Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire and reconstructed brick by brick in its current site at St. Donat's. From the Bradenstoke Priory, he also bought and removed the guest house, Prior's lodging, and great tithe barn; of these, some of the materials became the St. Donat's banqueting hall, complete with a sixteenth-century French chimney-piece and windows; also used were a fireplace dated to c. 1514 and a fourteenth-century roof, which became part of the Bradenstoke Hall, despite this use being questioned in Parliament. Hearst built 34 green and white marble bathrooms for the many guest suites in the castle and completed a series of terraced gardens which survive intact today. Hearst and Davies spent much of their time entertaining, and held a number of lavish parties attended by guests including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Winston Churchill, and a young John F. Kennedy. When Hearst died, the castle was purchased by Antonin Besse II and donated to Atlantic College, an international boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn in 1962, which still uses it.
Interest in aviation
Hearst was particularly interested in the newly emerging technologies relating to aviation and had his first experience of flight in January 1910, in Los Angeles. Louis Paulhan, a French aviator, took him for an air trip on his Farman biplane. Hearst also sponsored Old Glory as well as the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.
Financial disaster
Hearst's crusade against Roosevelt and the New Deal, combined with union strikes and boycotts of his properties, undermined the financial strength of his empire. Circulation of his major publications declined in the mid-1930s, while rivals such as the New York Daily News were flourishing. He refused to take effective cost-cutting measures, and instead increased his very expensive art purchases. His friend Joseph P. Kennedy offered to buy the magazines, but Hearst jealously guarded his empire and refused. Instead, he sold some of his heavily mortgaged real estate. San Simeon itself was mortgaged to Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler in 1933 for $600,000.
Finally his financial advisors realized he was tens of millions of dollars in debt, and could not pay the interest on the loans, let alone reduce the principal. The proposed bond sale failed to attract investors, as Hearst's financial crisis became widely known. As Marion Davies's stardom waned, Hearst's movies also began to hemorrhage money. As the crisis deepened, he let go of most of his household staff, sold his exotic animals to the Los Angeles Zoo, and named a trustee to control his finances. He still refused to sell his beloved newspapers. At one point, to avoid outright bankruptcy, he had to accept a $1 million loan from Marion Davies, who sold all her jewelry, stocks and bonds to raise the cash for him. Davies also managed to raise him another million as a loan from Washington Herald owner Cissy Patterson. The trustee cut Hearst's annual salary to $500,000, and stopped the annual payment of $700,000 in dividends. He had to pay rent for living in his castle at San Simeon.
Legally Hearst avoided bankruptcy, although the public generally saw it as such as appraisers went through the tapestries, paintings, furniture, silver, pottery, buildings, autographs, jewelry, and other collectibles. Items in the thousands were gathered from a five-story warehouse in New York, warehouses near San Simeon containing large amounts of Greek sculpture and ceramics, and the contents of St. Donat's. His collections were sold off in a series of auctions and private sales in 1938–39. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, bought $100,000 of antique silver for his new museum at Colonial Williamsburg. The market for art and antiques had not recovered from the depression, so Hearst made an overall loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this time, Hearst's friend George Loorz commented sarcastically: "He would like to start work on the outside pool [at San Simeon], start a new reservoir etc. but told me yesterday 'I want so many things but haven't got the money.' Poor fellow, let's take up a collection."
He was embarrassed in early 1939 when Time magazine published a feature which revealed he was at risk of defaulting on his mortgage for San Simeon and losing it to his creditor and publishing rival, Harry Chandler. This, however, was averted, as Chandler agreed to extend the repayment.
Final years and death
After the disastrous financial losses of the 1930s, the Hearst Company returned to profitability during the Second World War, when advertising revenues skyrocketed. Hearst, after spending much of the war at his estate of Wyntoon, returned to San Simeon full-time in 1945 and resumed building works. He also continued collecting, on a reduced scale. He threw himself into philanthropy by donating a great many works to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In 1947, Hearst left his San Simeon estate to seek medical care, which was unavailable in the remote location. He died in Beverly Hills on August 14, 1951, at the age of 88. He was interred in the Hearst family mausoleum at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, which his parents had established.
His will established two charitable trusts, the Hearst Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. By his amended will, Marion Davies inherited 170,000 shares in the Hearst Corporation, which, combined with a trust fund of 30,000 shares that Hearst had established for her in 1950, gave her a controlling interest in the corporation. This was short-lived, as she relinquished the 170,000 shares to the Corporation on October 30, 1951, retaining her original 30,000 shares and a role as an advisor. Like their father, none of Hearst's five sons graduated from college. They all followed their father into the media business, and Hearst's namesake, William Randolph, Jr., became a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter.
Criticism
In the 1890s, the already existing anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in San Francisco were further fanned by Hearst's anti-non-European descents, which were reflected in the rhetoric and the focus in The Examiner and one of his own signed editorials. These prejudices continued to be the mainstays throughout his journalistic career to galvanize his readers’ fears. Hearst staunchly supported the Japanese-American internment during WWII and used his media power to demonize Japanese-Americans and to drum up support for the internment of Japanese-Americans.
Some media outlets have attempted to bring attention to Hearst's involvement in the prohibition of cannabis in America. Hearst collaborated with Harry J. Anslinger to ban hemp due to the threat that the burgeoning hemp paper industry posed to his major investment and market share in the paper milling industry. This partnership to market propaganda against cannabis also created an immeasurable, long-lasting negative impact on global socioeconomics. Due to their efforts, hemp would remain illegal to grow in the US for almost a century, not being legalized until 2018.
As Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted in their 1990 book Unreliable Sources, Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events". This approach discredited "yellow journalism".
Hearst's use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair's 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst's newspapers distorted world events and deliberately tried to discredit Socialists. Another critic, Ferdinand Lundberg, extended the criticism in Imperial Hearst (1936), charging that Hearst papers accepted payments from abroad to slant the news. After the war, a further critic, George Seldes, repeated the charges in Facts and Fascism (1947). Lundberg described Hearst "the weakest strong man and the strongest weak man in the world today... a giant with feet of clay."
In fiction
Citizen Kane
The film Citizen Kane (released on May 1, 1941) is loosely based on Hearst's life. Welles and his collaborator, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, created Kane as a composite character, among them Harold Fowler McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes. Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him, used his massive influence and resources to prevent the film from being released—all without even having seen it. Welles and the studio RKO Pictures resisted the pressure but Hearst and his Hollywood friends ultimately succeeded in pressuring theater chains to limit showings of Citizen Kane, resulting in only moderate box-office numbers and seriously impairing Welles's career prospects. The fight over the film was documented in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and nearly 60 years later, HBO offered a fictionalized version of Hearst's efforts in its original production RKO 281 (1999), in which James Cromwell portrays Hearst. Citizen Kane has twice been ranked No. 1 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: in 1998 and 2007. In 2020, David Fincher directed Mank, starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, as he interacts with Hearst prior to the writing of Citizen Kane'''s screenplay. Charles Dance portrays Hearst in the film.
Other works
Films
In the television film Rough Riders (1997), Hearst (played by George Hamilton) is depicted as travelling to Cuba with a small band of journalists, to personally cover the Spanish–American War.
Hearst is mentioned in the Disney movie Newsies (1992), directed by Kenny Ortega, which depicts the Newsboys' Strike of 1899. Hearst is never seen onscreen but is referenced by several of the newsies in various musical numbers, and is portrayed as an antagonist engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer.
In the HBO movie Winchell (1998), Kevin Tighe played Hearst.
In RKO 281 He was played by James Cromwell.
The Cat's Meow (2001), a fictitious version of the death of Thomas H. Ince, takes place in November 1924, on a weekend cruise aboard publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht, celebrating Ince's 44th birthday. The film's fictionalizes Ince's death by suggesting that Hearst shot Ince and covered it up. Hearst is portrayed by Edward Herrmann. (Ince actually became severely ill aboard Hearst's private yacht, and the official cause of the filmmaker's death was heart failure.)
He is portrayed by Matthew Marsh in Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film, Mr Jones.
He is portrayed by Charles Dance in David Fincher's 2020 film, Mank.
Literature
John Dos Passos's novel The Big Money (1936) includes a biographical sketch of Hearst.
Jack London's futuristic, dystopian novel of 1907, The Iron Heel, refers to Hearst by name; and the plot "predicts" the destruction of his publishing empire (along with the Democratic Party) in 1912, by means of an oligarchy of plutocrats and industrial trusts engineering the cessation of his advertising revenue.
In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead (1943) and its eponymous 1949 film adaptation), the character Gail Wynand, a newspaper magnate who thinks he can control public sentiment but in reality is only a servant of the masses, is inspired by and modeled after the life of William Randolph Hearst.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Hearst is anonymously described as the "newspaper fella near the coast" who "got a million acres" and looks "crazy an' mean" in pictures (ch. 18).
In Gore Vidal's historic novel series, Narratives of Empire, Hearst is a major character.
Scott Westerfeld's novel Goliath (2011) depicts Hearst in World War I.
In Charlaine Harris' The Russian Cage (2021) Hearst was the ruler of the HRE (formerly west coast states of US) who permitted the tsar and his entourage to settle in the defunct Navy base at San Diego.
Television
The rivalry between Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer has been documented on National Geographic Channel's series American Genius (2015).
In the TNT series "The Alienist", in the second season played by Matt Letscher.
In "The Paper Dynasty" (1964) episode of the syndicated Western television series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Hearst (played by James Hampton) struggles to turn a profit despite increased circulation of The San Francisco Examiner, featuring James Lanphier (1920–1969) as Ambrose Bierce and Robert O. Cornthwaite as Sam Chamberlain.
In "The Odyssey", a 1979 episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie, Hearst (played by Bill Ewing) is depicted as a friendly and talented young San Francisco journalist.
Hearst (portrayed by John Colton) appears in the season 2 episode "Hollywoodland" of the NBC series Timeless.
See also
Hearst Ranch
History of American newspapers
The Hacienda (Milpitas Ranchhouse)
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Bernhardt, Mark. "The Selling of Sex, Sleaze, Scuttlebutt, and other Shocking Sensations: The Evolution of New Journalism in San Francisco, 1887–1900." American Journalism 28#4 (2011): 111–42.
Carlisle, Rodney. "The Foreign Policy Views of an Isolationist Press Lord: W. R. Hearst & the International Crisis, 1936–41" Journal of Contemporary History (1974) 9#3 pp. 217–27.
Goldstein, Benjamin S. “‘A Legend Somewhat Larger than Life’: Karl H. von Wiegand and the Trajectory of Hearstian Sensationalist Journalism*.” Historical Research 94, no. 265 (August 1, 2021): 629–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htab019.
Kastner, Victoria, with a foreword by Stephen T. Hearst (2013). Hearst Ranch: Family, Land and Legacy. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2000). Hearst Castle: The Biography of a Country House. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Kastner, Victoria, with photographs by Victoria Garagliano (2009). Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land. New York: H. N. Abrams. .
Landers, James. "Hearst's Magazine, 1912–1914: Muckraking Sensationalist." Journalism History 38.4 (2013): 221.
Leonard, Thomas C. "Hearst, William Randolph"; American National Biography Online (2000). Access Date: May 12, 2016
Thomas, Evan. The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898 (2010).
Winkler, John K. W.R. Hearst An American Phenomenon'', Jonathan Cape, (1928)
External links
Hearst the Collector at LACMA
Zpub.com: William Randolph Hearst biography
The William Randolph Hearst Art Archive at Long Island University
Guide to the William Randolph Hearst Papers at The Bancroft Library
Hearstcastle.org: Hearst Castle at San Simeon
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"Paddy Japaljarri Stewart (30 June 1935 – 30 November 2013) was an Aboriginal Australian artist from Mungapunju, south of Yuendumu. He was chairman of the Warlukurlangu Artists Committee. Stewart was one of the artists who contributed to the Honey Ant Dreaming mural on the Papunya school wall in 1971, said to be the genesis of the modern Aboriginal art movement.\n\nThe people of Yuendumu in the early 1980s began transferring their traditional ochre ground paintings to canvas, and then to the doors. In 1983, Stewart along with four other artists painted 30 of the Yuendumu school doors with Dreaming designs, creating what became known as the Yuendumu Doors. The painted doors were also intended to remind the Yuendumu schoolchildren of a web of sites and obligations extending across their country. The entire series of Yuendumu Doors was acquired and restored by the South Australian Museum after the school was upgraded in 1995. Twelve of the best doors were selected for a travelling exhibition that toured Australia for three years; the Yuendumu Doors are now at the South Australian Museum.\n\nIn 1985 the Warlukurlangu Artists Association was established in Yuendumu, and the cooperative held its first major exhibition that year.\n\nIn May 1989, Stewart travelled to Paris to create a painting at the Centre Georges Pompidou.\n\nIn 2004 Stuart Macintyre wrote in a A concise history of Australia that Stewart recorded his testimony in his own language in 1991. \"He evokes the continuity of dreaming from Grandfather and father to son and grandson, down the generations and across the passages of time; yet the insistence on the obligation to preserve and transmit his three jukurrpass attest to the corrosive possibility of secular change. He goes on to aver that the maintenance of Dreaming has to be really strict', so that his family will not lose it like paper, or throw it away or give it away to other families.\n\n\"My father's grandfather taught me first, and after a while my father taught me the same way as his father told jukurrpa [Dreaming], and then my father is telling the same story about what his father told him and now he is teaching me to live the same kind of jukurrpa and follow the way what my grandfather did, and then teach what my father did, and then I'm going to teach my grandchildren the same way as my father taught me.\n\nWhen my father was alive this is what he taught me. He taught me the traditional ways like the traditional designs in body or head of kangaroo Dreaming (that's what we call marlu Dreaming) and eagle Dreaming. He taught me to sing song for the big ceremonies. People who are related to us in a close family, they have to have the same sort of jukurrpa Dreaming, and to sing songs in the same way that we do our actions like dancing, and painting on our bodies or shields or things, and this is what my father taught me. My dreaming is the kangaroo dreaming, the Eagle Dreaming and the budgerigar Dreaming, so I have three kinds of Dreaming in my jukurrpa and I have to hang onto it. This is what my father taught me, and this is what I have to teach my sons the same way my father taught me, and thats way it will go on from grandparent to sons, and follow that jukurrpa. No-one knows when it will end.\"\n\nHanging on to tradition was key in his life. Early in his life he worked as a chef in Papunya, and since retained his nickname \"Cookie\". Japaljarri's work is one of the most plagued by fake copies, and was centre to one of the first art forgery cases to be heard in Australia. He is also one of the first Aboriginal artists to achieve a high international profile in the late 1980s. Stewart taught the children Jukurrpa (dreaming) art. It taught young artists that painting can be your own free expression.\n\nIn 1995, the Canberra Medical Society, specifically doctors Martin Duncan and Cam Webber, went to the remote Yuendumu settlement where they removed cataracts from five Aboriginal artists, including Stewart who had one of the most difficult conditions.\n\nIn 2001 Stewart and Paddy Japaljarri Sims, won the $4,000 Telstra Work on Paper Award from the National Aboriginal Art Award (now Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award).\n\nStewart died on 30 November 2013.\n\nReferences\n\nJapaljarri Stewart, Paddy\nJapaljarri Stewart, Paddy\n2013 deaths\n1935 births\n20th-century Australian painters\n20th-century male artists\n21st-century Australian painters\n21st-century male artists\nWarlpiri people\nAustralian male painters",
"\"Fathers and Sons\" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway published 1933, in the collection Winner Take Nothing. It later appeared in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories and The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories.\n\nThe story is a personal narrative that follows the path of Nick Adams as he drives through his hometown with his son. Most of the story is told through memories of Nick's childhood and Father. The story chronicles the relationships between three generations of men.\n\nImportant themes in \"Fathers and Sons\" include father–son relationships, Nick's homecoming, growing up, and role models.\n\nPlot \n\"Fathers and Sons\" is a story about Nicholas Adams driving home with his son after a hunting trip in his hometown. Hunting imagery and small-town agriculture make Nick think about his father, who taught him how to hunt. Nick's father had fantastic vision, but Nick says this skill made him nervous. Nick's father was a sentimental man, and Nick says that most sentimental people are both cruel and abused. Nick loved his father, but hated the way he smelled. Nick lost his sense of smell when he started smoking, which he reflects is a good thing because a good sense of smell is not necessary to man. Nick never shared anything with his father past the age of fifteen. Nick's father taught him how to hunt by giving him only three bullets a day. Nick learned much from his father about hunting.\n\nNick is interrupted from his memories by his son, who asks what it's like to live with Indians and if he can have a gun. Nick tells him that it's his son's decision if he wants to live with Indians, and that he can have a gun at age twelve. Nick thinks about, but does not tell his son, how Trudy “did first what no one has ever done better.\" He also thinks to himself that shooting one flying bird is like shooting all flying birds—the experience is always just as good. Nick's son does not believe that his grandfather could have been a better hunter than Nick, but Nick says that the man was always disappointed in the way Nick shot. Nick's son expresses regret that they have never yet prayed at his grandfather's grave and concern that he will not be able to pray at his father's grave, and Nick says that he can see that they will need to do that soon.\n\nStyle \n\"Fathers and Sons\" is another example of the classic \"Hemingway Style.\" Characterized by economy and iceberg theory, the \"Hemingway Style\" is the product of obsessive revision. Hemingway himself, when asked about his style, said \"I must say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardness in first trying to make something that has not heretofore been made.\"\n\nReferences\n\nShort stories by Ernest Hemingway\n1933 short stories"
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[
"Joseph McCarthy",
"Military service"
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C_a8a63d5536de4b1db8d2ef949cc8d712_0
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When did McCarthy join the military?
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When did Joseph McCarthy join the military?
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Joseph McCarthy
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In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant. McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career. According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 - February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer, acquiring (or perhaps giving himself) the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of major. He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it in the process of signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"--a badly broken leg--that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics. McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. CANNOTANSWER
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In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps,
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Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician and attorney who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.
McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals; as homosexuality was prohibited by law at the time, it was also perceived to increase a person's risk for blackmail.
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown". Doctors had not previously reported him to be in critical condition. Some biographers say this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.
As of , McCarthy is the last Republican to have held or won election to Wisconsin's Class I Senate seat, despite Republican Ron Johnson currently holding the state's Class III Senate seat.
Early life and education
McCarthy was born in 1908 on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of seven children. His mother, Bridget (Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.
He attended Marquette University from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked his way through college, studying first electrical engineering for two years, then law, and receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.
Career
McCarthy was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.
In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America, Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.
Military service
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it during the process of just signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (over $604,000 in 2017 dollars). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May, McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe", using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner". Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.
In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life
In 1950, McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E. Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.
McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."
Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors, others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed. During the early 1950s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.
In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel. (He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.)
In 1953, he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend Cardinal Spellman. They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.
United States Senate
Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate.
McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".
McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.
Malmedy massacre trial
In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.
Shortly after this, a 1950 poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.
McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may also have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. He also received enthusiastic support from antisemitic politicians including Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift, and according to friends would display his copy of Mein Kampf, stating, "That’s the way to do it." Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P. Laru, Jr:
"Enemies within"
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.
The origin of the number 205 can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.
At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.
Tydings Committee
McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, 1950, he claimed 81. During a five-hour speech, McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"
in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department". In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".
In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".
Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."
During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. they all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".
From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax", and used insense rhetoric saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people ... to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves". Republicans were outraged by the Democrat response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".
The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.
Fame, notoriety, and sexuality
From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.
In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions. Since the late 1940s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by 1954, the number had grown twelve-fold. In the opinion of one writer, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail." Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA. He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record. Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations ... after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business." The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.
McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.
McCarthy sought to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors". McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. The pamphlet was clearly labeled a composite. McCarthy said it was "wrong" to distribute it; though staffer Jean Kerr thought it was fine. After he lost the election by almost 40,000 votes, Tydings claimed foul play.
In addition to the Tydings–Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported, won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. In the 1952 Senate elections McCarthy was returned to his Senate seat with 54.2% of the vote, compared to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%. As of 2020, McCarthy is the last Republican to win Wisconsin's Class 1 Senate seat.
McCarthy and the Truman administration
McCarthy and President Truman clashed often during the years both held office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, and spoke of the Democrats' "twenty years of treason". Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has", calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war.
It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists". Truman's Secretary of Defense, George Marshall, was the target of some of McCarthy's most vitriolic rhetoric. Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II and was also Truman's former Secretary of State. Marshall was a highly respected general and statesman, remembered today as the architect of victory and peace, the latter based on the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled America's Retreat From Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall. Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;
declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest"; and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man".
During the Korean War, when Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on bourbon and Bénédictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached."
Support from Roman Catholics and the Kennedy family
One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which constituted over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers, and Catholic journals.
At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.
McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and he was also a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice. It has been stated that McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. This claim has been acknowledged by Robert's wife and Kathleen's mother Ethel, though Kathleen later claimed that she looked at her christening certificate and that her actual godfather was Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart professor Daniel Walsh.
Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy to be a counsel for his investigatory committee, but he resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice which Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.
Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy did not campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys and, reportedly, a $50,000 donation from Joseph Kennedy. Lodge lost despite Eisenhower winning the state in the presidential election. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad that McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. When Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. asked Kennedy why he avoided criticizing McCarthy, Kennedy responded by saying, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero".
McCarthy and Eisenhower
During the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. The deletion was discovered by William H. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times, and featured on its front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.
With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. Still, he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. Oshinsky disputes this, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal. ... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'"
McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but, as stated above, badly trailing a Republican ticket which otherwise swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote.
Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were ... gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John Paton Davies Jr. was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech, he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catchphrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.
As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy."
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee—the committee normally involved with investigating Communists—thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm," in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft. However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert F. Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee. Later, McCarthy also hired Gerard David Schine, heir to a hotel-chain fortune, on the recommendation of George Sokolsky.
This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–04, Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:
Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings. ... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to re-occur.
The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America, at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it."
The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries went as far as burning the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, in one of his public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."
Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed J. B. Matthews as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Un-American Activities Committee. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds and Our Churches", which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy initially refused to do this. As the controversy mounted, however, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed.
Investigating the army
In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted.
Army–McCarthy hearings
Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army–McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.
The army consulted with an attorney familiar with McCarthy to determine the best approach to attacking him. Based on his recommendation, it decided not to pursue McCarthy on the issue of communists in government: "The attorney feels it is almost impossible to counter McCarthy effectively on the issue of kicking Communists out of Government, because he generally has some basis, no matter how slight, for his claim of Communist connection."
The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television by ABC and DuMont, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts". The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee".
Of far greater importance to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless, and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable.
Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry and prophetic remark to McCarthy. Upon being told by McCarthy that "You're not fooling anyone", Symington replied: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either."
In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%.
An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, Star Chamber methods, and the denial of ... civil liberties." Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the New York World-Telegram. He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism", and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near-facts [that] repels authorities in the field".
The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.
In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now
Even before McCarthy's clash with Welch in the hearings, one of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the television documentary series See It Now, hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954. Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason", describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of', the Communist Party", and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.
In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:
The following week, See It Now ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on See It Now on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow, including the accusation that he colluded with VOKS, the "Russian espionage and propaganda organization". This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in McCarthy's popularity.
"Joe Must Go" recall attempt
On March 18, 1954, Sauk-Prairie Star editor Leroy Gore of Sauk City, Wisconsin urged the recall of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. Ralph Wise Zwicker and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.
Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from organized labor or the state Democratic Party, the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.
Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from the Sauk County district attorney, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.
Public opinion
Censure and the Watkins Committee
Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first. She delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" speech on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics, without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Only six other Republican senators—Wayne Morse, Irving Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken, and Robert C. Hendrickson—agreed to join her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs".
On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "house-cleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo". He recommended that McCarthy turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America.
In a June 1 speech, Flanders compared McCarthy to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."
On June 11, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31.
After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself.
The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
That McCarthy had "failed to co-operate with the Sub-committee on Rules and Administration", and "repeatedly abused the members who were trying to carry out assigned duties ..."
That McCarthy had charged "three members of the [Watkins] Select Committee with 'deliberate deception' and 'fraud' ... that the special Senate session ... was a 'lynch party, and had characterized the committee "as the 'unwitting handmaiden', 'involuntary agent' and 'attorneys in fact' of the Communist Party", and had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity".
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians
and in Senate documents. McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." He added, "I don't feel I've been lynched."
Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, one of McCarthy's friends and fellow Republicans likened McCarthy's conduct, however, to that of "the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade."
Final years
After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. His career as a major public figure, however, had been ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention.
The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm."
Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds," saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder."
He declared that "co-existence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth." In one of his final acts in the Senate, McCarthy opposed President Eisenhower's nomination to the Supreme Court of William J. Brennan, after reading a speech Brennan had given shortly beforehand in which he characterized McCarthy's anti-Communist investigations as "witch hunts." McCarthy's opposition failed to gain any traction, however, and he was the only senator to vote against Brennan's confirmation.
McCarthy's biographers agree that he was a changed man, for the worse, after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self," in the words of Fred J. Cook.
It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse.
Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.
Journalist Richard Rovere (1959) wrote:
He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink, and he did not snap back quickly.
McCarthy had also become addicted to morphine. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, became aware of McCarthy's addiction in the 1950s, and demanded he stop using the drug. McCarthy refused. In Anslinger's memoir, The Murderers, McCarthy is anonymously quoted as saying:
I wouldn't try to do anything about it, Commissioner ... It will be the worse for you ... and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care […] The choice is yours.
Anslinger decided to give McCarthy access to morphine in secret from a pharmacy in Washington, DC. The morphine was paid for by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, right up to McCarthy's death. Anslinger never publicly named McCarthy, and he threatened, with prison, a journalist who had uncovered the story. However, McCarthy's identity was known to Anslinger's agents, and journalist Maxine Cheshire confirmed his identity with Will Oursler, co-author of The Murderers, in 1978.
Death
McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday, May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown"; previously doctors had not reported him to be in critical condition. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver), an estimation that is now accepted by modern biographers. Thomas C. Reeves argues that he effectively committed suicide. He was given a state funeral that was attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others at Washington's St. Matthew's Cathedral. Thousands of people viewed his body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 17,000 people filed through St. Mary's Church in order to pay him their last respects. Three senators—George W. Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker—had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane that carried McCarthy's casket. Robert F. Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.
In the summer of 1957, a special election was held in order to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Walter J. Kohler Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic candidate, William Proxmire, called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election, serving in the seat for 32 years.
Legacy
William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope:
HUAC and SACB
McCarthy's hearings are often incorrectly conflated with the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). HUAC is best known for its investigations of Alger Hiss and the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers, and directors. HUAC was a House committee, and as such it had no formal connection to McCarthy, who served in the Senate, although the existence of the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in part as a result of McCarthy's activities. HUAC was active for 37 years (1938–1975).
In popular culture
From the start of his notoriety, McCarthy served as a favorite subject for political cartoonists. He was traditionally depicted in a negative light, normally pertaining to McCarthyism and his accusations. Herblock's cartoon that coined the term McCarthyism appeared less than two months after the senator's now famous February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.
In 1951, Ray Bradbury published "The Fireman", an allegory on suppression of ideas. This served as the basis for Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953. Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States.
Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to make jokes about McCarthy. During his 1952 Christmas show, Hope made a joke about Santa Claus writing to let Joe McCarthy know he was going to wear his red suit despite the Red Scare. Hope continued to offer McCarthy jokes as they were well received by most people, although he did receive some hate mail.
In 1953, the popular daily comic strip Pogo introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy. After a worried Rhode Island newspaper editor protested to the syndicate that provided the strip, creator Walt Kelly began depicting the Malarkey character with a bag over his head, concealing his features. The explanation was that Malarkey was hiding from a Rhode Island Red hen, a clear reference to the controversy over the Malarkey character.
In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller published The Crucible, suggesting the Salem witch trials were analogous to McCarthyism.
As his fame grew, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in Mad magazine, on The Red Skelton Show, and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band". Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network broadcast a satire, The Investigator, whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings.
The 1953 short story Mr. Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon was described by noted journalist and author Paul Williams as "the all-time great story about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who he was and how he did what he did."
Billy Joel makes reference to "Joe McCarthy" in his 1989 hit 'We Didn't Start the Fire," a song which recalls major events and key influencers between 1949 (Joel's birth year) and 1989.
Post-censure reaction
Mr. Costello, Hero was adapted in 1958 by X Minus One into a radio teleplay and broadcast on July 3, 1956. While the radio adaptation retains much of the story, it completely remakes the narrator and in fact gives him a line spoken in the original by Mr. Costello himself, thus changing the tone of the story considerably. In a 1977 interview Sturgeon commented that it was his concerns about the ongoing McCarthy Hearings that prompted him to write the story.
A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. He remains a major character in the 1962 film version.
The 1962 novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury features an overzealous demagogue, Senator Fred Van Ackerman, based on McCarthy. Although the fictional senator is an ultra liberal who proposes surrender to the Soviet Union, his portrayal strongly resembles the popular perception of McCarthy's character and methods.
McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie Tail Gunner Joe, a dramatization of McCarthy's life. Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow and the See It Now episode that challenged McCarthy. McCarthy was also portrayed by Joe Don Baker in the 1992 HBO film Citizen Cohn. In the German-French docu-drama The Real American – Joe McCarthy (2012), directed by Lutz Hachmeister, McCarthy is portrayed by the British actor and comedian John Sessions. In Lee Daniels' 2020 film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, McCarthy is portrayed by actor Randy Davison.
R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", from their 1987 album Document, deals largely with McCarthy and contains sound clips from the Army-McCarthy Hearings.
'Joe' McCarthy is also mentioned in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire."
McCarthyism is one of the subjects of Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna.
Reconsideration
McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the conservative Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.
In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.
Historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, challenged Herman's efforts to rehabilitate McCarthy, arguing that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them. Haynes concluded that, of the 159 people who were identified on lists which were used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts. His own view was that a number of those on the lists above, perhaps a majority, likely posed some form of security risk, but others, a minority but a significant one, likely were not, and that several were indisputably no risk at all.
See also
List of deaths through alcohol
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
List of United States senators expelled or censured
References
Citations
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Anderson, Jack and May, Ronald W (1952). McCarthy: the man, the Senator, the "ism," Beacon Press.
Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Crosby, Donald F. "The Jesuits and Joe McCarthy". Church History 1977 46(3): 374–388. Fulltext: in Jstor
Gauger, Michael. "Flickering Images: Live Television Coverage and Viewership of the Army-McCarthy Hearings". Historian 2005 67(4): 678–693. Fulltext: in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco. Audience ratings show that few people watched the hearings.
External links
"Papa" Prell's radio broadcast on "Tail Gunner Joe", including taped segments from the trial.
The McCarthy–Welch exchange
Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library
FBI Memo Referencing 206 Communists in Government
Transcript: "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" – Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Television, March 9, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Transcript: "Joseph R. McCarthy: Rebuttal to Edward R. Murrow", See It Now, CBS Television, April 6, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Documents on McCarthyism at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
FBI file on Joseph McCarthy
The Redhunter: a novel based on the life and times of Senator Joe McCarthy by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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1908 births
1957 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
Alcohol-related deaths in Maryland
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
American anti-communists
American conspiracy theorists
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
Anti-Masonry
Burials in Wisconsin
Catholics from Wisconsin
Censured or reprimanded United States senators
Deaths from hepatitis
Discrimination against LGBT people in the United States
Marquette University Law School alumni
Military personnel from Wisconsin
Old Right (United States)
People from Grand Chute, Wisconsin
People from Shawano, Wisconsin
People of the Cold War
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
Republican Party United States senators
United States Marine Corps officers
United States senators from Wisconsin
Wisconsin Democrats
Wisconsin Republicans
Wisconsin state court judges
United States Marine Corps reservists
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[
"Robert Zepp McCarthy (born 21 November 1948) is an English retired footballer. Originally from Lyndhurst, Hampshire, McCarthy played the majority of his professional career with Football League club Southampton, before finishing his short career with brief spells at Poole Town, Cowes Sports, and Andover. McCarthy played primarily as a right-back.\n\nPlaying career\nOriginally from the New Forest area, McCarthy grew up a fan of Southampton and is said to have wanted to join the club since he was a youngster. After playing his youth football with a number of local schools, McCarthy joined the Saints in October 1963 and signed his first professional deal with the club in November 1965; he did not make his senior debut until two years later, against Sunderland on 25 November 1967.\n\nWith Joe Kirkup the first choice at right-back, McCarthy struggled to break into the first team until the 1971–72 season, when he began to establish himself in the position and became the first choice. After Southampton's relegation to the Second Division in 1974, McCarthy struggled to regain his top form due to an operation on his knee, and after making only 16 league appearances in the 1974–75 season he decided to retire from the professional game at age 26. McCarthy spent a few seasons playing for local non-league clubs Poole Town, Cowes Sports, and Andover before retiring from football entirely.\n\nIn total, McCarthy made nearly 300 appearances for the Southampton senior and reserve teams combined, with club legend Terry Paine naming him in his choice for the Saints 'dream team' of his era.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nReferences\n\n1948 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Lyndhurst, Hampshire\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football fullbacks\nSouthampton F.C. players\nPoole Town F.C. players\nCowes Sports F.C. players\nAndover F.C. players\nEnglish Football League players",
"Frank McCarthy (March 30, 1924 – November 17, 2002) was an American artist and realist painter known for advertisements, magazine artwork, paperback covers, film posters, and paintings of the American West.\n\nBiography\n\nBorn in New York City, he studied under George Bridgman and Reginald Marsh at the Art Students League of New York then attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.\n\nTypes of works\n\nMcCarthy began his art career as a commercial illustrator, opening his own studio in 1948. He did illustrations for most of the paperback book publishers, magazines, including Colliers, Argosy, and True, movie companies, and advertisements.\n\nAmong McCarthy's film poster work were The Ten Commandments, Hatari!, Hero's Island, The Great Escape, and with Robert McGinnis, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.\n\nMcCarthy left the commercial art world in 1968 in order to concentrate on Western paintings. In 1975 he was invited to join the Cowboy Artists of America. His 1972 painting \"The Last Crossing\" was used by The Marshall Tucker Band in 1976 for the cover of their fifth studio album, Long Hard Ride. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1997.\n\nDeath\n\nMcCarthy died of lung cancer in 2002 at his home of 30 years in Sedona, Arizona.\n\nSee also\n Richard Amsel\n Saul Bass\n Jack Davis\n Frank Frazetta\n The Brothers Hildebrandt\n Tom Jung\n Sanford Kossin\n Bob Peak\n Drew Struzan\n Howard Terpning\n\nReferences\n McCarthy, Paintings of the Old West by Frank C. McCarthy, 1977, R. W. Norton Art Gallery.\n McCarthy, Frank C. McCarthy: The Old West; A Portrait of Paintings, 1981, Greenwich Press Ltd.\n McCarthy, Frank C. McCarthy: a Commemoration of the Fifteenth Anniversary of a Printmaking Partnership, 1989, Greenwich Workshop.\n Kelton, Elmer and McCarthy, Frank C., The Art of Frank C. McCarthy, 1992 William Morrow & Co.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nFrank McCarthy artwork can be viewed at American Art Archives website\nwebsite\nfansite\nFrank McCarthy Artist Biography\n\nAmerican illustrators\nFilm poster artists\n1924 births\n2002 deaths\n20th-century American painters\nAmerican male painters\nArtists of the American West\nDeaths from lung cancer\nArt Students League of New York alumni\nDeaths from cancer in Arizona\nPratt Institute alumni"
] |
[
"Joseph McCarthy",
"Military service",
"When did McCarthy join the military?",
"In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps,"
] |
C_a8a63d5536de4b1db8d2ef949cc8d712_0
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What did he do in the Marine Corps?
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What did Joseph McCarthy do in the Marine Corps?
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Joseph McCarthy
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In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant. McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career. According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 - February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer, acquiring (or perhaps giving himself) the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of major. He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it in the process of signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"--a badly broken leg--that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics. McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. CANNOTANSWER
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He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months
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Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician and attorney who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.
McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals; as homosexuality was prohibited by law at the time, it was also perceived to increase a person's risk for blackmail.
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown". Doctors had not previously reported him to be in critical condition. Some biographers say this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.
As of , McCarthy is the last Republican to have held or won election to Wisconsin's Class I Senate seat, despite Republican Ron Johnson currently holding the state's Class III Senate seat.
Early life and education
McCarthy was born in 1908 on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of seven children. His mother, Bridget (Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.
He attended Marquette University from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked his way through college, studying first electrical engineering for two years, then law, and receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.
Career
McCarthy was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.
In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America, Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.
Military service
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it during the process of just signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (over $604,000 in 2017 dollars). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May, McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe", using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner". Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.
In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life
In 1950, McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E. Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.
McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."
Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors, others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed. During the early 1950s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.
In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel. (He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.)
In 1953, he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend Cardinal Spellman. They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.
United States Senate
Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate.
McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".
McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.
Malmedy massacre trial
In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.
Shortly after this, a 1950 poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.
McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may also have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. He also received enthusiastic support from antisemitic politicians including Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift, and according to friends would display his copy of Mein Kampf, stating, "That’s the way to do it." Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P. Laru, Jr:
"Enemies within"
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.
The origin of the number 205 can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.
At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.
Tydings Committee
McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, 1950, he claimed 81. During a five-hour speech, McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"
in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department". In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".
In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".
Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."
During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. they all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".
From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax", and used insense rhetoric saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people ... to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves". Republicans were outraged by the Democrat response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".
The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.
Fame, notoriety, and sexuality
From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.
In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions. Since the late 1940s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by 1954, the number had grown twelve-fold. In the opinion of one writer, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail." Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA. He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record. Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations ... after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business." The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.
McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.
McCarthy sought to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors". McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. The pamphlet was clearly labeled a composite. McCarthy said it was "wrong" to distribute it; though staffer Jean Kerr thought it was fine. After he lost the election by almost 40,000 votes, Tydings claimed foul play.
In addition to the Tydings–Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported, won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. In the 1952 Senate elections McCarthy was returned to his Senate seat with 54.2% of the vote, compared to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%. As of 2020, McCarthy is the last Republican to win Wisconsin's Class 1 Senate seat.
McCarthy and the Truman administration
McCarthy and President Truman clashed often during the years both held office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, and spoke of the Democrats' "twenty years of treason". Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has", calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war.
It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists". Truman's Secretary of Defense, George Marshall, was the target of some of McCarthy's most vitriolic rhetoric. Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II and was also Truman's former Secretary of State. Marshall was a highly respected general and statesman, remembered today as the architect of victory and peace, the latter based on the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled America's Retreat From Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall. Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;
declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest"; and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man".
During the Korean War, when Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on bourbon and Bénédictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached."
Support from Roman Catholics and the Kennedy family
One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which constituted over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers, and Catholic journals.
At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.
McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and he was also a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice. It has been stated that McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. This claim has been acknowledged by Robert's wife and Kathleen's mother Ethel, though Kathleen later claimed that she looked at her christening certificate and that her actual godfather was Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart professor Daniel Walsh.
Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy to be a counsel for his investigatory committee, but he resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice which Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.
Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy did not campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys and, reportedly, a $50,000 donation from Joseph Kennedy. Lodge lost despite Eisenhower winning the state in the presidential election. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad that McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. When Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. asked Kennedy why he avoided criticizing McCarthy, Kennedy responded by saying, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero".
McCarthy and Eisenhower
During the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. The deletion was discovered by William H. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times, and featured on its front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.
With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. Still, he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. Oshinsky disputes this, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal. ... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'"
McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but, as stated above, badly trailing a Republican ticket which otherwise swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote.
Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were ... gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John Paton Davies Jr. was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech, he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catchphrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.
As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy."
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee—the committee normally involved with investigating Communists—thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm," in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft. However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert F. Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee. Later, McCarthy also hired Gerard David Schine, heir to a hotel-chain fortune, on the recommendation of George Sokolsky.
This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–04, Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:
Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings. ... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to re-occur.
The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America, at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it."
The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries went as far as burning the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, in one of his public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."
Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed J. B. Matthews as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Un-American Activities Committee. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds and Our Churches", which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy initially refused to do this. As the controversy mounted, however, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed.
Investigating the army
In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted.
Army–McCarthy hearings
Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army–McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.
The army consulted with an attorney familiar with McCarthy to determine the best approach to attacking him. Based on his recommendation, it decided not to pursue McCarthy on the issue of communists in government: "The attorney feels it is almost impossible to counter McCarthy effectively on the issue of kicking Communists out of Government, because he generally has some basis, no matter how slight, for his claim of Communist connection."
The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television by ABC and DuMont, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts". The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee".
Of far greater importance to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless, and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable.
Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry and prophetic remark to McCarthy. Upon being told by McCarthy that "You're not fooling anyone", Symington replied: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either."
In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%.
An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, Star Chamber methods, and the denial of ... civil liberties." Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the New York World-Telegram. He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism", and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near-facts [that] repels authorities in the field".
The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.
In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now
Even before McCarthy's clash with Welch in the hearings, one of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the television documentary series See It Now, hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954. Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason", describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of', the Communist Party", and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.
In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:
The following week, See It Now ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on See It Now on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow, including the accusation that he colluded with VOKS, the "Russian espionage and propaganda organization". This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in McCarthy's popularity.
"Joe Must Go" recall attempt
On March 18, 1954, Sauk-Prairie Star editor Leroy Gore of Sauk City, Wisconsin urged the recall of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. Ralph Wise Zwicker and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.
Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from organized labor or the state Democratic Party, the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.
Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from the Sauk County district attorney, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.
Public opinion
Censure and the Watkins Committee
Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first. She delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" speech on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics, without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Only six other Republican senators—Wayne Morse, Irving Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken, and Robert C. Hendrickson—agreed to join her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs".
On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "house-cleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo". He recommended that McCarthy turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America.
In a June 1 speech, Flanders compared McCarthy to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."
On June 11, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31.
After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself.
The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
That McCarthy had "failed to co-operate with the Sub-committee on Rules and Administration", and "repeatedly abused the members who were trying to carry out assigned duties ..."
That McCarthy had charged "three members of the [Watkins] Select Committee with 'deliberate deception' and 'fraud' ... that the special Senate session ... was a 'lynch party, and had characterized the committee "as the 'unwitting handmaiden', 'involuntary agent' and 'attorneys in fact' of the Communist Party", and had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity".
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians
and in Senate documents. McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." He added, "I don't feel I've been lynched."
Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, one of McCarthy's friends and fellow Republicans likened McCarthy's conduct, however, to that of "the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade."
Final years
After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. His career as a major public figure, however, had been ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention.
The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm."
Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds," saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder."
He declared that "co-existence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth." In one of his final acts in the Senate, McCarthy opposed President Eisenhower's nomination to the Supreme Court of William J. Brennan, after reading a speech Brennan had given shortly beforehand in which he characterized McCarthy's anti-Communist investigations as "witch hunts." McCarthy's opposition failed to gain any traction, however, and he was the only senator to vote against Brennan's confirmation.
McCarthy's biographers agree that he was a changed man, for the worse, after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self," in the words of Fred J. Cook.
It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse.
Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.
Journalist Richard Rovere (1959) wrote:
He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink, and he did not snap back quickly.
McCarthy had also become addicted to morphine. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, became aware of McCarthy's addiction in the 1950s, and demanded he stop using the drug. McCarthy refused. In Anslinger's memoir, The Murderers, McCarthy is anonymously quoted as saying:
I wouldn't try to do anything about it, Commissioner ... It will be the worse for you ... and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care […] The choice is yours.
Anslinger decided to give McCarthy access to morphine in secret from a pharmacy in Washington, DC. The morphine was paid for by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, right up to McCarthy's death. Anslinger never publicly named McCarthy, and he threatened, with prison, a journalist who had uncovered the story. However, McCarthy's identity was known to Anslinger's agents, and journalist Maxine Cheshire confirmed his identity with Will Oursler, co-author of The Murderers, in 1978.
Death
McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday, May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown"; previously doctors had not reported him to be in critical condition. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver), an estimation that is now accepted by modern biographers. Thomas C. Reeves argues that he effectively committed suicide. He was given a state funeral that was attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others at Washington's St. Matthew's Cathedral. Thousands of people viewed his body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 17,000 people filed through St. Mary's Church in order to pay him their last respects. Three senators—George W. Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker—had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane that carried McCarthy's casket. Robert F. Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.
In the summer of 1957, a special election was held in order to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Walter J. Kohler Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic candidate, William Proxmire, called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election, serving in the seat for 32 years.
Legacy
William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope:
HUAC and SACB
McCarthy's hearings are often incorrectly conflated with the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). HUAC is best known for its investigations of Alger Hiss and the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers, and directors. HUAC was a House committee, and as such it had no formal connection to McCarthy, who served in the Senate, although the existence of the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in part as a result of McCarthy's activities. HUAC was active for 37 years (1938–1975).
In popular culture
From the start of his notoriety, McCarthy served as a favorite subject for political cartoonists. He was traditionally depicted in a negative light, normally pertaining to McCarthyism and his accusations. Herblock's cartoon that coined the term McCarthyism appeared less than two months after the senator's now famous February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.
In 1951, Ray Bradbury published "The Fireman", an allegory on suppression of ideas. This served as the basis for Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953. Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States.
Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to make jokes about McCarthy. During his 1952 Christmas show, Hope made a joke about Santa Claus writing to let Joe McCarthy know he was going to wear his red suit despite the Red Scare. Hope continued to offer McCarthy jokes as they were well received by most people, although he did receive some hate mail.
In 1953, the popular daily comic strip Pogo introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy. After a worried Rhode Island newspaper editor protested to the syndicate that provided the strip, creator Walt Kelly began depicting the Malarkey character with a bag over his head, concealing his features. The explanation was that Malarkey was hiding from a Rhode Island Red hen, a clear reference to the controversy over the Malarkey character.
In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller published The Crucible, suggesting the Salem witch trials were analogous to McCarthyism.
As his fame grew, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in Mad magazine, on The Red Skelton Show, and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band". Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network broadcast a satire, The Investigator, whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings.
The 1953 short story Mr. Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon was described by noted journalist and author Paul Williams as "the all-time great story about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who he was and how he did what he did."
Billy Joel makes reference to "Joe McCarthy" in his 1989 hit 'We Didn't Start the Fire," a song which recalls major events and key influencers between 1949 (Joel's birth year) and 1989.
Post-censure reaction
Mr. Costello, Hero was adapted in 1958 by X Minus One into a radio teleplay and broadcast on July 3, 1956. While the radio adaptation retains much of the story, it completely remakes the narrator and in fact gives him a line spoken in the original by Mr. Costello himself, thus changing the tone of the story considerably. In a 1977 interview Sturgeon commented that it was his concerns about the ongoing McCarthy Hearings that prompted him to write the story.
A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. He remains a major character in the 1962 film version.
The 1962 novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury features an overzealous demagogue, Senator Fred Van Ackerman, based on McCarthy. Although the fictional senator is an ultra liberal who proposes surrender to the Soviet Union, his portrayal strongly resembles the popular perception of McCarthy's character and methods.
McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie Tail Gunner Joe, a dramatization of McCarthy's life. Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow and the See It Now episode that challenged McCarthy. McCarthy was also portrayed by Joe Don Baker in the 1992 HBO film Citizen Cohn. In the German-French docu-drama The Real American – Joe McCarthy (2012), directed by Lutz Hachmeister, McCarthy is portrayed by the British actor and comedian John Sessions. In Lee Daniels' 2020 film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, McCarthy is portrayed by actor Randy Davison.
R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", from their 1987 album Document, deals largely with McCarthy and contains sound clips from the Army-McCarthy Hearings.
'Joe' McCarthy is also mentioned in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire."
McCarthyism is one of the subjects of Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna.
Reconsideration
McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the conservative Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.
In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.
Historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, challenged Herman's efforts to rehabilitate McCarthy, arguing that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them. Haynes concluded that, of the 159 people who were identified on lists which were used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts. His own view was that a number of those on the lists above, perhaps a majority, likely posed some form of security risk, but others, a minority but a significant one, likely were not, and that several were indisputably no risk at all.
See also
List of deaths through alcohol
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
List of United States senators expelled or censured
References
Citations
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Anderson, Jack and May, Ronald W (1952). McCarthy: the man, the Senator, the "ism," Beacon Press.
Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Crosby, Donald F. "The Jesuits and Joe McCarthy". Church History 1977 46(3): 374–388. Fulltext: in Jstor
Gauger, Michael. "Flickering Images: Live Television Coverage and Viewership of the Army-McCarthy Hearings". Historian 2005 67(4): 678–693. Fulltext: in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco. Audience ratings show that few people watched the hearings.
External links
"Papa" Prell's radio broadcast on "Tail Gunner Joe", including taped segments from the trial.
The McCarthy–Welch exchange
Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library
FBI Memo Referencing 206 Communists in Government
Transcript: "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" – Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Television, March 9, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Transcript: "Joseph R. McCarthy: Rebuttal to Edward R. Murrow", See It Now, CBS Television, April 6, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Documents on McCarthyism at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
FBI file on Joseph McCarthy
The Redhunter: a novel based on the life and times of Senator Joe McCarthy by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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Burials in Wisconsin
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"William Weise (born March 10, 1929) is a retired United States Marine Corps Brigadier General who served in the Vietnam War.\n\nEarly life and education\nWeise was born in south Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1951 in order to use the GI Bill to attend law school.\n\nMilitary career\n\nVietnam War\nLt.Col. Weise assumed command of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines in October 1967 and commanded them during Operation Napoleon/Saline and at the Battle of Dai Do where he was seriously injured. For his actions at Dai Do Weise was awarded the Navy Cross.\n\nPost-Vietnam\nWeise retired from the Marine Corps in 1982 after 31 years of service.\n\nIn his role as co-chair of the Marine Corps Heritage Center committee he assisted with the funding and creation of the National Museum of the Marine Corps which opened in 2006.\n\nReferences\n\n1929 births\nUnited States Marine Corps generals\nUnited States Marine Corps personnel of the Vietnam War\nLiving people",
"Michael D. Fay is a former United States Marine Corps combat artist. Before his retirement from the Corps, he was a war artist serving in Iraq. He was deployed as an artist-correspondent embedded with US troops in Afghanistan. He resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia.\n\nMilitary career\n\nFay enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1975 and was discharged in 1978 as an 81 mm mortarman (MOS 0341). In 1978, he returned to Pennsylvania State University and graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Science in Art Education. In 1983, re-enlisted into the Marines and served as an avionics technician (MOS 6322) working on CH-46s, VH-3Ds, CH-53Es and UH/AH-1s in the Presidential Helicopter Squadron (HMX-1) and Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 365 (HMM-365) until 1993. Fay served a tour on recruiting duty (MOS 8411) at Recruiting Station Baltimore as a recruiter of the year for 1989 and 1990. He left active duty at the end of September 1993.\n\nFay returned to service in the Marine Corps Reserve in January 2000. He was assigned as an official combat artist with the National Museum of the Marine Corps Combat Art Collection. He is now retired from the Marine Corps.\n\nWar artist\n\nThe United States Marine Corps supports three combat artists to produce fine art based on their experiences of combat and the life of Marines on the battlefield. The orders are \"Go to war. Do art.\" The artists are unfettered in their choice of subject. Fay's artwork is in the Marine Corps Combat Art collection, the National Museum of the Marine Corps and the collection of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.\n\nFay has also had solo exhibitions at the Farnsworth Museum, where he was the target of a protest group. His artwork has been published in Leatherneck Magazinethe official magazine of the Marine Corps Associationand the New York Times. The Guardian called his work \"exceptionally moving and thought-provoking\", and said, \"Over the past decade, Fay has seen action as a war artist with US troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but his latest journey was to a military veterans' hospital in Richmond, Virginia. In the resulting New York Times blogs, he relays his meetings with three young men severely wounded in Afghanistan. His account of their injuries and rehabilitation is gripping, but what really deepens the reporting are his drawings, reproduced alongside the articles.\"\n\nFay has also recorded wounded veterans recovering from their injuries. As part of this work he founded the Joe Bonham Project to document the experiences of the wounded. After retirement, Fay campaigned for enhanced recognition and improved working opportunities for war artists. Fay also uses sculpture. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Illustration; his thesis was called The Boy Who Drew Soldiers.\n\nSee also\n\nWar artist\nAmerican official war artists\nKristopher Battles\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania\nNew York Times' Times Select\nMichael D. Fay's blog, \"Fire & Ice\"\nWall Street Journal Article by Michael Phillips\nABC News Slide Show of Art\nMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel Article\nAmerican Public Media The Story Interview with Dick Gordon\nMinnesota Public Radio Interview with Fay\nCNN Interview transcript with Fay\nDisabled American Veteran Magazine\nLeatherneck Magazine:Faces in a Combat Zone\nAmerican Artist Drawing Winter 2005\nPentagon Show\n\nAmerican war artists\nUnited States Marines\nUnited States Marine Corps reservists\nLiving people\nArtists from Allentown, Pennsylvania\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nUnited States Marine Corps personnel of the Gulf War\nUnited States Marine Corps personnel of the Iraq War\nUnited States Marine Corps personnel of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)"
] |
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"When did McCarthy join the military?",
"In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps,",
"What did he do in the Marine Corps?",
"He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months"
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What did he oversee as the briefing officer ?
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What did McCarthy oversee as the briefing officer?
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Joseph McCarthy
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In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant. McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career. According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 - February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer, acquiring (or perhaps giving himself) the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of major. He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it in the process of signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"--a badly broken leg--that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics. McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician and attorney who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.
McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals; as homosexuality was prohibited by law at the time, it was also perceived to increase a person's risk for blackmail.
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown". Doctors had not previously reported him to be in critical condition. Some biographers say this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.
As of , McCarthy is the last Republican to have held or won election to Wisconsin's Class I Senate seat, despite Republican Ron Johnson currently holding the state's Class III Senate seat.
Early life and education
McCarthy was born in 1908 on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of seven children. His mother, Bridget (Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.
He attended Marquette University from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked his way through college, studying first electrical engineering for two years, then law, and receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.
Career
McCarthy was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.
In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America, Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.
Military service
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it during the process of just signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (over $604,000 in 2017 dollars). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May, McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe", using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner". Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.
In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life
In 1950, McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E. Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.
McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."
Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors, others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed. During the early 1950s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.
In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel. (He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.)
In 1953, he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend Cardinal Spellman. They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.
United States Senate
Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate.
McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".
McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.
Malmedy massacre trial
In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.
Shortly after this, a 1950 poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.
McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may also have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. He also received enthusiastic support from antisemitic politicians including Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift, and according to friends would display his copy of Mein Kampf, stating, "That’s the way to do it." Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P. Laru, Jr:
"Enemies within"
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.
The origin of the number 205 can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.
At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.
Tydings Committee
McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, 1950, he claimed 81. During a five-hour speech, McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"
in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department". In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".
In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".
Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."
During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. they all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".
From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax", and used insense rhetoric saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people ... to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves". Republicans were outraged by the Democrat response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".
The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.
Fame, notoriety, and sexuality
From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.
In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions. Since the late 1940s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by 1954, the number had grown twelve-fold. In the opinion of one writer, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail." Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA. He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record. Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations ... after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business." The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.
McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.
McCarthy sought to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors". McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. The pamphlet was clearly labeled a composite. McCarthy said it was "wrong" to distribute it; though staffer Jean Kerr thought it was fine. After he lost the election by almost 40,000 votes, Tydings claimed foul play.
In addition to the Tydings–Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported, won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. In the 1952 Senate elections McCarthy was returned to his Senate seat with 54.2% of the vote, compared to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%. As of 2020, McCarthy is the last Republican to win Wisconsin's Class 1 Senate seat.
McCarthy and the Truman administration
McCarthy and President Truman clashed often during the years both held office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, and spoke of the Democrats' "twenty years of treason". Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has", calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war.
It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists". Truman's Secretary of Defense, George Marshall, was the target of some of McCarthy's most vitriolic rhetoric. Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II and was also Truman's former Secretary of State. Marshall was a highly respected general and statesman, remembered today as the architect of victory and peace, the latter based on the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled America's Retreat From Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall. Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;
declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest"; and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man".
During the Korean War, when Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on bourbon and Bénédictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached."
Support from Roman Catholics and the Kennedy family
One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which constituted over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers, and Catholic journals.
At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.
McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and he was also a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice. It has been stated that McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. This claim has been acknowledged by Robert's wife and Kathleen's mother Ethel, though Kathleen later claimed that she looked at her christening certificate and that her actual godfather was Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart professor Daniel Walsh.
Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy to be a counsel for his investigatory committee, but he resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice which Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.
Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy did not campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys and, reportedly, a $50,000 donation from Joseph Kennedy. Lodge lost despite Eisenhower winning the state in the presidential election. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad that McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. When Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. asked Kennedy why he avoided criticizing McCarthy, Kennedy responded by saying, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero".
McCarthy and Eisenhower
During the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. The deletion was discovered by William H. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times, and featured on its front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.
With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. Still, he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. Oshinsky disputes this, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal. ... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'"
McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but, as stated above, badly trailing a Republican ticket which otherwise swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote.
Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were ... gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John Paton Davies Jr. was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech, he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catchphrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.
As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy."
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee—the committee normally involved with investigating Communists—thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm," in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft. However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert F. Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee. Later, McCarthy also hired Gerard David Schine, heir to a hotel-chain fortune, on the recommendation of George Sokolsky.
This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–04, Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:
Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings. ... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to re-occur.
The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America, at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it."
The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries went as far as burning the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, in one of his public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."
Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed J. B. Matthews as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Un-American Activities Committee. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds and Our Churches", which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy initially refused to do this. As the controversy mounted, however, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed.
Investigating the army
In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted.
Army–McCarthy hearings
Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army–McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.
The army consulted with an attorney familiar with McCarthy to determine the best approach to attacking him. Based on his recommendation, it decided not to pursue McCarthy on the issue of communists in government: "The attorney feels it is almost impossible to counter McCarthy effectively on the issue of kicking Communists out of Government, because he generally has some basis, no matter how slight, for his claim of Communist connection."
The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television by ABC and DuMont, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts". The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee".
Of far greater importance to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless, and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable.
Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry and prophetic remark to McCarthy. Upon being told by McCarthy that "You're not fooling anyone", Symington replied: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either."
In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%.
An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, Star Chamber methods, and the denial of ... civil liberties." Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the New York World-Telegram. He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism", and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near-facts [that] repels authorities in the field".
The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.
In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now
Even before McCarthy's clash with Welch in the hearings, one of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the television documentary series See It Now, hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954. Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason", describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of', the Communist Party", and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.
In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:
The following week, See It Now ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on See It Now on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow, including the accusation that he colluded with VOKS, the "Russian espionage and propaganda organization". This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in McCarthy's popularity.
"Joe Must Go" recall attempt
On March 18, 1954, Sauk-Prairie Star editor Leroy Gore of Sauk City, Wisconsin urged the recall of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. Ralph Wise Zwicker and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.
Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from organized labor or the state Democratic Party, the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.
Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from the Sauk County district attorney, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.
Public opinion
Censure and the Watkins Committee
Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first. She delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" speech on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics, without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Only six other Republican senators—Wayne Morse, Irving Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken, and Robert C. Hendrickson—agreed to join her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs".
On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "house-cleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo". He recommended that McCarthy turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America.
In a June 1 speech, Flanders compared McCarthy to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."
On June 11, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31.
After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself.
The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
That McCarthy had "failed to co-operate with the Sub-committee on Rules and Administration", and "repeatedly abused the members who were trying to carry out assigned duties ..."
That McCarthy had charged "three members of the [Watkins] Select Committee with 'deliberate deception' and 'fraud' ... that the special Senate session ... was a 'lynch party, and had characterized the committee "as the 'unwitting handmaiden', 'involuntary agent' and 'attorneys in fact' of the Communist Party", and had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity".
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians
and in Senate documents. McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." He added, "I don't feel I've been lynched."
Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, one of McCarthy's friends and fellow Republicans likened McCarthy's conduct, however, to that of "the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade."
Final years
After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. His career as a major public figure, however, had been ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention.
The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm."
Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds," saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder."
He declared that "co-existence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth." In one of his final acts in the Senate, McCarthy opposed President Eisenhower's nomination to the Supreme Court of William J. Brennan, after reading a speech Brennan had given shortly beforehand in which he characterized McCarthy's anti-Communist investigations as "witch hunts." McCarthy's opposition failed to gain any traction, however, and he was the only senator to vote against Brennan's confirmation.
McCarthy's biographers agree that he was a changed man, for the worse, after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self," in the words of Fred J. Cook.
It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse.
Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.
Journalist Richard Rovere (1959) wrote:
He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink, and he did not snap back quickly.
McCarthy had also become addicted to morphine. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, became aware of McCarthy's addiction in the 1950s, and demanded he stop using the drug. McCarthy refused. In Anslinger's memoir, The Murderers, McCarthy is anonymously quoted as saying:
I wouldn't try to do anything about it, Commissioner ... It will be the worse for you ... and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care […] The choice is yours.
Anslinger decided to give McCarthy access to morphine in secret from a pharmacy in Washington, DC. The morphine was paid for by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, right up to McCarthy's death. Anslinger never publicly named McCarthy, and he threatened, with prison, a journalist who had uncovered the story. However, McCarthy's identity was known to Anslinger's agents, and journalist Maxine Cheshire confirmed his identity with Will Oursler, co-author of The Murderers, in 1978.
Death
McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday, May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown"; previously doctors had not reported him to be in critical condition. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver), an estimation that is now accepted by modern biographers. Thomas C. Reeves argues that he effectively committed suicide. He was given a state funeral that was attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others at Washington's St. Matthew's Cathedral. Thousands of people viewed his body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 17,000 people filed through St. Mary's Church in order to pay him their last respects. Three senators—George W. Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker—had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane that carried McCarthy's casket. Robert F. Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.
In the summer of 1957, a special election was held in order to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Walter J. Kohler Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic candidate, William Proxmire, called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election, serving in the seat for 32 years.
Legacy
William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope:
HUAC and SACB
McCarthy's hearings are often incorrectly conflated with the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). HUAC is best known for its investigations of Alger Hiss and the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers, and directors. HUAC was a House committee, and as such it had no formal connection to McCarthy, who served in the Senate, although the existence of the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in part as a result of McCarthy's activities. HUAC was active for 37 years (1938–1975).
In popular culture
From the start of his notoriety, McCarthy served as a favorite subject for political cartoonists. He was traditionally depicted in a negative light, normally pertaining to McCarthyism and his accusations. Herblock's cartoon that coined the term McCarthyism appeared less than two months after the senator's now famous February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.
In 1951, Ray Bradbury published "The Fireman", an allegory on suppression of ideas. This served as the basis for Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953. Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States.
Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to make jokes about McCarthy. During his 1952 Christmas show, Hope made a joke about Santa Claus writing to let Joe McCarthy know he was going to wear his red suit despite the Red Scare. Hope continued to offer McCarthy jokes as they were well received by most people, although he did receive some hate mail.
In 1953, the popular daily comic strip Pogo introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy. After a worried Rhode Island newspaper editor protested to the syndicate that provided the strip, creator Walt Kelly began depicting the Malarkey character with a bag over his head, concealing his features. The explanation was that Malarkey was hiding from a Rhode Island Red hen, a clear reference to the controversy over the Malarkey character.
In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller published The Crucible, suggesting the Salem witch trials were analogous to McCarthyism.
As his fame grew, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in Mad magazine, on The Red Skelton Show, and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band". Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network broadcast a satire, The Investigator, whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings.
The 1953 short story Mr. Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon was described by noted journalist and author Paul Williams as "the all-time great story about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who he was and how he did what he did."
Billy Joel makes reference to "Joe McCarthy" in his 1989 hit 'We Didn't Start the Fire," a song which recalls major events and key influencers between 1949 (Joel's birth year) and 1989.
Post-censure reaction
Mr. Costello, Hero was adapted in 1958 by X Minus One into a radio teleplay and broadcast on July 3, 1956. While the radio adaptation retains much of the story, it completely remakes the narrator and in fact gives him a line spoken in the original by Mr. Costello himself, thus changing the tone of the story considerably. In a 1977 interview Sturgeon commented that it was his concerns about the ongoing McCarthy Hearings that prompted him to write the story.
A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. He remains a major character in the 1962 film version.
The 1962 novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury features an overzealous demagogue, Senator Fred Van Ackerman, based on McCarthy. Although the fictional senator is an ultra liberal who proposes surrender to the Soviet Union, his portrayal strongly resembles the popular perception of McCarthy's character and methods.
McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie Tail Gunner Joe, a dramatization of McCarthy's life. Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow and the See It Now episode that challenged McCarthy. McCarthy was also portrayed by Joe Don Baker in the 1992 HBO film Citizen Cohn. In the German-French docu-drama The Real American – Joe McCarthy (2012), directed by Lutz Hachmeister, McCarthy is portrayed by the British actor and comedian John Sessions. In Lee Daniels' 2020 film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, McCarthy is portrayed by actor Randy Davison.
R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", from their 1987 album Document, deals largely with McCarthy and contains sound clips from the Army-McCarthy Hearings.
'Joe' McCarthy is also mentioned in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire."
McCarthyism is one of the subjects of Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna.
Reconsideration
McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the conservative Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.
In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.
Historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, challenged Herman's efforts to rehabilitate McCarthy, arguing that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them. Haynes concluded that, of the 159 people who were identified on lists which were used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts. His own view was that a number of those on the lists above, perhaps a majority, likely posed some form of security risk, but others, a minority but a significant one, likely were not, and that several were indisputably no risk at all.
See also
List of deaths through alcohol
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
List of United States senators expelled or censured
References
Citations
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Anderson, Jack and May, Ronald W (1952). McCarthy: the man, the Senator, the "ism," Beacon Press.
Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Crosby, Donald F. "The Jesuits and Joe McCarthy". Church History 1977 46(3): 374–388. Fulltext: in Jstor
Gauger, Michael. "Flickering Images: Live Television Coverage and Viewership of the Army-McCarthy Hearings". Historian 2005 67(4): 678–693. Fulltext: in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco. Audience ratings show that few people watched the hearings.
External links
"Papa" Prell's radio broadcast on "Tail Gunner Joe", including taped segments from the trial.
The McCarthy–Welch exchange
Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library
FBI Memo Referencing 206 Communists in Government
Transcript: "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" – Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Television, March 9, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Transcript: "Joseph R. McCarthy: Rebuttal to Edward R. Murrow", See It Now, CBS Television, April 6, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Documents on McCarthyism at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
FBI file on Joseph McCarthy
The Redhunter: a novel based on the life and times of Senator Joe McCarthy by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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1908 births
1957 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
Alcohol-related deaths in Maryland
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
American anti-communists
American conspiracy theorists
American people of German descent
American people of Irish descent
Anti-Masonry
Burials in Wisconsin
Catholics from Wisconsin
Censured or reprimanded United States senators
Deaths from hepatitis
Discrimination against LGBT people in the United States
Marquette University Law School alumni
Military personnel from Wisconsin
Old Right (United States)
People from Grand Chute, Wisconsin
People from Shawano, Wisconsin
People of the Cold War
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
Republican Party United States senators
United States Marine Corps officers
United States senators from Wisconsin
Wisconsin Democrats
Wisconsin Republicans
Wisconsin state court judges
United States Marine Corps reservists
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"e-Estonia Briefing Centre was established in 2009 by MicroLink Eesti AS, Santa Monica Networks AS, Datel AS, Elion Ettevõtted AS, EMT AS ja Ülemiste City AS as The Estonian ICT Demo Centre. From 2014-2019 it was known as the e-Estonia Showroom, becoming the e-Estonia Briefing Centre in February 2019. The centre tells the story of e-Estonia, called the most advanced digital society by Wired magazine. Presentations are given to visiting delegations interested in digitalisation and the centre aims to educate policy makers, political leaders, and bring together Estonian companies with visitors from all over the world.\n\nThe Briefing Centre has become an important destination in Tallinn, hosting over 10,000 international decision-makers every year from 135 different countries including presidents and ministers to CEOs and journalists. Most notable visitors include King Philippe of Belgium, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and more.\n\nBackground\nThe Demo Centre was opened on January 29, 2009 in the Ustus Agur House in Ülemiste City and it became a subdivision of Enterprise Estonia in 2014. In February 2019, the centre was relocated to Valukoja 8, where it became the e-Estonia Briefing Centre.\n\nCurrent activities\ne-Estonia Briefing Centre is located in the Öpik Building, Ülemiste City business district in Tallinn, where it hosts international decision-makers from the public and private sector and coordinates G2G, B2G and B2B relations. Visitors have the chance to learn about what it takes to build a digital society, from electronic ID to data privacy, cyber security and much more. The centre also provides customised programmes for delegations with deeper and more specific interests.\n\nIn addition, the Briefing Centre has a central role in the development of the e-Estonia brand and country promotion. This includes coordinating online communication and representation in international conferences.\n\nReferences\n\nOrganizations based in Estonia\n2009 establishments in Estonia\nOrganizations established in 2009\nScience and technology in Estonia",
"Labour Briefing is a monthly political magazine produced by members of the British Labour Party.\n\nHistory and profile\nThe magazine began in 1980 as London Labour Briefing. The founders were the members of the Chartist Minority Tendency, which was a former Trotskyist part of the Chartist Collective. It was edited by (among others) Graham Bash, Chris Knight and Keith Veness and counted Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn and other prominent Labour councillors and MPs among its supporters. Throughout the early period, its masthead slogan was \"Labour – take the power!\" While the magazine's followers often acted as a political faction, its internal politics were non-sectarian and open, ranging from democratic socialist backers of the former Labour MP Tony Benn to some of the Trotskyist groups. \n\nJeremy Corbyn, later Leader of the Labour Party, became a regular contributor to London Labour Briefing in the 1980s, and was described by The Times in 1981 as \"Briefing founder\". In a 1982 article published by The Economist, Corbyn was named as \"Briefing general secretary figure\", as he also was in a profile on Corbyn compiled by parliamentary biographer Andrew Roth in 2004, which alleges that he joined the editorial board as General Secretary in 1979. Michael Crick, in the 2016 edition of his book Militant, says that Corbyn was \"a member of the editorial board\" in the \"mid 1980s\", as does Lansley, Goss and Wolmar's The Rise and Fall of the Municipal Left in 1989. The Times also said that Corbyn was still \"closely linked\" with the group in 1995. However, in 2017, Corbyn claimed these reports were inaccurate, telling Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge, \"Andrew Roth has a wonderful reputation for having the most inaccurate parliamentary profiles known to anyone\", and that \"I read the magazine. I wrote for the magazine. I was not a member of the editorial board. I didn't agree with it.\" \n\nThe group campaigned for left-wing policies and greater democracy in the Labour Party, and focused on issues relating to municipal affairs. The paper also emphasised sexual and personal politics and anti-racism campaigns. London Labour Briefing was also prominent in supporting Irish Republicanism and the UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985). In due course, London Labour Briefing spawned local papers around Britain, such as Devon Labour Briefing. In July 1982, Corbyn argued against expulsions of Militant in Briefing.\n\nFollowing the Brighton hotel bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the editorial board of London Labour Briefing said the bombings showed that \"the British only sit up and take notice [of Ireland] when they are bombed into it\". In December 1984, the magazine carried a reader's letter praising the \"audacity\" of the IRA attack and stating: \"What do you call four dead Tories? A start.\" It mocked Norman Tebbit, the trade secretary who was dug out of the rubble of the Grand Hotel and whose wife was left permanently paralysed, saying: \"Try riding your bike now, Norman\" (in reference to an earlier speech made by Tebbit). The same issue carried a piece from the editorial board which \"disassociated itself\" from an article the previous month criticising the bombing, saying the criticism was a \"serious political misjudgment\".\n\nThroughout the 1990s, Briefing lost supporters and influence as New Labour's hold over the Labour Party increased. Liz Davies was vetoed by Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Leeds North East in 1995, in part for her association with Briefing. Corbyn called the decision of the NEC \"totally unacceptable\" at the time. In 1995, Central Books, a left-wing publisher which used to distribute the magazine, said: \"It used to be wacky and even amusing. Now it's neo-Trotskyite rubbish.\"\n\nLondon Labour Briefing was renamed Labour Briefing and was then known as Labour Left Briefing in 1995. In 2008, upon merging with Voice of the Unions, it reverted to Labour Briefing. It supports the Socialist Campaign Group of Members of Parliament, and aims to promote and build the network of local Campaign Groups.\n\n2012 division\nFollowing a contested vote at the July 2012 AGM, some supporters of Labour Briefing decided to transfer control of the magazine to the Labour Representation Committee. Other Editorial Board members, including Labour Party NEC member Christine Shawcroft, opposed the move, and continued to publish their own independent Labour Briefing magazine (sometimes known as 'Original Briefing').\n\nContributors\n\nThere have been a number of notable contributors and members of the magazine's editorial board. Most contributors in the 1980s were prominent members of London's \"outside left\".\n\nThey included:\n Tony Banks\n Tony Benn\n Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, former Leader of the Labour Party\n Bryn Davies, trade unionist, actuary and politician who was Leader of the Inner London Education Authority in the early 1980s\n Andy Harris\n Tony Hart, Greater London Council member, and husband of Judith Hart MP\n Chris Knight, anthropologist\n Ted Knight, former Lambeth council leader\n George Nicholson\n Jackie Walker, activist\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttps://labourbriefingcooperative.net/\nhttp://labourbriefing.squarespace.com/home/\n\n1980 establishments in the United Kingdom\nMonthly magazines published in the United Kingdom\nPolitical magazines published in the United Kingdom\nDemocratic socialism\nLabour Party (UK) publications\nMagazines published in London\nMagazines established in 1980\nSocialist magazines"
] |
[
"Joseph McCarthy",
"Military service",
"When did McCarthy join the military?",
"In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps,",
"What did he do in the Marine Corps?",
"He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months",
"What did he oversee as the briefing officer ?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_a8a63d5536de4b1db8d2ef949cc8d712_0
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What did he do after the Marine Corps?
| 4 |
What did McCarthy do after the Marine Corps?
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Joseph McCarthy
|
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant. McCarthy reportedly chose the Marines with the hope that being a veteran of this branch of the military would serve him best in his future political career. According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the Army Air Force in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero--join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?" He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 - February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer, acquiring (or perhaps giving himself) the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of major. He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it in the process of signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"--a badly broken leg--that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics. McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. CANNOTANSWER
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McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position.
|
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician and attorney who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, the smear tactics that he used led him to be censured by the U.S. Senate. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, McCarthy commissioned into the Marine Corps in 1942, where he served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron. Following the end of World War II, he attained the rank of major. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". Some of his claims of heroism were later shown to be exaggerated or falsified, leading many of his critics to use "Tail-Gunner Joe" as a term of mockery.
McCarthy successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950, when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government. This included a concurrent "Lavender Scare" against suspected homosexuals; as homosexuality was prohibited by law at the time, it was also perceived to increase a person's risk for blackmail.
With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt that same year, McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67–22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. He continued to speak against communism and socialism until his death at the age of 48 at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown". Doctors had not previously reported him to be in critical condition. Some biographers say this was caused or exacerbated by alcoholism.
As of , McCarthy is the last Republican to have held or won election to Wisconsin's Class I Senate seat, despite Republican Ron Johnson currently holding the state's Class III Senate seat.
Early life and education
McCarthy was born in 1908 on a farm in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, the fifth of seven children. His mother, Bridget (Tierney), was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year.
He attended Marquette University from 1930 to 1935. McCarthy worked his way through college, studying first electrical engineering for two years, then law, and receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.
Career
McCarthy was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working at a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.
In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge. McCarthy became the youngest circuit judge in the state's history by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy lied about Werner's age of 66, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America, Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he (Werner) was disliked by lawyers. His judgements had often been reversed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."
McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited from Werner. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he expedited them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding and relying heavily upon precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard, but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case.
Military service
In 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, McCarthy joined the United States Marine Corps, despite the fact that his judicial office exempted him from military service. His college education qualified him for a direct commission, and he entered the Marines as a first lieutenant.
According to Morgan, writing in Reds, McCarthy's friend and campaign manager, attorney and judge Urban P. Van Susteren, had applied for active duty in the U.S. Army Air Forces in early 1942, and advised McCarthy: "Be a hero—join the Marines." When McCarthy seemed hesitant, Van Susteren asked, "You got shit in your blood?"
He served as an intelligence briefing officer for a dive bomber squadron in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville for 30 months (August 1942 – February 1945), and held the rank of captain by the time he resigned his commission in April 1945. He volunteered to fly twelve combat missions as a gunner-observer. These missions were generally safe, and after one where he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted to, mainly at coconut trees, he acquired the nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe". McCarthy remained in the Marine Corps Reserve after the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He later falsely claimed participation in 32 aerial missions in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple awards of the Air Medal, which the Marine Corps chain of command decided to approve in 1952 because of his political influence. McCarthy also publicized a letter of commendation which he claimed had been signed by his commanding officer and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, then Chief of Naval Operations. However, his commander revealed that McCarthy had written this letter himself, probably while preparing award citations and commendation letters as an additional duty, and that he had signed his commander's name, after which Nimitz signed it during the process of just signing numerous other such letters. A "war wound"—a badly broken leg—that McCarthy made the subject of varying stories involving airplane crashes or anti-aircraft fire had in fact happened aboard ship during a raucous celebration for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. Because of McCarthy's various lies about his military heroism, his "Tail-Gunner Joe" nickname was sarcastically used as a term of mockery by his critics.
McCarthy campaigned for the Republican Senate nomination in Wisconsin while still on active duty in 1944 but was defeated by Alexander Wiley, the incumbent. After he left the Marines in April 1945, five months before the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, McCarthy was reelected unopposed to his circuit court position. He then began a much more systematic campaign for the 1946 Republican Senate primary nomination, with support from Thomas Coleman, the Republican Party's political boss in Wisconsin. In this race, he was challenging three-term senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., founder of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and son of the celebrated Wisconsin governor and senator Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Senate campaign
In his campaign, McCarthy attacked La Follette for not enlisting during the war, although La Follette had been 46 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also claimed La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he, McCarthy, had been away fighting for his country. In fact, McCarthy had invested in the stock market himself during the war, netting a profit of $42,000 in 1943 (over $604,000 in 2017 dollars). Where McCarthy got the money to invest in the first place remains a mystery. La Follette's investments consisted of partial interest in a radio station, which earned him a profit of $47,000 over two years.
According to Jack Anderson and Ronald W. May, McCarthy's campaign funds, much of them from out of state, were ten times more than La Follette's and McCarthy's vote benefited from a Communist Party vendetta against La Follette. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering was deeply damaging, and McCarthy won the primary nomination 207,935 votes to 202,557. It was during this campaign that McCarthy started publicizing his war-time nickname "Tail-Gunner Joe", using the slogan, "Congress needs a tail-gunner". Journalist Arnold Beichman later stated that McCarthy "was elected to his first term in the Senate with support from the Communist-controlled United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, CIO", which preferred McCarthy to the anti-communist Robert M. La Follette.
In the general election against Democratic opponent Howard J. McMurray, McCarthy won 61.2% to Democrat McMurray's 37.3%, and thus joined Senator Wiley, whom he had challenged unsuccessfully two years earlier, in the Senate.
Personal life
In 1950, McCarthy assaulted journalist Drew Pearson in the cloakroom at the Sulgrave Club, reportedly kneeing him in the groin. McCarthy, who admitted the assault, claimed he merely "slapped" Pearson. In 1952, using rumors collected by Pearson as well as other sources, Nevada publisher Hank Greenspun wrote that McCarthy was a frequent patron at the White Horse Inn, a Milwaukee gay bar, and cited his involvement with young men. Greenspun named some of McCarthy's alleged lovers, including Charles E. Davis, an ex-Communist and "confessed homosexual" who claimed that he had been hired by McCarthy to spy on U.S. diplomats in Switzerland.
McCarthy's FBI file also contains numerous allegations, including a 1952 letter from an Army lieutenant who said, "When I was in Washington some time ago, [McCarthy] picked me up at the bar in the Wardman [Hotel] and took me home, and while I was half-drunk he committed sodomy on me." J. Edgar Hoover conducted a perfunctory investigation of the Senator's alleged sexual assault; Hoover's approach was that "homosexuals are very bitter against Senator McCarthy for his attack upon those who are supposed to be in the Government."
Although some notable McCarthy biographers have rejected these rumors, others have suggested that he may have been blackmailed. During the early 1950s, McCarthy launched a series of attacks on the CIA, claiming it had been infiltrated by communist agents. Allen Dulles, who suspected McCarthy was using information supplied by Hoover, refused to cooperate. According to the historian David Talbot, Dulles also compiled a "scandalous" intimate dossier on the Senator's personal life and used the homosexual stories to take him down.
In any event, McCarthy did not sue Greenspun for libel. (He was told that if the case went ahead he would be compelled to take the witness stand and to refute the charges made in the affidavit of the young man, which was the basis for Greenspun's story.)
In 1953, he married Jean Fraser Kerr, a researcher in his office. In January 1957, McCarthy and his wife adopted an infant with the help of Roy Cohn's close friend Cardinal Spellman. They named the baby girl Tierney Elizabeth McCarthy.
United States Senate
Senator McCarthy's first three years in the Senate were unremarkable. McCarthy was a popular speaker, invited by many different organizations, covering a wide range of topics. His aides and many in the Washington social circle described him as charming and friendly, and he was a popular guest at cocktail parties. He was far less well liked among fellow senators, however, who found him quick-tempered and prone to impatience and even rage. Outside of a small circle of colleagues, he was soon an isolated figure in the Senate.
McCarthy was active in labor-management issues, with a reputation as a moderate Republican. He fought against continuation of wartime price controls, especially on sugar. His advocacy in this area was associated by critics with a $20,000 personal loan McCarthy received from a Pepsi bottling executive, earning the Senator the derisive nickname "The Pepsi-Cola Kid".
McCarthy supported the Taft–Hartley Act over Truman's veto, angering labor unions in Wisconsin but solidifying his business base.
Malmedy massacre trial
In an incident for which he would be widely criticized, McCarthy lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen-SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because the German soldiers' confessions were allegedly obtained through torture during the interrogations. He argued that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.
Shortly after this, a 1950 poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.
McCarthy biographer Larry Tye has written that antisemitism may also have factored into McCarthy's outspoken views on Malmedy. Although he had substantial Jewish support, notably Lewis Rosenstiel of Schenley Industries, Rabbi Benjamin Schultz of the American Jewish League Against Communism, and the columnist George Sokolsky, who convinced him to hire Roy Cohn and G. David Schine, McCarthy frequently used anti-Jewish slurs. He also received enthusiastic support from antisemitic politicians including Ku Klux Klansman Wesley Swift, and according to friends would display his copy of Mein Kampf, stating, "That’s the way to do it." Tye cites three quotes from European historian Steven Remy, chief Malmedy prosecutor COL Burton Ellis JAG USA, and massacre victim and survivor Virgil P. Laru, Jr:
"Enemies within"
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile beginning on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."
There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.
The origin of the number 205 can be traced: in later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.
At the time of McCarthy's speech, communism was a significant concern in the United States. This concern was exacerbated by the actions of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the victory of the communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets' development of a nuclear weapon the year before, and by the contemporary controversy surrounding Alger Hiss and the confession of Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs. With this background and due to the sensational nature of McCarthy's charge against the State Department, the Wheeling speech soon attracted a flood of press interest in McCarthy's claim.
Tydings Committee
McCarthy himself was taken aback by the massive media response to the Wheeling speech, and he was accused of continually revising both his charges and figures. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a few days later, he cited a figure of 57, and in the Senate on February 20, 1950, he claimed 81. During a five-hour speech, McCarthy presented a case-by-case analysis of his 81 "loyalty risks" employed at the State Department. It is widely accepted that most of McCarthy's cases were selected from the so-called "Lee list", a report that had been compiled three years earlier for the House Appropriations Committee. Led by a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent named Robert E. Lee, the House investigators had reviewed security clearance documents on State Department employees, and had determined that there were "incidents of inefficiencies"
in the security reviews of 108 employees. McCarthy hid the source of his list, stating that he had penetrated the "iron curtain" of State Department secrecy with the aid of "some good, loyal Americans in the State Department". In reciting the information from the Lee list cases, McCarthy consistently exaggerated, representing the hearsay of witnesses as facts and converting phrases such as "inclined towards Communism" to "a Communist".
In response to McCarthy's charges, the Senate voted unanimously to investigate, and the Tydings Committee hearings were called. This was a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations set up in February 1950 to conduct "a full and complete study and investigation as to whether persons who are disloyal to the United States are, or have been, employed by the Department of State".
Many Democrats were incensed at McCarthy's attack on the State Department of a Democratic administration, and had hoped to use the hearings to discredit him. The Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Millard Tydings, was reported to have said, "Let me have him [McCarthy] for three days in public hearings, and he'll never show his face in the Senate again."
During the hearings, McCarthy made charges against nine specific people: Dorothy Kenyon, Esther Brunauer, Haldore Hanson, Gustavo Durán, Owen Lattimore, Harlow Shapley, Frederick Schuman, John S. Service, and Philip Jessup. they all had previously been the subject of charges of varying worth and validity. Owen Lattimore became a particular focus of McCarthy's, who at one point described him as a "top Russian spy".
From its beginning, the Tydings Committee was marked by intense partisan infighting. Its final report, written by the Democratic majority, concluded that the individuals on McCarthy's list were neither Communists nor pro-communist, and said the State Department had an effective security program. The Tydings Report labeled McCarthy's charges a "fraud and a hoax", and used insense rhetoric saying that the result of McCarthy's actions was to "confuse and divide the American people ... to a degree far beyond the hopes of the Communists themselves". Republicans were outraged by the Democrat response. They responded to the report's rhetoric in kind, with William E. Jenner stating that Tydings was guilty of "the most brazen whitewash of treasonable conspiracy in our history".
The full Senate voted three times on whether to accept the report, and each time the voting was precisely divided along party lines.
Fame, notoriety, and sexuality
From 1950 onward, McCarthy continued to exploit the fear of Communism and to press his accusations that the government was failing to deal with Communism within its ranks. McCarthy also began investigations into homosexuals working in the foreign policy bureaucracy, who were considered prime candidates for blackmail by the Soviets. These accusations received wide publicity, increased his approval rating, and gained him a powerful national following.
In Congress, there was little doubt that homosexuals did not belong in sensitive government positions. Since the late 1940s, the government had been dismissing about five homosexuals a month from civilian posts; by 1954, the number had grown twelve-fold. In the opinion of one writer, "Mixed in with the hysterics were some logic, though: homosexuals faced condemnation and discrimination, and most of them—wishing to conceal their orientation—were vulnerable to blackmail." Director of Central Intelligence Roscoe Hillenkoetter was called to Congress to testify on homosexuals being employed at the CIA. He said, "The use of homosexuals as a control mechanism over individuals recruited for espionage is a generally accepted technique which has been used at least on a limited basis for many years." As soon as the DCI said these words, his aide signaled to take the remainder of the DCI's testimony off the record. Political historian David Barrett uncovered Hillenkoetter's notes, which reveal the remainder of the statement: "While this agency will never employ homosexuals on its rolls, it might conceivably be necessary, and in the past has actually been valuable, to use known homosexuals as agents in the field. I am certain that if Joseph Stalin or a member of the Politburo or a high satellite official were known to be a homosexual, no member of this committee or of the Congress would balk against our use of any technique to penetrate their operations ... after all, intelligence and espionage is, at best, an extremely dirty business." The senators reluctantly agreed the CIA had to be flexible.
McCarthy's methods also brought on the disapproval and opposition of many. Barely a month after McCarthy's Wheeling speech, the term "McCarthyism" was coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block. Block and others used the word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging. Later, it would be embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled," McCarthy said in a 1952 speech, and later that year, he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America.
McCarthy sought to discredit his critics and political opponents by accusing them of being Communists or communist sympathizers. In the 1950 Maryland Senate election, McCarthy campaigned for John Marshall Butler in his race against four-term incumbent Millard Tydings, with whom McCarthy had been in conflict during the Tydings Committee hearings. In speeches supporting Butler, McCarthy accused Tydings of "protecting Communists" and "shielding traitors". McCarthy's staff was heavily involved in the campaign and collaborated in the production of a campaign tabloid that contained a composite photograph doctored to make it appear that Tydings was in intimate conversation with Communist leader Earl Russell Browder. A Senate subcommittee later investigated this election and referred to it as "a despicable, back-street type of campaign," as well as recommending that the use of defamatory literature in a campaign be made grounds for expulsion from the Senate. The pamphlet was clearly labeled a composite. McCarthy said it was "wrong" to distribute it; though staffer Jean Kerr thought it was fine. After he lost the election by almost 40,000 votes, Tydings claimed foul play.
In addition to the Tydings–Butler race, McCarthy campaigned for several other Republicans in the 1950 elections, including Everett Dirksen against Democratic incumbent and Senate Majority Leader Scott W. Lucas. Dirksen, and indeed all the candidates McCarthy supported, won their elections, and those he opposed lost. The elections, including many that McCarthy was not involved in, were an overall Republican sweep. Although his impact on the elections was unclear, McCarthy was credited as a key Republican campaigner. He was now regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate and was treated with new-found deference by his colleagues. In the 1952 Senate elections McCarthy was returned to his Senate seat with 54.2% of the vote, compared to Democrat Thomas Fairchild's 45.6%. As of 2020, McCarthy is the last Republican to win Wisconsin's Class 1 Senate seat.
McCarthy and the Truman administration
McCarthy and President Truman clashed often during the years both held office. McCarthy characterized Truman and the Democratic Party as soft on, or even in league with, Communists, and spoke of the Democrats' "twenty years of treason". Truman, in turn, once referred to McCarthy as "the best asset the Kremlin has", calling McCarthy's actions an attempt to "sabotage the foreign policy of the United States" in a cold war and comparing it to shooting American soldiers in the back in a hot war.
It was the Truman Administration's State Department that McCarthy accused of harboring 205 (or 57 or 81) "known Communists". Truman's Secretary of Defense, George Marshall, was the target of some of McCarthy's most vitriolic rhetoric. Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff during World War II and was also Truman's former Secretary of State. Marshall was a highly respected general and statesman, remembered today as the architect of victory and peace, the latter based on the Marshall Plan for post-war reconstruction of Europe, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. McCarthy made a lengthy speech on Marshall, later published in 1951 as a book titled America's Retreat From Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall. Marshall had been involved in American foreign policy with China, and McCarthy charged that Marshall was directly responsible for the loss of China to Communism. In the speech McCarthy also implied that Marshall was guilty of treason;
declared that "if Marshall were merely stupid, the laws of probability would dictate that part of his decisions would serve this country's interest"; and most famously, accused him of being part of "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man".
During the Korean War, when Truman dismissed General Douglas MacArthur, McCarthy charged that Truman and his advisors must have planned the dismissal during late-night sessions when "they've had time to get the President cheerful" on bourbon and Bénédictine. McCarthy declared, "The son of a bitch should be impeached."
Support from Roman Catholics and the Kennedy family
One of the strongest bases of anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was the Catholic community, which constituted over 20% of the national vote. McCarthy identified himself as Catholic, and although the great majority of Catholics were Democrats, as his fame as a leading anti-Communist grew, he became popular in Catholic communities across the country, with strong support from many leading Catholics, diocesan newspapers, and Catholic journals.
At the same time, some Catholics opposed McCarthy, notably the anti-Communist author Father John Francis Cronin and the influential journal Commonweal.
McCarthy established a bond with the powerful Kennedy family, which had high visibility among Catholics. McCarthy became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., himself a fervent anti-Communist, and he was also a frequent guest at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He dated two of Kennedy's daughters, Patricia and Eunice. It has been stated that McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen Kennedy. This claim has been acknowledged by Robert's wife and Kathleen's mother Ethel, though Kathleen later claimed that she looked at her christening certificate and that her actual godfather was Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart professor Daniel Walsh.
Robert Kennedy was chosen by McCarthy to be a counsel for his investigatory committee, but he resigned after six months due to disagreements with McCarthy and Committee Counsel Roy Marcus Cohn. Joseph Kennedy had a national network of contacts and became a vocal supporter, building McCarthy's popularity among Catholics and making sizable contributions to McCarthy's campaigns. The Kennedy patriarch hoped that one of his sons would be president. Mindful of the anti-Catholic prejudice which Al Smith faced during his 1928 campaign for that office, Joseph Kennedy supported McCarthy as a national Catholic politician who might pave the way for a younger Kennedy's presidential candidacy.
Unlike many Democrats, John F. Kennedy, who served in the Senate with McCarthy from 1953 until the latter's death in 1957, never attacked McCarthy. McCarthy did not campaign for Kennedy's 1952 opponent, Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., due to his friendship with the Kennedys and, reportedly, a $50,000 donation from Joseph Kennedy. Lodge lost despite Eisenhower winning the state in the presidential election. When a speaker at a February 1952 final club dinner stated that he was glad that McCarthy had not attended Harvard College, an angry Kennedy jumped up, denounced the speaker, and left the event. When Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. asked Kennedy why he avoided criticizing McCarthy, Kennedy responded by saying, "Hell, half my voters in Massachusetts look on McCarthy as a hero".
McCarthy and Eisenhower
During the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign toured Wisconsin with McCarthy. In a speech delivered in Green Bay, Eisenhower declared that while he agreed with McCarthy's goals, he disagreed with his methods. In draft versions of his speech, Eisenhower had also included a strong defense of his mentor, George Marshall, which was a direct rebuke of McCarthy's frequent attacks. However, under the advice of conservative colleagues who were fearful that Eisenhower could lose Wisconsin if he alienated McCarthy supporters, he deleted this defense from later versions of his speech. The deletion was discovered by William H. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times, and featured on its front page the next day. Eisenhower was widely criticized for giving up his personal convictions, and the incident became the low point of his campaign.
With his victory in the 1952 presidential race, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican president in 20 years. The Republican party also held a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. After being elected president, Eisenhower made it clear to those close to him that he did not approve of McCarthy and he worked actively to diminish his power and influence. Still, he never directly confronted McCarthy or criticized him by name in any speech, thus perhaps prolonging McCarthy's power by giving the impression that even the President was afraid to criticize him directly. Oshinsky disputes this, stating that "Eisenhower was known as a harmonizer, a man who could get diverse factions to work toward a common goal. ... Leadership, he explained, meant patience and conciliation, not 'hitting people over the head.'"
McCarthy won reelection in 1952 with 54% of the vote, defeating former Wisconsin State Attorney General Thomas E. Fairchild but, as stated above, badly trailing a Republican ticket which otherwise swept the state of Wisconsin; all the other Republican winners, including Eisenhower himself, received at least 60% of the Wisconsin vote.
Those who expected that party loyalty would cause McCarthy to tone down his accusations of Communists being harbored within the government were soon disappointed. Eisenhower had never been an admirer of McCarthy, and their relationship became more hostile once Eisenhower was in office. In a November 1953 speech that was carried on national television, McCarthy began by praising the Eisenhower Administration for removing "1,456 Truman holdovers who were ... gotten rid of because of Communist connections and activities or perversion." He then went on to complain that John Paton Davies Jr. was still "on the payroll after eleven months of the Eisenhower Administration," even though Davies had actually been dismissed three weeks earlier, and repeated an unsubstantiated accusation that Davies had tried to "put Communists and espionage agents in key spots in the Central Intelligence Agency." In the same speech, he criticized Eisenhower for not doing enough to secure the release of missing American pilots shot down over China during the Korean War. By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catchphrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.
As McCarthy became increasingly combative towards the Eisenhower Administration, Eisenhower faced repeated calls that he confront McCarthy directly. Eisenhower refused, saying privately "nothing would please him [McCarthy] more than to get the publicity that would be generated by a public repudiation by the President." On several occasions Eisenhower is reported to have said of McCarthy that he did not want to "get down in the gutter with that guy."
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
With the beginning of his second term as senator in 1953, McCarthy was made chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. According to some reports, Republican leaders were growing wary of McCarthy's methods and gave him this relatively mundane panel rather than the Internal Security Subcommittee—the committee normally involved with investigating Communists—thus putting McCarthy "where he can't do any harm," in the words of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft. However, the Committee on Government Operations included the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and the mandate of this subcommittee was sufficiently flexible to allow McCarthy to use it for his own investigations of Communists in the government. McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as chief counsel and 27-year-old Robert F. Kennedy as an assistant counsel to the subcommittee. Later, McCarthy also hired Gerard David Schine, heir to a hotel-chain fortune, on the recommendation of George Sokolsky.
This subcommittee would be the scene of some of McCarthy's most publicized exploits. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy's chairmanship were made public in 2003–04, Senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in their preface to the documents:
Senator McCarthy's zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings. ... These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to re-occur.
The subcommittee first investigated allegations of Communist influence in the Voice of America, at that time administered by the State Department's United States Information Agency. Many VOA personnel were questioned in front of television cameras and a packed press gallery, with McCarthy lacing his questions with hostile innuendo and false accusations. A few VOA employees alleged Communist influence on the content of broadcasts, but none of the charges were substantiated. Morale at VOA was badly damaged, and one of its engineers committed suicide during McCarthy's investigation. Ed Kretzman, a policy advisor for the service, would later comment that it was VOA's "darkest hour when Senator McCarthy and his chief hatchet man, Roy Cohn, almost succeeded in muffling it."
The subcommittee then turned to the overseas library program of the International Information Agency. Cohn toured Europe examining the card catalogs of the State Department libraries looking for works by authors he deemed inappropriate. McCarthy then recited the list of supposedly pro-communist authors before his subcommittee and the press. The State Department bowed to McCarthy and ordered its overseas librarians to remove from their shelves "material by any controversial persons, Communists, fellow travelers, etc." Some libraries went as far as burning the newly-forbidden books. Shortly after this, in one of his public criticisms of McCarthy, President Eisenhower urged Americans: "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."
Soon after receiving the chair to the Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy appointed J. B. Matthews as staff director of the subcommittee. One of the nation's foremost anti-communists, Matthews had formerly been staff director for the House Un-American Activities Committee. The appointment became controversial when it was learned that Matthews had recently written an article titled "Reds and Our Churches", which opened with the sentence, "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen." A group of senators denounced this "shocking and unwarranted attack against the American clergy" and demanded that McCarthy dismiss Matthews. McCarthy initially refused to do this. As the controversy mounted, however, and the majority of his own subcommittee joined the call for Matthews's ouster, McCarthy finally yielded and accepted his resignation. For some McCarthy opponents, this was a signal defeat of the senator, showing he was not as invincible as he had formerly seemed.
Investigating the army
In autumn 1953, McCarthy's committee began its ill-fated inquiry into the United States Army. This began with McCarthy opening an investigation into the Army Signal Corps laboratory at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy, newly married to Jean Kerr, cut short his honeymoon to open the investigation. He garnered some headlines with stories of a dangerous spy ring among the army researchers, but after weeks of hearings, nothing came of his investigations. Unable to expose any signs of subversion, McCarthy focused instead on the case of Irving Peress, a New York dentist who had been drafted into the army in 1952 and promoted to major in November 1953. Shortly thereafter it came to the attention of the military bureaucracy that Peress, who was a member of the left-wing American Labor Party, had declined to answer questions about his political affiliations on a loyalty-review form. Peress's superiors were therefore ordered to discharge him from the army within 90 days. McCarthy subpoenaed Peress to appear before his subcommittee on January 30, 1954. Peress refused to answer McCarthy's questions, citing his rights under the Fifth Amendment. McCarthy responded by sending a message to Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, demanding that Peress be court-martialed. On that same day, Peress asked for his pending discharge from the army to be effected immediately, and the next day Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker, his commanding officer at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, gave him an honorable separation from the army. At McCarthy's encouragement, "Who promoted Peress?" became a rallying cry among many anti-communists and McCarthy supporters. In fact, and as McCarthy knew, Peress had been promoted automatically through the provisions of the Doctor Draft Law, for which McCarthy had voted.
Army–McCarthy hearings
Early in 1954, the U.S. Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of improperly pressuring the army to give favorable treatment to G. David Schine, a former aide to McCarthy and a friend of Cohn's, who was then serving in the army as a private. McCarthy claimed that the accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his questioning of Zwicker the previous year. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, usually chaired by McCarthy himself, was given the task of adjudicating these conflicting charges. Republican senator Karl Mundt was appointed to chair the committee, and the Army–McCarthy hearings convened on April 22, 1954.
The army consulted with an attorney familiar with McCarthy to determine the best approach to attacking him. Based on his recommendation, it decided not to pursue McCarthy on the issue of communists in government: "The attorney feels it is almost impossible to counter McCarthy effectively on the issue of kicking Communists out of Government, because he generally has some basis, no matter how slight, for his claim of Communist connection."
The hearings lasted for 36 days and were broadcast on live television by ABC and DuMont, with an estimated 20 million viewers. After hearing 32 witnesses and two million words of testimony, the committee concluded that McCarthy himself had not exercised any improper influence on Schine's behalf, but that Cohn had engaged in "unduly persistent or aggressive efforts". The committee also concluded that Army Secretary Robert Stevens and Army Counsel John Adams "made efforts to terminate or influence the investigation and hearings at Fort Monmouth", and that Adams "made vigorous and diligent efforts" to block subpoenas for members of the Army Loyalty and Screening Board "by means of personal appeal to certain members of the [McCarthy] committee".
Of far greater importance to McCarthy than the committee's inconclusive final report was the negative effect that the extensive exposure had on his popularity. Many in the audience saw him as bullying, reckless, and dishonest, and the daily newspaper summaries of the hearings were also frequently unfavorable.
Late in the hearings, Senator Stuart Symington made an angry and prophetic remark to McCarthy. Upon being told by McCarthy that "You're not fooling anyone", Symington replied: "Senator, the American people have had a look at you now for six weeks; you're not fooling anyone, either."
In Gallup polls of January 1954, 50% of those polled had a positive opinion of McCarthy. In June, that number had fallen to 34%. In the same polls, those with a negative opinion of McCarthy increased from 29% to 45%.
An increasing number of Republicans and conservatives were coming to see McCarthy as a liability to the party and to anti-communism. Congressman George H. Bender noted, "There is a growing impatience with the Republican Party. McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting, Star Chamber methods, and the denial of ... civil liberties." Frederick Woltman, a reporter with a long-standing reputation as a staunch anti-communist, wrote a five-part series of articles criticizing McCarthy in the New York World-Telegram. He stated that McCarthy "has become a major liability to the cause of anti-communism", and accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near-facts [that] repels authorities in the field".
The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.
In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.
Edward R. Murrow, See It Now
Even before McCarthy's clash with Welch in the hearings, one of the most prominent attacks on McCarthy's methods was an episode of the television documentary series See It Now, hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, which was broadcast on March 9, 1954. Titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy", the episode consisted largely of clips of McCarthy speaking. In these clips, McCarthy accuses the Democratic party of "twenty years of treason", describes the American Civil Liberties Union as "listed as 'a front for, and doing the work of', the Communist Party", and berates and harangues various witnesses, including General Zwicker.
In his conclusion, Murrow said of McCarthy:
The following week, See It Now ran another episode critical of McCarthy, this one focusing on the case of Annie Lee Moss, an African-American army clerk who was the target of one of McCarthy's investigations. The Murrow shows, together with the televised Army–McCarthy hearings of the same year, were the major causes of a nationwide popular opinion backlash against McCarthy, in part because for the first time his statements were being publicly challenged by noteworthy figures. To counter the negative publicity, McCarthy appeared on See It Now on April 6, 1954, and made a number of charges against the popular Murrow, including the accusation that he colluded with VOKS, the "Russian espionage and propaganda organization". This response did not go over well with viewers, and the result was a further decline in McCarthy's popularity.
"Joe Must Go" recall attempt
On March 18, 1954, Sauk-Prairie Star editor Leroy Gore of Sauk City, Wisconsin urged the recall of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. Ralph Wise Zwicker and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.
Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from organized labor or the state Democratic Party, the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.
Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from the Sauk County district attorney, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.
Public opinion
Censure and the Watkins Committee
Several members of the U.S. Senate had opposed McCarthy well before 1953. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first. She delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" speech on June 1, 1950, calling for an end to the use of smear tactics, without mentioning McCarthy or anyone else by name. Only six other Republican senators—Wayne Morse, Irving Ives, Charles W. Tobey, Edward John Thye, George Aiken, and Robert C. Hendrickson—agreed to join her in condemning McCarthy's tactics. McCarthy referred to Smith and her fellow senators as "Snow White and the six dwarfs".
On March 9, 1954, Vermont Republican senator Ralph E. Flanders gave a humor-laced speech on the Senate floor, questioning McCarthy's tactics in fighting communism, likening McCarthyism to "house-cleaning" with "much clatter and hullabaloo". He recommended that McCarthy turn his attention to the worldwide encroachment of Communism outside North America.
In a June 1 speech, Flanders compared McCarthy to Adolf Hitler, accusing him of spreading "division and confusion" and saying, "Were the Junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists he could not have done a better job for them."
On June 11, Flanders introduced a resolution to have McCarthy removed as chair of his committees. Although there were many in the Senate who believed that some sort of disciplinary action against McCarthy was warranted, there was no clear majority supporting this resolution. Some of the resistance was due to concern about usurping the Senate's rules regarding committee chairs and seniority. Flanders next introduced a resolution to censure McCarthy. The resolution was initially written without any reference to particular actions or misdeeds on McCarthy's part. As Flanders put it, "It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution. A special committee, chaired by Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, was appointed to study and evaluate the resolution. This committee opened hearings on August 31.
After two months of hearings and deliberations, the Watkins Committee recommended that McCarthy be censured on two of the 46 counts: his contempt of the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of General Zwicker in 1954. The Zwicker count was dropped by the full Senate on the grounds that McCarthy's conduct was arguably "induced" by Zwicker's own behavior. In place of this count, a new one was drafted regarding McCarthy's statements about the Watkins Committee itself.
The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
That McCarthy had "failed to co-operate with the Sub-committee on Rules and Administration", and "repeatedly abused the members who were trying to carry out assigned duties ..."
That McCarthy had charged "three members of the [Watkins] Select Committee with 'deliberate deception' and 'fraud' ... that the special Senate session ... was a 'lynch party, and had characterized the committee "as the 'unwitting handmaiden', 'involuntary agent' and 'attorneys in fact' of the Communist Party", and had "acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity".
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22. The Democrats present unanimously favored condemnation and the Republicans were split evenly. The only senator not on record was John F. Kennedy, who was hospitalized for back surgery; Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted. Immediately after the vote, Senator H. Styles Bridges, a McCarthy supporter, argued that the resolution was "not a censure resolution" because the word "condemn" rather than "censure" was used in the final draft. The word "censure" was then removed from the title of the resolution, though it is generally regarded and referred to as a censure of McCarthy, both by historians
and in Senate documents. McCarthy himself said, "I wouldn't exactly call it a vote of confidence." He added, "I don't feel I've been lynched."
Indiana Senator William E. Jenner, one of McCarthy's friends and fellow Republicans likened McCarthy's conduct, however, to that of "the kid who came to the party and peed in the lemonade."
Final years
After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. His career as a major public figure, however, had been ruined. His colleagues in the Senate avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention.
The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy's political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now "McCarthywasm."
Still, McCarthy continued to rail against Communism. He warned against attendance at summit conferences with "the Reds," saying that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers ... without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder."
He declared that "co-existence with Communists is neither possible nor honorable nor desirable. Our long-term objective must be the eradication of Communism from the face of the earth." In one of his final acts in the Senate, McCarthy opposed President Eisenhower's nomination to the Supreme Court of William J. Brennan, after reading a speech Brennan had given shortly beforehand in which he characterized McCarthy's anti-Communist investigations as "witch hunts." McCarthy's opposition failed to gain any traction, however, and he was the only senator to vote against Brennan's confirmation.
McCarthy's biographers agree that he was a changed man, for the worse, after the censure; declining both physically and emotionally, he became a "pale ghost of his former self," in the words of Fred J. Cook.
It was reported that McCarthy suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently hospitalized for alcohol abuse.
Numerous eyewitnesses, including Senate aide George Reedy and journalist Tom Wicker, reported finding him drunk in the Senate.
Journalist Richard Rovere (1959) wrote:
He had always been a heavy drinker, and there were times in those seasons of discontent when he drank more than ever. But he was not always drunk. He went on the wagon (for him this meant beer instead of whiskey) for days and weeks at a time. The difficulty toward the end was that he couldn't hold the stuff. He went to pieces on his second or third drink, and he did not snap back quickly.
McCarthy had also become addicted to morphine. Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, became aware of McCarthy's addiction in the 1950s, and demanded he stop using the drug. McCarthy refused. In Anslinger's memoir, The Murderers, McCarthy is anonymously quoted as saying:
I wouldn't try to do anything about it, Commissioner ... It will be the worse for you ... and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care […] The choice is yours.
Anslinger decided to give McCarthy access to morphine in secret from a pharmacy in Washington, DC. The morphine was paid for by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, right up to McCarthy's death. Anslinger never publicly named McCarthy, and he threatened, with prison, a journalist who had uncovered the story. However, McCarthy's identity was known to Anslinger's agents, and journalist Maxine Cheshire confirmed his identity with Will Oursler, co-author of The Murderers, in 1978.
Death
McCarthy died in the Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday, May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. His death certificate listed the cause of death as "Hepatitis, acute, cause unknown"; previously doctors had not reported him to be in critical condition. It was hinted in the press that he died of alcoholism (cirrhosis of the liver), an estimation that is now accepted by modern biographers. Thomas C. Reeves argues that he effectively committed suicide. He was given a state funeral that was attended by 70 senators, and a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass was celebrated before more than 100 priests and 2,000 others at Washington's St. Matthew's Cathedral. Thousands of people viewed his body in Washington. He was buried in St. Mary's Parish Cemetery, Appleton, Wisconsin, where more than 17,000 people filed through St. Mary's Church in order to pay him their last respects. Three senators—George W. Malone, William E. Jenner, and Herman Welker—had flown from Washington to Appleton on the plane that carried McCarthy's casket. Robert F. Kennedy attended the funeral in Wisconsin. McCarthy was survived by his wife, Jean, and their adopted daughter, Tierney.
In the summer of 1957, a special election was held in order to fill McCarthy's seat. In the primaries, voters in both parties turned away from McCarthy's legacy. The Republican primary was won by Walter J. Kohler Jr., who called for a clean break from McCarthy's approach; he defeated former Congressman Glenn Robert Davis, who charged that Eisenhower was soft on Communism. The Democratic candidate, William Proxmire, called the late McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America." On August 27, Proxmire won the election, serving in the seat for 32 years.
Legacy
William Bennett, former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education, summed up his perspective in his 2007 book America: The Last Best Hope:
HUAC and SACB
McCarthy's hearings are often incorrectly conflated with the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). HUAC is best known for its investigations of Alger Hiss and the Hollywood film industry, which led to the blacklisting of hundreds of actors, writers, and directors. HUAC was a House committee, and as such it had no formal connection to McCarthy, who served in the Senate, although the existence of the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in part as a result of McCarthy's activities. HUAC was active for 37 years (1938–1975).
In popular culture
From the start of his notoriety, McCarthy served as a favorite subject for political cartoonists. He was traditionally depicted in a negative light, normally pertaining to McCarthyism and his accusations. Herblock's cartoon that coined the term McCarthyism appeared less than two months after the senator's now famous February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.
In 1951, Ray Bradbury published "The Fireman", an allegory on suppression of ideas. This served as the basis for Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953. Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States.
Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to make jokes about McCarthy. During his 1952 Christmas show, Hope made a joke about Santa Claus writing to let Joe McCarthy know he was going to wear his red suit despite the Red Scare. Hope continued to offer McCarthy jokes as they were well received by most people, although he did receive some hate mail.
In 1953, the popular daily comic strip Pogo introduced the character Simple J. Malarkey, a pugnacious and conniving wildcat with an unmistakable physical resemblance to McCarthy. After a worried Rhode Island newspaper editor protested to the syndicate that provided the strip, creator Walt Kelly began depicting the Malarkey character with a bag over his head, concealing his features. The explanation was that Malarkey was hiding from a Rhode Island Red hen, a clear reference to the controversy over the Malarkey character.
In 1953, playwright Arthur Miller published The Crucible, suggesting the Salem witch trials were analogous to McCarthyism.
As his fame grew, McCarthy increasingly became the target of ridicule and parody. He was impersonated by nightclub and radio impressionists and was satirized in Mad magazine, on The Red Skelton Show, and elsewhere. Several comedy songs lampooning the senator were released in 1954, including "Point of Order" by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, "Senator McCarthy Blues" by Hal Block, and unionist folk singer Joe Glazer's "Joe McCarthy's Band", sung to the tune of "McNamara's Band". Also in 1954, the radio comedy team Bob and Ray parodied McCarthy with the character "Commissioner Carstairs" in their soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife". That same year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio network broadcast a satire, The Investigator, whose title character was a clear imitation of McCarthy. A recording of the show became popular in the United States, and was reportedly played by President Eisenhower at cabinet meetings.
The 1953 short story Mr. Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon was described by noted journalist and author Paul Williams as "the all-time great story about Senator Joseph McCarthy, who he was and how he did what he did."
Billy Joel makes reference to "Joe McCarthy" in his 1989 hit 'We Didn't Start the Fire," a song which recalls major events and key influencers between 1949 (Joel's birth year) and 1989.
Post-censure reaction
Mr. Costello, Hero was adapted in 1958 by X Minus One into a radio teleplay and broadcast on July 3, 1956. While the radio adaptation retains much of the story, it completely remakes the narrator and in fact gives him a line spoken in the original by Mr. Costello himself, thus changing the tone of the story considerably. In a 1977 interview Sturgeon commented that it was his concerns about the ongoing McCarthy Hearings that prompted him to write the story.
A more serious fictional portrayal of McCarthy played a central role in the 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon. The character of Senator John Iselin, a demagogic anti-communist, is closely modeled on McCarthy, even to the varying numbers of Communists he asserts are employed by the federal government. He remains a major character in the 1962 film version.
The 1962 novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury features an overzealous demagogue, Senator Fred Van Ackerman, based on McCarthy. Although the fictional senator is an ultra liberal who proposes surrender to the Soviet Union, his portrayal strongly resembles the popular perception of McCarthy's character and methods.
McCarthy was portrayed by Peter Boyle in the 1977 Emmy-winning television movie Tail Gunner Joe, a dramatization of McCarthy's life. Archival footage of McCarthy himself was used in the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow and the See It Now episode that challenged McCarthy. McCarthy was also portrayed by Joe Don Baker in the 1992 HBO film Citizen Cohn. In the German-French docu-drama The Real American – Joe McCarthy (2012), directed by Lutz Hachmeister, McCarthy is portrayed by the British actor and comedian John Sessions. In Lee Daniels' 2020 film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, McCarthy is portrayed by actor Randy Davison.
R.E.M.'s song "Exhuming McCarthy", from their 1987 album Document, deals largely with McCarthy and contains sound clips from the Army-McCarthy Hearings.
'Joe' McCarthy is also mentioned in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire."
McCarthyism is one of the subjects of Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna.
Reconsideration
McCarthy remains a controversial figure. Arthur Herman, popular historian and senior fellow of the conservative Hudson Institute, says that new evidence—in the form of Venona-decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee—has partially vindicated McCarthy by showing that some of his identifications of Communists were correct and the scale of Soviet espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s was larger than many scholars had suspected.
In Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies, conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans similarly argued that evidence from the Venona documents shows significant penetration by Soviet agents.
Historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, challenged Herman's efforts to rehabilitate McCarthy, arguing that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them. Haynes concluded that, of the 159 people who were identified on lists which were used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts. His own view was that a number of those on the lists above, perhaps a majority, likely posed some form of security risk, but others, a minority but a significant one, likely were not, and that several were indisputably no risk at all.
See also
List of deaths through alcohol
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)
List of United States senators expelled or censured
References
Citations
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Anderson, Jack and May, Ronald W (1952). McCarthy: the man, the Senator, the "ism," Beacon Press.
Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Crosby, Donald F. "The Jesuits and Joe McCarthy". Church History 1977 46(3): 374–388. Fulltext: in Jstor
Gauger, Michael. "Flickering Images: Live Television Coverage and Viewership of the Army-McCarthy Hearings". Historian 2005 67(4): 678–693. Fulltext: in Swetswise, Ingenta and Ebsco. Audience ratings show that few people watched the hearings.
External links
"Papa" Prell's radio broadcast on "Tail Gunner Joe", including taped segments from the trial.
The McCarthy–Welch exchange
Joseph McCarthy Papers, Marquette University Library
FBI Memo Referencing 206 Communists in Government
Transcript: "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy" – Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Television, March 9, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Transcript: "Joseph R. McCarthy: Rebuttal to Edward R. Murrow", See It Now, CBS Television, April 6, 1954 via UC Berkeley library
Documents on McCarthyism at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
FBI file on Joseph McCarthy
The Redhunter: a novel based on the life and times of Senator Joe McCarthy by William F. Buckley, Jr.
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"William Weise (born March 10, 1929) is a retired United States Marine Corps Brigadier General who served in the Vietnam War.\n\nEarly life and education\nWeise was born in south Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1951 in order to use the GI Bill to attend law school.\n\nMilitary career\n\nVietnam War\nLt.Col. Weise assumed command of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines in October 1967 and commanded them during Operation Napoleon/Saline and at the Battle of Dai Do where he was seriously injured. For his actions at Dai Do Weise was awarded the Navy Cross.\n\nPost-Vietnam\nWeise retired from the Marine Corps in 1982 after 31 years of service.\n\nIn his role as co-chair of the Marine Corps Heritage Center committee he assisted with the funding and creation of the National Museum of the Marine Corps which opened in 2006.\n\nReferences\n\n1929 births\nUnited States Marine Corps generals\nUnited States Marine Corps personnel of the Vietnam War\nLiving people",
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"Víctor Jara",
"Artistic work"
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C_ef7696efbb144e19beae77cac214a812_1
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What was Jara's artistic work like
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What was vVctor Jara's artistic work like ?
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Víctor Jara
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After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life. In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda"). CANNOTANSWER
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In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music
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Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His preponderant role as an open admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until the early 1970s crisis that ended in the coup against Allende, marked him for death.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on September 28, 1932, his parents were working as tenants and they lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from the old Chillan, he had about five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but in any case, he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small piece of land that he worked from sun to sun with a miserable performance. His father was illiterate and did not want him and his other siblings to go to school so that they could help him in the fields from the ages of six and seven. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the letters.
Jara's mother was a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in southern Chile, she was self-taught, and played the guitar and the piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local functions like weddings and funerals. The relationship between her parents became more tense with each passing day, her father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, her mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15, leaving him to make his own way. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left the seminary. Subsequently, he spent several years in army service before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theater.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.
In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music (working as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963). He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his first album homonymous, by the record company "Demon", being the only album released under this label and the Víctor Jara's first solo work, the album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released, with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes some Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as; "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes", two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon record company, from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he recently transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara, after years of profiting from the album (as well as with others from Patricio Manns, Isabel and Ángel Parra, among others) without ever financially rewarding its authors or family.
In 1967 released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of some folk songs from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia or Spain as; «Despedimiento del angelito», «Ay mi palomita», «Casi, casi», «Qué alegres son las obreras» or «Romance del enamorado y la muerte». Also, the album was subsequently released under the name of Desde longuén hasta siempre with a variation of different covers. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América" (Folkloric Songs of America), with Quilapayun. In 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara had joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a decisive turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" ("Questions About Puerto Montt"), which took direct aim at a government official (Edmundo Pérez Zujovic) who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos" ("We Will Triumph"), the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in a cultural renaissance that swept Chile, organizing cultural events that supported the country's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Throughout rumblings of a right-wing coup, Jara held on to his teaching job at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. So successful was he that the Soviet Union tried to latch onto his popularity, claiming in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
Backed by the United States, which opposed Allende's socialist politics, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état on 11 September 1973, resulting in the death of Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on his way to the Technical University (today the Universidad de Santiago). That night, he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Chile Stadium. The guards there tortured him, smashing his hands and fingers, and then mocked him by asking him to play the guitar. Jara instead sang the Chilean protest song Venceremos. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets.
According to the BBC "There are many conflicting accounts of Jara’s last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang Venceremos (We Will Win), Allende’s 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to Estadio Chile, which were later smuggled out of the stadium: “How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying.” Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40."
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other civilian prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
Forty-two years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder.
Legal actions
On 16 May 2008, retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the chief of security at Chile Stadium as the coup was carried out, was the first to be convicted in Jara's death. Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who oversaw Bravo's conviction, then decided to close the case, a decision Jara's family soon appealed. In June 2008, Judge Fuentes re-opened the investigation and said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by Jara's family.
On 28 May 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastián, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following his arrest, on 1 June 2009, the police investigation identified the officer who had shot Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head, and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times until a shot fired and Jara fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job by firing into Jara's body. A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to gather more information about his death.
On 3 December 2009, Jara was reburied after a massive funeral in the Galpón Víctor Jara, across from Santiago's Plaza Brasil.
On 28 December 2012, a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in Jara's murder. He issued an international arrest warrant for one of them, Pedro Barrientos Núñez, the man accused of shooting Jara in the head during a torture session.
On 4 September 2013, Chadbourne & Parke attorneys Mark D. Beckett and Christian Urrutia, with the assistance of the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed suit in a United States court against Barrientos, who lives in Florida, on behalf of Jara's widow and children. The suit accused Barrientos of arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; extrajudicial killing; and crimes against humanity under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and of torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). It alleged that Barrientos was liable for Jara's death as a direct perpetrator and as a commander.
The specific claims were that:
On 11 September 1973, troops from the Arica Regiment of the Chilean Army, specifically from La Serena, attacked the university where Jara taught. The troops prohibited civilians from entering or leaving the university premises. During the afternoon of 12 September 1973, military personnel entered the university and illegally detained hundreds of professors, students, and administrators. Víctor Jara was among those arbitrarily detained on the campus and was subsequently transferred to Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and killed.
In the course of transporting and processing the civilian prisoners, Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, a commanding officer in military intelligence, recognized Jara as the well-known folk singer whose songs addressed social inequality, and who had supported President Allende's government. Captain Polanco separated Jara from the group and beat him severely. He then transferred Jara, along with some of the other civilians, to the stadium.
Throughout his detention in the locker room of the stadium, Jara was in the physical custody of Lieutenant Barrientos, soldiers under his command, or other members of the Chilean Army who acted in accordance with the army's plan to commit human rights abuses against civilians.
The arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Jara and other detainees were part of a widespread, systematic attack on civilians by the Chilean Army from 11 to 15 September 1973. Barrientos knew, or should have known, about these attacks, if for no other reason than that he was present for and participated in them.
On 15 April 2015, a US judge ordered Barrientos to stand trial in Florida. On 27 June 2016, he was found liable for Jara's killing, and the jury awarded Jara's family $28 million.
On 3 July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years in prison for Jara's murder and the murder of his Communist associate and former Chilean prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. They received three extra years for kidnapping both men. A ninth suspect was sentenced to five years in prison for covering up the murders.
In November 2018, it was reported that a Chilean court ordered the extradition of Barrientos.
Theater work
1959. Parecido à la Felicidad (Some Kind of Happiness), Alejandro Sieveking
1960. La Viuda de Apablaza (The Widow of Apablaza), Germán Luco Cruchaga (assistant director to Pedro de la Barra, founder of ITUCH)
1960. The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli
1961. La Madre de los Conejos (Mother Rabbit), Alejandro Sieveking (assistant director to Agustín Siré)
1962. Ánimas de Día Claro (Daylight Spirits), Alejandro Sieveking
1963. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht (assistant director to Atahualpa del Cioppo)
1963. Los Invasores (The Intruders), Egon Wolff
1963. Dúo (Duet), Raúl Ruiz
1963. Parecido à la Felicidad, Alejandro Sieveking (version for Chilean television)
1965. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1965. The Knack, Ann Jellicoe
1966. Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss (assistant director to William Oliver)
1966. La Casa Vieja (The Old House), Abelardo Estorino
1967. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1967. La Viuda de Apablaza, Germán Luco Cruchaga (director)
1968. Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton
1969. Viet Rock, Megan Terry
1969. Antigone, Sophocles
1972. Directed a ballet and musical homage to Pablo Neruda, which coincided with Neruda's return to Chile after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Discography
Studio albums
Víctor Jara (1966)
Víctor Jara (1967)
Canciones folklóricas de América (with Quilapayún) (1968)
Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)
Canto libre (1970)
El derecho de vivir en paz (1971)
La Población (1972)
Canto por travesura (1973)
Tiempos que cambian (unfinished) (Estimated release: 1974)
Manifiesto (1974; reissued in 2001)
Live albums
Víctor Jara en Vivo (1974)
El Recital (1983)
Víctor Jara en México (1996)
Habla y canta (1996; reissued in 2001)
En Vivo en el Aula Magna de la Universidad de Valparaíso (2003)
Compilations
Te recuerdo, Amanda (1974)
Víctor Jara. Presente (1975)
Vientos del Pueblo (1976)
Canto Libre (1977)
An unfinished song (1984)
Todo Víctor Jara (1992)
20 Años Después (1992)
The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes (1996)
Víctor Jara presente, colección "Haciendo Historia" (1997)
Te Recuerdo, Víctor (2000)
Antología Musical (2001)
1959–1969 – Víctor Jara (2001)
Latin Essential: Victor Jara (2003)
Colección Víctor Jara (2004)
Víctor Jara. Serie de Oro. Grandes Exitos (2005)
Tribute albums
A Víctor Jara by Raímon (1974)
Het Recht om in Vrede te Leven by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1978)
Cornelis sjunger Victor Jara: Rätten till ett eget liv by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1979)
Konzert für Víctor Jara by various artists (1998)
Inti-illimani interpeta a Víctor Jara by Inti-Illimani (1999)
Quilapayún Canta a Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara y Grandes Maestros Populares by Quilapayún (2000)
Conosci Victor Jara? by Daniele Sepe (2000)
Tributo Rock a Víctor Jara by various artists (2001)
Tributo a Víctor Jara by various artists (2004)
Lonquen: Tributo a Víctor Jara by Francesca Ancarola (2005)
Even in Exile by James Dean Bradfield (2020)
Documentaries and films
The following are films or documentaries about and/or featuring Víctor Jara:
1973: El Tigre Saltó y Mató, Pero Morirá…Morirá…. Director: Santiago Álvarez – Cuba
1974: Compañero: Víctor Jara of Chile. Directors: Stanley Foreman/Martin Smith (Documentary) – UK
1976: Il Pleut sur Santiago. Director: Helvio Soto – France/Bulgaria
1978: Ein April hat 30 Tage. Director: Gunther Scholz – East Germany
1978: El Cantor. Director: Dean Reed – East Germany
1999: El Derecho de Vivir en Paz. Director: Carmen Luz Parot – Chile
2001: Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. Director: Philip King – Ireland
2005: La Tierra de las 1000 Músicas [Episode 6: La Protesta]. Directors: Luis Miguel González Cruz, – Spain
2010: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune Director: Kenneth Bowser
2019:Masacre en el estadio. Netflix
In popular culture
Jara is one of many desaparecidos (people who vanished under the Pinochet government and were most likely tortured and killed) whose families are still struggling to get justice. Joan Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation, which was established on 4 October 1994 with the goal of promoting and continuing Jara's work. She publicized a poem that Jara wrote before his death about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium. The poem, written on a piece of paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend, was never named, but it is commonly known as "Estadio Chile" (Chile Stadium, now known as Víctor Jara Stadium).
On 22 September 1973, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh found an asteroid that he initially called "SO2", but later he would end up calling it "2644 Victor Jara". The 1975 anthology For Neruda, for Chile contains a section called "The Chilean Singer", with poems dedicated to Jara. In 1989, Scottish rock band Simple Minds dedicated "Street Fighting Years" track to Victor Jara. In the late 1990s, British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay that she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, saw his murder as a symbol of human rights violations in Chile, and believed a movie about his life and death would raise awareness. The movie was to feature Antonio Banderas as Jara and Thompson as his wife, Joan. However, the project was not completed.
In 2007, a fishing schooner built in 1917 in Denmark was renamed after the singer-songwriter. He sails at social and cultural events, and when he's not on the high seas he's at the museum in the port of Lübeck, Germany. The title song on Rory McLeod's album Angry Love is about Jara. In a list prepared by the renowned American magazine Rolling Stone, published on June 3, 2013, Víctor Jara is named as one of the "15 Rock & Roll Rebels", being the only Latin American to integrate the list. In 2020, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers released a concept album about Victor Jara called 'Even In Exile', that album was rated 4 out of 5 stars by The Guardian. On September 7, 2021, the Municipality of Estación Central approved the name change of "Avenida Ecuador" to "Avenida Víctor Jara".
See also
Nueva Canción Chilena
Estadio Victor Jara
2644 Victor Jara
Brigada Victor Jara
Galpón Víctor Jara
References
Bibliography
Jara, Joan (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape, London.
Kósichev, Leonard. (1990). La guitarra y el poncho de Víctor Jara. Progress Publishers, Moscow
External links
Resources in English
Three chapters from Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Discography
Victor Jara: The Martyred Musician of Nueva Cancion Chilena
Background materials on the Chilean Workers' Movement in the 1970s
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
GDR Poster Art: Víctor Jara
Allende’s Poet. Nick MacWilliam for Jacobin, 2 August 2016.
Resources in Spanish
Fundación Víctor Jara
Lyrics of all his Songs
Discography
Vientos del Pueblo: Un Homenaje a Víctor Jara
1932 births
1973 deaths
Anti-fascists
Anti-capitalists
Assassinated Chilean people
Burials in Chile
Chilean male actors
Chilean educators
Chilean folk singers
Chilean male poets
Chilean male singer-songwriters
Chilean theatre directors
Chilean Christians
Chilean communists
Chilean torture victims
Deaths by firearm in Chile
Executed writers
Former Roman Catholics
Latin American folk singers
Marxist humanists
Nueva canción musicians
People from Chillán
University of Chile alumni
Chilean Marxists
People murdered in Chile
Communist Party of Chile politicians
University of Santiago, Chile alumni
Political music artists
20th-century Chilean poets
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean male singers
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[
"Galpón Víctor Jara (“Víctor Jara Warehouse”) is a cultural center located in Santiago, Chile, in Barrio Brasil, an area of the city known for its strong artistic and cultural scene. Managed by the Víctor Jara Foundation, the center is named for the Chilean singer-songwriter and activist who was killed by the Chilean army following the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973. The Galpón is a popular live venue for Chilean bands, particularly those of the New Chilean Cumbia, gypsy and cueca musical styles, such as Chico Trujillo, Banda Conmoción and La Mano Ajena.\n\nHistory\n\nFollowing the return to democracy in Chile in 1990, efforts to achieve justice and recognition for Víctor Jara slowly gained momentum. In the early 2000s, the Víctor Jara Foundation campaigned to convert the Víctor Jara Stadium, where Jara was tortured and killed (the stadium, originally called Estadio Chile, was renamed to commemorate Jara in 2004), into a cultural center, but encountered difficulties from local authorities. A solution was found in the space occupied by the Foundation itself, in Plaza Brasil, the heart of Barrio Brasil, a cultural hub in the western part of Santiago. Galpón Víctor Jara opened there in 2003. Joan Jara, the Foundation’s founder and Jara’s widow, said at the time that\n“we want to be a meeting place for all kinds of artists: Chilean, foreign and those alternative artists who don’t fit in anywhere else.”\n\nIn 2009, a large public funeral for Víctor Jara was held at the Galpón, with thousands of mourners gathering to honor the singer. Jara’s remains had been exhumed as part of investigations into his death. The casket was carried on a procession through the streets of Santiago and re-buried in the General Cemetery.\n\nThe Galpón has been forced to close on a number of occasions. In 2010, the then mayor of Santiago, Pablo Zalaquett, closed the center because it did “not comply with the infrastructure required of a venue holding events of such a nature.” It was reopened shortly after, once the application for a new permit was in process. The venue has also been closed on a few occasions due to complaints about loud noise. This occurred most recently in September 2012, just prior to celebrations for the 80th anniversary of Jara’s birth, and calling a halt to the planned Cumbre Internacional de la Cumbia event (“International Cumbia Summit”). The center was reopened a couple of weeks later with a temporary permit, and Joan Jara remarked that “This has been such a long process. At least there exists the possibility that we can continue to develop this work, which I believe is very important for Chilean artists,” in 2013, it was closed because \"it has never obtained a definitive building permit or a final resolution from the municipality of Santiago.\"\n\nSee also\nVíctor Jara\nVíctor Jara Foundation\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n[www.fundacionvictorjara.cl Víctor Jara Foundation]. (Spanish).\n\nMusic venues in Chile\nLists of things named after Víctor Jara",
"Efraín Jara Idrovo (Cuenca, 26 February 1926 – Cuenca, 8 April 2018) was an Ecuadorian writer and poet.\n\nEfraín Jara Idrovo was born into a wealthy family. His father, Salvador Jara Bermeo, was a merchant who exported straw hats and his mother, Idrovo Leticia Aguilar, was a professor of Castilian and a poet. It was his mother who taught him poetry early on in his life.\n\nHe was awarded Ecuador's National Prize in Literature \"Premio Eugenio Espejo\" by the President of Ecuador in 1999.\n\nPoems\nIdrovo began writing poetry later than most poets do. He was trained in philosophy, having done a Bachelor of Philosophy degree. He lived for a while in the Galapagos Islands, where he was editor of The Macaw magazine. In his country, he edited the magazine published by the House of Ecuadorian Culture. His first anthology of poems was Inconsolable Charter, published in 1946. Several poetry books followed, including Transit in The Ash (1947), The Absence Trail (1948), Two Poems (1973), and the remarkable and hugely popular Weeping for Pedro Jara (1978). Idrovo was a prolific poet, and brought out many books into the nineties, like From the Superficial to Deep (1992), The Faces of Eros (1997) and The Evidence World'' (1999).\n\nWeeping for Pedro Jara (structures for An Elegy)\nTragedy struck Idrovo in 1974, when his younger son died. Idrovo expressed his sorrow in the form of a poem, \"Weeping for Pedro Jara\", which was published in 1978. The English translation of the poem was made by Dr. Cecilia Mafla-Bustamente and published in 1998 in the journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. The Biographical Dictionary of Ecuador has called it \"one of the greatest and most beautiful national poems ever written.\"\n\nWorks\n Carta en soledad inconsolable (1946)\n Tránsito en la ceniza (1947), Rastro de la ausencia (1948)\n Dos poemas (1973)\n Weeping for Pedro Jara (1978)\n El mundo de las evidencias (1980)\n In memoriam (1980)\n Alguien dispone de su muerte (1988)\n De lo superficial a lo profundo (1992)\n Los rostros de Eros (1997)\n El mundo de las evidencias 1945-1998 (1999)\n Lírica ecuatoriana contemporánea (1979)\n Poesía viva del Ecuador (1990) \n La palabra perdurable (1991)\n Poesía Última (2014)\n Grandes Textos Líricos (2015)\n Sollozo Por Pedro Jara/Weeping for Pedro Jara (2018 bilingual collector's edition)\n\nReferences\n\n1926 births\n2018 deaths\nEcuadorian male writers\nEcuadorian poets\nPeople from Cuenca, Ecuador"
] |
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Did she get recognized?
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Did Víctor Jara get recognized?
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Víctor Jara
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After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life. In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda"). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His preponderant role as an open admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until the early 1970s crisis that ended in the coup against Allende, marked him for death.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on September 28, 1932, his parents were working as tenants and they lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from the old Chillan, he had about five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but in any case, he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small piece of land that he worked from sun to sun with a miserable performance. His father was illiterate and did not want him and his other siblings to go to school so that they could help him in the fields from the ages of six and seven. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the letters.
Jara's mother was a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in southern Chile, she was self-taught, and played the guitar and the piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local functions like weddings and funerals. The relationship between her parents became more tense with each passing day, her father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, her mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15, leaving him to make his own way. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left the seminary. Subsequently, he spent several years in army service before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theater.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.
In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music (working as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963). He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his first album homonymous, by the record company "Demon", being the only album released under this label and the Víctor Jara's first solo work, the album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released, with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes some Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as; "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes", two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon record company, from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he recently transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara, after years of profiting from the album (as well as with others from Patricio Manns, Isabel and Ángel Parra, among others) without ever financially rewarding its authors or family.
In 1967 released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of some folk songs from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia or Spain as; «Despedimiento del angelito», «Ay mi palomita», «Casi, casi», «Qué alegres son las obreras» or «Romance del enamorado y la muerte». Also, the album was subsequently released under the name of Desde longuén hasta siempre with a variation of different covers. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América" (Folkloric Songs of America), with Quilapayun. In 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara had joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a decisive turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" ("Questions About Puerto Montt"), which took direct aim at a government official (Edmundo Pérez Zujovic) who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos" ("We Will Triumph"), the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in a cultural renaissance that swept Chile, organizing cultural events that supported the country's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Throughout rumblings of a right-wing coup, Jara held on to his teaching job at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. So successful was he that the Soviet Union tried to latch onto his popularity, claiming in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
Backed by the United States, which opposed Allende's socialist politics, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état on 11 September 1973, resulting in the death of Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on his way to the Technical University (today the Universidad de Santiago). That night, he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Chile Stadium. The guards there tortured him, smashing his hands and fingers, and then mocked him by asking him to play the guitar. Jara instead sang the Chilean protest song Venceremos. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets.
According to the BBC "There are many conflicting accounts of Jara’s last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang Venceremos (We Will Win), Allende’s 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to Estadio Chile, which were later smuggled out of the stadium: “How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying.” Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40."
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other civilian prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
Forty-two years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder.
Legal actions
On 16 May 2008, retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the chief of security at Chile Stadium as the coup was carried out, was the first to be convicted in Jara's death. Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who oversaw Bravo's conviction, then decided to close the case, a decision Jara's family soon appealed. In June 2008, Judge Fuentes re-opened the investigation and said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by Jara's family.
On 28 May 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastián, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following his arrest, on 1 June 2009, the police investigation identified the officer who had shot Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head, and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times until a shot fired and Jara fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job by firing into Jara's body. A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to gather more information about his death.
On 3 December 2009, Jara was reburied after a massive funeral in the Galpón Víctor Jara, across from Santiago's Plaza Brasil.
On 28 December 2012, a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in Jara's murder. He issued an international arrest warrant for one of them, Pedro Barrientos Núñez, the man accused of shooting Jara in the head during a torture session.
On 4 September 2013, Chadbourne & Parke attorneys Mark D. Beckett and Christian Urrutia, with the assistance of the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed suit in a United States court against Barrientos, who lives in Florida, on behalf of Jara's widow and children. The suit accused Barrientos of arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; extrajudicial killing; and crimes against humanity under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and of torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). It alleged that Barrientos was liable for Jara's death as a direct perpetrator and as a commander.
The specific claims were that:
On 11 September 1973, troops from the Arica Regiment of the Chilean Army, specifically from La Serena, attacked the university where Jara taught. The troops prohibited civilians from entering or leaving the university premises. During the afternoon of 12 September 1973, military personnel entered the university and illegally detained hundreds of professors, students, and administrators. Víctor Jara was among those arbitrarily detained on the campus and was subsequently transferred to Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and killed.
In the course of transporting and processing the civilian prisoners, Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, a commanding officer in military intelligence, recognized Jara as the well-known folk singer whose songs addressed social inequality, and who had supported President Allende's government. Captain Polanco separated Jara from the group and beat him severely. He then transferred Jara, along with some of the other civilians, to the stadium.
Throughout his detention in the locker room of the stadium, Jara was in the physical custody of Lieutenant Barrientos, soldiers under his command, or other members of the Chilean Army who acted in accordance with the army's plan to commit human rights abuses against civilians.
The arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Jara and other detainees were part of a widespread, systematic attack on civilians by the Chilean Army from 11 to 15 September 1973. Barrientos knew, or should have known, about these attacks, if for no other reason than that he was present for and participated in them.
On 15 April 2015, a US judge ordered Barrientos to stand trial in Florida. On 27 June 2016, he was found liable for Jara's killing, and the jury awarded Jara's family $28 million.
On 3 July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years in prison for Jara's murder and the murder of his Communist associate and former Chilean prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. They received three extra years for kidnapping both men. A ninth suspect was sentenced to five years in prison for covering up the murders.
In November 2018, it was reported that a Chilean court ordered the extradition of Barrientos.
Theater work
1959. Parecido à la Felicidad (Some Kind of Happiness), Alejandro Sieveking
1960. La Viuda de Apablaza (The Widow of Apablaza), Germán Luco Cruchaga (assistant director to Pedro de la Barra, founder of ITUCH)
1960. The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli
1961. La Madre de los Conejos (Mother Rabbit), Alejandro Sieveking (assistant director to Agustín Siré)
1962. Ánimas de Día Claro (Daylight Spirits), Alejandro Sieveking
1963. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht (assistant director to Atahualpa del Cioppo)
1963. Los Invasores (The Intruders), Egon Wolff
1963. Dúo (Duet), Raúl Ruiz
1963. Parecido à la Felicidad, Alejandro Sieveking (version for Chilean television)
1965. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1965. The Knack, Ann Jellicoe
1966. Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss (assistant director to William Oliver)
1966. La Casa Vieja (The Old House), Abelardo Estorino
1967. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1967. La Viuda de Apablaza, Germán Luco Cruchaga (director)
1968. Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton
1969. Viet Rock, Megan Terry
1969. Antigone, Sophocles
1972. Directed a ballet and musical homage to Pablo Neruda, which coincided with Neruda's return to Chile after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Discography
Studio albums
Víctor Jara (1966)
Víctor Jara (1967)
Canciones folklóricas de América (with Quilapayún) (1968)
Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)
Canto libre (1970)
El derecho de vivir en paz (1971)
La Población (1972)
Canto por travesura (1973)
Tiempos que cambian (unfinished) (Estimated release: 1974)
Manifiesto (1974; reissued in 2001)
Live albums
Víctor Jara en Vivo (1974)
El Recital (1983)
Víctor Jara en México (1996)
Habla y canta (1996; reissued in 2001)
En Vivo en el Aula Magna de la Universidad de Valparaíso (2003)
Compilations
Te recuerdo, Amanda (1974)
Víctor Jara. Presente (1975)
Vientos del Pueblo (1976)
Canto Libre (1977)
An unfinished song (1984)
Todo Víctor Jara (1992)
20 Años Después (1992)
The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes (1996)
Víctor Jara presente, colección "Haciendo Historia" (1997)
Te Recuerdo, Víctor (2000)
Antología Musical (2001)
1959–1969 – Víctor Jara (2001)
Latin Essential: Victor Jara (2003)
Colección Víctor Jara (2004)
Víctor Jara. Serie de Oro. Grandes Exitos (2005)
Tribute albums
A Víctor Jara by Raímon (1974)
Het Recht om in Vrede te Leven by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1978)
Cornelis sjunger Victor Jara: Rätten till ett eget liv by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1979)
Konzert für Víctor Jara by various artists (1998)
Inti-illimani interpeta a Víctor Jara by Inti-Illimani (1999)
Quilapayún Canta a Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara y Grandes Maestros Populares by Quilapayún (2000)
Conosci Victor Jara? by Daniele Sepe (2000)
Tributo Rock a Víctor Jara by various artists (2001)
Tributo a Víctor Jara by various artists (2004)
Lonquen: Tributo a Víctor Jara by Francesca Ancarola (2005)
Even in Exile by James Dean Bradfield (2020)
Documentaries and films
The following are films or documentaries about and/or featuring Víctor Jara:
1973: El Tigre Saltó y Mató, Pero Morirá…Morirá…. Director: Santiago Álvarez – Cuba
1974: Compañero: Víctor Jara of Chile. Directors: Stanley Foreman/Martin Smith (Documentary) – UK
1976: Il Pleut sur Santiago. Director: Helvio Soto – France/Bulgaria
1978: Ein April hat 30 Tage. Director: Gunther Scholz – East Germany
1978: El Cantor. Director: Dean Reed – East Germany
1999: El Derecho de Vivir en Paz. Director: Carmen Luz Parot – Chile
2001: Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. Director: Philip King – Ireland
2005: La Tierra de las 1000 Músicas [Episode 6: La Protesta]. Directors: Luis Miguel González Cruz, – Spain
2010: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune Director: Kenneth Bowser
2019:Masacre en el estadio. Netflix
In popular culture
Jara is one of many desaparecidos (people who vanished under the Pinochet government and were most likely tortured and killed) whose families are still struggling to get justice. Joan Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation, which was established on 4 October 1994 with the goal of promoting and continuing Jara's work. She publicized a poem that Jara wrote before his death about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium. The poem, written on a piece of paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend, was never named, but it is commonly known as "Estadio Chile" (Chile Stadium, now known as Víctor Jara Stadium).
On 22 September 1973, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh found an asteroid that he initially called "SO2", but later he would end up calling it "2644 Victor Jara". The 1975 anthology For Neruda, for Chile contains a section called "The Chilean Singer", with poems dedicated to Jara. In 1989, Scottish rock band Simple Minds dedicated "Street Fighting Years" track to Victor Jara. In the late 1990s, British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay that she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, saw his murder as a symbol of human rights violations in Chile, and believed a movie about his life and death would raise awareness. The movie was to feature Antonio Banderas as Jara and Thompson as his wife, Joan. However, the project was not completed.
In 2007, a fishing schooner built in 1917 in Denmark was renamed after the singer-songwriter. He sails at social and cultural events, and when he's not on the high seas he's at the museum in the port of Lübeck, Germany. The title song on Rory McLeod's album Angry Love is about Jara. In a list prepared by the renowned American magazine Rolling Stone, published on June 3, 2013, Víctor Jara is named as one of the "15 Rock & Roll Rebels", being the only Latin American to integrate the list. In 2020, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers released a concept album about Victor Jara called 'Even In Exile', that album was rated 4 out of 5 stars by The Guardian. On September 7, 2021, the Municipality of Estación Central approved the name change of "Avenida Ecuador" to "Avenida Víctor Jara".
See also
Nueva Canción Chilena
Estadio Victor Jara
2644 Victor Jara
Brigada Victor Jara
Galpón Víctor Jara
References
Bibliography
Jara, Joan (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape, London.
Kósichev, Leonard. (1990). La guitarra y el poncho de Víctor Jara. Progress Publishers, Moscow
External links
Resources in English
Three chapters from Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Discography
Victor Jara: The Martyred Musician of Nueva Cancion Chilena
Background materials on the Chilean Workers' Movement in the 1970s
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
GDR Poster Art: Víctor Jara
Allende’s Poet. Nick MacWilliam for Jacobin, 2 August 2016.
Resources in Spanish
Fundación Víctor Jara
Lyrics of all his Songs
Discography
Vientos del Pueblo: Un Homenaje a Víctor Jara
1932 births
1973 deaths
Anti-fascists
Anti-capitalists
Assassinated Chilean people
Burials in Chile
Chilean male actors
Chilean educators
Chilean folk singers
Chilean male poets
Chilean male singer-songwriters
Chilean theatre directors
Chilean Christians
Chilean communists
Chilean torture victims
Deaths by firearm in Chile
Executed writers
Former Roman Catholics
Latin American folk singers
Marxist humanists
Nueva canción musicians
People from Chillán
University of Chile alumni
Chilean Marxists
People murdered in Chile
Communist Party of Chile politicians
University of Santiago, Chile alumni
Political music artists
20th-century Chilean poets
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean male singers
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"Danit Peleg () is a fashion designer based in Tel Aviv which created the first commercially available, 3D-printed clothing, and was recognized by Forbes as one of Europe's Top 50 Women in Tech.\n\nEducation and career \n\nDanit Peleg studied Fashion Design at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Her dissertation researched the possibility of 3D-printing clothes. In 2014, she designed her first 3D-printed jacket, the Liberte, after a lot of experimentation with different materials and setups. After this initial success, she created more designs to create a complete collection.\n\nAfter graduating in 2015, she started her own studio, via which she provides custom, 3D-printed designs for clients.\n\nIn 2016, she designed a 3D-printed dress for Amy Purdy, who wore this dress during a dance performance during the opening ceremony of the paralympics of 2016.\n\nIn 2017, a limited edition-set of 100 Bomber jackets were created. For $1500 a piece, clients could get their own customized jacket printed.\n\nDanit Peleg organized a three-day workshop on 3D-printed fashion in 2018, where 15 students from all over the world could learn about her design process. That year she was also recognized as one of Europe's 50 most influential woman in tech by Forbes. She was named as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2019.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Personal website\n\nWomen fashion designers\nIsraeli fashion designers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nBBC 100 Women"
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Víctor Jara
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After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life. In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda"). CANNOTANSWER
|
Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater.
|
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His preponderant role as an open admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until the early 1970s crisis that ended in the coup against Allende, marked him for death.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on September 28, 1932, his parents were working as tenants and they lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from the old Chillan, he had about five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but in any case, he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small piece of land that he worked from sun to sun with a miserable performance. His father was illiterate and did not want him and his other siblings to go to school so that they could help him in the fields from the ages of six and seven. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the letters.
Jara's mother was a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in southern Chile, she was self-taught, and played the guitar and the piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local functions like weddings and funerals. The relationship between her parents became more tense with each passing day, her father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, her mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15, leaving him to make his own way. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left the seminary. Subsequently, he spent several years in army service before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theater.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.
In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music (working as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963). He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his first album homonymous, by the record company "Demon", being the only album released under this label and the Víctor Jara's first solo work, the album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released, with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes some Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as; "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes", two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon record company, from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he recently transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara, after years of profiting from the album (as well as with others from Patricio Manns, Isabel and Ángel Parra, among others) without ever financially rewarding its authors or family.
In 1967 released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of some folk songs from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia or Spain as; «Despedimiento del angelito», «Ay mi palomita», «Casi, casi», «Qué alegres son las obreras» or «Romance del enamorado y la muerte». Also, the album was subsequently released under the name of Desde longuén hasta siempre with a variation of different covers. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América" (Folkloric Songs of America), with Quilapayun. In 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara had joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a decisive turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" ("Questions About Puerto Montt"), which took direct aim at a government official (Edmundo Pérez Zujovic) who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos" ("We Will Triumph"), the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in a cultural renaissance that swept Chile, organizing cultural events that supported the country's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Throughout rumblings of a right-wing coup, Jara held on to his teaching job at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. So successful was he that the Soviet Union tried to latch onto his popularity, claiming in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
Backed by the United States, which opposed Allende's socialist politics, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état on 11 September 1973, resulting in the death of Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on his way to the Technical University (today the Universidad de Santiago). That night, he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Chile Stadium. The guards there tortured him, smashing his hands and fingers, and then mocked him by asking him to play the guitar. Jara instead sang the Chilean protest song Venceremos. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets.
According to the BBC "There are many conflicting accounts of Jara’s last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang Venceremos (We Will Win), Allende’s 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to Estadio Chile, which were later smuggled out of the stadium: “How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying.” Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40."
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other civilian prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
Forty-two years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder.
Legal actions
On 16 May 2008, retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the chief of security at Chile Stadium as the coup was carried out, was the first to be convicted in Jara's death. Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who oversaw Bravo's conviction, then decided to close the case, a decision Jara's family soon appealed. In June 2008, Judge Fuentes re-opened the investigation and said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by Jara's family.
On 28 May 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastián, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following his arrest, on 1 June 2009, the police investigation identified the officer who had shot Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head, and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times until a shot fired and Jara fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job by firing into Jara's body. A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to gather more information about his death.
On 3 December 2009, Jara was reburied after a massive funeral in the Galpón Víctor Jara, across from Santiago's Plaza Brasil.
On 28 December 2012, a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in Jara's murder. He issued an international arrest warrant for one of them, Pedro Barrientos Núñez, the man accused of shooting Jara in the head during a torture session.
On 4 September 2013, Chadbourne & Parke attorneys Mark D. Beckett and Christian Urrutia, with the assistance of the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed suit in a United States court against Barrientos, who lives in Florida, on behalf of Jara's widow and children. The suit accused Barrientos of arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; extrajudicial killing; and crimes against humanity under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and of torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). It alleged that Barrientos was liable for Jara's death as a direct perpetrator and as a commander.
The specific claims were that:
On 11 September 1973, troops from the Arica Regiment of the Chilean Army, specifically from La Serena, attacked the university where Jara taught. The troops prohibited civilians from entering or leaving the university premises. During the afternoon of 12 September 1973, military personnel entered the university and illegally detained hundreds of professors, students, and administrators. Víctor Jara was among those arbitrarily detained on the campus and was subsequently transferred to Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and killed.
In the course of transporting and processing the civilian prisoners, Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, a commanding officer in military intelligence, recognized Jara as the well-known folk singer whose songs addressed social inequality, and who had supported President Allende's government. Captain Polanco separated Jara from the group and beat him severely. He then transferred Jara, along with some of the other civilians, to the stadium.
Throughout his detention in the locker room of the stadium, Jara was in the physical custody of Lieutenant Barrientos, soldiers under his command, or other members of the Chilean Army who acted in accordance with the army's plan to commit human rights abuses against civilians.
The arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Jara and other detainees were part of a widespread, systematic attack on civilians by the Chilean Army from 11 to 15 September 1973. Barrientos knew, or should have known, about these attacks, if for no other reason than that he was present for and participated in them.
On 15 April 2015, a US judge ordered Barrientos to stand trial in Florida. On 27 June 2016, he was found liable for Jara's killing, and the jury awarded Jara's family $28 million.
On 3 July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years in prison for Jara's murder and the murder of his Communist associate and former Chilean prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. They received three extra years for kidnapping both men. A ninth suspect was sentenced to five years in prison for covering up the murders.
In November 2018, it was reported that a Chilean court ordered the extradition of Barrientos.
Theater work
1959. Parecido à la Felicidad (Some Kind of Happiness), Alejandro Sieveking
1960. La Viuda de Apablaza (The Widow of Apablaza), Germán Luco Cruchaga (assistant director to Pedro de la Barra, founder of ITUCH)
1960. The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli
1961. La Madre de los Conejos (Mother Rabbit), Alejandro Sieveking (assistant director to Agustín Siré)
1962. Ánimas de Día Claro (Daylight Spirits), Alejandro Sieveking
1963. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht (assistant director to Atahualpa del Cioppo)
1963. Los Invasores (The Intruders), Egon Wolff
1963. Dúo (Duet), Raúl Ruiz
1963. Parecido à la Felicidad, Alejandro Sieveking (version for Chilean television)
1965. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1965. The Knack, Ann Jellicoe
1966. Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss (assistant director to William Oliver)
1966. La Casa Vieja (The Old House), Abelardo Estorino
1967. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1967. La Viuda de Apablaza, Germán Luco Cruchaga (director)
1968. Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton
1969. Viet Rock, Megan Terry
1969. Antigone, Sophocles
1972. Directed a ballet and musical homage to Pablo Neruda, which coincided with Neruda's return to Chile after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Discography
Studio albums
Víctor Jara (1966)
Víctor Jara (1967)
Canciones folklóricas de América (with Quilapayún) (1968)
Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)
Canto libre (1970)
El derecho de vivir en paz (1971)
La Población (1972)
Canto por travesura (1973)
Tiempos que cambian (unfinished) (Estimated release: 1974)
Manifiesto (1974; reissued in 2001)
Live albums
Víctor Jara en Vivo (1974)
El Recital (1983)
Víctor Jara en México (1996)
Habla y canta (1996; reissued in 2001)
En Vivo en el Aula Magna de la Universidad de Valparaíso (2003)
Compilations
Te recuerdo, Amanda (1974)
Víctor Jara. Presente (1975)
Vientos del Pueblo (1976)
Canto Libre (1977)
An unfinished song (1984)
Todo Víctor Jara (1992)
20 Años Después (1992)
The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes (1996)
Víctor Jara presente, colección "Haciendo Historia" (1997)
Te Recuerdo, Víctor (2000)
Antología Musical (2001)
1959–1969 – Víctor Jara (2001)
Latin Essential: Victor Jara (2003)
Colección Víctor Jara (2004)
Víctor Jara. Serie de Oro. Grandes Exitos (2005)
Tribute albums
A Víctor Jara by Raímon (1974)
Het Recht om in Vrede te Leven by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1978)
Cornelis sjunger Victor Jara: Rätten till ett eget liv by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1979)
Konzert für Víctor Jara by various artists (1998)
Inti-illimani interpeta a Víctor Jara by Inti-Illimani (1999)
Quilapayún Canta a Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara y Grandes Maestros Populares by Quilapayún (2000)
Conosci Victor Jara? by Daniele Sepe (2000)
Tributo Rock a Víctor Jara by various artists (2001)
Tributo a Víctor Jara by various artists (2004)
Lonquen: Tributo a Víctor Jara by Francesca Ancarola (2005)
Even in Exile by James Dean Bradfield (2020)
Documentaries and films
The following are films or documentaries about and/or featuring Víctor Jara:
1973: El Tigre Saltó y Mató, Pero Morirá…Morirá…. Director: Santiago Álvarez – Cuba
1974: Compañero: Víctor Jara of Chile. Directors: Stanley Foreman/Martin Smith (Documentary) – UK
1976: Il Pleut sur Santiago. Director: Helvio Soto – France/Bulgaria
1978: Ein April hat 30 Tage. Director: Gunther Scholz – East Germany
1978: El Cantor. Director: Dean Reed – East Germany
1999: El Derecho de Vivir en Paz. Director: Carmen Luz Parot – Chile
2001: Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. Director: Philip King – Ireland
2005: La Tierra de las 1000 Músicas [Episode 6: La Protesta]. Directors: Luis Miguel González Cruz, – Spain
2010: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune Director: Kenneth Bowser
2019:Masacre en el estadio. Netflix
In popular culture
Jara is one of many desaparecidos (people who vanished under the Pinochet government and were most likely tortured and killed) whose families are still struggling to get justice. Joan Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation, which was established on 4 October 1994 with the goal of promoting and continuing Jara's work. She publicized a poem that Jara wrote before his death about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium. The poem, written on a piece of paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend, was never named, but it is commonly known as "Estadio Chile" (Chile Stadium, now known as Víctor Jara Stadium).
On 22 September 1973, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh found an asteroid that he initially called "SO2", but later he would end up calling it "2644 Victor Jara". The 1975 anthology For Neruda, for Chile contains a section called "The Chilean Singer", with poems dedicated to Jara. In 1989, Scottish rock band Simple Minds dedicated "Street Fighting Years" track to Victor Jara. In the late 1990s, British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay that she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, saw his murder as a symbol of human rights violations in Chile, and believed a movie about his life and death would raise awareness. The movie was to feature Antonio Banderas as Jara and Thompson as his wife, Joan. However, the project was not completed.
In 2007, a fishing schooner built in 1917 in Denmark was renamed after the singer-songwriter. He sails at social and cultural events, and when he's not on the high seas he's at the museum in the port of Lübeck, Germany. The title song on Rory McLeod's album Angry Love is about Jara. In a list prepared by the renowned American magazine Rolling Stone, published on June 3, 2013, Víctor Jara is named as one of the "15 Rock & Roll Rebels", being the only Latin American to integrate the list. In 2020, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers released a concept album about Victor Jara called 'Even In Exile', that album was rated 4 out of 5 stars by The Guardian. On September 7, 2021, the Municipality of Estación Central approved the name change of "Avenida Ecuador" to "Avenida Víctor Jara".
See also
Nueva Canción Chilena
Estadio Victor Jara
2644 Victor Jara
Brigada Victor Jara
Galpón Víctor Jara
References
Bibliography
Jara, Joan (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape, London.
Kósichev, Leonard. (1990). La guitarra y el poncho de Víctor Jara. Progress Publishers, Moscow
External links
Resources in English
Three chapters from Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Discography
Victor Jara: The Martyred Musician of Nueva Cancion Chilena
Background materials on the Chilean Workers' Movement in the 1970s
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
GDR Poster Art: Víctor Jara
Allende’s Poet. Nick MacWilliam for Jacobin, 2 August 2016.
Resources in Spanish
Fundación Víctor Jara
Lyrics of all his Songs
Discography
Vientos del Pueblo: Un Homenaje a Víctor Jara
1932 births
1973 deaths
Anti-fascists
Anti-capitalists
Assassinated Chilean people
Burials in Chile
Chilean male actors
Chilean educators
Chilean folk singers
Chilean male poets
Chilean male singer-songwriters
Chilean theatre directors
Chilean Christians
Chilean communists
Chilean torture victims
Deaths by firearm in Chile
Executed writers
Former Roman Catholics
Latin American folk singers
Marxist humanists
Nueva canción musicians
People from Chillán
University of Chile alumni
Chilean Marxists
People murdered in Chile
Communist Party of Chile politicians
University of Santiago, Chile alumni
Political music artists
20th-century Chilean poets
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean male singers
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"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums",
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books"
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"Artistic work",
"What was Jara's artistic work like",
"In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music",
"Did she get recognized?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did she do?",
"Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater."
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What was her first theater performance?
| 4 |
What was Víctor Jara first theater performance?
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Víctor Jara
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After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life. In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda"). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His preponderant role as an open admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until the early 1970s crisis that ended in the coup against Allende, marked him for death.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on September 28, 1932, his parents were working as tenants and they lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from the old Chillan, he had about five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but in any case, he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small piece of land that he worked from sun to sun with a miserable performance. His father was illiterate and did not want him and his other siblings to go to school so that they could help him in the fields from the ages of six and seven. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the letters.
Jara's mother was a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in southern Chile, she was self-taught, and played the guitar and the piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local functions like weddings and funerals. The relationship between her parents became more tense with each passing day, her father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, her mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15, leaving him to make his own way. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left the seminary. Subsequently, he spent several years in army service before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theater.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.
In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music (working as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963). He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his first album homonymous, by the record company "Demon", being the only album released under this label and the Víctor Jara's first solo work, the album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released, with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes some Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as; "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes", two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon record company, from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he recently transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara, after years of profiting from the album (as well as with others from Patricio Manns, Isabel and Ángel Parra, among others) without ever financially rewarding its authors or family.
In 1967 released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of some folk songs from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia or Spain as; «Despedimiento del angelito», «Ay mi palomita», «Casi, casi», «Qué alegres son las obreras» or «Romance del enamorado y la muerte». Also, the album was subsequently released under the name of Desde longuén hasta siempre with a variation of different covers. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América" (Folkloric Songs of America), with Quilapayun. In 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara had joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a decisive turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" ("Questions About Puerto Montt"), which took direct aim at a government official (Edmundo Pérez Zujovic) who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos" ("We Will Triumph"), the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in a cultural renaissance that swept Chile, organizing cultural events that supported the country's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Throughout rumblings of a right-wing coup, Jara held on to his teaching job at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. So successful was he that the Soviet Union tried to latch onto his popularity, claiming in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
Backed by the United States, which opposed Allende's socialist politics, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état on 11 September 1973, resulting in the death of Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on his way to the Technical University (today the Universidad de Santiago). That night, he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Chile Stadium. The guards there tortured him, smashing his hands and fingers, and then mocked him by asking him to play the guitar. Jara instead sang the Chilean protest song Venceremos. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets.
According to the BBC "There are many conflicting accounts of Jara’s last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang Venceremos (We Will Win), Allende’s 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to Estadio Chile, which were later smuggled out of the stadium: “How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying.” Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40."
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other civilian prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
Forty-two years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder.
Legal actions
On 16 May 2008, retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the chief of security at Chile Stadium as the coup was carried out, was the first to be convicted in Jara's death. Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who oversaw Bravo's conviction, then decided to close the case, a decision Jara's family soon appealed. In June 2008, Judge Fuentes re-opened the investigation and said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by Jara's family.
On 28 May 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastián, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following his arrest, on 1 June 2009, the police investigation identified the officer who had shot Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head, and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times until a shot fired and Jara fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job by firing into Jara's body. A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to gather more information about his death.
On 3 December 2009, Jara was reburied after a massive funeral in the Galpón Víctor Jara, across from Santiago's Plaza Brasil.
On 28 December 2012, a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in Jara's murder. He issued an international arrest warrant for one of them, Pedro Barrientos Núñez, the man accused of shooting Jara in the head during a torture session.
On 4 September 2013, Chadbourne & Parke attorneys Mark D. Beckett and Christian Urrutia, with the assistance of the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed suit in a United States court against Barrientos, who lives in Florida, on behalf of Jara's widow and children. The suit accused Barrientos of arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; extrajudicial killing; and crimes against humanity under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and of torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). It alleged that Barrientos was liable for Jara's death as a direct perpetrator and as a commander.
The specific claims were that:
On 11 September 1973, troops from the Arica Regiment of the Chilean Army, specifically from La Serena, attacked the university where Jara taught. The troops prohibited civilians from entering or leaving the university premises. During the afternoon of 12 September 1973, military personnel entered the university and illegally detained hundreds of professors, students, and administrators. Víctor Jara was among those arbitrarily detained on the campus and was subsequently transferred to Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and killed.
In the course of transporting and processing the civilian prisoners, Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, a commanding officer in military intelligence, recognized Jara as the well-known folk singer whose songs addressed social inequality, and who had supported President Allende's government. Captain Polanco separated Jara from the group and beat him severely. He then transferred Jara, along with some of the other civilians, to the stadium.
Throughout his detention in the locker room of the stadium, Jara was in the physical custody of Lieutenant Barrientos, soldiers under his command, or other members of the Chilean Army who acted in accordance with the army's plan to commit human rights abuses against civilians.
The arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Jara and other detainees were part of a widespread, systematic attack on civilians by the Chilean Army from 11 to 15 September 1973. Barrientos knew, or should have known, about these attacks, if for no other reason than that he was present for and participated in them.
On 15 April 2015, a US judge ordered Barrientos to stand trial in Florida. On 27 June 2016, he was found liable for Jara's killing, and the jury awarded Jara's family $28 million.
On 3 July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years in prison for Jara's murder and the murder of his Communist associate and former Chilean prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. They received three extra years for kidnapping both men. A ninth suspect was sentenced to five years in prison for covering up the murders.
In November 2018, it was reported that a Chilean court ordered the extradition of Barrientos.
Theater work
1959. Parecido à la Felicidad (Some Kind of Happiness), Alejandro Sieveking
1960. La Viuda de Apablaza (The Widow of Apablaza), Germán Luco Cruchaga (assistant director to Pedro de la Barra, founder of ITUCH)
1960. The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli
1961. La Madre de los Conejos (Mother Rabbit), Alejandro Sieveking (assistant director to Agustín Siré)
1962. Ánimas de Día Claro (Daylight Spirits), Alejandro Sieveking
1963. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht (assistant director to Atahualpa del Cioppo)
1963. Los Invasores (The Intruders), Egon Wolff
1963. Dúo (Duet), Raúl Ruiz
1963. Parecido à la Felicidad, Alejandro Sieveking (version for Chilean television)
1965. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1965. The Knack, Ann Jellicoe
1966. Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss (assistant director to William Oliver)
1966. La Casa Vieja (The Old House), Abelardo Estorino
1967. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1967. La Viuda de Apablaza, Germán Luco Cruchaga (director)
1968. Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton
1969. Viet Rock, Megan Terry
1969. Antigone, Sophocles
1972. Directed a ballet and musical homage to Pablo Neruda, which coincided with Neruda's return to Chile after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Discography
Studio albums
Víctor Jara (1966)
Víctor Jara (1967)
Canciones folklóricas de América (with Quilapayún) (1968)
Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)
Canto libre (1970)
El derecho de vivir en paz (1971)
La Población (1972)
Canto por travesura (1973)
Tiempos que cambian (unfinished) (Estimated release: 1974)
Manifiesto (1974; reissued in 2001)
Live albums
Víctor Jara en Vivo (1974)
El Recital (1983)
Víctor Jara en México (1996)
Habla y canta (1996; reissued in 2001)
En Vivo en el Aula Magna de la Universidad de Valparaíso (2003)
Compilations
Te recuerdo, Amanda (1974)
Víctor Jara. Presente (1975)
Vientos del Pueblo (1976)
Canto Libre (1977)
An unfinished song (1984)
Todo Víctor Jara (1992)
20 Años Después (1992)
The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes (1996)
Víctor Jara presente, colección "Haciendo Historia" (1997)
Te Recuerdo, Víctor (2000)
Antología Musical (2001)
1959–1969 – Víctor Jara (2001)
Latin Essential: Victor Jara (2003)
Colección Víctor Jara (2004)
Víctor Jara. Serie de Oro. Grandes Exitos (2005)
Tribute albums
A Víctor Jara by Raímon (1974)
Het Recht om in Vrede te Leven by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1978)
Cornelis sjunger Victor Jara: Rätten till ett eget liv by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1979)
Konzert für Víctor Jara by various artists (1998)
Inti-illimani interpeta a Víctor Jara by Inti-Illimani (1999)
Quilapayún Canta a Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara y Grandes Maestros Populares by Quilapayún (2000)
Conosci Victor Jara? by Daniele Sepe (2000)
Tributo Rock a Víctor Jara by various artists (2001)
Tributo a Víctor Jara by various artists (2004)
Lonquen: Tributo a Víctor Jara by Francesca Ancarola (2005)
Even in Exile by James Dean Bradfield (2020)
Documentaries and films
The following are films or documentaries about and/or featuring Víctor Jara:
1973: El Tigre Saltó y Mató, Pero Morirá…Morirá…. Director: Santiago Álvarez – Cuba
1974: Compañero: Víctor Jara of Chile. Directors: Stanley Foreman/Martin Smith (Documentary) – UK
1976: Il Pleut sur Santiago. Director: Helvio Soto – France/Bulgaria
1978: Ein April hat 30 Tage. Director: Gunther Scholz – East Germany
1978: El Cantor. Director: Dean Reed – East Germany
1999: El Derecho de Vivir en Paz. Director: Carmen Luz Parot – Chile
2001: Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. Director: Philip King – Ireland
2005: La Tierra de las 1000 Músicas [Episode 6: La Protesta]. Directors: Luis Miguel González Cruz, – Spain
2010: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune Director: Kenneth Bowser
2019:Masacre en el estadio. Netflix
In popular culture
Jara is one of many desaparecidos (people who vanished under the Pinochet government and were most likely tortured and killed) whose families are still struggling to get justice. Joan Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation, which was established on 4 October 1994 with the goal of promoting and continuing Jara's work. She publicized a poem that Jara wrote before his death about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium. The poem, written on a piece of paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend, was never named, but it is commonly known as "Estadio Chile" (Chile Stadium, now known as Víctor Jara Stadium).
On 22 September 1973, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh found an asteroid that he initially called "SO2", but later he would end up calling it "2644 Victor Jara". The 1975 anthology For Neruda, for Chile contains a section called "The Chilean Singer", with poems dedicated to Jara. In 1989, Scottish rock band Simple Minds dedicated "Street Fighting Years" track to Victor Jara. In the late 1990s, British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay that she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, saw his murder as a symbol of human rights violations in Chile, and believed a movie about his life and death would raise awareness. The movie was to feature Antonio Banderas as Jara and Thompson as his wife, Joan. However, the project was not completed.
In 2007, a fishing schooner built in 1917 in Denmark was renamed after the singer-songwriter. He sails at social and cultural events, and when he's not on the high seas he's at the museum in the port of Lübeck, Germany. The title song on Rory McLeod's album Angry Love is about Jara. In a list prepared by the renowned American magazine Rolling Stone, published on June 3, 2013, Víctor Jara is named as one of the "15 Rock & Roll Rebels", being the only Latin American to integrate the list. In 2020, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers released a concept album about Victor Jara called 'Even In Exile', that album was rated 4 out of 5 stars by The Guardian. On September 7, 2021, the Municipality of Estación Central approved the name change of "Avenida Ecuador" to "Avenida Víctor Jara".
See also
Nueva Canción Chilena
Estadio Victor Jara
2644 Victor Jara
Brigada Victor Jara
Galpón Víctor Jara
References
Bibliography
Jara, Joan (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape, London.
Kósichev, Leonard. (1990). La guitarra y el poncho de Víctor Jara. Progress Publishers, Moscow
External links
Resources in English
Three chapters from Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Discography
Victor Jara: The Martyred Musician of Nueva Cancion Chilena
Background materials on the Chilean Workers' Movement in the 1970s
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
GDR Poster Art: Víctor Jara
Allende’s Poet. Nick MacWilliam for Jacobin, 2 August 2016.
Resources in Spanish
Fundación Víctor Jara
Lyrics of all his Songs
Discography
Vientos del Pueblo: Un Homenaje a Víctor Jara
1932 births
1973 deaths
Anti-fascists
Anti-capitalists
Assassinated Chilean people
Burials in Chile
Chilean male actors
Chilean educators
Chilean folk singers
Chilean male poets
Chilean male singer-songwriters
Chilean theatre directors
Chilean Christians
Chilean communists
Chilean torture victims
Deaths by firearm in Chile
Executed writers
Former Roman Catholics
Latin American folk singers
Marxist humanists
Nueva canción musicians
People from Chillán
University of Chile alumni
Chilean Marxists
People murdered in Chile
Communist Party of Chile politicians
University of Santiago, Chile alumni
Political music artists
20th-century Chilean poets
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean male singers
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[
"Elisabeth Strøm Henriksen (February 8, 1940 – May 13, 1985) was a Norwegian puppeteer and actress.\n\nCareer\n\nPuppeteer\nAs early as 1953, Elisabeth Strøm Henriksen was active as a puppeteer. She was employed at the People's Theater () puppet theater, which was headed by her father Julian Strøm. The performance Nils og Blåmann was the premiere of a play adaptation by Barthold Halle and Gunnar Olram of the comic strip of the same name by Ivar Mauritz-Hansen and Sigurd Winsnes. The work was actually written as a play for human actors, and it premiered on November 4, 1953. This was followed by a number of new puppet shows until 1967.\n\nWhen the People's Theater and the New Theater () merged to form the Oslo New Theater in 1959, puppet theater activity was continued as part of the new institution.\n\nIn addition to working as a puppeteer for theater, Strøm Henriksen also appeared in a series of broadcasts of Julian Strøms Dukketeater (Julian Strøm's Puppet Theater) for NRK children's television.\n\nStage actress\nStrøm Henriksen also performed as an actress. Already as a child, she participated in children's theater performances at the People's Theater, where her father Julian Strøm and sister Birgit Strøm worked. As a fifteen-year-old, Elisabeth Strøm played one of the queen's chambermaids in the People's Theater's Christmas performance of Snehvit og de 7 dvergene (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) in 1955. The production was based on a script by Sverre Gran.\n\nStrøm Henriksen had her formal debut as an actress in a performance of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Frogner Park in the summer of 1963. In a review for the newspaper Arbeiderbladet, Paul Gjesdahl wrote that \"As the prankster Puck, Elisabeth Strøm made her debut on the stage. It was a fun and promising debut. In both her delivery and acting, she delivered a convincing portrayal of the world-famous mischievous jester.\"\n\nLater, she played the role of one of the dairyman Tevye's daughters in the Norwegian Theater's production of Fiddler on the Roof in 1968. Lasse Kolstad played the main role as Tevye, and the production was one of the Norwegian Theater's biggest successes. After playing to full houses in Oslo, the performance went on tour around the country in collaboration with the National Traveling Theater.\n\nTelevision\nStrøm Henriksen also appeared in two NRK television theater productions: the play Bandet ( 'The Bond', 1964), written by August Strindberg and directed by Magne Bleness, and Frydenberg (1965), written by Johan Borgen and directed by Barthold Halle.\n\nFamily\nElisabeth Strøm Henriksen was the daughter of the actor and theater director Julian Strøm and the sister of the puppeteer Birgit Strøm. She was the mother of the actress and director Camilla Strøm Henriksen.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1940 births\n1985 deaths\nNorwegian puppeteers\n20th-century Norwegian actresses\nBurials at Vestre gravlund\nActresses from Oslo",
"Irena Trapszo-Chodowiecka (born 16 February 1868 in Kalisz; died 8 April 1953 in Lviv) was a Polish theater actress, performance recitalist and teacher in the Lviv Drama School.\n\nBiography \nIrena Trapszo was the daughter of Anastaze and Anna Eugenia Valeria. She was born as an illegitimate child because the parents sanctioned the relationship several years after her birth. As a child, she performed with her father's band in the province. After her mother's death, she went to Warsaw. She performed in government theaters in Warsaw, including at the Rozmaitosci Theater and the Summer Theater. In 1907 she moved to Lvov, where she became an actress of the Municipal Theater. In 1927 she retired.\n\nHer sister was Tekla Trapszo. Irena Trapszo-Chodowiecka was Mieczysław Ćwiklinska's aunt. Her husband since 1893 was Edward Chodowiecki. She died in 1953. She was buried at Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.\n\nTheater performances \n 1894 - Fat fish, Teatr Rozmaitości in Warsaw\n 1910 - Golden handcuffs, Lviv City Theater\n 1912 - Nervous break, Lviv City Theater\n 1915 - Natręci, Municipal Theater of Lviv\n\nDecorations \n Golden Cross of Merit (1938)\n\nBibliography \n Maria Bojarska: Mieczysław Ćwiklińska. Warsaw: National Institute of Publishing, 1988. .\n Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki: The acting world of my time. Warsaw: National Publishing Institute, 1957.\n\nReferences \n\nPeople from Kalisz\n1868 births\n1953 deaths\nPolish stage actresses"
] |
[
"Víctor Jara",
"Artistic work",
"What was Jara's artistic work like",
"In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music",
"Did she get recognized?",
"I don't know.",
"What else did she do?",
"Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater.",
"What was her first theater performance?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_ef7696efbb144e19beae77cac214a812_1
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Did she work anywhere else?
| 5 |
Did Víctor Jara work anywhere else besides theater?
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Víctor Jara
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After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life. In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda"). CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His preponderant role as an open admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until the early 1970s crisis that ended in the coup against Allende, marked him for death.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on September 28, 1932, his parents were working as tenants and they lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from the old Chillan, he had about five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but in any case, he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small piece of land that he worked from sun to sun with a miserable performance. His father was illiterate and did not want him and his other siblings to go to school so that they could help him in the fields from the ages of six and seven. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the letters.
Jara's mother was a mestiza with deep Araucanian roots in southern Chile, she was self-taught, and played the guitar and the piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local functions like weddings and funerals. The relationship between her parents became more tense with each passing day, her father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, her mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15, leaving him to make his own way. He began to study to be an accountant, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left the seminary. Subsequently, he spent several years in army service before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theater.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.
In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music (working as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963). He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his first album homonymous, by the record company "Demon", being the only album released under this label and the Víctor Jara's first solo work, the album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released, with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes some Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as; "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes", two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon record company, from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he recently transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara, after years of profiting from the album (as well as with others from Patricio Manns, Isabel and Ángel Parra, among others) without ever financially rewarding its authors or family.
In 1967 released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of some folk songs from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia or Spain as; «Despedimiento del angelito», «Ay mi palomita», «Casi, casi», «Qué alegres son las obreras» or «Romance del enamorado y la muerte». Also, the album was subsequently released under the name of Desde longuén hasta siempre with a variation of different covers. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América" (Folkloric Songs of America), with Quilapayun. In 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara had joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a decisive turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" ("Questions About Puerto Montt"), which took direct aim at a government official (Edmundo Pérez Zujovic) who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos" ("We Will Triumph"), the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in a cultural renaissance that swept Chile, organizing cultural events that supported the country's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. Throughout rumblings of a right-wing coup, Jara held on to his teaching job at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. So successful was he that the Soviet Union tried to latch onto his popularity, claiming in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
Backed by the United States, which opposed Allende's socialist politics, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état on 11 September 1973, resulting in the death of Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. At the moment of the coup, Jara was on his way to the Technical University (today the Universidad de Santiago). That night, he slept at the university along with other teachers and students, and sang to raise morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Chile Stadium. The guards there tortured him, smashing his hands and fingers, and then mocked him by asking him to play the guitar. Jara instead sang the Chilean protest song Venceremos. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets.
According to the BBC "There are many conflicting accounts of Jara’s last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang Venceremos (We Will Win), Allende’s 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to Estadio Chile, which were later smuggled out of the stadium: “How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying.” Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40."
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other civilian prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
Forty-two years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder.
Legal actions
On 16 May 2008, retired colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the chief of security at Chile Stadium as the coup was carried out, was the first to be convicted in Jara's death. Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who oversaw Bravo's conviction, then decided to close the case, a decision Jara's family soon appealed. In June 2008, Judge Fuentes re-opened the investigation and said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by Jara's family.
On 28 May 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript arrested the previous week in San Sebastián, Chile, was formally charged with Jara's murder. Following his arrest, on 1 June 2009, the police investigation identified the officer who had shot Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara's head, and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times until a shot fired and Jara fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job by firing into Jara's body. A judge ordered Jara's body to be exhumed in an effort to gather more information about his death.
On 3 December 2009, Jara was reburied after a massive funeral in the Galpón Víctor Jara, across from Santiago's Plaza Brasil.
On 28 December 2012, a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in Jara's murder. He issued an international arrest warrant for one of them, Pedro Barrientos Núñez, the man accused of shooting Jara in the head during a torture session.
On 4 September 2013, Chadbourne & Parke attorneys Mark D. Beckett and Christian Urrutia, with the assistance of the Center for Justice and Accountability, filed suit in a United States court against Barrientos, who lives in Florida, on behalf of Jara's widow and children. The suit accused Barrientos of arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; extrajudicial killing; and crimes against humanity under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), and of torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). It alleged that Barrientos was liable for Jara's death as a direct perpetrator and as a commander.
The specific claims were that:
On 11 September 1973, troops from the Arica Regiment of the Chilean Army, specifically from La Serena, attacked the university where Jara taught. The troops prohibited civilians from entering or leaving the university premises. During the afternoon of 12 September 1973, military personnel entered the university and illegally detained hundreds of professors, students, and administrators. Víctor Jara was among those arbitrarily detained on the campus and was subsequently transferred to Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and killed.
In the course of transporting and processing the civilian prisoners, Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, a commanding officer in military intelligence, recognized Jara as the well-known folk singer whose songs addressed social inequality, and who had supported President Allende's government. Captain Polanco separated Jara from the group and beat him severely. He then transferred Jara, along with some of the other civilians, to the stadium.
Throughout his detention in the locker room of the stadium, Jara was in the physical custody of Lieutenant Barrientos, soldiers under his command, or other members of the Chilean Army who acted in accordance with the army's plan to commit human rights abuses against civilians.
The arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Jara and other detainees were part of a widespread, systematic attack on civilians by the Chilean Army from 11 to 15 September 1973. Barrientos knew, or should have known, about these attacks, if for no other reason than that he was present for and participated in them.
On 15 April 2015, a US judge ordered Barrientos to stand trial in Florida. On 27 June 2016, he was found liable for Jara's killing, and the jury awarded Jara's family $28 million.
On 3 July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years in prison for Jara's murder and the murder of his Communist associate and former Chilean prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. They received three extra years for kidnapping both men. A ninth suspect was sentenced to five years in prison for covering up the murders.
In November 2018, it was reported that a Chilean court ordered the extradition of Barrientos.
Theater work
1959. Parecido à la Felicidad (Some Kind of Happiness), Alejandro Sieveking
1960. La Viuda de Apablaza (The Widow of Apablaza), Germán Luco Cruchaga (assistant director to Pedro de la Barra, founder of ITUCH)
1960. The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli
1961. La Madre de los Conejos (Mother Rabbit), Alejandro Sieveking (assistant director to Agustín Siré)
1962. Ánimas de Día Claro (Daylight Spirits), Alejandro Sieveking
1963. The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht (assistant director to Atahualpa del Cioppo)
1963. Los Invasores (The Intruders), Egon Wolff
1963. Dúo (Duet), Raúl Ruiz
1963. Parecido à la Felicidad, Alejandro Sieveking (version for Chilean television)
1965. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1965. The Knack, Ann Jellicoe
1966. Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss (assistant director to William Oliver)
1966. La Casa Vieja (The Old House), Abelardo Estorino
1967. La Remolienda, Alejandro Sieveking
1967. La Viuda de Apablaza, Germán Luco Cruchaga (director)
1968. Entertaining Mr Sloane, Joe Orton
1969. Viet Rock, Megan Terry
1969. Antigone, Sophocles
1972. Directed a ballet and musical homage to Pablo Neruda, which coincided with Neruda's return to Chile after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Discography
Studio albums
Víctor Jara (1966)
Víctor Jara (1967)
Canciones folklóricas de América (with Quilapayún) (1968)
Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)
Canto libre (1970)
El derecho de vivir en paz (1971)
La Población (1972)
Canto por travesura (1973)
Tiempos que cambian (unfinished) (Estimated release: 1974)
Manifiesto (1974; reissued in 2001)
Live albums
Víctor Jara en Vivo (1974)
El Recital (1983)
Víctor Jara en México (1996)
Habla y canta (1996; reissued in 2001)
En Vivo en el Aula Magna de la Universidad de Valparaíso (2003)
Compilations
Te recuerdo, Amanda (1974)
Víctor Jara. Presente (1975)
Vientos del Pueblo (1976)
Canto Libre (1977)
An unfinished song (1984)
Todo Víctor Jara (1992)
20 Años Después (1992)
The Rough Guide to the Music of the Andes (1996)
Víctor Jara presente, colección "Haciendo Historia" (1997)
Te Recuerdo, Víctor (2000)
Antología Musical (2001)
1959–1969 – Víctor Jara (2001)
Latin Essential: Victor Jara (2003)
Colección Víctor Jara (2004)
Víctor Jara. Serie de Oro. Grandes Exitos (2005)
Tribute albums
A Víctor Jara by Raímon (1974)
Het Recht om in Vrede te Leven by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1978)
Cornelis sjunger Victor Jara: Rätten till ett eget liv by Cornelis Vreeswijk (1979)
Konzert für Víctor Jara by various artists (1998)
Inti-illimani interpeta a Víctor Jara by Inti-Illimani (1999)
Quilapayún Canta a Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara y Grandes Maestros Populares by Quilapayún (2000)
Conosci Victor Jara? by Daniele Sepe (2000)
Tributo Rock a Víctor Jara by various artists (2001)
Tributo a Víctor Jara by various artists (2004)
Lonquen: Tributo a Víctor Jara by Francesca Ancarola (2005)
Even in Exile by James Dean Bradfield (2020)
Documentaries and films
The following are films or documentaries about and/or featuring Víctor Jara:
1973: El Tigre Saltó y Mató, Pero Morirá…Morirá…. Director: Santiago Álvarez – Cuba
1974: Compañero: Víctor Jara of Chile. Directors: Stanley Foreman/Martin Smith (Documentary) – UK
1976: Il Pleut sur Santiago. Director: Helvio Soto – France/Bulgaria
1978: Ein April hat 30 Tage. Director: Gunther Scholz – East Germany
1978: El Cantor. Director: Dean Reed – East Germany
1999: El Derecho de Vivir en Paz. Director: Carmen Luz Parot – Chile
2001: Freedom Highway: Songs That Shaped a Century. Director: Philip King – Ireland
2005: La Tierra de las 1000 Músicas [Episode 6: La Protesta]. Directors: Luis Miguel González Cruz, – Spain
2010: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune Director: Kenneth Bowser
2019:Masacre en el estadio. Netflix
In popular culture
Jara is one of many desaparecidos (people who vanished under the Pinochet government and were most likely tortured and killed) whose families are still struggling to get justice. Joan Jara currently lives in Chile and runs the Víctor Jara Foundation, which was established on 4 October 1994 with the goal of promoting and continuing Jara's work. She publicized a poem that Jara wrote before his death about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium. The poem, written on a piece of paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend, was never named, but it is commonly known as "Estadio Chile" (Chile Stadium, now known as Víctor Jara Stadium).
On 22 September 1973, the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh found an asteroid that he initially called "SO2", but later he would end up calling it "2644 Victor Jara". The 1975 anthology For Neruda, for Chile contains a section called "The Chilean Singer", with poems dedicated to Jara. In 1989, Scottish rock band Simple Minds dedicated "Street Fighting Years" track to Victor Jara. In the late 1990s, British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay that she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, saw his murder as a symbol of human rights violations in Chile, and believed a movie about his life and death would raise awareness. The movie was to feature Antonio Banderas as Jara and Thompson as his wife, Joan. However, the project was not completed.
In 2007, a fishing schooner built in 1917 in Denmark was renamed after the singer-songwriter. He sails at social and cultural events, and when he's not on the high seas he's at the museum in the port of Lübeck, Germany. The title song on Rory McLeod's album Angry Love is about Jara. In a list prepared by the renowned American magazine Rolling Stone, published on June 3, 2013, Víctor Jara is named as one of the "15 Rock & Roll Rebels", being the only Latin American to integrate the list. In 2020, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers released a concept album about Victor Jara called 'Even In Exile', that album was rated 4 out of 5 stars by The Guardian. On September 7, 2021, the Municipality of Estación Central approved the name change of "Avenida Ecuador" to "Avenida Víctor Jara".
See also
Nueva Canción Chilena
Estadio Victor Jara
2644 Victor Jara
Brigada Victor Jara
Galpón Víctor Jara
References
Bibliography
Jara, Joan (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape, London.
Kósichev, Leonard. (1990). La guitarra y el poncho de Víctor Jara. Progress Publishers, Moscow
External links
Resources in English
Three chapters from Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara
Discography
Victor Jara: The Martyred Musician of Nueva Cancion Chilena
Background materials on the Chilean Workers' Movement in the 1970s
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
GDR Poster Art: Víctor Jara
Allende’s Poet. Nick MacWilliam for Jacobin, 2 August 2016.
Resources in Spanish
Fundación Víctor Jara
Lyrics of all his Songs
Discography
Vientos del Pueblo: Un Homenaje a Víctor Jara
1932 births
1973 deaths
Anti-fascists
Anti-capitalists
Assassinated Chilean people
Burials in Chile
Chilean male actors
Chilean educators
Chilean folk singers
Chilean male poets
Chilean male singer-songwriters
Chilean theatre directors
Chilean Christians
Chilean communists
Chilean torture victims
Deaths by firearm in Chile
Executed writers
Former Roman Catholics
Latin American folk singers
Marxist humanists
Nueva canción musicians
People from Chillán
University of Chile alumni
Chilean Marxists
People murdered in Chile
Communist Party of Chile politicians
University of Santiago, Chile alumni
Political music artists
20th-century Chilean poets
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean male singers
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[
"The Homeless Gospel Choir, also known as Derek Zanetti, is a folk-punk musician from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is signed to A-F Records and has released five albums to date. His debut album, \"Some People Never Go Anywhere,\" was released in 2010, \"You Work So Hard to Be Like Everyone Else,\" in 2011, Luxury Problems, his third was released in 2012; and his fourth album, I Used To Be So Young, which was released in 2014, contains his hit song, \"Untitled\". Most of his songs revolve around the topics of politics and mental health.\n\nDiscography\nSome People Never Go Anywhere (2010)\nYou Work So Hard Just to Be Like Everyone Else (2011)\nLuxury Problems (2012)\nI Used To Be So Young (2014)\nNormal (2017)\nThis Land Is Your Landfill (2020)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Website of The Homeless Gospel Choir\nI Used to Be So Young Review, Punknews.org\nThe Homeless Gospel Choir – ‘I Used To Be So Young’ album stream, Alternative Press\nPresents: Normal Review, Hectic Eclectic Music Reviews\n\nMusicians from Pittsburgh\nLiving people\nFolk punk musicians\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"\"Be Someone Else\" is a song by Slimmy, released in 2010 as the lead single from his second studio album Be Someone Else. The single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube.\n\nBackground\n\"Be Someone Else\" was unveiled as the album's lead single. The song was written by Fernandes and produced by Quico Serrano and Mark J Turner. It was released to MySpace on 1 January 2010.\n\nMusic video\nA music video was also made for \"Be Someone Else\", produced by Riot Films. It premiered on 27 June 2010 on YouTube. The music video features two different scenes which alternate with each other many times during the video. The first scene features Slimmy performing the song with an electric guitar and the second scene features Slimmy performing with the band in the background.\n\nChart performance\nThe single wasn't particularly successful, charting anywhere.\n\nLive performances\n A Very Slimmy Tour\n Be Someone Else Tour\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital single\n\"Be Someone Else\" (album version) - 3:22\n\nPersonnel\nTaken from the album's booklet.\n\nPaulo Fernandes – main vocals, guitar\nPaulo Garim – bass\nTó-Zé – drums\n\nRelease history\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial music video at YouTube.\n\n2010 singles\nEnglish-language Portuguese songs\n2009 songs"
] |
[
"Kansas (band)",
"1970-1973: Early years"
] |
C_220546961ba24066b1e9c3ce55dcefab_1
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Who are the original band members?
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Who are the original band members in Kansas?
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Kansas (band)
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In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums. In 1970 they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, which lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover, is sometimes referred to as Kansas I. Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass, and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. (This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw). In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973 they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas". CANNOTANSWER
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In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why
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Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on album-oriented rock charts and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind". The band has produced nine gold albums, three multi-platinum albums (Leftoverture 4×, Point of Know Return 4×, and The Best of Kansas 4×), one other platinum studio album (Monolith), one platinum live double album (Two for the Show), and a million-selling single, "Dust in the Wind". Kansas appeared on the Billboard charts for over 200 weeks throughout the 1970s and 1980s and played to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout North America, Europe and Japan. "Carry On Wayward Son" was the second-most-played track on US classic rock radio in 1995 and No. 1 in 1997.
History
1970–1973: Early years
In 1969, Don Montre and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called the Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After leaving to form the band Saratoga with Lynn Meredith and Dan Wright, they started playing Livgren's original material, with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe coming in on drums.
In 1970, they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, sometimes called Kansas I, lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover.
Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw.
In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973, they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973, in Ellinwood, Kansas. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas".
1974–1979: Rise to national prominence
Their self-titled debut album, produced by Gold, was released in March 1974, nearly a year after it was recorded in New York. It defined the band's signature sound, a mix of American-style boogie rock and complex, symphonic arrangements with changing time signatures. Steinhardt's violin was a distinctive element of the group's sound, being defined more by heartland rock than the jazz and classical influences which most progressive rock violinists followed.
The band slowly developed a cult following due to promotion by Kirshner and extensive touring for the debut album and its two follow-ups, Song for America (February 1975) and Masque (October 1975). Song for America was co-produced by Wally Gold and their former White Clover bandmate Jeff Glixman, who would go on to produce all of their albums from Masque to Two for the Show (October 1978) on his own, returning to the helm for 1995's Freaks of Nature. Both Masque and their next release, Leftoverture, were recorded at a studio in the middle of the Louisiana Bayou named Studio in the Country.
Kansas released its fourth album, Leftoverture, in October 1976, which produced a hit single, "Carry On Wayward Son", in 1977. The follow-up, Point of Know Return, recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana and Woodland Sound in Nashville and released in October 1977, featured the title track and "Dust in the Wind", both hit singles. Leftoverture was a breakthrough for the band, hitting No. 5 on Billboard's pop album chart. Point of Know Return peaked even higher, at No. 4. Both albums sold over four million copies in the U.S. Both "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind" were certified gold singles, selling over one million units each. "Dust in the Wind" was certified gold as a digital download by the RIAA in 2005, almost 30 years after selling one million copies as a single. Leftoverture was eventually certified five-times platinum by the RIAA in 2001.
During this period, Kansas became a major headlining act and sold out the largest venues available to rock bands at the time, including New York's Madison Square Garden. The band documented this era in 1978 with Two for the Show, a double live album of recordings from various performances from its 1977 and 1978 tours. The band gained a solid reputation for faithful live reproduction of their studio recordings.
In March 1978, Kansas was brought over to tour Europe for the very first time and later on that same year, they were named UNICEF Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill.
The follow-up studio album to Point of Know Return was Monolith (May 1979), which was self-produced. The album generated a Top 40 single in "People of the South Wind", whose title refers to the meaning of the 'Kanza' (Kaw) Native American people, after whom the state and the band are named. The album failed to garner the sales and radio airplay of its two predecessors. Nevertheless, the album eventually went platinum. Livgren's platinum award for the album is on display at the Kansas Museum of History. The band toured the US for Monolith during the summer and fall of 1979 then went over to tour Japan for the first time in January 1980.
1980–1984: Creative tensions
Kansas bandmembers began to drift apart in the early 1980s. During the tour supporting Monolith, Livgren became a born-again Christian, and this was reflected in his lyrics on the next three albums, beginning with Audio-Visions (September 1980). "Hold On", a Top 40 single from that album, displayed his new-found faith. Hope soon converted to Christianity as well. This would be the final album with the original lineup (until they briefly reunited in 1999–2000), and also the last Kansas studio album to be certified gold by the RIAA.
Due to creative differences over the lyrical direction of the next album, Walsh left in October 1981 to form a new band, Streets. In early December of that year, Walsh was replaced by vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist John Elefante, who—unknown to Livgren and Hope at the time—was also a Christian. He was chosen from over 200 applicants, such as Sammy Hagar, Doug Pinnick, Ted Neeley (who played the title character in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar), Warren Ham (ex-Bloodrock, who would join the band on the road in 1982, adding sax, flute, harmonica, back-up vocals and extra keyboards) and Michael Gleason (who would supply keyboards and back-up vocals on the group's 1983 tour).
The first Kansas album with Elefante, Vinyl Confessions, was released in June 1982. The record renewed interest in the group and generated the band's first Top 20 hit in several years, "Play the Game Tonight", which hit No. 4 on Billboards newly deployed Mainstream Rock chart. The album's mostly Christianity-based lyrics attracted a new audience and garnered radio airplay on the then fledgling Contemporary Christian Music format. The album featured backing vocals from Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who was recording in the studio next door. Still, sales of the album fell short of gold status.
Drastic Measures followed in July 1983. For various reasons, Livgren contributed only three songs to the album; the rest were penned by John Elefante and his brother Dino. With violinist Steinhardt leaving the group before the recording sessions, the result was a more mainstream pop-rock album. Though the album charted lower than any Kansas album since Masque, peaking at No. 41, its single "Fight Fire with Fire" fared better. It did not crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached No. 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It was the highest chart position of any Kansas release on any chart, though this particular chart did not exist prior to 1981. For their 1983 tour for Drastic Measures, Kansas was joined on stage by the aforementioned Michael Gleason and Terry Brock (who covered the absent Steinhardt's harmony vocals).
During the band's time with Elefante as lead vocalist, Livgren became increasingly uncomfortable with Kansas representing his Christian worldview. After a final New Year's Eve performance on December 31, 1983, Livgren and Hope left to form AD with Warren Ham and Michael Gleason. They were joined by drummer Dennis Holt.
Elefante, Ehart and Williams sought to continue as Kansas and recorded one more song, "Perfect Lover", which appeared on the retrospective The Best of Kansas (August 1984), which has sold over four million units in the U.S. alone. The song would eventually be removed in favor of other songs on the remastered release of the compilation. The group disbanded after its release, which thus became the final Kansas recording with Elefante. Since leaving the band, Elefante has become a popular Contemporary Christian music artist and has not performed with the group since.
In the summer of 1984, Ehart, Williams and Elefante were part of a United Service Organizations (USO) tour of US military bases that had been put together by Ehart, called 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division, that also included Patrick Simmons (Doobie Brothers), Leon Medica (LeRoux), David Jenkins, Cory Lerios and John Pierce (from Pablo Cruise) and Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (from Cheap Trick). The supergroup began four days of rehearsals in Hawaii on March 10 before beginning a 17-day tour playing for the United States Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean and land-based troops in Korea, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and the Philippines. This was followed by a second USO tour in March 1985 that included Ehart, Williams and Steve Walsh.
1985–1990: Reformation
In March 1985, the band came back together with Ehart, Williams and Walsh (who had briefly played keyboards on the road for Cheap Trick in the spring and summer of 1985, after the break up of Streets), but without Livgren, Hope or Steinhardt. The new lineup included Streets bassist Billy Greer and guitarist Steve Morse (formerly of the Dixie Dregs). The first performances of the new lineup with Morse and Greer took place during a third USO 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division tour that toured US military bases in the US, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, Iceland and most of Europe during the late summer through early October 1986.
The re-formed band released Power in November 1986. The first single, "All I Wanted", became the last Kansas single to hit the Billboard Top 40 chart, peaking at No. 19. It also received considerable airplay on MTV. Two more singles, the title track and "Can't Cry Anymore", were less successful, "Power" hitting the lower end of the Hot 100 and getting substantial play and charting on the Rock Charts, but "Can't Cry Anymore" receiving little airplay despite a clever music video.
The band added Baton Rouge native Greg Robert on keyboards and back-up vocals at the suggestion of LeRoux's Leon Medica. Greg played his first show with Kansas on January 31, 1987 along with 38 Special at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico. The new lineup released a second album, In the Spirit of Things, in October 1988. The concept album and subsequent tour were popular with the fan base but did not receive widespread airplay beyond the "Stand Beside Me" video on MTV. Morse temporarily left the band at the end of a tour of Germany in April 1989.
On September 15, 1990 Walsh, Williams and Ehart played a charity event at the Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California, alongside Saga, Lou Gramm (of Foreigner), Mr. Big, Eddie Money, Kevin Cronin (from REO Speedwagon) and others. Alex Lifeson joined them on stage for a short set of Kansas before Geddy Lee flew in to join Alex for a Rush set, with Ehart on drums subbing for Neil Peart.
In November 1990, a German promoter arranged to reunite all the original members of Kansas (except for Steinhardt) for a European tour. Greer joined them, along with keyboardist Greg Robert. At the end of the tour, Hope left again, but Livgren remained on into 1991.
1991–1997: Addition of David Ragsdale
In April 1991 violinist David Ragsdale (who had submitted a tape of his playing to Ehart several years earlier) was invited to join the group and the return of the violin allowed Kansas to perform earlier material in arrangements closer to the originals. Livgren left during the 1991 summer tour, to be replaced temporarily by Steve Morse again. After the tour, Morse left the band for good to return to his own projects and eventually become a member of Deep Purple, and Ragsdale took over the extra guitar parts, leaving Williams as the primary guitar player. The resulting lineup of Ehart, Greer, Ragsdale, Robert, Walsh and Williams lasted from 1991 to 1997. This period saw one live album and accompanying video, Live at the Whisky (July 1992), and one studio album, Freaks of Nature (May 1995).
During the fall of 1993, drummer Van Romaine (formerly of Blood Sweat and Tears and Steve Morse's band) came in to substitute for Ehart, who was taking care of the group's business and putting together The Kansas Boxed Set, which was released in July 1994. Bryan Holmes, from The Producers, likewise filled in for Ehart during the spring and summer of 1994 until that December, when Phil returned for a tour of Germany.
On July 28, 1995 Kansas was inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood.
1997–2006: Return of Robby Steinhardt
In early 1997, Robert and Ragsdale left the band and Steinhardt returned.
In May 1998, Kansas released Always Never the Same, which featured Larry Baird conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The album was a mix of older Kansas material (with new arrangements by Baird), several new songs and a cover of "Eleanor Rigby".
Somewhere to Elsewhere, a new studio album released in July 2000, featured all the original members of Kansas, plus Greer, with all songs written by Kerry Livgren. That same summer, Kansas was the opening act for Yes during their "Masterworks" tour.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Livgren would occasionally attend Kansas shows and come on stage to play one or more songs with the band. At a March 9, 2002 concert at Lake Tahoe, he played the whole show, subbing for Rich Williams who was "under the weather", and another live album and DVD from Kansas, entitled Device - Voice - Drum, which was recorded in the band's present home of Atlanta on June 15, 2002, was released that October.
Also in 2002, Kansas II (the lineup prior to the recording and release of the first Kansas album) released an album under the name Proto-Kaw, featuring demos and live material recorded from 1971 to 1973. It led to a new studio album, Before Became After (2004), with most of the Kansas II members participating. Proto-Kaw released a third album, The Wait of Glory in 2006, and their fourth and final studio album, Forth, was released in 2011, after which the band ceased.
2006–2013: Continued touring and regained popularity
Kansas continued to tour every year. The 2006 tour was delayed for a few weeks due to Steinhardt's second departure in March and Ragsdale's subsequent return to the lineup.
In 2008, the Kansas website announced that four of the five members (Ehart, Ragsdale, Williams, and Greer) had formed a side recording group called Native Window and they released their self-titled debut album in June 2009.
In February 2009, Kansas recorded a concert in Topeka featuring a full symphony orchestra, with Larry Baird conducting. Morse and Livgren appeared as special guests on several songs. The performance was released on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray as There's Know Place Like Home that October and the DVD hit No. 5 on the Billboard Music Video Chart the week after its release.
In July 2010, Kansas completed a 30-day "United We Rock" tour with fellow classic rock acts Styx and Foreigner. Kansas then began a collegiate tour in September 2010. On this tour they performed with the symphony orchestras of various US colleges in an effort to raise money for the individual schools' music programs. The success of the tour led the band to start another one the following year.
On September 13, 2012 Kansas began a new tour with a performance at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. Opening for them was the band King's X and a one-man-band called That 1 Guy. This tour featured many hits from the albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, as well as material from a number of their other albums.
The band kicked off 2013 being featured on the Rock Legends II cruise. The floating rock festival for a cause aboard Royal Caribbean International's Liberty of the Seas departed January 10, 2013 from Fort Lauderdale, FL. Other big names included Foreigner, Paul Rodgers, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Bachman & Turner, 38 Special, The Marshall Tucker Band, Blue Öyster Cult, Foghat and Molly Hatchet.
On March 1, 2013 Kansas announced a 40th-anniversary celebration was in the works. However, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack days before the concert and was unable to participate. Nevertheless, the show went on, billed as the 40th Anniversary Fan Appreciation Concert, performed in Pittsburgh on August 17, 2013 at the same venue, Benedum Center (formerly The Stanley Theater), which had propelled them to national recognition. The show featured guest appearances by Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope and the first set featured symphonic accompaniment by the Three Rivers Orchestra, conducted by Larry Baird. Intermission featured Phil Ehart overseeing random prize drawings of autographed band merchandise, videotaped 40th anniversary well-wishes from other bands and an exclusive first-look at the trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary Miracles Out of Nowhere.
2014–2020: Retirement of Steve Walsh, The Prelude Implicit
On August 2, 2014 a statement was issued on the band's official Facebook page announcing the impending retirement of lead singer Steve Walsh.
On August 6, 2014 former Kansas lead singer John Elefante issued a statement that he had been contacted by the band on August 2 to discuss rejoining. However, on August 4, after turning to prayer, he said that it was not meant to be. At that point, he also cited Steve Walsh as one of the reasons he wanted to become a singer.
A statement was issued on August 14, 2014 through the band's official Facebook page stating that Chicago native Ronnie Platt (who had previously sung with Shooting Star) had been selected as the band's new lead vocalist and keyboard player.
On August 24, 2014 the band announced that their longtime lighting specialist David Manion would be handling the main keyboard parts for the band on stage along with Platt, giving the group a full-time keyboardist for the first time since Greg Robert's departure in 1997. Manion had also handled keyboard responsibilities for Kansas bassist and vocalist Billy Greer's band, Seventh Key.
In March 2015, the band released the aforementioned documentary, Miracles Out of Nowhere. The documentary chronicles the band's formation and follows them throughout their success with Leftoverture and Point of Know Return. It was initially available in a limited-edition release that contained an extra DVD of bonus interviews. The documentary was released alongside a companion CD of the same name that contained a selection of the band's greatest hits along with snippets of commentary from the documentary.
On September 1, 2015 a press release announced that Kansas had signed with Inside Out Music, a German label dedicated to progressive rock and related genres, for the release of their upcoming 15th studio album. The release of this album marked the longest period to date between studio releases since the previous album, Somewhere to Elsewhere, had been released over 15 years prior, in 2000. On February 26, 2016 the group officially announced The Prelude Implicit for a September 2016 release. The album's co-producer and co-writer, Zak Rizvi, was subsequently named as a full member of the band, giving Kansas a second full-time guitarist for the first time since Steve Morse's departure in 1991.
On September 30, 2016 the current lineup kicked off a multi-city tour at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Leftoverture, which was done again in the spring of 2017 with a 12 show 40th anniversary tour, that, like the fall jaunt, included performances of newer tracks, older songs and a complete rendering of the full Leftoverture album. A two-CD set, Leftoverture Live & Beyond, was released in November 2017 that contained 19 songs culled from different shows during the tour and the band's 2017 fall dates also included further 40th anniversary shows.
In 2018 the group decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Point of Know Return by playing that album in its entirety at the shows on a tour, set to begin in September.
After the conclusion of the fall tour dates, keyboardist David Manion departed the band and in December Tom Brislin (who had played with Yes, Meat Loaf, Debbie Harry, Renaissance, Camel, Dennis DeYoung and others) was announced as the new keyboardist, with the second leg of the Point 40th anniversary tour slated to resume in March 2019.
On June 25, 2019 The New York Times Magazine listed Kansas among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In December 2019, the band played the entire Leftoverture and Point of Know Return albums in a special performance at the Beacon Theater in New York City.
2020: The Absence of Presence
On March 20, 2020, the band announced the upcoming release of a new studio album, The Absence of Presence. Due to manufacturing delays, the album was released on July 17, 2020. It has been promoted by the release of videos for three songs: "Throwing Mountains", "Memories Down the Line" and "Jets Overhead". Recording for the album took place simultaneously during the band's 2019 touring schedule.
To promote the album, an autumn 2020 tour of Europe was scheduled, but following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the tour has been postponed to 2022.
Rizvi left the band in April 2021 in order to pursue new projects.
On May 28, 2021, the group released Point of Know Return: Live and Beyond, with performances taken from various dates on the 2019 to early 2020 legs of the Point of Know Return 40th Anniversary Tour.
Former violin player and vocalist Robby Steinhardt died from pancreatitis on July 17, 2021, at the age of 71.
Influences
Kansas's musical style, a fusion of hard rock, southern rock, and progressive rock, was influenced by several bands. The music of Yes and Genesis was inspirational to Kansas, especially demonstrated in the lyrics of Walsh. Livgren cited the 1960s band Touch as foundational to his development. Livgren's evolving spirituality is reflected in the band's songs, with early works showing an interest in the mysticism of Eastern religions, works in the late 1970s influenced by the American spiritual philosophy of The Urantia Book, followed in the early 1980s by works embracing born-again Christianity. The re-formed band produced a harder pop metal album in the late 1980s.
In a 2003 interview with The A.V. Club, Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the Opus comic strip, revealed that "Opus was named after a Kansas song." From the band's 1976 album Leftoverture, the songs "Opus Insert" and the epic "Magnum Opus" could both be the inspiration for the name. He also added, "If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you."
Appearances in other media
"Carry On Wayward Son" has been covered by many artists. It was included on soundtracks for the following movies and television shows: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Family Guy, Gentlemen Broncos, Happy Gilmore, Heroes (1977)*, Scrubs, South Park ("Guitar Queer-o" episode), King of the Hill ("My Own Private Rodeo") and Strangers with Candy ("Yes You Can't"). It was also featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto V, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Rock Band 2, and Rock Band Unplugged.
The song is frequently played throughout the show Supernatural and also appears in Supernatural: The Anime Series (as the ending for each episode). It is often hailed as the show's unofficial theme song.
"Carry On Wayward Son" was removed from the 1977 movie Heroes when it was discovered that the movie had not obtained rights to use the song. The DVD release by MCA/Universal Home used a different (unknown) song, yet the credit for "Wayward Son" remains.
"Dust in the Wind" was parodied by comedian Tim Hawkins, the parody called "A Whiff of Kansas" which is on the Pretty Pink Tractor album, and a video parody on the Insanitized live DVD. In 2016, the music video for the song was parodied on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In the 2003 movie Old School, the song was sung by Frank "The Tank" Ricard, played by Will Ferrell, at the funeral for Joseph "Blue" Pulaski, a fraternity brother, played by Joseph Patrick Cranshaw, and as such, the song appears on the movie's soundtrack. In the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Ted, played by Keanu Reeves, quotes the song lyric "All we are is dust in the wind, dude" to philosophize with Socrates.
"Point of Know Return" was featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2021 film The Suicide Squad.
Members
Current members
Phil Ehart – drums, percussion
Rich Williams – lead and rhythm guitars
Billy Greer – bass, acoustic guitar, backing and lead vocals
David Ragsdale – violin, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Ronnie Platt – lead and backing vocals, keyboards
Tom Brislin – keyboards, backing and lead vocals
Discography
Kansas (1974)
Song for America (1975)
Masque (1975)
Leftoverture (1976)
Point of Know Return (1977)
Monolith (1979)
Audio-Visions (1980)
Vinyl Confessions (1982)
Drastic Measures (1983)
Power (1986)
In the Spirit of Things (1988)
Freaks of Nature (1995)
Always Never the Same (1998)
Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000)
The Prelude Implicit (2016)
The Absence of Presence (2020)
References
External links
Billy Greer
Kerry Livgren
David Ragsdale
Steve Walsh
John Elefante
AllMusic: Kansas - Artist Biography
Innerviews: Career-Spanning 2015 Band Interview
American hard rock musical groups
American progressive rock groups
Art rock musical groups
Epic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1973
Musical groups disestablished in 1984
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1973 establishments in Kansas
1984 disestablishments in Kansas
1985 establishments in Kansas
Musicians from Topeka, Kansas
Rock music groups from Kansas
Symphonic rock groups
Inside Out Music artists
MCA Records artists
Magna Carta Records artists
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[
"The Original Pinettes Brass Band are a New Orleans brass band. Consisting entirely of women, they are the city's only all-female brass band.\n\nThe band was founded in 1991 at St. Mary's Academy (New Orleans), a Catholic girls' school. Taking direction from band director Jeffery C. Herbert, they began playing New Orleans-style jazz. He dubbed the band the Pinettes Brass Band, a feminization of the name of his own band, the Original Pinstripe Brass Band.\n\nAt the school's spring concert in 1992, the band played the song \"Freedom\" by the Rebirth Brass Band and the crowd response led the musicians more toward contemporary brass band music rather than traditional New Orleans jazz.\n\nFor the 1993-94 school year, Herbert left St. Mary's to direct the band at John McDonogh High School, but he continued to manage the Pinettes, even after they graduated from St. Mary's. In 1998, he left New Orleans to become assistant band director at Southern University in Baton Rouge, at which point management was turned over to the band members. During this period, the Pinettes played in second line (parades) and released a cassette tape, which garnered them little success outside New Orleans.\n\nThe Pinettes have had much turnover in membership over the years. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005, band members were forced to relocate. When they began to return to the city, bandleader Christie Jourdain took leadership of the band and made an effort to recruit new band members because some members were unable or unwilling to come back to New Orleans. After a dispute with some of the former band members, they changed their name to \"The Original Pinettes Brass Band.\"\n\nIn 2013, after twenty-two years as a band, the Pinettes released their debut full-length CD titled Finally. They hold a popular Friday-night residency at Bullet's Sports Bar in the Seventh Ward.\n\nRed Bull Street Kings competition\n\nIn October 2013, the Original Pinettes Brass Band won the Red Bull Street Kings competition. Facing three other prominent New Orleans brass bands, the Pinettes not only won the title, but changed it to \"Street Queens.\"\n\nResidency at Bullet's Sports Bar\n\nSince 2014, band has held a popular Friday night residency at Bullet's Sports Bar in New Orleans's Seventh Ward neighborhood.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Kyle DeCoste, Street Queens: New Orleans Brass Bands and the Problem of Intersectionality (2017. Online)\n Kyle DeCoste, Street Queens: The Original Pinettes and Black Feminism in New Orleans Brass Bands (2015. Online)\nMatt Sakakeeny, Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans (Duke University Press, 2013)\nJohn Swenson, The Original Pinettes Brass Band: Brass-Pop (2012. Online)\nSherrie Tucker, A Feminist Perspective on New Orleans Jazz Women (2004. Online)\n\nBrass bands from New Orleans\nWomen's musical groups",
"Dave Hope (born October 7, 1949) is an American bass guitarist who played with the American progressive rock band Kansas from 1970 (original version) until the band's first split in 1983. When he was in high school, he played defensive center for his football team and became friends with many of the members who are still part of the band today. When he was in Kansas, he was known for his signature handlebar mustache and his nickname to many was \"Smokin' Dave,\" as he was usually photographed with a cigarette dangling from his lips.\n\nAfter the band's split, Hope started the Christian band AD with Kerry Livgren and others. In 1990, a German promoter decided to reunite the original Kansas band for a special European tour. Everyone but Robby Steinhardt returned. The band decided to tour America as the original lineup again, but Hope left the band. In 2000, Kerry Livgren of Kansas reunited the original lineup for the Kansas album Somewhere to Elsewhere. The band members included were original band members Steve Walsh, Robby Steinhardt, Rich Williams, Kerry Livgren, Dave Hope, and Phil Ehart, and the band's current bass player, Billy Greer.\n\nToday, Hope is a retired Anglican priest. He retired from Immanuel Anglican Church, a member congregation of the Anglican Mission in America, in Destin, Florida in 2013, where he was the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach. He is also bassist for the praise band The IRS, and currently working to produce a local secular group with old friends. Dave is still close with the members of Kansas and has been known to play the encore of their shows when he attends. He is also husband to Diana Hope and father to Zoie Hope.\n\nHope is also the author of a commentary on the Gospel of Luke, \"Looking at Luke Through the Eyes of Hope\".\n\nDiscography of Dave Hope\n\nDiscography with Kansas\nKansas (1974)\nSong for America (1975)\nMasque (1975)\nLeftoverture (1976)\nPoint of Know Return (1977)\nTwo for the Show (1978)\nMonolith (1979)\nAudio-Visions (1980)\nVinyl Confessions (1982)\nDrastic Measures (1983)\nSomewhere to Elsewhere (2000)\n\nDiscography with Kerry Livgren\n Time Line (1984, credited as \"Kerry Livgren AD\")\n Art of the State (1985, credited as \"AD\")\n Reconstructions (1986, credited as \"AD\")\n Prime Mover (1988, credited as \"Kerry Livgren AD\")\n Reconstructions Reconstructed (1997, credited as \"Kerry Livgren AD\")\n Prime Mover II (1998, credited as \"Kerry Livgren\")\n\nDiscography with Ad Astra\nBeyond Our Bounds (2008)\n\nReferences\n\n1949 births\nLiving people\nMusicians from Topeka, Kansas\nAmerican rock bass guitarists\nAmerican male bass guitarists\nKansas (band) members\nAmerican Episcopal priests\nGuitarists from Kansas\nAmerican male guitarists\n20th-century American guitarists"
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"Kansas (band)",
"1970-1973: Early years",
"Who are the original band members?",
"In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why"
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What was the band's original name?
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What was the band Kansas's original name?
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Kansas (band)
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In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums. In 1970 they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, which lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover, is sometimes referred to as Kansas I. Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass, and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. (This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw). In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973 they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas". CANNOTANSWER
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After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums.
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Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on album-oriented rock charts and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind". The band has produced nine gold albums, three multi-platinum albums (Leftoverture 4×, Point of Know Return 4×, and The Best of Kansas 4×), one other platinum studio album (Monolith), one platinum live double album (Two for the Show), and a million-selling single, "Dust in the Wind". Kansas appeared on the Billboard charts for over 200 weeks throughout the 1970s and 1980s and played to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout North America, Europe and Japan. "Carry On Wayward Son" was the second-most-played track on US classic rock radio in 1995 and No. 1 in 1997.
History
1970–1973: Early years
In 1969, Don Montre and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called the Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After leaving to form the band Saratoga with Lynn Meredith and Dan Wright, they started playing Livgren's original material, with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe coming in on drums.
In 1970, they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, sometimes called Kansas I, lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover.
Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw.
In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973, they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973, in Ellinwood, Kansas. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas".
1974–1979: Rise to national prominence
Their self-titled debut album, produced by Gold, was released in March 1974, nearly a year after it was recorded in New York. It defined the band's signature sound, a mix of American-style boogie rock and complex, symphonic arrangements with changing time signatures. Steinhardt's violin was a distinctive element of the group's sound, being defined more by heartland rock than the jazz and classical influences which most progressive rock violinists followed.
The band slowly developed a cult following due to promotion by Kirshner and extensive touring for the debut album and its two follow-ups, Song for America (February 1975) and Masque (October 1975). Song for America was co-produced by Wally Gold and their former White Clover bandmate Jeff Glixman, who would go on to produce all of their albums from Masque to Two for the Show (October 1978) on his own, returning to the helm for 1995's Freaks of Nature. Both Masque and their next release, Leftoverture, were recorded at a studio in the middle of the Louisiana Bayou named Studio in the Country.
Kansas released its fourth album, Leftoverture, in October 1976, which produced a hit single, "Carry On Wayward Son", in 1977. The follow-up, Point of Know Return, recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana and Woodland Sound in Nashville and released in October 1977, featured the title track and "Dust in the Wind", both hit singles. Leftoverture was a breakthrough for the band, hitting No. 5 on Billboard's pop album chart. Point of Know Return peaked even higher, at No. 4. Both albums sold over four million copies in the U.S. Both "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind" were certified gold singles, selling over one million units each. "Dust in the Wind" was certified gold as a digital download by the RIAA in 2005, almost 30 years after selling one million copies as a single. Leftoverture was eventually certified five-times platinum by the RIAA in 2001.
During this period, Kansas became a major headlining act and sold out the largest venues available to rock bands at the time, including New York's Madison Square Garden. The band documented this era in 1978 with Two for the Show, a double live album of recordings from various performances from its 1977 and 1978 tours. The band gained a solid reputation for faithful live reproduction of their studio recordings.
In March 1978, Kansas was brought over to tour Europe for the very first time and later on that same year, they were named UNICEF Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill.
The follow-up studio album to Point of Know Return was Monolith (May 1979), which was self-produced. The album generated a Top 40 single in "People of the South Wind", whose title refers to the meaning of the 'Kanza' (Kaw) Native American people, after whom the state and the band are named. The album failed to garner the sales and radio airplay of its two predecessors. Nevertheless, the album eventually went platinum. Livgren's platinum award for the album is on display at the Kansas Museum of History. The band toured the US for Monolith during the summer and fall of 1979 then went over to tour Japan for the first time in January 1980.
1980–1984: Creative tensions
Kansas bandmembers began to drift apart in the early 1980s. During the tour supporting Monolith, Livgren became a born-again Christian, and this was reflected in his lyrics on the next three albums, beginning with Audio-Visions (September 1980). "Hold On", a Top 40 single from that album, displayed his new-found faith. Hope soon converted to Christianity as well. This would be the final album with the original lineup (until they briefly reunited in 1999–2000), and also the last Kansas studio album to be certified gold by the RIAA.
Due to creative differences over the lyrical direction of the next album, Walsh left in October 1981 to form a new band, Streets. In early December of that year, Walsh was replaced by vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist John Elefante, who—unknown to Livgren and Hope at the time—was also a Christian. He was chosen from over 200 applicants, such as Sammy Hagar, Doug Pinnick, Ted Neeley (who played the title character in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar), Warren Ham (ex-Bloodrock, who would join the band on the road in 1982, adding sax, flute, harmonica, back-up vocals and extra keyboards) and Michael Gleason (who would supply keyboards and back-up vocals on the group's 1983 tour).
The first Kansas album with Elefante, Vinyl Confessions, was released in June 1982. The record renewed interest in the group and generated the band's first Top 20 hit in several years, "Play the Game Tonight", which hit No. 4 on Billboards newly deployed Mainstream Rock chart. The album's mostly Christianity-based lyrics attracted a new audience and garnered radio airplay on the then fledgling Contemporary Christian Music format. The album featured backing vocals from Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who was recording in the studio next door. Still, sales of the album fell short of gold status.
Drastic Measures followed in July 1983. For various reasons, Livgren contributed only three songs to the album; the rest were penned by John Elefante and his brother Dino. With violinist Steinhardt leaving the group before the recording sessions, the result was a more mainstream pop-rock album. Though the album charted lower than any Kansas album since Masque, peaking at No. 41, its single "Fight Fire with Fire" fared better. It did not crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached No. 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It was the highest chart position of any Kansas release on any chart, though this particular chart did not exist prior to 1981. For their 1983 tour for Drastic Measures, Kansas was joined on stage by the aforementioned Michael Gleason and Terry Brock (who covered the absent Steinhardt's harmony vocals).
During the band's time with Elefante as lead vocalist, Livgren became increasingly uncomfortable with Kansas representing his Christian worldview. After a final New Year's Eve performance on December 31, 1983, Livgren and Hope left to form AD with Warren Ham and Michael Gleason. They were joined by drummer Dennis Holt.
Elefante, Ehart and Williams sought to continue as Kansas and recorded one more song, "Perfect Lover", which appeared on the retrospective The Best of Kansas (August 1984), which has sold over four million units in the U.S. alone. The song would eventually be removed in favor of other songs on the remastered release of the compilation. The group disbanded after its release, which thus became the final Kansas recording with Elefante. Since leaving the band, Elefante has become a popular Contemporary Christian music artist and has not performed with the group since.
In the summer of 1984, Ehart, Williams and Elefante were part of a United Service Organizations (USO) tour of US military bases that had been put together by Ehart, called 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division, that also included Patrick Simmons (Doobie Brothers), Leon Medica (LeRoux), David Jenkins, Cory Lerios and John Pierce (from Pablo Cruise) and Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (from Cheap Trick). The supergroup began four days of rehearsals in Hawaii on March 10 before beginning a 17-day tour playing for the United States Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean and land-based troops in Korea, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and the Philippines. This was followed by a second USO tour in March 1985 that included Ehart, Williams and Steve Walsh.
1985–1990: Reformation
In March 1985, the band came back together with Ehart, Williams and Walsh (who had briefly played keyboards on the road for Cheap Trick in the spring and summer of 1985, after the break up of Streets), but without Livgren, Hope or Steinhardt. The new lineup included Streets bassist Billy Greer and guitarist Steve Morse (formerly of the Dixie Dregs). The first performances of the new lineup with Morse and Greer took place during a third USO 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division tour that toured US military bases in the US, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, Iceland and most of Europe during the late summer through early October 1986.
The re-formed band released Power in November 1986. The first single, "All I Wanted", became the last Kansas single to hit the Billboard Top 40 chart, peaking at No. 19. It also received considerable airplay on MTV. Two more singles, the title track and "Can't Cry Anymore", were less successful, "Power" hitting the lower end of the Hot 100 and getting substantial play and charting on the Rock Charts, but "Can't Cry Anymore" receiving little airplay despite a clever music video.
The band added Baton Rouge native Greg Robert on keyboards and back-up vocals at the suggestion of LeRoux's Leon Medica. Greg played his first show with Kansas on January 31, 1987 along with 38 Special at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico. The new lineup released a second album, In the Spirit of Things, in October 1988. The concept album and subsequent tour were popular with the fan base but did not receive widespread airplay beyond the "Stand Beside Me" video on MTV. Morse temporarily left the band at the end of a tour of Germany in April 1989.
On September 15, 1990 Walsh, Williams and Ehart played a charity event at the Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California, alongside Saga, Lou Gramm (of Foreigner), Mr. Big, Eddie Money, Kevin Cronin (from REO Speedwagon) and others. Alex Lifeson joined them on stage for a short set of Kansas before Geddy Lee flew in to join Alex for a Rush set, with Ehart on drums subbing for Neil Peart.
In November 1990, a German promoter arranged to reunite all the original members of Kansas (except for Steinhardt) for a European tour. Greer joined them, along with keyboardist Greg Robert. At the end of the tour, Hope left again, but Livgren remained on into 1991.
1991–1997: Addition of David Ragsdale
In April 1991 violinist David Ragsdale (who had submitted a tape of his playing to Ehart several years earlier) was invited to join the group and the return of the violin allowed Kansas to perform earlier material in arrangements closer to the originals. Livgren left during the 1991 summer tour, to be replaced temporarily by Steve Morse again. After the tour, Morse left the band for good to return to his own projects and eventually become a member of Deep Purple, and Ragsdale took over the extra guitar parts, leaving Williams as the primary guitar player. The resulting lineup of Ehart, Greer, Ragsdale, Robert, Walsh and Williams lasted from 1991 to 1997. This period saw one live album and accompanying video, Live at the Whisky (July 1992), and one studio album, Freaks of Nature (May 1995).
During the fall of 1993, drummer Van Romaine (formerly of Blood Sweat and Tears and Steve Morse's band) came in to substitute for Ehart, who was taking care of the group's business and putting together The Kansas Boxed Set, which was released in July 1994. Bryan Holmes, from The Producers, likewise filled in for Ehart during the spring and summer of 1994 until that December, when Phil returned for a tour of Germany.
On July 28, 1995 Kansas was inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood.
1997–2006: Return of Robby Steinhardt
In early 1997, Robert and Ragsdale left the band and Steinhardt returned.
In May 1998, Kansas released Always Never the Same, which featured Larry Baird conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The album was a mix of older Kansas material (with new arrangements by Baird), several new songs and a cover of "Eleanor Rigby".
Somewhere to Elsewhere, a new studio album released in July 2000, featured all the original members of Kansas, plus Greer, with all songs written by Kerry Livgren. That same summer, Kansas was the opening act for Yes during their "Masterworks" tour.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Livgren would occasionally attend Kansas shows and come on stage to play one or more songs with the band. At a March 9, 2002 concert at Lake Tahoe, he played the whole show, subbing for Rich Williams who was "under the weather", and another live album and DVD from Kansas, entitled Device - Voice - Drum, which was recorded in the band's present home of Atlanta on June 15, 2002, was released that October.
Also in 2002, Kansas II (the lineup prior to the recording and release of the first Kansas album) released an album under the name Proto-Kaw, featuring demos and live material recorded from 1971 to 1973. It led to a new studio album, Before Became After (2004), with most of the Kansas II members participating. Proto-Kaw released a third album, The Wait of Glory in 2006, and their fourth and final studio album, Forth, was released in 2011, after which the band ceased.
2006–2013: Continued touring and regained popularity
Kansas continued to tour every year. The 2006 tour was delayed for a few weeks due to Steinhardt's second departure in March and Ragsdale's subsequent return to the lineup.
In 2008, the Kansas website announced that four of the five members (Ehart, Ragsdale, Williams, and Greer) had formed a side recording group called Native Window and they released their self-titled debut album in June 2009.
In February 2009, Kansas recorded a concert in Topeka featuring a full symphony orchestra, with Larry Baird conducting. Morse and Livgren appeared as special guests on several songs. The performance was released on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray as There's Know Place Like Home that October and the DVD hit No. 5 on the Billboard Music Video Chart the week after its release.
In July 2010, Kansas completed a 30-day "United We Rock" tour with fellow classic rock acts Styx and Foreigner. Kansas then began a collegiate tour in September 2010. On this tour they performed with the symphony orchestras of various US colleges in an effort to raise money for the individual schools' music programs. The success of the tour led the band to start another one the following year.
On September 13, 2012 Kansas began a new tour with a performance at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. Opening for them was the band King's X and a one-man-band called That 1 Guy. This tour featured many hits from the albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, as well as material from a number of their other albums.
The band kicked off 2013 being featured on the Rock Legends II cruise. The floating rock festival for a cause aboard Royal Caribbean International's Liberty of the Seas departed January 10, 2013 from Fort Lauderdale, FL. Other big names included Foreigner, Paul Rodgers, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Bachman & Turner, 38 Special, The Marshall Tucker Band, Blue Öyster Cult, Foghat and Molly Hatchet.
On March 1, 2013 Kansas announced a 40th-anniversary celebration was in the works. However, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack days before the concert and was unable to participate. Nevertheless, the show went on, billed as the 40th Anniversary Fan Appreciation Concert, performed in Pittsburgh on August 17, 2013 at the same venue, Benedum Center (formerly The Stanley Theater), which had propelled them to national recognition. The show featured guest appearances by Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope and the first set featured symphonic accompaniment by the Three Rivers Orchestra, conducted by Larry Baird. Intermission featured Phil Ehart overseeing random prize drawings of autographed band merchandise, videotaped 40th anniversary well-wishes from other bands and an exclusive first-look at the trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary Miracles Out of Nowhere.
2014–2020: Retirement of Steve Walsh, The Prelude Implicit
On August 2, 2014 a statement was issued on the band's official Facebook page announcing the impending retirement of lead singer Steve Walsh.
On August 6, 2014 former Kansas lead singer John Elefante issued a statement that he had been contacted by the band on August 2 to discuss rejoining. However, on August 4, after turning to prayer, he said that it was not meant to be. At that point, he also cited Steve Walsh as one of the reasons he wanted to become a singer.
A statement was issued on August 14, 2014 through the band's official Facebook page stating that Chicago native Ronnie Platt (who had previously sung with Shooting Star) had been selected as the band's new lead vocalist and keyboard player.
On August 24, 2014 the band announced that their longtime lighting specialist David Manion would be handling the main keyboard parts for the band on stage along with Platt, giving the group a full-time keyboardist for the first time since Greg Robert's departure in 1997. Manion had also handled keyboard responsibilities for Kansas bassist and vocalist Billy Greer's band, Seventh Key.
In March 2015, the band released the aforementioned documentary, Miracles Out of Nowhere. The documentary chronicles the band's formation and follows them throughout their success with Leftoverture and Point of Know Return. It was initially available in a limited-edition release that contained an extra DVD of bonus interviews. The documentary was released alongside a companion CD of the same name that contained a selection of the band's greatest hits along with snippets of commentary from the documentary.
On September 1, 2015 a press release announced that Kansas had signed with Inside Out Music, a German label dedicated to progressive rock and related genres, for the release of their upcoming 15th studio album. The release of this album marked the longest period to date between studio releases since the previous album, Somewhere to Elsewhere, had been released over 15 years prior, in 2000. On February 26, 2016 the group officially announced The Prelude Implicit for a September 2016 release. The album's co-producer and co-writer, Zak Rizvi, was subsequently named as a full member of the band, giving Kansas a second full-time guitarist for the first time since Steve Morse's departure in 1991.
On September 30, 2016 the current lineup kicked off a multi-city tour at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Leftoverture, which was done again in the spring of 2017 with a 12 show 40th anniversary tour, that, like the fall jaunt, included performances of newer tracks, older songs and a complete rendering of the full Leftoverture album. A two-CD set, Leftoverture Live & Beyond, was released in November 2017 that contained 19 songs culled from different shows during the tour and the band's 2017 fall dates also included further 40th anniversary shows.
In 2018 the group decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Point of Know Return by playing that album in its entirety at the shows on a tour, set to begin in September.
After the conclusion of the fall tour dates, keyboardist David Manion departed the band and in December Tom Brislin (who had played with Yes, Meat Loaf, Debbie Harry, Renaissance, Camel, Dennis DeYoung and others) was announced as the new keyboardist, with the second leg of the Point 40th anniversary tour slated to resume in March 2019.
On June 25, 2019 The New York Times Magazine listed Kansas among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In December 2019, the band played the entire Leftoverture and Point of Know Return albums in a special performance at the Beacon Theater in New York City.
2020: The Absence of Presence
On March 20, 2020, the band announced the upcoming release of a new studio album, The Absence of Presence. Due to manufacturing delays, the album was released on July 17, 2020. It has been promoted by the release of videos for three songs: "Throwing Mountains", "Memories Down the Line" and "Jets Overhead". Recording for the album took place simultaneously during the band's 2019 touring schedule.
To promote the album, an autumn 2020 tour of Europe was scheduled, but following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the tour has been postponed to 2022.
Rizvi left the band in April 2021 in order to pursue new projects.
On May 28, 2021, the group released Point of Know Return: Live and Beyond, with performances taken from various dates on the 2019 to early 2020 legs of the Point of Know Return 40th Anniversary Tour.
Former violin player and vocalist Robby Steinhardt died from pancreatitis on July 17, 2021, at the age of 71.
Influences
Kansas's musical style, a fusion of hard rock, southern rock, and progressive rock, was influenced by several bands. The music of Yes and Genesis was inspirational to Kansas, especially demonstrated in the lyrics of Walsh. Livgren cited the 1960s band Touch as foundational to his development. Livgren's evolving spirituality is reflected in the band's songs, with early works showing an interest in the mysticism of Eastern religions, works in the late 1970s influenced by the American spiritual philosophy of The Urantia Book, followed in the early 1980s by works embracing born-again Christianity. The re-formed band produced a harder pop metal album in the late 1980s.
In a 2003 interview with The A.V. Club, Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the Opus comic strip, revealed that "Opus was named after a Kansas song." From the band's 1976 album Leftoverture, the songs "Opus Insert" and the epic "Magnum Opus" could both be the inspiration for the name. He also added, "If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you."
Appearances in other media
"Carry On Wayward Son" has been covered by many artists. It was included on soundtracks for the following movies and television shows: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Family Guy, Gentlemen Broncos, Happy Gilmore, Heroes (1977)*, Scrubs, South Park ("Guitar Queer-o" episode), King of the Hill ("My Own Private Rodeo") and Strangers with Candy ("Yes You Can't"). It was also featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto V, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Rock Band 2, and Rock Band Unplugged.
The song is frequently played throughout the show Supernatural and also appears in Supernatural: The Anime Series (as the ending for each episode). It is often hailed as the show's unofficial theme song.
"Carry On Wayward Son" was removed from the 1977 movie Heroes when it was discovered that the movie had not obtained rights to use the song. The DVD release by MCA/Universal Home used a different (unknown) song, yet the credit for "Wayward Son" remains.
"Dust in the Wind" was parodied by comedian Tim Hawkins, the parody called "A Whiff of Kansas" which is on the Pretty Pink Tractor album, and a video parody on the Insanitized live DVD. In 2016, the music video for the song was parodied on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In the 2003 movie Old School, the song was sung by Frank "The Tank" Ricard, played by Will Ferrell, at the funeral for Joseph "Blue" Pulaski, a fraternity brother, played by Joseph Patrick Cranshaw, and as such, the song appears on the movie's soundtrack. In the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Ted, played by Keanu Reeves, quotes the song lyric "All we are is dust in the wind, dude" to philosophize with Socrates.
"Point of Know Return" was featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2021 film The Suicide Squad.
Members
Current members
Phil Ehart – drums, percussion
Rich Williams – lead and rhythm guitars
Billy Greer – bass, acoustic guitar, backing and lead vocals
David Ragsdale – violin, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Ronnie Platt – lead and backing vocals, keyboards
Tom Brislin – keyboards, backing and lead vocals
Discography
Kansas (1974)
Song for America (1975)
Masque (1975)
Leftoverture (1976)
Point of Know Return (1977)
Monolith (1979)
Audio-Visions (1980)
Vinyl Confessions (1982)
Drastic Measures (1983)
Power (1986)
In the Spirit of Things (1988)
Freaks of Nature (1995)
Always Never the Same (1998)
Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000)
The Prelude Implicit (2016)
The Absence of Presence (2020)
References
External links
Billy Greer
Kerry Livgren
David Ragsdale
Steve Walsh
John Elefante
AllMusic: Kansas - Artist Biography
Innerviews: Career-Spanning 2015 Band Interview
American hard rock musical groups
American progressive rock groups
Art rock musical groups
Epic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1973
Musical groups disestablished in 1984
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1973 establishments in Kansas
1984 disestablishments in Kansas
1985 establishments in Kansas
Musicians from Topeka, Kansas
Rock music groups from Kansas
Symphonic rock groups
Inside Out Music artists
MCA Records artists
Magna Carta Records artists
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[
"After the Anthems was a band based in Mississauga, Ontario, and originally from Owen Sound. The band formed in October 2006; their sound was described as 'pop/rock/punk'.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly bands and formation (2000-2006)\nPhilip Ciufo, Lee Zavitz, and Phil Johnston began playing together in 2000, in high school. When Johnston entered high school in 2000, he was recruited as their drummer. They formed the band 6 Days Late; the name was changed shortly afterward to Unidentified 6.\n\nThe band performed their first show during their junior year at their school. They played local shows and created four albums of songs collectively titled: Do Humans Look Like Their Pets?, Lights Go Out, Unaware, and Loser, as well as several untitled EPs which they distributed at their school. The band's title remained Unidentified 6 until 2004, when they changed their name to One Way Out. Up until that time, Zavitz played bass. After the name change, Tim Stead joined the trio to play bass while Zavitz switched to guitar.\n\nOne Way Out released a self-titled album in 2004 and an EP titled Salvage What's Left in 2005. Shortly after the release of their EP the band went on a short tour with John Reuben and also opened for Thousand Foot Krutch, Seventh Day Slumber, and Hawk Nelson. Stead then left the band and was replaced by long-time friend Dan Curry who played with the band until March 2006. At this time the four went on hiatus.\n\nThis is the Sound (2007)\nIn October 2006, Ciufo re-joined with Zavitz and Johnston to officially form After the Anthems. Over the course of 2006 and 2007, the three went on to record This is the Sound which was released in September 2007. In August, Jason Soloduik was added to the lineup to play bass. The band then went on tour throughout North America from October to December at which point Soloduik left the band.\n\nOn February 24, 2009 After the Anthems released a 6-song EP titled It's DejaVu All over Again. The album contained the cover version of the Huey Lewis and the News song \"The Power of Love\", as well as five new original songs. \"The Power of Love\" went to No. 1 on the CT20 in May 2009.\n\nOn April 29, 2010, the band released a mashup cover of three songs. One is titled \"One Time I Replayed the Empire State of Mind\" and is a cover of \"One Time\" by Justin Bieber, \"Empire State of Mind\" by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and \"Replay\" by Iyaz. The song was released on a new Facebook application called MuSwap. This was the first song released through MuSwap and went semi-viral receiving over 500 downloads on its first day.\n\nWhat if the Astronauts Are Lying (2011)\nThe band released its last album on iTunes on February 19, 2011 titled What if the Astronauts are Lying?. The official release party was held at The Opera House (Toronto). The first single from the album was \"1623\" and a music video was released via the band's website in August 2011. The entire album was given away for free via MuSwap.com; it was downloaded over 5000 times. Also, the band released over 5000 hard copies of the album to give to fans at shows.\n\nDiscography\n\n This is the Sound (2007)\n It's DejaVu All over Again (EP, 2009)\n What if the Astronauts Are Lying (2011)\n\nReferences\n\nMusical groups established in 2006\nMusical groups from Ontario\nOwen Sound\nCanadian pop punk groups\nCanadian musical trios\n2006 establishments in Ontario",
"The Monroes were a new wave band from San Diego active throughout most of the 1980s. They are best known for their single \"What Do All the People Know\".\n\nBackground\nFor keyboardist Eric Denton, forming the Monroes fulfilled his early fantasies of becoming a rock star. Born in Lansing, Michigan, Denton moved to Ventura, California with his family at a young age, at which point he began immersing himself in piano studies. By the late 1970s, Denton had already performed at several high school dances, when his family moved to San Diego. In addition to his musical talents, by this point, he had also become very savvy on the business and organizational aspects of the music world, an attribute that would serve him well during the Monroes years. Before long, he was playing in the band Peter Rabbitt. However, after touring with this band for a while, Denton returned to San Diego, where he bought a recording studio with the goal of creating a group that played all original material.\n\nWhile working in the recording studio (Accusound), Denton had brushes with other budding musicians, one of whom was bassist Bob Davis (a.k.a. \"Bob Monroe\"), with whom he was especially impressed. Before long the two had joined together, forming the nucleus of what would become The Monroes. Another musician who regularly visited the studio was guitarist Rusty Jones, who had previously played with Davis in the Ken Dixon Band (an all-covers band), and he became the next to join this fledgling group. Denton's former Peter Rabbitt bandmate, drummer Jonnie Gilstrap came on board, and the search was then on for a lead singer. The band ultimately decided on Jesus \"Tony\" Ortiz (a.k.a. \"Tony Monroe\"), who Denton described as having the ability to \"make any song, good or bad, sound great\", to fill this capacity.\n\nAccording to Ortiz, the band's name, \"The Monroes\" was derived from a band Bob Davis was originally in with the now well-known singer-songwriter Rick Elias called \"Rick Elias and the Monroes\". In this context, the \"Monroes\" part of the name was a direct reference to the fact that Elias was originally from Monroe, Louisiana. Once Elias left for a solo career, he allowed Davis to keep the name.\n\nThe band began recording demos of early tracks at Accusound, and they began shopping them around the Los Angeles area. They soon recruited John Deverian as their manager, who signed them to a small Japanese label, Alfa Records. Before long, the band was recording what would become their debut EP at Chateau Studios. One of the most recent songs they had written was called \"What Do All the People Know\", for which Bob Monroe had come up with the basic melody.\n\n\"What Do All the People Know\" generated a local buzz around the San Diego area, and it was selected as the first single released from the group's self-titled EP, completed in 1982. They then toured with the likes of Toto, Greg Kihn, and Rick Springfield while their single climbed the charts. However, as the band was pondering ideas for their first music video, they found out that their Japan-based record label Alfa was abandoning its US market. Without the backing of a label, they were left with no promotion, and the band's single and mini-album quickly fell off the charts.\n\nThe band attempted to continue, signing with CBS, but any new musical projects were shelved. Individual band members gradually quit the group over the next several years. The remaining members would continue until the band eventually broke up in 1988.\n\nAftermath\nAfter the breakup, bassist Bob Davis formed the band Street Heart.\n\nDenton owned Guitar Trader in San Diego, California, which closed, after being a long-time pillar of the San Diego music scene, in December 2014. Jones returned from a long musical hiatus in 2005, and began writing and performing again in the San Diego area. Gilstrap returned to San Diego in 2006 and studied tribal fusion and Middle Eastern drumming. In 2007, Denton had a son named Kyle.\n\nOrtiz left the band in 1986 and, disillusioned with the music business, moved to Minneapolis shortly thereafter. He would remain there for the next twenty years. Then, in 2006, he returned to California, where he reconnected with Jones. By 2007, the two were performing live and did not rule out the possibility of a complete Monroes reunion. Ortiz later returned to Minnesota to be closer to his children and has continued performing on his own there.\n\nAlthough the band separated years ago, all members in one fashion or another are still involved in their passion for music. Three of the original five band members met in June 2009. Band members included Jonnie Gilstrap, Tony Ortiz and Eric Denton. The three musicians discussed seriously the possibility of reuniting and doing a USA tour.\n\n2013–present: New developments\nIn 2013, the band released a seven-song EP, What Do All the People Know?, featuring an alternate version of \"What Do All the People Know?\" (including a portion of the final verse extracted from the version featured on the original 1982 EP) as well as previously unreleased material from their early recording sessions.\n\nOn August 28, 2020, a long-awaited \"official\" music video for \"What Do All the People Know?\" was released, interpolating the original vision for the video 38 years prior with modern scenes and vintage footage from past Monroes shows.\n\nDiscography\n\nEPs\nThe Monroes (Alfa Records AAE-15015) – 1982 (U.S. version has five tracks)\n(The Japanese version of the album (Alfa Records ULR-18001) features \"Yamarock\", the b-side of the \"What Do All the People Know\" single as a sixth track and a different cover from the U.S. edition.)\nWhat Do All the People Know? (MusicPower.com) – 2013\n\nSeven-Inch singles\n\"What Do All the People Know\" / \"Yamarock\" (Alfa Records ALF-7119) 1982 U.S.\n\nCompilations\nEach of these albums include the song \"What Do All the People Know\"\n 1994 Living in Oblivion (The 80's Greatest Hits – Volume 3) (EMI E2-27674) U.S.\n 1994 Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the '80s, Vol. 4 (Rhino R2 71697 ) U.S.\n 2001 Shake Some Action Vol. 4 (Shake Some Action SSA 4) Europe\n\nNotes/References\n\nExternal links\n \n[ The Monroes] on Allmusic\nMore Extensive Bio/Eric Denton Update (Sanford, Jay Allen (2007). \"Remember the Monroes??\")\nBand Photo\nThe Monroes Founding Member Website – Eric Denton Keyboardist\nRusty Jones' YouTube page\nTony Ortiz' YouTube page\nTony Ortiz' website\nRusty Jones update (includes more extensive Monroes information)\nArticle about Ortiz and Jones' recent activities\nRusty Jones' MySpace Page\nJonnie Gilstrap's MySpace Page\nBidOnSound, (Exclusive Music related Online Action)- Eric Denton, Co-founder\n\nAmerican pop music groups\nAmerican new wave musical groups\nMusical groups disestablished in 1988\nMusical groups from San Diego"
] |
[
"Kansas (band)",
"1970-1973: Early years",
"Who are the original band members?",
"In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why",
"What was the band's original name?",
"After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums."
] |
C_220546961ba24066b1e9c3ce55dcefab_1
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When did the name get changed to Kansas?
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When did the band name get changed to Kansas?
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Kansas (band)
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In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums. In 1970 they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, which lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover, is sometimes referred to as Kansas I. Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass, and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. (This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw). In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973 they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas". CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on album-oriented rock charts and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind". The band has produced nine gold albums, three multi-platinum albums (Leftoverture 4×, Point of Know Return 4×, and The Best of Kansas 4×), one other platinum studio album (Monolith), one platinum live double album (Two for the Show), and a million-selling single, "Dust in the Wind". Kansas appeared on the Billboard charts for over 200 weeks throughout the 1970s and 1980s and played to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout North America, Europe and Japan. "Carry On Wayward Son" was the second-most-played track on US classic rock radio in 1995 and No. 1 in 1997.
History
1970–1973: Early years
In 1969, Don Montre and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called the Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After leaving to form the band Saratoga with Lynn Meredith and Dan Wright, they started playing Livgren's original material, with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe coming in on drums.
In 1970, they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, sometimes called Kansas I, lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover.
Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw.
In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973, they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973, in Ellinwood, Kansas. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas".
1974–1979: Rise to national prominence
Their self-titled debut album, produced by Gold, was released in March 1974, nearly a year after it was recorded in New York. It defined the band's signature sound, a mix of American-style boogie rock and complex, symphonic arrangements with changing time signatures. Steinhardt's violin was a distinctive element of the group's sound, being defined more by heartland rock than the jazz and classical influences which most progressive rock violinists followed.
The band slowly developed a cult following due to promotion by Kirshner and extensive touring for the debut album and its two follow-ups, Song for America (February 1975) and Masque (October 1975). Song for America was co-produced by Wally Gold and their former White Clover bandmate Jeff Glixman, who would go on to produce all of their albums from Masque to Two for the Show (October 1978) on his own, returning to the helm for 1995's Freaks of Nature. Both Masque and their next release, Leftoverture, were recorded at a studio in the middle of the Louisiana Bayou named Studio in the Country.
Kansas released its fourth album, Leftoverture, in October 1976, which produced a hit single, "Carry On Wayward Son", in 1977. The follow-up, Point of Know Return, recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana and Woodland Sound in Nashville and released in October 1977, featured the title track and "Dust in the Wind", both hit singles. Leftoverture was a breakthrough for the band, hitting No. 5 on Billboard's pop album chart. Point of Know Return peaked even higher, at No. 4. Both albums sold over four million copies in the U.S. Both "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind" were certified gold singles, selling over one million units each. "Dust in the Wind" was certified gold as a digital download by the RIAA in 2005, almost 30 years after selling one million copies as a single. Leftoverture was eventually certified five-times platinum by the RIAA in 2001.
During this period, Kansas became a major headlining act and sold out the largest venues available to rock bands at the time, including New York's Madison Square Garden. The band documented this era in 1978 with Two for the Show, a double live album of recordings from various performances from its 1977 and 1978 tours. The band gained a solid reputation for faithful live reproduction of their studio recordings.
In March 1978, Kansas was brought over to tour Europe for the very first time and later on that same year, they were named UNICEF Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill.
The follow-up studio album to Point of Know Return was Monolith (May 1979), which was self-produced. The album generated a Top 40 single in "People of the South Wind", whose title refers to the meaning of the 'Kanza' (Kaw) Native American people, after whom the state and the band are named. The album failed to garner the sales and radio airplay of its two predecessors. Nevertheless, the album eventually went platinum. Livgren's platinum award for the album is on display at the Kansas Museum of History. The band toured the US for Monolith during the summer and fall of 1979 then went over to tour Japan for the first time in January 1980.
1980–1984: Creative tensions
Kansas bandmembers began to drift apart in the early 1980s. During the tour supporting Monolith, Livgren became a born-again Christian, and this was reflected in his lyrics on the next three albums, beginning with Audio-Visions (September 1980). "Hold On", a Top 40 single from that album, displayed his new-found faith. Hope soon converted to Christianity as well. This would be the final album with the original lineup (until they briefly reunited in 1999–2000), and also the last Kansas studio album to be certified gold by the RIAA.
Due to creative differences over the lyrical direction of the next album, Walsh left in October 1981 to form a new band, Streets. In early December of that year, Walsh was replaced by vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist John Elefante, who—unknown to Livgren and Hope at the time—was also a Christian. He was chosen from over 200 applicants, such as Sammy Hagar, Doug Pinnick, Ted Neeley (who played the title character in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar), Warren Ham (ex-Bloodrock, who would join the band on the road in 1982, adding sax, flute, harmonica, back-up vocals and extra keyboards) and Michael Gleason (who would supply keyboards and back-up vocals on the group's 1983 tour).
The first Kansas album with Elefante, Vinyl Confessions, was released in June 1982. The record renewed interest in the group and generated the band's first Top 20 hit in several years, "Play the Game Tonight", which hit No. 4 on Billboards newly deployed Mainstream Rock chart. The album's mostly Christianity-based lyrics attracted a new audience and garnered radio airplay on the then fledgling Contemporary Christian Music format. The album featured backing vocals from Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who was recording in the studio next door. Still, sales of the album fell short of gold status.
Drastic Measures followed in July 1983. For various reasons, Livgren contributed only three songs to the album; the rest were penned by John Elefante and his brother Dino. With violinist Steinhardt leaving the group before the recording sessions, the result was a more mainstream pop-rock album. Though the album charted lower than any Kansas album since Masque, peaking at No. 41, its single "Fight Fire with Fire" fared better. It did not crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached No. 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It was the highest chart position of any Kansas release on any chart, though this particular chart did not exist prior to 1981. For their 1983 tour for Drastic Measures, Kansas was joined on stage by the aforementioned Michael Gleason and Terry Brock (who covered the absent Steinhardt's harmony vocals).
During the band's time with Elefante as lead vocalist, Livgren became increasingly uncomfortable with Kansas representing his Christian worldview. After a final New Year's Eve performance on December 31, 1983, Livgren and Hope left to form AD with Warren Ham and Michael Gleason. They were joined by drummer Dennis Holt.
Elefante, Ehart and Williams sought to continue as Kansas and recorded one more song, "Perfect Lover", which appeared on the retrospective The Best of Kansas (August 1984), which has sold over four million units in the U.S. alone. The song would eventually be removed in favor of other songs on the remastered release of the compilation. The group disbanded after its release, which thus became the final Kansas recording with Elefante. Since leaving the band, Elefante has become a popular Contemporary Christian music artist and has not performed with the group since.
In the summer of 1984, Ehart, Williams and Elefante were part of a United Service Organizations (USO) tour of US military bases that had been put together by Ehart, called 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division, that also included Patrick Simmons (Doobie Brothers), Leon Medica (LeRoux), David Jenkins, Cory Lerios and John Pierce (from Pablo Cruise) and Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (from Cheap Trick). The supergroup began four days of rehearsals in Hawaii on March 10 before beginning a 17-day tour playing for the United States Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean and land-based troops in Korea, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and the Philippines. This was followed by a second USO tour in March 1985 that included Ehart, Williams and Steve Walsh.
1985–1990: Reformation
In March 1985, the band came back together with Ehart, Williams and Walsh (who had briefly played keyboards on the road for Cheap Trick in the spring and summer of 1985, after the break up of Streets), but without Livgren, Hope or Steinhardt. The new lineup included Streets bassist Billy Greer and guitarist Steve Morse (formerly of the Dixie Dregs). The first performances of the new lineup with Morse and Greer took place during a third USO 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division tour that toured US military bases in the US, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, Iceland and most of Europe during the late summer through early October 1986.
The re-formed band released Power in November 1986. The first single, "All I Wanted", became the last Kansas single to hit the Billboard Top 40 chart, peaking at No. 19. It also received considerable airplay on MTV. Two more singles, the title track and "Can't Cry Anymore", were less successful, "Power" hitting the lower end of the Hot 100 and getting substantial play and charting on the Rock Charts, but "Can't Cry Anymore" receiving little airplay despite a clever music video.
The band added Baton Rouge native Greg Robert on keyboards and back-up vocals at the suggestion of LeRoux's Leon Medica. Greg played his first show with Kansas on January 31, 1987 along with 38 Special at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico. The new lineup released a second album, In the Spirit of Things, in October 1988. The concept album and subsequent tour were popular with the fan base but did not receive widespread airplay beyond the "Stand Beside Me" video on MTV. Morse temporarily left the band at the end of a tour of Germany in April 1989.
On September 15, 1990 Walsh, Williams and Ehart played a charity event at the Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California, alongside Saga, Lou Gramm (of Foreigner), Mr. Big, Eddie Money, Kevin Cronin (from REO Speedwagon) and others. Alex Lifeson joined them on stage for a short set of Kansas before Geddy Lee flew in to join Alex for a Rush set, with Ehart on drums subbing for Neil Peart.
In November 1990, a German promoter arranged to reunite all the original members of Kansas (except for Steinhardt) for a European tour. Greer joined them, along with keyboardist Greg Robert. At the end of the tour, Hope left again, but Livgren remained on into 1991.
1991–1997: Addition of David Ragsdale
In April 1991 violinist David Ragsdale (who had submitted a tape of his playing to Ehart several years earlier) was invited to join the group and the return of the violin allowed Kansas to perform earlier material in arrangements closer to the originals. Livgren left during the 1991 summer tour, to be replaced temporarily by Steve Morse again. After the tour, Morse left the band for good to return to his own projects and eventually become a member of Deep Purple, and Ragsdale took over the extra guitar parts, leaving Williams as the primary guitar player. The resulting lineup of Ehart, Greer, Ragsdale, Robert, Walsh and Williams lasted from 1991 to 1997. This period saw one live album and accompanying video, Live at the Whisky (July 1992), and one studio album, Freaks of Nature (May 1995).
During the fall of 1993, drummer Van Romaine (formerly of Blood Sweat and Tears and Steve Morse's band) came in to substitute for Ehart, who was taking care of the group's business and putting together The Kansas Boxed Set, which was released in July 1994. Bryan Holmes, from The Producers, likewise filled in for Ehart during the spring and summer of 1994 until that December, when Phil returned for a tour of Germany.
On July 28, 1995 Kansas was inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood.
1997–2006: Return of Robby Steinhardt
In early 1997, Robert and Ragsdale left the band and Steinhardt returned.
In May 1998, Kansas released Always Never the Same, which featured Larry Baird conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The album was a mix of older Kansas material (with new arrangements by Baird), several new songs and a cover of "Eleanor Rigby".
Somewhere to Elsewhere, a new studio album released in July 2000, featured all the original members of Kansas, plus Greer, with all songs written by Kerry Livgren. That same summer, Kansas was the opening act for Yes during their "Masterworks" tour.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Livgren would occasionally attend Kansas shows and come on stage to play one or more songs with the band. At a March 9, 2002 concert at Lake Tahoe, he played the whole show, subbing for Rich Williams who was "under the weather", and another live album and DVD from Kansas, entitled Device - Voice - Drum, which was recorded in the band's present home of Atlanta on June 15, 2002, was released that October.
Also in 2002, Kansas II (the lineup prior to the recording and release of the first Kansas album) released an album under the name Proto-Kaw, featuring demos and live material recorded from 1971 to 1973. It led to a new studio album, Before Became After (2004), with most of the Kansas II members participating. Proto-Kaw released a third album, The Wait of Glory in 2006, and their fourth and final studio album, Forth, was released in 2011, after which the band ceased.
2006–2013: Continued touring and regained popularity
Kansas continued to tour every year. The 2006 tour was delayed for a few weeks due to Steinhardt's second departure in March and Ragsdale's subsequent return to the lineup.
In 2008, the Kansas website announced that four of the five members (Ehart, Ragsdale, Williams, and Greer) had formed a side recording group called Native Window and they released their self-titled debut album in June 2009.
In February 2009, Kansas recorded a concert in Topeka featuring a full symphony orchestra, with Larry Baird conducting. Morse and Livgren appeared as special guests on several songs. The performance was released on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray as There's Know Place Like Home that October and the DVD hit No. 5 on the Billboard Music Video Chart the week after its release.
In July 2010, Kansas completed a 30-day "United We Rock" tour with fellow classic rock acts Styx and Foreigner. Kansas then began a collegiate tour in September 2010. On this tour they performed with the symphony orchestras of various US colleges in an effort to raise money for the individual schools' music programs. The success of the tour led the band to start another one the following year.
On September 13, 2012 Kansas began a new tour with a performance at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. Opening for them was the band King's X and a one-man-band called That 1 Guy. This tour featured many hits from the albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, as well as material from a number of their other albums.
The band kicked off 2013 being featured on the Rock Legends II cruise. The floating rock festival for a cause aboard Royal Caribbean International's Liberty of the Seas departed January 10, 2013 from Fort Lauderdale, FL. Other big names included Foreigner, Paul Rodgers, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Bachman & Turner, 38 Special, The Marshall Tucker Band, Blue Öyster Cult, Foghat and Molly Hatchet.
On March 1, 2013 Kansas announced a 40th-anniversary celebration was in the works. However, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack days before the concert and was unable to participate. Nevertheless, the show went on, billed as the 40th Anniversary Fan Appreciation Concert, performed in Pittsburgh on August 17, 2013 at the same venue, Benedum Center (formerly The Stanley Theater), which had propelled them to national recognition. The show featured guest appearances by Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope and the first set featured symphonic accompaniment by the Three Rivers Orchestra, conducted by Larry Baird. Intermission featured Phil Ehart overseeing random prize drawings of autographed band merchandise, videotaped 40th anniversary well-wishes from other bands and an exclusive first-look at the trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary Miracles Out of Nowhere.
2014–2020: Retirement of Steve Walsh, The Prelude Implicit
On August 2, 2014 a statement was issued on the band's official Facebook page announcing the impending retirement of lead singer Steve Walsh.
On August 6, 2014 former Kansas lead singer John Elefante issued a statement that he had been contacted by the band on August 2 to discuss rejoining. However, on August 4, after turning to prayer, he said that it was not meant to be. At that point, he also cited Steve Walsh as one of the reasons he wanted to become a singer.
A statement was issued on August 14, 2014 through the band's official Facebook page stating that Chicago native Ronnie Platt (who had previously sung with Shooting Star) had been selected as the band's new lead vocalist and keyboard player.
On August 24, 2014 the band announced that their longtime lighting specialist David Manion would be handling the main keyboard parts for the band on stage along with Platt, giving the group a full-time keyboardist for the first time since Greg Robert's departure in 1997. Manion had also handled keyboard responsibilities for Kansas bassist and vocalist Billy Greer's band, Seventh Key.
In March 2015, the band released the aforementioned documentary, Miracles Out of Nowhere. The documentary chronicles the band's formation and follows them throughout their success with Leftoverture and Point of Know Return. It was initially available in a limited-edition release that contained an extra DVD of bonus interviews. The documentary was released alongside a companion CD of the same name that contained a selection of the band's greatest hits along with snippets of commentary from the documentary.
On September 1, 2015 a press release announced that Kansas had signed with Inside Out Music, a German label dedicated to progressive rock and related genres, for the release of their upcoming 15th studio album. The release of this album marked the longest period to date between studio releases since the previous album, Somewhere to Elsewhere, had been released over 15 years prior, in 2000. On February 26, 2016 the group officially announced The Prelude Implicit for a September 2016 release. The album's co-producer and co-writer, Zak Rizvi, was subsequently named as a full member of the band, giving Kansas a second full-time guitarist for the first time since Steve Morse's departure in 1991.
On September 30, 2016 the current lineup kicked off a multi-city tour at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Leftoverture, which was done again in the spring of 2017 with a 12 show 40th anniversary tour, that, like the fall jaunt, included performances of newer tracks, older songs and a complete rendering of the full Leftoverture album. A two-CD set, Leftoverture Live & Beyond, was released in November 2017 that contained 19 songs culled from different shows during the tour and the band's 2017 fall dates also included further 40th anniversary shows.
In 2018 the group decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Point of Know Return by playing that album in its entirety at the shows on a tour, set to begin in September.
After the conclusion of the fall tour dates, keyboardist David Manion departed the band and in December Tom Brislin (who had played with Yes, Meat Loaf, Debbie Harry, Renaissance, Camel, Dennis DeYoung and others) was announced as the new keyboardist, with the second leg of the Point 40th anniversary tour slated to resume in March 2019.
On June 25, 2019 The New York Times Magazine listed Kansas among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In December 2019, the band played the entire Leftoverture and Point of Know Return albums in a special performance at the Beacon Theater in New York City.
2020: The Absence of Presence
On March 20, 2020, the band announced the upcoming release of a new studio album, The Absence of Presence. Due to manufacturing delays, the album was released on July 17, 2020. It has been promoted by the release of videos for three songs: "Throwing Mountains", "Memories Down the Line" and "Jets Overhead". Recording for the album took place simultaneously during the band's 2019 touring schedule.
To promote the album, an autumn 2020 tour of Europe was scheduled, but following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the tour has been postponed to 2022.
Rizvi left the band in April 2021 in order to pursue new projects.
On May 28, 2021, the group released Point of Know Return: Live and Beyond, with performances taken from various dates on the 2019 to early 2020 legs of the Point of Know Return 40th Anniversary Tour.
Former violin player and vocalist Robby Steinhardt died from pancreatitis on July 17, 2021, at the age of 71.
Influences
Kansas's musical style, a fusion of hard rock, southern rock, and progressive rock, was influenced by several bands. The music of Yes and Genesis was inspirational to Kansas, especially demonstrated in the lyrics of Walsh. Livgren cited the 1960s band Touch as foundational to his development. Livgren's evolving spirituality is reflected in the band's songs, with early works showing an interest in the mysticism of Eastern religions, works in the late 1970s influenced by the American spiritual philosophy of The Urantia Book, followed in the early 1980s by works embracing born-again Christianity. The re-formed band produced a harder pop metal album in the late 1980s.
In a 2003 interview with The A.V. Club, Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the Opus comic strip, revealed that "Opus was named after a Kansas song." From the band's 1976 album Leftoverture, the songs "Opus Insert" and the epic "Magnum Opus" could both be the inspiration for the name. He also added, "If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you."
Appearances in other media
"Carry On Wayward Son" has been covered by many artists. It was included on soundtracks for the following movies and television shows: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Family Guy, Gentlemen Broncos, Happy Gilmore, Heroes (1977)*, Scrubs, South Park ("Guitar Queer-o" episode), King of the Hill ("My Own Private Rodeo") and Strangers with Candy ("Yes You Can't"). It was also featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto V, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Rock Band 2, and Rock Band Unplugged.
The song is frequently played throughout the show Supernatural and also appears in Supernatural: The Anime Series (as the ending for each episode). It is often hailed as the show's unofficial theme song.
"Carry On Wayward Son" was removed from the 1977 movie Heroes when it was discovered that the movie had not obtained rights to use the song. The DVD release by MCA/Universal Home used a different (unknown) song, yet the credit for "Wayward Son" remains.
"Dust in the Wind" was parodied by comedian Tim Hawkins, the parody called "A Whiff of Kansas" which is on the Pretty Pink Tractor album, and a video parody on the Insanitized live DVD. In 2016, the music video for the song was parodied on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In the 2003 movie Old School, the song was sung by Frank "The Tank" Ricard, played by Will Ferrell, at the funeral for Joseph "Blue" Pulaski, a fraternity brother, played by Joseph Patrick Cranshaw, and as such, the song appears on the movie's soundtrack. In the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Ted, played by Keanu Reeves, quotes the song lyric "All we are is dust in the wind, dude" to philosophize with Socrates.
"Point of Know Return" was featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2021 film The Suicide Squad.
Members
Current members
Phil Ehart – drums, percussion
Rich Williams – lead and rhythm guitars
Billy Greer – bass, acoustic guitar, backing and lead vocals
David Ragsdale – violin, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Ronnie Platt – lead and backing vocals, keyboards
Tom Brislin – keyboards, backing and lead vocals
Discography
Kansas (1974)
Song for America (1975)
Masque (1975)
Leftoverture (1976)
Point of Know Return (1977)
Monolith (1979)
Audio-Visions (1980)
Vinyl Confessions (1982)
Drastic Measures (1983)
Power (1986)
In the Spirit of Things (1988)
Freaks of Nature (1995)
Always Never the Same (1998)
Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000)
The Prelude Implicit (2016)
The Absence of Presence (2020)
References
External links
Billy Greer
Kerry Livgren
David Ragsdale
Steve Walsh
John Elefante
AllMusic: Kansas - Artist Biography
Innerviews: Career-Spanning 2015 Band Interview
American hard rock musical groups
American progressive rock groups
Art rock musical groups
Epic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1973
Musical groups disestablished in 1984
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1973 establishments in Kansas
1984 disestablishments in Kansas
1985 establishments in Kansas
Musicians from Topeka, Kansas
Rock music groups from Kansas
Symphonic rock groups
Inside Out Music artists
MCA Records artists
Magna Carta Records artists
| false |
[
"The Kansas City Times was a morning newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, published from 1867 to 1990. The morning Kansas City Times, under ownership of the afternoon Kansas City Star, won two Pulitzer Prizes and was bigger than its parent when its name was changed to The Star.\n\nHistory\nJohn C. Moore and John Newman Edwards founded The Times in 1867 to support the Democratic Party's anti-Reconstruction policies. Edwards had been adjutant of Confederate general Joseph O. Shelby's division during the American Civil War. Moore was a colonel under Shelby, and before that chief of staff to General John S. Marmaduke, judge adjutant general, and second in the Marmaduke-Walker duel.\n\nWilliam Rockhill Nelson bought The Times on October 19, 1901, mainly because he wanted The Times''' Associated Press wire. Nelson applied a subheading to the newspaper The Morning Kansas City Star and declared that The Kansas City Star empire was a 24-hour-a-day newspaper. In accordance with Nelson's will, employees took over the newspaper in 1926 upon the death of Nelson's daughter.\n\nThe Star and Times were locally owned by employees until 1977, when they were sold to Capital Cities. Under corporate ownership, The Times had higher circulation than its evening sister paper. Capital Cities made attempts to make the newsrooms appear to compete (though Kansas City did not have competing dailies after The Kansas City Journal folded in 1942). The Times won its only Pulitzer Prizes in 1982. Rick Atkinson won an award for \"National Reporting\", and The Times shared an award with The Star for \"Local General or Spot New Reporting\" for its coverage of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse.\n\nOn March 1, 1990, The Star (then under ownership of Capital Cities/ABC) applied its name to the morning paper and The Times'' name disappeared, meaning that Kansas City no longer had an afternoon daily.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n PBS American Experience Article on John Newman Edwards\n\nKansas City Times\nDefunct newspapers published in Missouri\nNewspapers established in 1867\n1867 establishments in Missouri\n1990 disestablishments in Missouri",
"The Cimarron Hotel is a historic hotel located in Cimarron, a small town located in southwest Kansas, United States. \n\nThe hotel is a three-story Second Empire-style building, about in plan, with five bays across the front and eight bays deep.\n\nHistory\nThe hotel was built by Nicholas B. Klaine in 1886, at an investment of $15,000. With the completion of the first floor of the three-story brick structure, he launched the New West Echo, a Republican newspaper. The newspaper occupied the north half of the first floor of the hotel. The hotel opened as the New West Hotel and operated as one of seven serving pioneers who needed to come to town for supplies or for cowboys and ruffians who literally wanted to \"get the heck out of Dodge.\"\n\nDespite several severe economic depressions and droughts in the late 19th century, Klaine continued to operate the Cimarron Hotel under several managers, until 1902. In that year, the New West Echo ceased publication and Klaine sold the hotel to the Luther family. The name was changed to \"The Luther Inn.\" The Luther family owned the hotel until 1947 when they sold the hotel to Else Bartlow, who had been the secretary at the hotel. She changed the name to the \"Cimarron Hotel.\" In 1977, the hotel was purchased by Kathleen Holt.\n\nIn the 1980s, the hotel underwent substantial renovations and became a restaurant, bed and breakfast lodging, and private home to the owner and her family. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. As of August 2007, a portion of the building was occupied by a quilt shop that also conducted quilting classes and seminars. The third floor of the building still comprised overnight quarters for guests.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links \n\nAtchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway hotels\nBed and breakfasts in Kansas\nBuildings and structures in Gray County, Kansas\nHotel buildings completed in 1886\nHotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas\nNational Register of Historic Places in Gray County, Kansas"
] |
[
"Kansas (band)",
"1970-1973: Early years",
"Who are the original band members?",
"In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why",
"What was the band's original name?",
"After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums.",
"When did the name get changed to Kansas?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_220546961ba24066b1e9c3ce55dcefab_1
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When did some of the members leave the group?
| 4 |
When did some of the members of Kansas leave the group?
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Kansas (band)
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In 1969 Lynn Meredith, Don Montre, Dan Wright and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called The Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After changing the band's name to Saratoga, they started playing Livgren's original material with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe on drums. In 1970 they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, which lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover, is sometimes referred to as Kansas I. Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass, and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. (This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw). In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973 they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas". CANNOTANSWER
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Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass, and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. (
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Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on album-oriented rock charts and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind". The band has produced nine gold albums, three multi-platinum albums (Leftoverture 4×, Point of Know Return 4×, and The Best of Kansas 4×), one other platinum studio album (Monolith), one platinum live double album (Two for the Show), and a million-selling single, "Dust in the Wind". Kansas appeared on the Billboard charts for over 200 weeks throughout the 1970s and 1980s and played to sold-out arenas and stadiums throughout North America, Europe and Japan. "Carry On Wayward Son" was the second-most-played track on US classic rock radio in 1995 and No. 1 in 1997.
History
1970–1973: Early years
In 1969, Don Montre and Kerry Livgren (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers) were performing in a band called the Reasons Why in their hometown of Topeka, Kansas. After leaving to form the band Saratoga with Lynn Meredith and Dan Wright, they started playing Livgren's original material, with Scott Kessler playing bass and Zeke Lowe coming in on drums.
In 1970, they changed the band's name to Kansas and merged with members of rival Topeka progressive rock group White Clover. White Clover members Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Ehart (drums, percussion) joined with Livgren, vocalists Meredith and Greg Allen, keyboardists Montre and Wright and saxophonist Larry Baker. This early Kansas group, sometimes called Kansas I, lasted until early 1971 when Ehart, Hope and some of the others left to re-form White Clover.
Ehart was replaced by Zeke Lowe and later Brad Schulz, Hope was replaced by Rod Mikinski on bass and Baker was replaced by John Bolton on saxophone and flute. This lineup is sometimes referred to as Kansas II, and 30 years later would re-form under the name Proto-Kaw.
In 1972, after Ehart returned from England (where he had gone to look for other musicians), he and Hope once again re-formed White Clover with Robby Steinhardt (vocals, violin, viola, cello), Steve Walsh (vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, percussion) and Rich Williams (guitars). In early 1973, they recruited Livgren from the second Kansas group, which then folded. Eventually they received a recording contract with Don Kirshner's eponymous label, after Kirshner's assistant, Wally Gold, heard one of their demo tapes and came out to check out the band at one of their local gigs in March 1973, in Ellinwood, Kansas. After signing with Kirshner, the group decided to return to using the name "Kansas".
1974–1979: Rise to national prominence
Their self-titled debut album, produced by Gold, was released in March 1974, nearly a year after it was recorded in New York. It defined the band's signature sound, a mix of American-style boogie rock and complex, symphonic arrangements with changing time signatures. Steinhardt's violin was a distinctive element of the group's sound, being defined more by heartland rock than the jazz and classical influences which most progressive rock violinists followed.
The band slowly developed a cult following due to promotion by Kirshner and extensive touring for the debut album and its two follow-ups, Song for America (February 1975) and Masque (October 1975). Song for America was co-produced by Wally Gold and their former White Clover bandmate Jeff Glixman, who would go on to produce all of their albums from Masque to Two for the Show (October 1978) on his own, returning to the helm for 1995's Freaks of Nature. Both Masque and their next release, Leftoverture, were recorded at a studio in the middle of the Louisiana Bayou named Studio in the Country.
Kansas released its fourth album, Leftoverture, in October 1976, which produced a hit single, "Carry On Wayward Son", in 1977. The follow-up, Point of Know Return, recorded at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana and Woodland Sound in Nashville and released in October 1977, featured the title track and "Dust in the Wind", both hit singles. Leftoverture was a breakthrough for the band, hitting No. 5 on Billboard's pop album chart. Point of Know Return peaked even higher, at No. 4. Both albums sold over four million copies in the U.S. Both "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind" were certified gold singles, selling over one million units each. "Dust in the Wind" was certified gold as a digital download by the RIAA in 2005, almost 30 years after selling one million copies as a single. Leftoverture was eventually certified five-times platinum by the RIAA in 2001.
During this period, Kansas became a major headlining act and sold out the largest venues available to rock bands at the time, including New York's Madison Square Garden. The band documented this era in 1978 with Two for the Show, a double live album of recordings from various performances from its 1977 and 1978 tours. The band gained a solid reputation for faithful live reproduction of their studio recordings.
In March 1978, Kansas was brought over to tour Europe for the very first time and later on that same year, they were named UNICEF Deputy Ambassadors of Goodwill.
The follow-up studio album to Point of Know Return was Monolith (May 1979), which was self-produced. The album generated a Top 40 single in "People of the South Wind", whose title refers to the meaning of the 'Kanza' (Kaw) Native American people, after whom the state and the band are named. The album failed to garner the sales and radio airplay of its two predecessors. Nevertheless, the album eventually went platinum. Livgren's platinum award for the album is on display at the Kansas Museum of History. The band toured the US for Monolith during the summer and fall of 1979 then went over to tour Japan for the first time in January 1980.
1980–1984: Creative tensions
Kansas bandmembers began to drift apart in the early 1980s. During the tour supporting Monolith, Livgren became a born-again Christian, and this was reflected in his lyrics on the next three albums, beginning with Audio-Visions (September 1980). "Hold On", a Top 40 single from that album, displayed his new-found faith. Hope soon converted to Christianity as well. This would be the final album with the original lineup (until they briefly reunited in 1999–2000), and also the last Kansas studio album to be certified gold by the RIAA.
Due to creative differences over the lyrical direction of the next album, Walsh left in October 1981 to form a new band, Streets. In early December of that year, Walsh was replaced by vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist John Elefante, who—unknown to Livgren and Hope at the time—was also a Christian. He was chosen from over 200 applicants, such as Sammy Hagar, Doug Pinnick, Ted Neeley (who played the title character in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar), Warren Ham (ex-Bloodrock, who would join the band on the road in 1982, adding sax, flute, harmonica, back-up vocals and extra keyboards) and Michael Gleason (who would supply keyboards and back-up vocals on the group's 1983 tour).
The first Kansas album with Elefante, Vinyl Confessions, was released in June 1982. The record renewed interest in the group and generated the band's first Top 20 hit in several years, "Play the Game Tonight", which hit No. 4 on Billboards newly deployed Mainstream Rock chart. The album's mostly Christianity-based lyrics attracted a new audience and garnered radio airplay on the then fledgling Contemporary Christian Music format. The album featured backing vocals from Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who was recording in the studio next door. Still, sales of the album fell short of gold status.
Drastic Measures followed in July 1983. For various reasons, Livgren contributed only three songs to the album; the rest were penned by John Elefante and his brother Dino. With violinist Steinhardt leaving the group before the recording sessions, the result was a more mainstream pop-rock album. Though the album charted lower than any Kansas album since Masque, peaking at No. 41, its single "Fight Fire with Fire" fared better. It did not crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, but reached No. 3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. It was the highest chart position of any Kansas release on any chart, though this particular chart did not exist prior to 1981. For their 1983 tour for Drastic Measures, Kansas was joined on stage by the aforementioned Michael Gleason and Terry Brock (who covered the absent Steinhardt's harmony vocals).
During the band's time with Elefante as lead vocalist, Livgren became increasingly uncomfortable with Kansas representing his Christian worldview. After a final New Year's Eve performance on December 31, 1983, Livgren and Hope left to form AD with Warren Ham and Michael Gleason. They were joined by drummer Dennis Holt.
Elefante, Ehart and Williams sought to continue as Kansas and recorded one more song, "Perfect Lover", which appeared on the retrospective The Best of Kansas (August 1984), which has sold over four million units in the U.S. alone. The song would eventually be removed in favor of other songs on the remastered release of the compilation. The group disbanded after its release, which thus became the final Kansas recording with Elefante. Since leaving the band, Elefante has become a popular Contemporary Christian music artist and has not performed with the group since.
In the summer of 1984, Ehart, Williams and Elefante were part of a United Service Organizations (USO) tour of US military bases that had been put together by Ehart, called 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division, that also included Patrick Simmons (Doobie Brothers), Leon Medica (LeRoux), David Jenkins, Cory Lerios and John Pierce (from Pablo Cruise) and Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos (from Cheap Trick). The supergroup began four days of rehearsals in Hawaii on March 10 before beginning a 17-day tour playing for the United States Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean and land-based troops in Korea, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and the Philippines. This was followed by a second USO tour in March 1985 that included Ehart, Williams and Steve Walsh.
1985–1990: Reformation
In March 1985, the band came back together with Ehart, Williams and Walsh (who had briefly played keyboards on the road for Cheap Trick in the spring and summer of 1985, after the break up of Streets), but without Livgren, Hope or Steinhardt. The new lineup included Streets bassist Billy Greer and guitarist Steve Morse (formerly of the Dixie Dregs). The first performances of the new lineup with Morse and Greer took place during a third USO 1st Airborne Rock and Roll Division tour that toured US military bases in the US, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, Iceland and most of Europe during the late summer through early October 1986.
The re-formed band released Power in November 1986. The first single, "All I Wanted", became the last Kansas single to hit the Billboard Top 40 chart, peaking at No. 19. It also received considerable airplay on MTV. Two more singles, the title track and "Can't Cry Anymore", were less successful, "Power" hitting the lower end of the Hot 100 and getting substantial play and charting on the Rock Charts, but "Can't Cry Anymore" receiving little airplay despite a clever music video.
The band added Baton Rouge native Greg Robert on keyboards and back-up vocals at the suggestion of LeRoux's Leon Medica. Greg played his first show with Kansas on January 31, 1987 along with 38 Special at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in Puerto Rico. The new lineup released a second album, In the Spirit of Things, in October 1988. The concept album and subsequent tour were popular with the fan base but did not receive widespread airplay beyond the "Stand Beside Me" video on MTV. Morse temporarily left the band at the end of a tour of Germany in April 1989.
On September 15, 1990 Walsh, Williams and Ehart played a charity event at the Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California, alongside Saga, Lou Gramm (of Foreigner), Mr. Big, Eddie Money, Kevin Cronin (from REO Speedwagon) and others. Alex Lifeson joined them on stage for a short set of Kansas before Geddy Lee flew in to join Alex for a Rush set, with Ehart on drums subbing for Neil Peart.
In November 1990, a German promoter arranged to reunite all the original members of Kansas (except for Steinhardt) for a European tour. Greer joined them, along with keyboardist Greg Robert. At the end of the tour, Hope left again, but Livgren remained on into 1991.
1991–1997: Addition of David Ragsdale
In April 1991 violinist David Ragsdale (who had submitted a tape of his playing to Ehart several years earlier) was invited to join the group and the return of the violin allowed Kansas to perform earlier material in arrangements closer to the originals. Livgren left during the 1991 summer tour, to be replaced temporarily by Steve Morse again. After the tour, Morse left the band for good to return to his own projects and eventually become a member of Deep Purple, and Ragsdale took over the extra guitar parts, leaving Williams as the primary guitar player. The resulting lineup of Ehart, Greer, Ragsdale, Robert, Walsh and Williams lasted from 1991 to 1997. This period saw one live album and accompanying video, Live at the Whisky (July 1992), and one studio album, Freaks of Nature (May 1995).
During the fall of 1993, drummer Van Romaine (formerly of Blood Sweat and Tears and Steve Morse's band) came in to substitute for Ehart, who was taking care of the group's business and putting together The Kansas Boxed Set, which was released in July 1994. Bryan Holmes, from The Producers, likewise filled in for Ehart during the spring and summer of 1994 until that December, when Phil returned for a tour of Germany.
On July 28, 1995 Kansas was inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood.
1997–2006: Return of Robby Steinhardt
In early 1997, Robert and Ragsdale left the band and Steinhardt returned.
In May 1998, Kansas released Always Never the Same, which featured Larry Baird conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The album was a mix of older Kansas material (with new arrangements by Baird), several new songs and a cover of "Eleanor Rigby".
Somewhere to Elsewhere, a new studio album released in July 2000, featured all the original members of Kansas, plus Greer, with all songs written by Kerry Livgren. That same summer, Kansas was the opening act for Yes during their "Masterworks" tour.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Livgren would occasionally attend Kansas shows and come on stage to play one or more songs with the band. At a March 9, 2002 concert at Lake Tahoe, he played the whole show, subbing for Rich Williams who was "under the weather", and another live album and DVD from Kansas, entitled Device - Voice - Drum, which was recorded in the band's present home of Atlanta on June 15, 2002, was released that October.
Also in 2002, Kansas II (the lineup prior to the recording and release of the first Kansas album) released an album under the name Proto-Kaw, featuring demos and live material recorded from 1971 to 1973. It led to a new studio album, Before Became After (2004), with most of the Kansas II members participating. Proto-Kaw released a third album, The Wait of Glory in 2006, and their fourth and final studio album, Forth, was released in 2011, after which the band ceased.
2006–2013: Continued touring and regained popularity
Kansas continued to tour every year. The 2006 tour was delayed for a few weeks due to Steinhardt's second departure in March and Ragsdale's subsequent return to the lineup.
In 2008, the Kansas website announced that four of the five members (Ehart, Ragsdale, Williams, and Greer) had formed a side recording group called Native Window and they released their self-titled debut album in June 2009.
In February 2009, Kansas recorded a concert in Topeka featuring a full symphony orchestra, with Larry Baird conducting. Morse and Livgren appeared as special guests on several songs. The performance was released on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray as There's Know Place Like Home that October and the DVD hit No. 5 on the Billboard Music Video Chart the week after its release.
In July 2010, Kansas completed a 30-day "United We Rock" tour with fellow classic rock acts Styx and Foreigner. Kansas then began a collegiate tour in September 2010. On this tour they performed with the symphony orchestras of various US colleges in an effort to raise money for the individual schools' music programs. The success of the tour led the band to start another one the following year.
On September 13, 2012 Kansas began a new tour with a performance at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. Opening for them was the band King's X and a one-man-band called That 1 Guy. This tour featured many hits from the albums Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, as well as material from a number of their other albums.
The band kicked off 2013 being featured on the Rock Legends II cruise. The floating rock festival for a cause aboard Royal Caribbean International's Liberty of the Seas departed January 10, 2013 from Fort Lauderdale, FL. Other big names included Foreigner, Paul Rodgers, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Bachman & Turner, 38 Special, The Marshall Tucker Band, Blue Öyster Cult, Foghat and Molly Hatchet.
On March 1, 2013 Kansas announced a 40th-anniversary celebration was in the works. However, Steinhardt suffered a heart attack days before the concert and was unable to participate. Nevertheless, the show went on, billed as the 40th Anniversary Fan Appreciation Concert, performed in Pittsburgh on August 17, 2013 at the same venue, Benedum Center (formerly The Stanley Theater), which had propelled them to national recognition. The show featured guest appearances by Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope and the first set featured symphonic accompaniment by the Three Rivers Orchestra, conducted by Larry Baird. Intermission featured Phil Ehart overseeing random prize drawings of autographed band merchandise, videotaped 40th anniversary well-wishes from other bands and an exclusive first-look at the trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary Miracles Out of Nowhere.
2014–2020: Retirement of Steve Walsh, The Prelude Implicit
On August 2, 2014 a statement was issued on the band's official Facebook page announcing the impending retirement of lead singer Steve Walsh.
On August 6, 2014 former Kansas lead singer John Elefante issued a statement that he had been contacted by the band on August 2 to discuss rejoining. However, on August 4, after turning to prayer, he said that it was not meant to be. At that point, he also cited Steve Walsh as one of the reasons he wanted to become a singer.
A statement was issued on August 14, 2014 through the band's official Facebook page stating that Chicago native Ronnie Platt (who had previously sung with Shooting Star) had been selected as the band's new lead vocalist and keyboard player.
On August 24, 2014 the band announced that their longtime lighting specialist David Manion would be handling the main keyboard parts for the band on stage along with Platt, giving the group a full-time keyboardist for the first time since Greg Robert's departure in 1997. Manion had also handled keyboard responsibilities for Kansas bassist and vocalist Billy Greer's band, Seventh Key.
In March 2015, the band released the aforementioned documentary, Miracles Out of Nowhere. The documentary chronicles the band's formation and follows them throughout their success with Leftoverture and Point of Know Return. It was initially available in a limited-edition release that contained an extra DVD of bonus interviews. The documentary was released alongside a companion CD of the same name that contained a selection of the band's greatest hits along with snippets of commentary from the documentary.
On September 1, 2015 a press release announced that Kansas had signed with Inside Out Music, a German label dedicated to progressive rock and related genres, for the release of their upcoming 15th studio album. The release of this album marked the longest period to date between studio releases since the previous album, Somewhere to Elsewhere, had been released over 15 years prior, in 2000. On February 26, 2016 the group officially announced The Prelude Implicit for a September 2016 release. The album's co-producer and co-writer, Zak Rizvi, was subsequently named as a full member of the band, giving Kansas a second full-time guitarist for the first time since Steve Morse's departure in 1991.
On September 30, 2016 the current lineup kicked off a multi-city tour at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Leftoverture, which was done again in the spring of 2017 with a 12 show 40th anniversary tour, that, like the fall jaunt, included performances of newer tracks, older songs and a complete rendering of the full Leftoverture album. A two-CD set, Leftoverture Live & Beyond, was released in November 2017 that contained 19 songs culled from different shows during the tour and the band's 2017 fall dates also included further 40th anniversary shows.
In 2018 the group decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Point of Know Return by playing that album in its entirety at the shows on a tour, set to begin in September.
After the conclusion of the fall tour dates, keyboardist David Manion departed the band and in December Tom Brislin (who had played with Yes, Meat Loaf, Debbie Harry, Renaissance, Camel, Dennis DeYoung and others) was announced as the new keyboardist, with the second leg of the Point 40th anniversary tour slated to resume in March 2019.
On June 25, 2019 The New York Times Magazine listed Kansas among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In December 2019, the band played the entire Leftoverture and Point of Know Return albums in a special performance at the Beacon Theater in New York City.
2020: The Absence of Presence
On March 20, 2020, the band announced the upcoming release of a new studio album, The Absence of Presence. Due to manufacturing delays, the album was released on July 17, 2020. It has been promoted by the release of videos for three songs: "Throwing Mountains", "Memories Down the Line" and "Jets Overhead". Recording for the album took place simultaneously during the band's 2019 touring schedule.
To promote the album, an autumn 2020 tour of Europe was scheduled, but following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the tour has been postponed to 2022.
Rizvi left the band in April 2021 in order to pursue new projects.
On May 28, 2021, the group released Point of Know Return: Live and Beyond, with performances taken from various dates on the 2019 to early 2020 legs of the Point of Know Return 40th Anniversary Tour.
Former violin player and vocalist Robby Steinhardt died from pancreatitis on July 17, 2021, at the age of 71.
Influences
Kansas's musical style, a fusion of hard rock, southern rock, and progressive rock, was influenced by several bands. The music of Yes and Genesis was inspirational to Kansas, especially demonstrated in the lyrics of Walsh. Livgren cited the 1960s band Touch as foundational to his development. Livgren's evolving spirituality is reflected in the band's songs, with early works showing an interest in the mysticism of Eastern religions, works in the late 1970s influenced by the American spiritual philosophy of The Urantia Book, followed in the early 1980s by works embracing born-again Christianity. The re-formed band produced a harder pop metal album in the late 1980s.
In a 2003 interview with The A.V. Club, Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the Opus comic strip, revealed that "Opus was named after a Kansas song." From the band's 1976 album Leftoverture, the songs "Opus Insert" and the epic "Magnum Opus" could both be the inspiration for the name. He also added, "If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you."
Appearances in other media
"Carry On Wayward Son" has been covered by many artists. It was included on soundtracks for the following movies and television shows: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Family Guy, Gentlemen Broncos, Happy Gilmore, Heroes (1977)*, Scrubs, South Park ("Guitar Queer-o" episode), King of the Hill ("My Own Private Rodeo") and Strangers with Candy ("Yes You Can't"). It was also featured in the video games Grand Theft Auto V, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Rock Band 2, and Rock Band Unplugged.
The song is frequently played throughout the show Supernatural and also appears in Supernatural: The Anime Series (as the ending for each episode). It is often hailed as the show's unofficial theme song.
"Carry On Wayward Son" was removed from the 1977 movie Heroes when it was discovered that the movie had not obtained rights to use the song. The DVD release by MCA/Universal Home used a different (unknown) song, yet the credit for "Wayward Son" remains.
"Dust in the Wind" was parodied by comedian Tim Hawkins, the parody called "A Whiff of Kansas" which is on the Pretty Pink Tractor album, and a video parody on the Insanitized live DVD. In 2016, the music video for the song was parodied on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In the 2003 movie Old School, the song was sung by Frank "The Tank" Ricard, played by Will Ferrell, at the funeral for Joseph "Blue" Pulaski, a fraternity brother, played by Joseph Patrick Cranshaw, and as such, the song appears on the movie's soundtrack. In the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Ted, played by Keanu Reeves, quotes the song lyric "All we are is dust in the wind, dude" to philosophize with Socrates.
"Point of Know Return" was featured as part of the soundtrack for the 2021 film The Suicide Squad.
Members
Current members
Phil Ehart – drums, percussion
Rich Williams – lead and rhythm guitars
Billy Greer – bass, acoustic guitar, backing and lead vocals
David Ragsdale – violin, rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Ronnie Platt – lead and backing vocals, keyboards
Tom Brislin – keyboards, backing and lead vocals
Discography
Kansas (1974)
Song for America (1975)
Masque (1975)
Leftoverture (1976)
Point of Know Return (1977)
Monolith (1979)
Audio-Visions (1980)
Vinyl Confessions (1982)
Drastic Measures (1983)
Power (1986)
In the Spirit of Things (1988)
Freaks of Nature (1995)
Always Never the Same (1998)
Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000)
The Prelude Implicit (2016)
The Absence of Presence (2020)
References
External links
Billy Greer
Kerry Livgren
David Ragsdale
Steve Walsh
John Elefante
AllMusic: Kansas - Artist Biography
Innerviews: Career-Spanning 2015 Band Interview
American hard rock musical groups
American progressive rock groups
Art rock musical groups
Epic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1973
Musical groups disestablished in 1984
Musical groups reestablished in 1985
1973 establishments in Kansas
1984 disestablishments in Kansas
1985 establishments in Kansas
Musicians from Topeka, Kansas
Rock music groups from Kansas
Symphonic rock groups
Inside Out Music artists
MCA Records artists
Magna Carta Records artists
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[
"Labour Leave is a Eurosceptic campaign group in the United Kingdom. The group is unofficially affiliated with the Labour Party, and campaigned for the United Kingdom to vote to withdraw from the European Union, in the June 2016 EU Referendum. The group was led by eurosceptic Labour MPs: Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins, and Roger Godsiff. \n\nKate Hoey was another co chair in the group, until she reportedly resigned in February 2016. Labour MP Gisela Stuart did not participate in the group, instead chairing the official leave campaign, Vote Leave.\n\nJohn Mills officially resigned as chairman of Labour Leave, in July 2018. The supporters page of the website, in January 2019, listed only Brendan Chilton (chair) and MPs, Kate Hoey and Frank Field (on 30 August 2018, Field had resigned the Labour whip). Chilton is also the general secretary, and the only director of Labour Leave Limited. The group is still active, as of .\n\nPosition within Vote Leave\nThe organisation's position within the Vote Leave campaign has been seen as precarious, a source close to the campaign told the Morning Star, due to a perceived domination of the Vote Leave campaign by Conservative and UKIP officials. Of Vote Leave's seventeen strong governing board, only two members (Mills and Stringer) are members of Labour Leave.\n\nIn response to this, the idea of a campaign wholly independent of both Vote Leave and Leave.EU had been suggested by Hoey and Hopkins, among others.\n\nFunding For The Group\n\nAdam Barnett, on the left wing political blog, Left Foot Forward, wrote that Labour Leave's two biggest funders were Conservative Party donors, and its third biggest funder was the official campaign group for Brexit, Vote Leave, an organisation which is (mostly) Conservative.\n\nThe Electoral Commission shows Labour Leave received £15,000 from Vote Leave in February. It also received £50,000, from donor of the Conservatives, Jeremy Hosking, who had given the Conservatives almost £570,000, by June 2016.\n\nHosking donated £100,000 to the Conservative Party in April 2015, and donated £50,000 in March 2016 (the same month he gave £50,000 to Labour Leave). Labour Leave took a further £150,000 in May from Richard Smith, believed to be the owner of 55 Tufton Street in Westminster (home of several right wing groups). \n\nBarnett attributed this collaboration, between opposing political organisations, to a desire by the Conservatives to split the vote, on the Labour EU Referendum, as it was alleged that Labour members were unsure, of their party's position on Brexit. \n\nLabour Leave continue to raise money, from crowd sourcing campaigns, and from direct donations from their supporters and members. Labour Leave was fined £9,000 in March 2019, by the Electoral Commission, for an inaccurate campaign spending return, and inaccurate donation reports, at the 2016 EU Referendum.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLexit The Movie\nThe inside story of Labour Leave: the left-wing Eurosceptics who toppled a Tory prime minister\nLabour Leave has no confidence in David Cameron's EU renegotiation\nJohn Mills: Why top Labour donor is backing calls for a Brexit from the EU\nVote Leave launches\nNigel Griffiths in EU exit stunt ahead of Gordon Brown speech\nOfficial Twitter account\n\n2015 establishments in the United Kingdom\nEuroscepticism in the United Kingdom\nOrganisations associated with the Labour Party (UK)\nOrganizations established in 2015\n2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum\nBrexit–related advocacy groups in the United Kingdom",
"Broodfonds (English: \"Bread fund\") is a Dutch collective that allows independent entrepreneurs to provide each other with temporary sick leave. Those who wish to participate in a bread fund can join an existing group of likeminded entrepreneurs, or start one themselves. The recommended minimum is 25 people, the maximum size is 50 people to avoid a degree of anonymity. A 'broodfonds' organises solidarity by personal connections and networking and its members are self-governing.\n\nSpecifics\nMembers of a bread fund group who fall sick receive donations from the other members in their group, the total amounting to a net monthly income. The participants open individual bankaccounts dedicated to their 'bread fund'. On these accounts the people who join a broodfonds save a fixed amount per month: between €33.75 and €112.50. They also pay a one-time service fee of €250 and a monthly contribution of €10. If members fall sick, they receive net donations depending on their own monthly contribution: between €750 and €2500. Personal donations can be tax-free under Dutch tax law. The monthly savings that accumulate on the bankaccount of each member are personal credit and when people cancel their participation they collect this sum.\n\nPieter Hilhorst, writing in de Volkskrant, described the fund as \"a new kind of solidarity\", in which a social network helps its members cope with financial trouble. Members can receive support for a maximum of two years. , the BroodfondsMakers claim 5000 participants in 142 'broodfondsen'.\n\nCritique\nThe logistics of the plan suggest that financial risk for the group is greatest in the first years of participation, when members have little savings. According to Tijs van den Boomen, opinioning in de Volkskrant, the associated fees and costs in 2011 for members were too high. He also estimated the risk of illness among members in the first few years so great, that payments for sick leave risked being cut especially if the group remained small or if several members suddenly left the group. He felt that freelancers were better off individually saving money for sick leave than save in a small-scale 'crumbs-collective'. With 1 percent of sick people among the 5000-plus participants in 2015, there appear to be no excessive claims. Critics and journalists with expertise in finance and insurance remain wary and warn for the risks of the amateur selfmanagement by members. The upcoming 'broodfonds' platform Risicodelen therefore provides a professional management team to protect their groups from financial mismanagement.\n\nPractice\nHaro Kraak, reporting on a broodfonds in 2013, indicated that the risk of excessive claims of sickness or fraud were not manifest when he interviewed members of a group of some forty freelancers in Amsterdam, where two members were sick. Tjitske Mussche, chair of that fund, said the concept is based on existing working relations and friendships and that it requires a degree of trust from its members. Their fund is called \"Soup fund\": \"When someone is sick, you bring them soup. So now we bring every sick person a pot of soup\". In practice, she said, most freelancers and self-employed people in her 'broodfonds' want to avoid the high fees of income insurance and are pleased to be able to support each other in times of need. Participants are happy to arrange their own safety-net, as they see fit.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMedical and health organisations based in the Netherlands\nLeave of absence"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life"
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
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was Stephen Stills married?
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was Stephen Stills married?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
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[
"\"Change Partners\" is a song written by Stephen Stills that was released on his 1971 album Stephen Stills 2. It was also released as the debut single from the album, just missing the Top 40, and peaking at number 43 on the Billboard Charts, during the week of July 24, 1971 and spending 9 weeks on the chart.\n\nMusic and Lyrics \nStills said \"it was about growing up in the south, attending the debutante balls, but Graham likes to refer to it as the Crosby, Stills & Nash theme song, which I suppose it is\". Graham Nash has said he feels it's about the constantly changing relationships in CSNY. Jerry Garcia performs the pedal steel guitar played throughout the song. One version was recorded at Olympic Studios in London for the recording of his debut solo album, Stephen Stills. This version was released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On. The version released on Stephen Stills 2 was recorded in early 1971 at Criteria Studios, Miami, and featured Graham Nash, David Crosby, photographer Henry Diltz, and Fred Neil on backing vocals.\n\nReception \nPaste Magazine called it a \"catchy pop hit\". Cash Box described the song as being \"a production showcase, rather than a top forty-rhythm outing\" and more of \"an FM preview teaser than a teen sales effort.\"\n\nChart history\n\nReferences \n\nSinglechart usages for UK\nSinglechart called without artist\nSinglechart called without song\nSinglechart usages for Dutch100\nSinglechart making named ref\n1971 songs\nStephen Stills songs\nSongs written by Stephen Stills\nSong recordings produced by Stephen Stills\nAtlantic Records singles",
"Stephen Stills Live is a live album by Stephen Stills, released on Atlantic Records in 1975. Recorded on his first solo tour since 1971 and released after he had signed to Columbia Records. It peaked at number 42 on the US charts.\n\nBackground and Recording \nTaken from live recordings in 1974, it was issued by Atlantic Records after Stills had left the label for Columbia Records. It peaked at #42 on the Billboard 200, and is currently out of print. It was recorded during his first solo tour in three years after the break up of Manassas. Atlantic recorded both nights of the Stills' concerts in Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, for a potential live album. Tom Dowd mixed the album in November 1975 at Caribou Ranch. The first side of the album is Stills with an electric band, and the second side of the album is Stills on his own playing acoustically. 'Four Days Gone' and 'Special Care' are Stills songs written and released by Buffalo Springfield. He combined the Manassas song Jet Set (Sigh) with Joe Walsh's similarly sounding hit Rocky Mountain Way on the electric side. On the acoustic side he did a cover of Robert Johnson's 'Crossroads' segueing into Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me' which became a live staple of both Stills solo and CSN live. And also included is the first release of Stills cover of Freddie Neil's 'Everybody's Talkin' At Me' which had been recorded, but not released for the debut Crosby Stills & Nash record.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nSide One: Electric Side\n Stephen Stills - vocals, guitar, piano\n Donnie Dacus - guitar, backing vocals\n Jerry Aiello - keyboards\n Kenny Passarelli - bass, backing vocals\n Russ Kunkel - drums\n Joe Lala - percussion\nSide Two: Acoustic Side\n Stephen Stills - vocals & acoustic guitar\nTechnical personnel\nTom Dowd, Don Gehmen, & Michael John Bowen - Mixed and edited Oct 1975 at Caribou Ranch, Nederland, Colorado\nRecorded live by Bill Halverson\nPhotography - Stephen Sanders\nManagement, Cover Concept and Design - Michael John Bowen\n\nCharts\n\nTour \nThe Stephen Stills 1974 Theater Tour was a concert tour by American musician Stephen Stills. It was his first solo tour since 1971, and the first since the demise of his band Manassas. He played well respected theaters across the Mid West and the East Coast of the United States. This was Stills' first solo tour in three years, a low-key affair that started with an electric set, then an acoustic set and finishing with another electric set. The setlist contained a range of material from his Buffalo Springfield days, his first two solo albums and the CSN/Y songs. It was during this tour that Stills announced the CSNY 1974 reunion tour. A live album Stephen Stills Live was recorded during the Chicago Auditorium dates and released in December 1975. On the 22 February date in Washington, Neil Young joined Stills on stage.\n\nReferences \n\nStephen Stills live albums\n1975 live albums\nAtlantic Records live albums"
] |
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"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson."
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C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
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where did he meet her?
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Where did Stephen Stills meet Veronique Sanson?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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During a Manassas tour in France,
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
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[
"Bhama Vijayam () is a 1967 Indian Telugu-language swashbuckler film, produced by Somasekhar and Radha Krishna, and directed by C.Pulliah. It stars N. T. Rama Rao and Devika, with music composed by T. V. Raju. The film is based on Gollabhama (1947) which itself is based on the stories of Kaasi Majililu written in Telugu by Madhira Subbanna Deekshitulu.\n\nPlot \nSundari (Devika) a tribal beauty captured by Kalinga Bhupati Kamavardhanudu (Rajanala) when he tries to molest her, she kills him and escapes. The soldiers follow her and she was saved by a Prince, Jayachandra (N. T. Rama Rao). Jayachandra loves her at first sight, but he learns that she hates Kings. So, he acts as an ordinary soldier, takes her to the fort where he reforms her as a wise woman and marries her with the permission of his parents (Mukkamala & S. Varalakshmi). Meanwhile, Vahini (Vijaya Nirmala), a heavenly dancer arrives at earth who sees Jayachandra, falls for him and takes away. At earth, the King, Queen and Sundari are worried about the Prince's disappearance. In heaven, Jayachandra did not yield to the love of Vahini. After some time, he requests her to meet his wife for a night. So, she brings Sundari to heaven where both of them unknowingly drink the divine drink nectar Amurtham and sleep, when she awakes, she is back in the palace. Nobody believes her acquaintance with Jayachandra when she becomes pregnant and the King gives her the death sentence. Due to the nectar, she became immortal, as a result, soldiers could not kill and leave her in the forest where tribal people gives her shelter. After that, she gives birth to a baby boy and gives him away to King Udayarka (Dhulipala). Mohini (L. Vijayalakshmi) sister of Vahini also attracted towards Jayachandra. She sprays a medicine on him, by which Jayachandra forgets his past. After facing so many troubles, Sundari lands at a brothel house. Twenty years roll by, due to immortality, Sundari did not lose her beauty, but she protects her chastity and her child Balarka (Nagaraju) also grows up. Once he rescues Sundari and she recognizes him as his son. Balarka inquires about her and goes to meet her where he listens to the conversation of a cow & calf that a person in lust cannot recognize the relationships. Now Sundari could not face her son and jumps into the fire, but she was protected by a cowherd couple. In heaven, Jayachandra gets rid of Vahini & Mohini and returns. After reaching the earth, Jayachandra reveals the entire facts to his parents when they reply, Sundari has been sentenced but he remembers that she is immortal. At present, he is in search of her. Parallelly, Balarka finds out Sundari as his mother, so, he too goes moves. Finally, all of them meet in the forest and the movie ends on a happy note with the reunion of the family.\n\nCast \nN. T. Rama Rao as Jaya Chandra\nDevika as Sundari\nChittor V. Nagaiah as Saint\nRelangi as Gunapathi\nRajanala as Kalinga Bhupati Kamavardhanudu\nDhulipala as Udayarka Maharaju\nMukkamala as King\nChadalavada\nRaja Babu\nNagaraju\nJagga Rao\nVijaya Nirmala as Vauhini\nL. Vijayalakshmi as Mohini\nS. Varalakshmi as Queen\nGirija as Sarasa\nRushyendramani\n\nSoundtrack \nMusic composed by T. V. Raju.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n1960s Telugu-language films\nFilms directed by C. Pullaiah\nFilms scored by T. V. Raju\nIndian fantasy adventure films\nIndian films\nIndian swashbuckler films",
"Meet is an Indian Hindi-language television drama series that premiered on August 23, 2021, on Zee TV and digital platform ZEE5 is produced by Shashi Sumeet Productions. The show stars Ashi Singh and Shagun Pandey in the lead-roles. It is a remake of Zee Sarthak's Sindura Bindu.\n\nPlot\nThe show explores the story of Meet Hooda, a spirited young tomboyish girl from Haryana who is the sole breadwinner of her family but also breaks societal rule books of gender roles by serving as a delivery agent. Her father was a police officer who sacrificed his life while in service, due to which Meet takes up all the responsibilities of her house and gives up her ambition of becoming an officer like her father. Her grandmother blames her for the death of her twin brother who died in the womb, subjecting her to emotional abuse her entire life while reminding her that she can never be like a boy. \n\nMeet Hooda meets Meet Ahlawat. Though they initially are at loggerheads, they soon become friends. Ahlawat falls in love with Hooda's sister Manushi after hearing her sing. In reality, it was Meet who was singing while Manushi was just lip-syncing the song. Meet Ahlawat's wedding is arranged with Manushi. Ahlawat breaks his friendship with Meet and starts hating her because of a misunderstanding. On the wedding day, Manushi runs away and marries Kunal leading Meet Hooda to marry Meet Ahlawat. No one's happy about this especially Meet Ahlawat's mom, his sister, and he himself. Many arguments and silly fights take place between Meet Hooda and Meet Ahlawat. Though Meet Hooda tries her best to prove herself at every step, Meet Ahlawat is unwilling to accept her as his wife. \n\nAhlawat wants to meet Manushi and loses his cool. On his quest to find Manushi at Meet Hooda's house, he argues with her and leaves, telling her to never step into his house again. On the way back to his house, he is beaten up by goons, and Meet Hooda comes to his rescue and saves his life. She donates blood for him and stays up all night taking care of him at the hospital. Meet Ahlawat regrets his words and starts warming up to her. Meet Hooda takes care of her husband with great care, not leaving his side for a moment. Meet tries to get Manushi to face Ahlawat. However, she instead meets her mother, who makes her promise never to tell her in-laws that Manushi is back at home. Ahlawat throws Meet a surprise birthday party. However, Babita enters the scene and harshly taunts and scolds Meet Hooda for making Ahlawat overexert when he is injured and unwell. Meet Ahlawat stands up for his wife, explaining to his mother that he was the one who threw her a surprise party. He confronts his family members on the way they have treated and perceived Meet H. Finally, Babita understands her son's point of view and accepts Meet as her daughter-in-law. \n\nMasoom finds out that Manushi is at Meet's house. She blackmails Meet Hooda, threatening to reveal this information to the rest of the family if she doesn't divorce her husband. Meet acts aloof with Meet Ahlawat. Meet Ahlawat misses her and demands an answer from her for avoiding him. Later, Meet throws the divorce papers into a bonfire, and tells Masoom that she won't divorce her husband. She apologises to Meet Ahlawat for not taking care of him without revealing the real reason, and she is forgiven. Meet Ahlawat is drugged, and he confesses his love to Meet Hooda, imagining her to be Manushi. Though Meet is broken by this, she dresses up as Manushi in an attempt to get him out of his drunken state, so that he can attend an important business meeting that he has been working towards for years. Her plan works, and he is able to attend his meeting and performs well. Meet Ahlawat initially believes that it was Deep who had helped him out, but Deep clarifies and says that it was Meet Hooda who had helped him fulfill his dream. Meet earnestly apologises to his wife, regretful of all of the pain she had to go through and in awe of how much she cares of him despite all of the hatred and negativity around her. He wishes to start a new life with her. \n\nAt Meet Hooda's house, however, Manushi has convinced her mother and grandmother for her and Parth (actually Kunal) to get married by acting like she is pregnant. Masoom brings Babita, Ragini and Meet Hooda to Hooda's house on the pretext of giving Meet a surprise. In the midst of this, Meet's grandmother finally accepts her as her granddaughter, finally seeing her for the good person she is and seeing Manushi's real evil side. Meet Ahlawat comes to the Hooda house worried, revealing that the police had come to the Ahlawat house with the news that the goons that had beat him up were out of jail. He comes so that Meet can go back home under his protection. Masoom stops them from leaving, revealing that Manushi is at home with the hope that Meet leaves his wife. However, Meet takes his wife's side, citing that if she had taken a decision to keep this secret, then she would have done it only for everyone's happiness.\n\nKunal wants to steal Manushi's jewellery, going as far as pretending to get kidnapped and demanding the jewellery as ransom, but his plans fail. Meet Hooda studies in the middle of the night in the kitchen so as not to disturb anybody. Isha acts strange around the family. It is soon revealed that she is being blackmailed by a few boys, who took photos of her in compromising positions after drugging her. The combination of the above two situations causes Meet Ahlawat to be convinced that Meet Hooda has fallen in love with another man, and decides to support her, even though he is clearly hurt. Meet Hooda finds out about Isha's situation and goes with her to get the photos deleted and the boys arrested. Meet Ahlawat comes and both of them beat up the boys together. Meet Ahlawat's misunderstanding is finally cleared.\n\nThe Ahlawats decide to send Meet and Meet for their honeymoon in a luxurious resort in Rajasthan. Manushi finally finds out Kunal's true nature and intentions, who runs away with her jewellery and she and vows to get back Meet Ahlawat after seeing their lavish lifestyle. Manushi tries to sabotage Meet and Meet's relationship during the honeymoon, but all her efforts go in vain. Though Meet Ahlawat is initially shaken when he sees Manushi, with Meet's constant support and trust, he is able to control himself more. Meet and Meet become closer through this trip and their relationship becomes stronger. Meet Hooda helps a bearded man known as 'Bhula Baba', who is soon revealed to be Tejvardhan Ahlawat, Meet Ahlawat's older brother who has been missing for 3 years. He suffers from memory loss and does not remember anything. However, he shows recognition with names like Meet and Sunaina (his wife). He starts to consider Meet Hooda as his friend. A day before leaving from Rajasthan, Meet Ahlawat sees photographs with Bhula Baba in them and recognizes Tej. Tej and Meet Ahlawat reunite. However, back in Chandigarh, Rajvardhan forces Sunaina to remarry as he doesn't want her to spend her whole life waiting for someone who might not ever come back. By the time Meet tells Rajvardhan about finding Tej, Sunaina's marriage with Ravi has already happened.\n\nRajvardhan informs the rest of the family members that Meet and Meet are returning from Chandigarh with Tej. They all wait eagerly for them to arrive. However, when they come, Meet reveals that they lost Tej in the market. Babita blames Meet Hooda for being careless. Manushi brings back Tej Ahlawat as a part of her plan to return to Meet Ahlawat's life, it was she who had caused them to separate from Tej in market. Manushi is allowed to stay at the Ahlawat house for a day in gratitude for bringing back Tej. However, she plans to stay there till she has gotten back Meet Ahlawat. So she harasses Tej Ahlawat, who injures her in defence. Meet Hooda, not aware of her sister's evil intentions, requests Meet Ahlawat to let Manushi stay in the house till she recovers. Anubha finds out that Manushi is at the Ahlawat house, and becomes extremely mad, and drags her out of the house. Manushi pretends to attempt suicide by drinking bleach. This allows her to stay for longer as the doctor mentions that she should not be stressed. Manushi attempts to get closer to Meet Ahlawat, and he is shaken and confused.\n\nCast\n\nMain\n Ashi Singh as Meet Hooda Ahlawat: Anubha and Ashok's younger daughter; Manushi's younger sister; Meet Ahlawat's wife (2021-present)\n Shagun Pandey as Meet Ahlawat: Rajvardhan and Babita's younger son; Masoom and Tej's brother; Isha and Kunal's cousin; Meet Hooda's husband (2021-present)\n\nRecurring \n Abha Parmar as Dadi: Ashok's mother; Meet and Manushi's grandmother (2021-present)\n Vaishnavi Macdonald as Anubha Hooda: Ashok's widow; Meet and Manushi's mother (2021-present)\n Sharain Khanduja as Manushi Hooda: Anubha and Ashok's elder daughter; Meet's elder sister; Kunal's wife (2021-present)\n Ravi Gossain as Inspector Ashok Hooda: Ammaji's son; Anubha's late husband; Meet and Manushi's father (Dead) (2021)\n Pratham Kunwar as Kunal: Rajvardhan and Ram's nephew; Meet, Tej, Masoom and Isha's cousin; Manushi's husband (2021-present)\n Sooraj Thapar as Rajvardhan Ahlawat: Ram's brother; Babita's husband; Sunaina and Meet Hooda's father in-law; Meet Ahlawat, Tej and Masoom's father; Duggu's grandfather (2021-present)\n Sonica Handa as Babita Ahlawat: Rajvardhan's wife; Sunaina and Meet Hooda's mother in-law; Meet Ahlawat, Tej and Masoom's mother; Duggu's grandmother (2021-present)\n Nisha Rawal/Parakh Madan as Masoom (née Ahlawat): Rajvardhan and Babita's daughter; Tej and Meet's sister; Hoshiyaar's wife; Duggu's mother; Isha and Kunal's cousin (2021-2022)/(2022-present)\n Aditya Rao Nuniwal as Hoshiyaar: Masoom's husband; Duggu's father (2021-present)\n Het Makwana as Duggu: Masoom and Hoshiyaar's son; Rajvardhan and Babita's grandson (2021-present)\n Vishal Gandhi as Tejvardhan \"Tej\" Ahlawat: Rajvardhan and Babita's elder son; Meet and Masoom's brother; Sunaina's husband; Isha and Kunal's cousin (2021-present)\n Riyanka Chanda as Sunaina Ahlawat: Tej's wife; Meet Ahlawat, Meet Hooda, Isha and Masoom's sister-in-law (2021-present)\n Afzal Khan as Ram Ahlawat: Rajvardhan's brother; Ragini's husband; Isha's father (2021-present)\n Preeti Puri Chaudhary as Ragini Ahlawat: Ram's wife; Isha's mother (2021-present)\n Tamanna Jaiswal as Isha Ahlawat: Ram and Ragini's daughter; Meet Ahlawat, Tej, Masoom and Kunal's cousin (2021-present)\n Aashutosh Semwal as Deep: Rajvardhan's employee; Meet Ahlawat's colleague and best friend (2021-present)\n Shalini Mahhall as Chhavi: Masoom's sister-in-law (2021-present)\n Manish Khanna as Jaypratap Singh: Sunaina's father, Tej's Father-in-law (2021-present)\n Manoj Kolhatkar as Inspector Hawa Singh (2022-present)\n\nGuests\n\nProduction\n\nDevelopment\nThe marriage track in the show was a high-budget track, probably the most spent track in the series.\n\nRelease\nIn August 2021, Zee TV announced two new shows at their early slots namely Meet and Rishton Ka Manjha and both the shows were launched on the same date.\n\nAdaptations\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences \n\n2021 Indian television series debuts\nHindi-language television shows\nIndian drama television series\nIndian television soap operas\nTelevision shows set in Mumbai\nZee TV original programming"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,"
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
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when did they divorce?
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When did Stephen Stills and Veronique Sanson divorce?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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They divorced in 1979.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
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"The effects associated with divorce affect the couple’s children in both the short and the long term. After divorce the couple often experience effects including, decreased levels of happiness, change in economic status, and emotional problems. The effects on children include academic, behavioral, and psychological problems. Studies suggest that children from divorced families are more likely to exhibit such behavioral issues than those from non-divorced families.\n\nEffect on children \nA longitudinal study by Judith Wallerstein reports long-term negative effects of divorce on children.\n\nLinda Waite analyzed the relation between marriage, divorce and happiness using the National Survey of Family and Households and found that unhappily married families who had divorced were no happier than those who had stayed together. One broad-based study also shows that people have an easier time recovering after the death of a parent as opposed to a divorce. This study reported that children who lose a parent are usually able to attain the same level of happiness that they had before the death, whereas children of divorced parents often are not able to attain the same level of happiness that they had before the divorce.\n\nA child affected by divorce at an early age will show effects later in life. They may make premature transitions to adulthood such as leave home or parent their own child early. Recent authors have argued that a major cost to children comes long after: when they attempt to form stable marriages themselves. Parental divorce leads a child to have lower trust in future relationships. Compared with children of always married parents, children of divorced parents have more positive attitudes towards divorce and less favorable attitudes towards marriage.\n\nThe children of divorced parents have also been reported more likely to have behavioral problems than children of married parents and are more likely to suffer abuse than children in intact families.\n\nIn contrast to the usual negative views on marriage by children affected by it, Constance Ahrons, in We're Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents' Divorce, interviewed 98 divorced families' children for numerous subjects found a few of the children saying, \"I saw some of the things my parents did and know not to do that in my marriage and see the way they treated each other and know not to do that to my spouse and my children. I know [the divorce] has made me more committed to my husband and my children.\" In the book For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered, Mavis Hetherington reports that not all kids fare so badly, and that divorce can actually help children living in high-conflict homes such as those with domestic violence. A peaceful divorce has less of an impact on children than a contested divorce.\n\nContrary to some of the previous research, those with divorced parents were no more likely than those from intact families to regard divorce positively or to see it as an easy way of solving the problem of a failing marriage. Members of both groups felt that divorce should be avoided, but that it was also a necessary option when a relationship could not be rescued.\n\nA 2015 article updated and confirmed the findings in a 2002 article in Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. Both articles discuss a variety of health consequences for children of divorced parents. Studies have claimed that people who have been in divorced families have higher rates of alcoholism and other substance abuse compared to those who have never been divorced. Robert H. Coombs, Professor of Behavioral Sciences at UCLA, reviewed over 130 studies measuring how marital status affects personal well-being. Researchers have also shown that children of divorced or separated parents:\n\n Have higher rates of clinical depression – Family disruption and low socioeconomic status in early childhood increase the long-term risk for major depression.\n Seek formal psychiatric care at higher rates.\n In the case of men, are more likely to die by suicide and have lower life expectancies.\n Acute infectious diseases, digestive illnesses, parasitic diseases, respiratory illnesses, and severe injuries.\n Cancer – Married cancer patients are also more likely to recover than divorced ones.\n Stroke. \n Heart problems. \n Rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. \n Increased risk of arthritis for children later in life.\nLower levels of the hormone oxytocin in adulthood.\n\nUncontested divorce \nAn uncontested divorce is a divorce decree that neither party is fighting. Over 40% of American children will experience parental divorce or separation during their childhood. In a study of the effect of relocation after a divorce, researchers found that parents relocating far away from each other (with either both moving or one moving) has a long-term effect on children. Researchers found major differences in divorced families in which one parent moved away from the child; the children (as college students) received less financial support from their parents compared with divorced families in which neither parent moved. The children also felt more distress related to the divorce and did not feel a sense of emotional support from their parents. A parental divorce influences a child’s behavior in a negative manner that leads to anger, frustration, and depression. This negative behavior is cast outward in their academic and personal life. Relocating is defined as when a parent moves more than an hour away from their children. Children of divorces where both parents stayed close together did not have these negative effects.\n\nSee also\n Divorce\n Fear of commitment\n Cost of raising a child\n Single person\n\nReferences \n\nDivorce",
"Divorce in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was illegal. While divorce had been legal during the Second Spanish Republic, Franco began to overturn these laws by March 1938. In 1945, the legislation embodied in his Fuero de los Españoles established that marriage was an indissoluble union. Divorce was still possible in Spain through the Catholic Church as a result of Pauline privilege or petrino. Marriages, primarily for the rich, could also be annulled through ecclesiastical tribunals. The Catholic Church was vigorously opposed to divorces, whether on religious or civil grounds.\n\nThe relationship between Spanish marriage and Catholic Canonical Law would fundamentally change following the death of Franco with the creation of the 1978 Spanish constitution. This came about because of the demands of the Spanish left, which finally gained representation after a long wait as a consequence of the 1977 Spanish general elections. The left had run on a platform of supporting divorce. Compromises were required so that canonical law could no longer dictate the country's marriage laws. Because of divisions in the Government, the issue of the legalization of divorce itself was delayed until 1981. That year, the divorce law passed, becoming official on 7 July 1981. To appease the Church, the process was designed to make it difficult for a divorce to be granted. The first divorce was granted to Julia Ibars on 7 September 1981 in Santander. Express divorce would be many years off.\n\nHistory\n\nFrancoist period (1939 - 1975) \n\nThe concept of civil marriage did not form part of Spanish law until 18 June 1870. Prior to this, all marriages in the country were religious ones, established under law with Philip II's July 1564 Royal Decree, based on the Council of Trent. In March 1938, Franco suppressed the laws regarding civil matrimony and divorce that had been enacted by the Second Republic. On 2 March 1938, Franco declared that in all Nationalist territories lawsuits seeking legal separation or divorce were to be suspended. On 22 April 1939, an order was made that all canonical marriages carried out by the Republic be registered as such with the Francoist government.\n\nFranco repealed the 1932 Divorce Law of the Second Republic on 23 September 1939. The 23 September 1939 law provided that in cases when women requested and received divorces as a result of allegations of mistreatment, the husband could force the wife to remarry. In all cases, the divorce request would automatically be annulled if one party asked for the marriage to be reconstituted. They had to only state a \"desire to reconstitute their legitimate home, or simply, to reassure their conscience as believers\". In cases where both former spouses wished to remain divorced, neither could remarry until one of them had died. Marriages that had taken place civilly between 1932 and 1939 were annulled. Couples were forced to remarry, and could only do so if both partners were Catholics.\n\nOn 10 March 1941, a Ministerial Order was issued, allowing couples to have civil marriages. This was a new interpretation of EDL 1889/1 and an amendment of Article 42 of the Civil Code. Civil marriages could take place if both partners could provide a justification for not being Catholic and for not wishing to have a Catholic marriage. Consequently, few civil marriages took place, as such marriages were considered by the Government and society to be a rejection of the Spanish state.\n\nThe 1945 Fuero de los Españoles established that marriage was an indissoluble union. The 26 October 1956 Decree of the Modification of the Regulation of the Civil Registry of 1870 was a result of the Spanish and Vatican 27 August 1953 Concordat. It resulted in the full recognition of civil marriage within Canonical Law, harmonizing civil marriages with Catholic marriages. It also meant all separation procedures had to be handled through ecclesiastical courts. The Law of 8 June 1957 of the Civil Registry saw further attempts to harmonize Canonical Law with Spain's civil code as it related to the requirements of civil marriage. The reforms in 1958 under Article 42 of the Civil Code, EDL 1889/1, continued this process. Caserón de la Goleta, the prison for women in Málaga, held thousands of women over its history. Women found themselves there for a wide variety of offenses including infidelity, divorce or lesbian relationships. \n\nUp until the mid-1960s, Franco's legal system gave husbands near total control over their wives. This did not change until women started playing a more central role in the Spanish economy. The 28 June 1967 Law on Religious Freedom impacted marriage rights in Spain. It resulted from new Catholic doctrines following the Second Vatican Council, including a declaration that \"the right of freedom in religious matters is really based on the dignity of the human person [...] This right to freedom religious is to be recognized in the legal order of society, in such a way that it becomes a civil right.\" Article 42 was modified to state, \"Civil marriage is authorized when none of the parties professes the Catholic religion, without prejudice to the rites or ceremonies of the different non-Catholic confessions, which may be held before or after civil marriage as long as they do not violate morals or good customs.\" The 22 May 1969 Decree of the Regulation of the Civil Registry made it easier for couples to marry without the need to prove they were not practicing Roman Catholics.\n\nAna María Pérez del Campo publicly announced her intention to separate from her husband of four years starting in 1961. Eight years later, in 1969, she started the process to try to separate from him legally. It took many years before she succeeded. In 1974, when Franco was still alive, she founded the National Federation of Associations of Separated and Divorced Women to teach women about their rights under the law, and the rights still lacked. Her efforts to separate from her husband were not normal at the time, but it was not unusual either that many couples separated by simply moving into separate homes.\n\nDuring the Franco period, there was the concept of \"hidden divorce\". These were declarations by the Spanish Catholic Church that a marriage was nullified. They were different from the ecclesiastical courts' dissolution of marriages. These divorces could come about because of Pauline privilege, where the church nullified a marriage because neither spouse had been baptized. Marriages could also be nullified if one spouse was baptized and the other not, as the Catholic spouse could not live as a faithful Catholic because of their spouse's lack of faith. \nAs a result, the Catholic spouse could remarry another Catholic with whom they could live peacefully. Another way a Catholic divorce could occur was known as petrino, a similar formula created by Pope Pius XI. A divorce could be granted if the married coupled included a Catholic and non-Catholic spouse, where the Catholic spouse wanted the separation in order to marry a Catholic.\n\nDivorce in the late Franco period and early transition was available via ecclesiastical tribunals. These courts could nullify marriage for a fee. Consequently, they were mostly available only to the rich, the most famous instance of this nullification involving Isabel Preysler and Carmencita Martínez Bordiú. The Civil Courts were only involved in separation procedures at the provisional level. The Catholic Church was actively opposed to civil divorce in the mid and late 1970s.\n\nDemocratic transition period (1975—1982) \n\nFor many people in Spain, the period that marked the start of Spain's transition to democracy began on 20 December 1973 with the death of Luis Carrero Blanco as a result of an attack by ETA. The end of the transition period is generally considered to be 1982, with the elections that saw the PSOE come to power. Franco died in November 1975. Ahead of the first democratic elections, in 1977 following Franco's death, Spaniards overwhelmingly supported the legalizing of divorce. Catholic canonical law, which applied in Francoist Spain and during the democratic transition, did not end until the Spanish constitution was adopted in 1978.\n\nAs a European Christian Democratic party, the UCD opposed the legalization of divorce, believing in what they saw as \"the preservation of the family\". By contrast, the PSOE supported its legalization. Most of the independents in 1976-1977 were right wing, with the primary exception of Adolfo Suárez who supported the legalization of divorce. Ahead of the 1977 elections, UCD did not put forth a coherent party policy on major social issues of the day in order to try to broaden the party's appeal to Spanish voters, who had largely been apolitical as a result of regime constraints on political activity. Their primary goal in the 1977 elections was to create a break with the past dictatorship by means of reform.\n\nThe Cortes of 1977 had to try to find a way to navigate the demands of the newly liberated left, who wanted to see reforms like the legalization of abortion and divorce, with the Catholic Church who opposed both. The last time the state had been in conflict with the Church was in 1931, with the founding of the Second Republic and no one wanted to see renewed political violence.\n\nOn 22 May 1978, four UCD deputies and four Socialist deputies met at a restaurant in Madrid to try to find a compromise on major issues as they were addressed in the constitution. These issues included divorce and abortion. The UCD deputies went into the meeting having consulted their PCE and Catalan counterparts. All agreed this was a necessary step to avoid a breakdown in the process of writing a new constitution. Allianz Popular was left out of the discussions. One of the reasons UCD went into decline after the 1977 elections was that the party was forced to take positions on major issues of the day, including divorce, abortion and the use of public money for private schools.\n\nIn the first draft of the constitution, both PSOE and PCE supported the legalization of abortion and divorce. UCD supported the legalization of divorce, but only at a later date. UCD opposed the legalization of abortion. Coalición Popular opposed both the legalization of abortion and divorce. A compromise was reached on divorce that would see the issue addressed in later legislation through the text of Article 32.2 which stated, \"The law will regulate the forms of matrimony… [and] the causes of separation and dissolution.\" No agreement could be reached over abortion, and Article 15 had the ambiguous text \"todos tienan derecho a la vida\" (all have the right to life) at the insistence of UCD and Coalición Popular so the door could be left open to make abortion illegal.\n\nThe November 1979 XXXII Conferencia Episcopal advised that the Church did not want to interfere in the ability of legislators to conduct their business. Nonetheless, they stated that legislators considering legalization of divorce should be allowed to do so only in specific circumstances. These included that divorce was not a right, mutual consent could not be allowed, and divorce should only occur when there was no other remedy for the marriage. The Ministry of Justice asked the Catholic Church to stop meddling, and the Catholic Church had to accept that they would not have any involvement in civil marriages and civil divorces. Monsignor Jubany from Barcelona made a final request in meeting with members of the Cortes, namely that divorce should be rendered costly as a means of prevention.\n\nMinister of Justice Francisco Fernández successfully fought the inclusion of a hardness clause in divorce legislation. The clause would have allowed judges to prevent a divorce if it was determined that allowing a divorce would cause exceptionally serious damage to the other spouse or to any children in the marriage.\n\nThe issue of passing divorce legislation came to a head in 1981, pitting the Catholic Church more visibly against Spain's leftist elements. The new Pope, John Paul II, appointed a conservative Nuncio in Madrid who would speak much more openly about his political opposition to government reforms on the issue. At the same time UCD Minister of Justice Iñigo Cavero was replaced by the more liberal social democrat Francisco Fernández Ordóñez who altered the text of the proposed bill in order to make it be more liberal, despite opposition from Christian democrats who preferred Fernández Ordóñez's text. Fernández Ordoñez famously announced during the debate, \"We cannot prevent marriages breaking up, but we can prevent suffering from broken marriages.\" () Because of his support for the passage of the law, his fellow ministers asked for his resignation. Ana María Pérez del Campo, the president of a feminist organization, said of the Fernández Ordoñez's actions, \"The Church offered fierce resistance. The minister always remained firm and Suarez also. We must thank the UCD the law that was considered in Europe as one of the most progressive and was agreed with us.\" The divorce issue would split UCD, harming them going into the 1982 elections. The Catholic Church predicted that the passage of the law would result in 500,000 divorces during the first year of legalization.\n\nThe divorce law passed the Congreso de Diputados on 22 June 1981 and became official on 7 July 1981. Law 30/1981, the divorce law, passed by a vote of 162 to 128, with seven abstentions. At the time of its passage, the divorce law required cause. This included reasons such as alcoholism, infidelity or abandonment of the home. Spouses were required to undergo a judicial review before being allowed to apply for a divorce. A couple needed not to been cohabiting for more than a year when they filed. After having the judicial separation, they could then not cohabit for another year. At that stage, the couple were allowed to ask for a divorce. The process was designed to make divorce difficult to obtain. The law entered into force on 9 August 1981. Despite the divorce law making national news, most Spaniards were indifferent to the law's passage. \n\nThe first Spanish woman to benefit was Julia Ibars, who was granted a divorce on 7 September 1981 in Santander. She filed for divorce within hours of the adoption of the law. Ibars had a religious divorce granted in April 1980 from the Ecclesiastical Court of Santander, and the couple had no children. She became a media star after a divorce to her marriage with Vidal Gutiérrez was granted. She did not realize at the time how historic her divorce had been. Twenty-nine divorce cases were filed in Barcelona within hours of the law passing. Another three requests were filed in other parts of Catalonia. Numbers were lower in other parts of Spain. On the first day, only two divorce applications were filed in Madrid. None were applied for in Bilbao, Seville, Valladolid and Valencia. Demand rapidly increased in Barcelona, with 1,400 requests for divorce within the first three months of legalization. Barcelona did not set up a Family Court to handle divorce cases until September 1981. Rafael Hueso was the first man in Catalonia to be granted a divorce, legally terminating his relationship with his wife from whom he had been separated for 36 years in mid-October 1981.\n\nFollowing PSOE gaining power after the 2005 Spanish general elections, the issue of divorce was revisited with in order to facilitate the granting of a divorce. They succeeded in changing the law but obtaining a divorce was still difficult. The concept of \"express divorce\" was vigorously opposed by the Catholic Church. An easier process would still be many years away.\n\nReferences \n\nWomen in Francoist Spain\nWomen in the Spanish transition to democracy\nWomen's rights in Spain"
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[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979."
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did they have any children?
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Did Stephen Stills and Veronique Sanson have any children?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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Their son Christopher was born in 1974.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
| true |
[
"Else Hansen (Cathrine Marie Mahs Hansen) also called de Hansen (1720 – 4 September 1784), was the royal mistress of king Frederick V of Denmark. She is his most famous mistress and known in history as Madam Hansen, and was, alongside Charlotte Amalie Winge, one of only two women known to have been long term lovers of the king.\n\nLife\n\nThe background of Else Hansen does not appear to be known. Tradition claims her to be the sister of Frederick's chamber servant Henrik Vilhelm Tillisch, who in 1743 reportedly smuggled in his sister to the king at night, but modern research does not support them to be the same person.\n\nRoyal mistress\nIt is not known exactly when and how Hansen became the lover of the king. Frederick V was known for his debauched life style. According to Dorothea Biehl, the king was known to participate in orgies or 'Bacchus parties', in which he drank alcohol with his male friends while watching female prostitutes stripped naked and danced, after which the king would sometime beat them with his stick and whip them after having been intoxicated by alcohol. These women where economically compensated, but none of them seem to have had any status of a long term mistress, nor did any of the noblewomen and maids-of-honors, which according to rumors where offered to the king by their families in hope of advantages but simply married of as soon as they became pregnant without any potential relationship having been anything but a secret. The relationship between the king and Else Hansen was therefore uncommon.\n\nElse Hansen gave birth to five children with the king between 1746 and 1751, which is why the affair is presumed to have started in 1746 at the latest and ended in 1751 at the earliest. At least her three younger children where all born at the manor Ulriksholm on Funen, a manor owned by Ulrik Frederik von Heinen, brother-in-law of the de facto ruler of Denmark, the kings favorite Adam Gottlob Moltke, who likely arranged the matter. The manor was named after the royal Ulrik Christian Gyldenlove, illegitimate son of a previous king. The king's children with Hansen where baptized in the local parish church near the manor, where they were officially listed as the legitimate children of the wife of a non existent man called \"Frederick Hansen, ship writer from Gothenburg to China\". The frequent trips to Ulriksholm by Hansen as soon as her pregnancies with the king became evident was publicly noted. Neither Else Hansen nor any other of the king's mistresses where ever any official mistress introduced at the royal court, nor did they have any influence upon state affairs whatever, as politics where entrusted by the king to his favorite Moltke.\n\nIn 1752, the relationship between the king and Hansen may have ended – in any case, it was not mentioned more or resulted in any more children. She settled in the property Kejrup near Ulriksholm with her children, officially with the status of \"widow of the late sea captain de Hansen\".\n\nLater life\nAfter the death of Frederick in 1766, she acquired the estate Klarskov on Funen. She sold Klarskov and moved to Odense in 1768. In 1771, however, she bought Klarskov a second time and continued to live there until her death.\n\nHer children were not officially recognized, but unofficially they were taken care of by the royal court: her daughters were given a dowry and married to royal officials and the sons careers where protected, and her grandchildren where also provided with an allowance from the royal house.\n\nAfter Hansen, the king did not have any long term mistress until Charlotte Amalie Winge (1762–66).\n\nLegacy\nAt Frederiksborgmuseet, there are three paintings of Hansen by Jens Thrane the younger from 1764. Hansen is known by Dorothea Biehl's depiction of the decadent court life of Frederick V.\n\nIssue \nHer children were officially listed with the father \"Frederick Hansen, sea captain\".\nFrederikke Margarethe de Hansen (1747–1802)\nFrederikke Catherine de Hansen (1748–1822)\nAnna Marie de Hansen (1749–1812)\nSophie Charlotte de Hansen (1750–1779)\nUlrik Frederik de Hansen (1751–1752)\n\nSources\n Charlotte Dorothea Biehl, Interiører fra Frederik V's Hof, udgivet af Louis Bobé.\n Aage Christens, Slægten de Hansen, 1968.\n\nReferences\n\n1720 births\n1784 deaths\nMistresses of Danish royalty\n18th-century Danish people\n18th-century Danish women landowners\n18th-century Danish landowners",
"Maria Komnene (c. 1144 – 1190) was Queen of Hungary and Croatia from 1163 until 1165. Maria's father was Isaac Komnenos (son of John II).\n\nMarriage\nShe married c. 1157 to King Stephen IV of Hungary (c. 1133 – 11 April 1165). They did not have any children.\n\nSources \n Kristó Gyula - Makk Ferenc: Az Árpád-ház uralkodói (IPC Könyvek, 1996)\n Korai Magyar Történeti Lexikon (9-14. század), főszerkesztő: Kristó Gyula, szerkesztők: Engel Pál és Makk Ferenc (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1994)\n\nHungarian queens consort\n1140s births\n1190 deaths\nMaria\n12th-century Byzantine women\n12th-century Hungarian women\n12th-century Byzantine people\n12th-century Hungarian people"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979.",
"did they have any children?",
"Their son Christopher was born in 1974."
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
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did he date anyone famous before his first marriage?
| 5 |
Did Stephen Stills date anyone famous before his first marriage?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
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[
"John VI, Duke of Mecklenburg (1439–1474) was a Duke of Mecklenburg.\n\nLife \nJohn was the second son of Henry IV, Duke of Mecklenburg, and his wife Dorothea, daughter of Elector Frederick I of Brandenburg.\n\nHis earliest documented official act (jointly with the father) was in 1451. In 1464 he ruled an apanage of several districts jointly with his brother Albert VI, but did not participate actively in administering them.\n\nIn 1472, John VI was engaged to Sophie, the daughter of Duke Eric II of Pomerania. The marriage was set to be celebrated in 1474. However, John VI died before the marriage took place. The exact date of his death is unknown; he is last mentioned in a document dated 20 May 1474.\n\nHis last illness was contracted on a journey to Franconia to visit his uncle Elector Albrecht III Achilles of Brandenburg. In Kulmbach, he was infected with the plague and died. He was probably buried in Poor Clares monastery in Hof.\n\nExternal links \n Genealogical table of the House of Mecklenburg\n\nHouse of Mecklenburg\nDukes of Mecklenburg\n1439 births\n1474 deaths\n15th-century German people",
"\"Did Anyone Approach You?\" is a song by the Norwegian band A-ha. It was the third single to be taken from their 2002 album Lifelines. It was recorded at The Alabaster Room in New York City sometime between June 2001 and January 2002.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Original Album Version)\" (4:11)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Turner Remix)\" (3:43)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Reamped)\" (4:51)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Tore Johansson Remix)\" (5:55)\n \"Afternoon High (Demo Version)\" (4:40)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Video Clip)\" (4:11)\n\nVideo\nThe video was filmed by Lauren Savoy, the wife of A-ha guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. It was shot at Ullevaal Stadion on 6 June 2002, the first concert on the band's Lifelines tour.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2002 singles\nA-ha songs\nSongs written by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy\nWarner Music Group singles\n2002 songs"
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[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979.",
"did they have any children?",
"Their son Christopher was born in 1974.",
"did he date anyone famous before his first marriage?",
"He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy"
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
|
who did he marry next?
| 6 |
Who was Stephen Stills' next wife?
|
Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
| false |
[
"Lembing Awang Pulang Ke Dayang is a 2009 Malaysian film, directed by Majed Salleh. The film was produced by Dayang Digital, and also stars Farid Kamil, Siti Elizad, Zul Huzaimy, Lynette Ludi and Uji Rashid.\n\nPlot\nThis movie is related to an incident that occurred in Johor. It occurred in 1776 when a man called Awang returned to Parit Raja after more than 3 years abroad to marry his fiancée Dayang. Upon his return, he found out that another man called Bachok had told Dayang of Awang's death and planning to marry her the next day. Awang turned up at the wedding ceremony and using a spear given by Raja Bugis, he speared Bachok in the stomach. Bachok, fatally injured grabbed the spear in his stomach and speared his best man. The man then speared the next man he saw and this was repeated until the 99th person was speared. It was Dayang's father who was protecting Dayang. He did not continue the repeated spearing and died. Awang ran away to Endau and Dayang did not marry another till she died.\n\nCast\n Farid Kamil- Awang (Main Actor/Actress) \n Ejad - Dayang (Main Actor/Actress) \n Zul Huzaimy - Bachuk (Main Actor/Actress) \n Lynette Ludi - Claudia (Main Actor/Actress) \n Hattan - Panglima Merah (Supporting Actor) \n Aziz M.Osman - Dekar Agas & Raja Muda Bugis (Supporting Actor) \n Mustapha Maarof - Pak Ngah (Supporting Actor) \n Kuswadinata - Pak Long (Supporting Actor) \n Khir Rahman - Nakhoda Galigor (Supporting Actor) \n Datin Hajah Rosnani Jamil : Mak Ngah (Supporting Actor) \n Uji Rashid - Mak Long (Supporting Actor) \n M.Rajoli - Orang Kaya Aris (Supporting Actor) \n Zainurdin Ismail - Tok Beta (Supporting Actor) \n Tamrin Ibrahim Pendek - Pndek (Supporting Actor)\n\nReferences\n\nMalaysian films\n2009 films",
"I Told You So is a 1970 Ghanaian movie. The movie portrays Ghanaians and their way of life in a satirical style. It also gives insight into the life of a young lady who did not take the advice of her father when about to marry a man, she did not know anything about the man she was going to marry, but rather took her mother's and uncle's advice because of the wealth and power the man has.\n\nThe young lady later finds out that the man she is supposed to marry was an armed robber. She was unhappy of the whole incident. When her dad ask what had happened, she replied that the man she was supposed to marry is an armed robber; her father ended by saying \"I told you so\".\n\nCast\nBobe Cole\nMargret Quainoo (Araba Stamp)\nKweku Crankson (Osuo Abrobor)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n I TOLD YOU SO GHANAIAN MOVIE\n\n1970 films\nGhanaian films"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979.",
"did they have any children?",
"Their son Christopher was born in 1974.",
"did he date anyone famous before his first marriage?",
"He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy",
"who did he marry next?",
"His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996."
] |
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did he have just one child?
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Did Stephen Stills have one child?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
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"Efraín Medina Berry Vargas (born May 25, 1979 in Pachuca, Hidalgo) is a Mexican singer who participated in and was among the final three contestants of the first season of Latin American Idol.\n\nThe Oldest of 4 Brothers: Lorena, Cristina y Alan. Since he was a Child he has liked music, specially \"ranchera\" and he demonstrated it by studying singing, solfeggio and piano, besides movement, scenic development, literary composition and acting. \" I have \nalways liked to sing very much, when I was a child I was always organizing festivals for my family or in the school, always I liked the music but I had not decided to dedicate myself professionally, it was just at my 18 years when I began with a performance in a restaurant in Pachuca, from that time, and to do a career, I had studied singing, acting, and when I felt prepared I did continue\", those are Efraín's own words about his beginnings. Nevertheless, our idol have studied and graduated at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) in the career of administration and did his specialization in marketing.\n\nEfras (as is called by his relatives) have recorded a cd “homemade but from the heart” like he had expressed, interpreting rancheras song's. And as if that was just little, he also make his debut in the musical theatre as Chris Perez (husband of the honoured one) in the musical \"Selena\" starring Lidia Ávila.\n\nExternal links\nOfficial MySpace\nInterview after Latin American idol\n\n1979 births\nLatin American Idol participants\nMusicians from Hidalgo (state)\nLiving people\n21st-century Mexican singers\n21st-century Mexican male singers",
"Aditya Kapadia (born 14 November 1986) is an Indian film and television actor. He was last seen in Code Red on Colors.\n\nEarly life\nAditya Kapadia is a Gujarati. born and brought in Mumbai. He has acted in both Hindi and Gujrati films.\n\nPersonal life\nAditya got engaged to his co-star Tanvi Thakkar from Ek Doosre Se Karte Hain Pyaar Hum on 24 December 2013. The two tied the knot on 16 February 2021, in a simple court marriage.\n\nCareer\nAditya made his television debut with Idhar Udhar and Just Mohabbat as a child artist. After that he also played as a child in the Bollywood film Jaanwar. He did serials like Shaka Laka Boom Boom as Jhumru, Ek Doosre Se Karte Hain Pyaar Hum as Shashwat Nikhilesh Majumdar and Cambala Investigation Agency as Ishaan Mehra. He also played a role in Adaalat as Mukul Shrivastav. He did Bade Acche Lagte Hain as Khush Siddhant Kapoor/Khush Ram Kapoor, but was replaced by Ankit Narang.\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision\n\nFilms\nJaanwar as Raju\nHari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors as Rocky A. Dhoonca \nEkkees Toppon Ki Salaami as young Purushotam Narayan Joshi\nSons of Ram as voice of Luv\nBas Ek Chance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1986 births\nLiving people\nIndian male film actors\nIndian male television actors\nIndian television male child actors\nGujarati people"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979.",
"did they have any children?",
"Their son Christopher was born in 1974.",
"did he date anyone famous before his first marriage?",
"He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy",
"who did he marry next?",
"His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996.",
"did he have just one child?",
"Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis."
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
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did he have any movies made on him or any tv shows/documentaries?
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DId Stephen Stills have any movies, tv shows, or documentaries made on him?
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Stephen Stills
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Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery.
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Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
| true |
[
"Fokus TV is a Polish television channel launched on April 28, 2014. It was established for the purpose of the first DTT multiplex (MUX 1).\n\nOn December 4, 2017, Polsat announced that it had bought 34%, bought on February 2, 15.46%, reaching 49% of shares in TV Spektrum, the broadcaster of Fokus TV and Nowa TV.\n\nProgramming \nThe programming schedule consists mainly of documentaries, reality shows, popular science magazines, TV series and movies.\n\nSeries TV \nHell On Wheels\nThe Tudors\nBomb Girls\nBorgia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Site \n\nTelevision channels in Poland\nTelevision channels and stations established in 2014",
"Theo Uittenbogaard (born Amstelveen, Nieuwer-Amstel, Netherlands, 1946) is a Dutch radio & TV-producer, who worked for almost all nationwide public networks in The Netherlands since 1965. His training was on-the-job, since no school or academy geared to that profession existed in The Netherlands those days. He started as a 19-year-old apprentice reporter for a daily radio news-show. Made radio-documentaries and variety-shows. In 1969 he was invited to contribute to a television-magazine, which portrayed interesting ordinary people. He remained working for television the next decades. In a wide variety and range of shows, as a director, as a contributor, as an editor, as an executive-producer alternately. He traveled the world from Siberia [] to The Marshall Islands to report, from Panama and Morocco[] to just around the corner. He did shows and documentaries on countries, people, history, politics, dance, music. In 1984 he directed for VPRO-tv an iconic concerto by Ástor Piazzolla, [] the renowned bandoneon-player from Argentina. He did a documentary on Boat People from Vietnam. He made a 16-episodes series on Dutch language. He wrote a comedy on housekeeping. And about 250 productions more. He retired in 2013, after a fifty years spanning career in media.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBiography at media-archives Beeld en Geluid, Hiversum, Netherlands\nOeuvre at Beeld en Geluid\nYouTube Channel\n\nPeople from Amstelveen\nDutch television producers\nLiving people\n1946 births"
] |
[
"Stephen Stills",
"Personal life",
"was Stephen Stills married?",
"Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson.",
"where did he meet her?",
"During a Manassas tour in France,",
"when did they divorce?",
"They divorced in 1979.",
"did they have any children?",
"Their son Christopher was born in 1974.",
"did he date anyone famous before his first marriage?",
"He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy",
"who did he marry next?",
"His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996.",
"did he have just one child?",
"Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis.",
"did he have any movies made on him or any tv shows/documentaries?",
"An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery."
] |
C_28e22c9e4895462f802a80554e99b3fd_0
|
his treatment and recovery from what?
| 9 |
What was Stephen stills in treatment and recovery for?
|
Stephen Stills
|
Stills was involved with the musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy who was the inspiration for his Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". He also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSN, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married his first wife, the singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married the Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway (Kristen Stills), whom he married in 1996. Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland. Like all four members of CSNY, Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. The comic book series Scott Pilgrim features a character by the name of Stephen Stills, referred to as "the Talent" by the band he shares with the title character. The character also plays an acoustic guitar and sings, and is often portrayed wearing the kind of western shirts that is part of Stills's standard wardrobe. The series also has a reference to Stills's collaborator Neil Young in the character of Young Neil. CANNOTANSWER
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Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas,
|
Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He was ranked number 28 in Rolling Stones 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and number 47 in the 2011 list. Stills became the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. According to Neil Young, "Stephen is a genius."
Beginning his professional career with Buffalo Springfield, he composed "For What It's Worth", which became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. Other notable songs he contributed to the band were "Sit Down, I Think I Love You", "Bluebird", and "Rock & Roll Woman". According to bandmate Richie Furay, he was "the heart and soul of Buffalo Springfield".
After Buffalo Springfield disbanded, Stills began working with David Crosby and Graham Nash as a trio called Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). In addition to writing many of the band's songs, Stills played bass, guitar, and keyboards on their debut album. The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members' prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies. The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Stills's first solo album, Stephen Stills, earned a gold record and is the only album to feature both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Its hit single "Love the One You're With" became his biggest solo hit, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stills followed this with a string of solo albums, as well as starting a band with Chris Hillman called Manassas in 1972. In the summer 1974, Young reunited with CSN after a four-year hiatus for a concert tour that was recorded and released in 2014 as CSNY 1974. It was one of the first stadium tours and the largest tour the band has done to date. CSN reunited in 1977 for their album CSN, which became the trio's best-selling record. CSN and CSNY continued to have platinum albums through the 1980s.
Early years
Stills was born in Dallas, the son of Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919–1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica.
When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older.
Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s. He played in a series of bands, including the Continentals, which then featured future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. Stills also sang as a solo artist at Gerde's Folk City, a well-known coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Stills eventually ended up in a nine-member vocal harmony group, the house act at the famous Cafe au Go Go in New York City, called the Au Go Go Singers, which included his future Buffalo Springfield bandmate Richie Furay. This group did some touring in the Catskills and in the South, released one album in 1964, and then broke up in 1965. Afterwards, Stills formed a folk-rock group called the Company with four other former members of the Au Go Go Singers. The Company embarked on a six-week tour of Canada, where Stills met guitarist Neil Young. On the VH1 CSNY Legends special, Stills said that Young was doing what he always wanted to do, "play folk music in a rock band." The Company broke up in New York within four months; Stills did session work and went to various auditions. In 1966 he convinced a reluctant Furay, then living in Massachusetts, to move with him to California.
Life and career
Buffalo Springfield and Super Session (1966–1968)
Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse and flagged him down, a meeting described in a recent solo track "Round the Bend". Buffalo Springfield performed a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock. Its sound was lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, and that combination helped make Buffalo Springfield a critical success. The band's first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills's topical song "For What It's Worth" became a top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the US charts. According to Rolling Stone, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management along with the arrest and deportation of bassist Bruce Palmer worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967 and featured Stills songs "Bluebird" and "Rock And Roll Woman". In May 1968, the band split up for good, but contractual obligations required the recording and release of a final studio album, Last Time Around. The album was primarily composed of tracks laid down earlier that year. A Stills song from their debut album, "Sit Down, I Think I Love You," was a minor hit for the Mojo Men in 1967.
After the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills played on half of the Super Session album with Al Kooper in 1968, including a cover of Donovan's "Season Of The Witch" that received heavy radio play on progressive FM radio formats. Mike Bloomfield was due to play on all of the album but failed to turn up for the second day of recording. The album sold well and charted at number 12 on the US charts while being certified Gold in December 1970.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1969–1970)
In late 1968 Stills joined David Crosby from the Byrds and Graham Nash from The Hollies to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. Several of Stills's songs on the group's debut album, including "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and "You Don't Have To Cry", were inspired by his on-again off-again relationship with singer Judy Collins. The album reached number 6 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum. Stills dominated the recording of the album. Crosby and Nash played guitar on their own songs respectively, while drummer Dallas Taylor played on four tracks and drummer Jim Gordon on a fifth. Stills played all the bass, organ, and lead guitar parts, as well as acoustic guitar on his own songs. "The other guys won't be offended when I say that one was my baby, and I kind of had the tracks in my head," Stills said.
Wanting to be able to tour and needing additional musicians to strengthen the sound, the band invited Neil Young to join them for their first tour and second album to make the group the quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, (initialized as CSNY). The first tour started in August 1969 and finished in January 1970. They recorded their album Déjà Vu at this time and released it in March 1970. During the recording the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills brought to the album the songs "Carry On" and "4+20" and wrote "Everybody I Love You" with Neil Young. He also brought his version of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" for the band to cover. The album hit number 1 on the US charts and was certified 7 times platinum there, selling over 8 million copies. In May 1970 CSNY recorded Young's "Ohio" following the Kent State massacre on May 4. The single's B side was Stills's "Find The Cost Of Freedom". The record was immediately released as a single by Atlantic Records, even though the group's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. After an extended second tour finishing in July 1970, the band split up, and Stills then moved to England and started recording his debut solo album.
In April 1971, CSNY released 4 Way Street, a double live album recorded in 1970. The album reached number 1 in 1971 on the US charts and was certified quadruple platinum in the US.
Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills (along with Crosby) performed at three of the most iconic U.S. rock festivals of the 1960s.
Peak solo years (1970–1971)
In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded high-profile solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous solo debut album which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Booker T. Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and CSNY drummers Dallas Taylor and Johnny Barbata. It provided Stills with the U.S. No. 14 hit single "Love the One You're With.", and another US top 40 hit "Sit Yourself Down", peaking at 37. The album peaked at no 3 on the US charts, a solo career peak. At the time of release Stills's solo album was the highest selling solo album out of the four. It was recorded in the UK, where Stills bought Ringo Starr's old mansion in Surrey, England.
He appeared on the BBC TV show Disco 2 in January 1971.
Stills followed this album with Stephen Stills 2 only 6 months later, recorded in Miami, which featured "Change Partners" and "Marianne". Both these singles narrowly missed the US top 40, hitting 43 and 42 respectively, while the album reached number 8 on the charts. This album was certified US Gold only a month after release. Even though "Change Partners" was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY. Stills recorded 23 songs for the album and originally wanted to release a double album but Atlantic wouldn't let him. In support of this album Stills went on his first solo tour with an 8 piece band including the Memphis Horns, playing major arenas across the USA. It was during this tour he sold out Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, LA Forum and the Boston Garden, arguably at his solo commercial peak. He sold out MSG the day before George Harrison organised the Concert For Bangladesh, and Stills donated his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison "neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you". Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr's dressing room, "barking at everyone". Stills's Madison Square Garden show was professionally recorded and filmed but has never been released, although a filmed recording of "Go Back Home" was played in early 1972 on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and two acoustic tracks were released on Stills 2013 box set Carry On.
In 1971, Billboard magazine ranked him at number 34 top singles artist, number 44 top album artist, number 14 top singles male vocalist, number 12 top new singles vocalist, number 17 top album male vocalists, number 14 top new album artist, number 73 top producers, and ranked his debut album number 70 in the year end album charts. Cashbox magazine, ranked Stephen Stills 2 as the number 51 album of 1971, and his debut as number 52, they ranked Stills as the number 3 best new vocalist, and the number 2 new male of 1971.
Also in 1971, Stills played guitar for the Bill Withers album, Just as I Am, including the Grammy-winning song, "Ain't No Sunshine".
Manassas (1971–1973)
In late 1971, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman to form the band Manassas. Their self-titled double album was a mixture of rock, country, blues, bluegrass and Latin music divided into different sections and peaked at number 4 in the US. It was certified US Gold a month after release but did not yield any more top 40 hits, only "It Doesn't Matter" reached 61 on the US charts. Stills spent the majority of 1972 playing live with Manassas on a world tour, which included headlining festivals in Australia, playing more arenas in the US including the Nassau Coliseum, and the Boston Garden. His concert at The Rainbow Theatre, London was recorded for BBC TV Special titled Stephen Stills Manassas: In Concert. He moved to Boulder, Colorado after this world tour finished and in March 1973 married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson in London England, after having met while at a Manassas gig in France, 1972. In early 1972, Stills appeared in a UK documentary about himself called Sounding Out. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 52 top male vocalist of 1972. Billboard ranked Manassas as the number 53 album of 1972, and Stills as the number 75 album artist.
All of Stills's albums after Buffalo Springfield had gone either gold or platinum; the Manassas follow-up album the next year Down the Road was his first LP that did not, but still managed to reach 26 in the US charts. It was recorded less than a year after the debut double album, and encountered some issues with recording and not having enough Stills songs on the album. Also Atlantic were pushing for a far more commercially viable CSNY reunion. Which in June and July 1973, between the two 1973 Manassas tours at the start and end of the year, happened in Maui. As CSNY attempted to record an album tentatively called Human Highway. This album was never finished due to infighting. But after one final 1973 Manassas tour, during which CSN and CSNY reunited during the acoustic sections both at Winterland Arena concerts, a reunion was in the cards, and Manassas was over. Stills then sold his Surrey home and relocated to Colorado. The last date of the first 1973 Manassas tour was recorded for ABC In Concert. Cashbox magazine ranked Manassas as the number 58 group of 1973. Billboard ranked Down The Road as the number 36 of new album artists.
In 1972/73, Stephen left the services of David Geffen and set up his own publishing company with Ken Weiss, called Gold Hill Publishing, named after his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Solo and CSNY tours (1974)
Stills spent early 1974 on a sold out East coast tour where he played well respected theatres, including Carnegie Hall. The 1975 live album Stephen Stills Live was made up of recordings from this tour. It was also during this tour that Stills announced the 1974 CSNY reunion concert tour. The CSNY reunion tour sold out shows through July and August in both the US and the UK, with an average concert attendance of 80,000. Due to poor management, the tour made little money for the group, but album sales saw a boost: the CSNY compilation album So Far reached number 1 in the US and sold 6 million copies. After another aborted attempt at recording another CSNY album after the tour, Stills signed with Columbia Records in late 1974. In 1973–1974, Stills was recording another solo album called As I Come Of Age, which was put aside for the CSNY reunion tour. Many songs were used for the 1975 Stills album. In 1974, Stills played bass, and help mix his wife, Veronique Sanson's, record Le Maudit. He also played bass for her at two of her concerts in Paris in October 1974. On 29 October, Stills played two short acoustic shows at Chances Are, a nightclub in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a benefit for Democrat John Reuther's campaign. The next night, 30 October, Stills played two shows for Democratic congressional candidate Bob Carr at the Stables, East Lansing, Michigan, then another unannounced acoustic slot at a Michigan University frat party.
Signing to Columbia Records and The Stills Young Band (1975–1976)
Stills signed to Columbia Records for three albums: Stills in 1975, Illegal Stills in 1976; and Thoroughfare Gap in 1978. Stills released in June 1975, was the highest charting release of the three at number 22 on the US charts, and also the most critically successful of the three. Stills then spent the rest of year touring the US, doing a summer and winter tour playing to 10,000 seat arenas, including the LA Forum, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Stills played an acoustic set at the Bob Dylan-organised Night of the Hurricane Benefit at the Houston Astrodome in January 1976. He next released Illegal Stills in May 1976, which reached number 31 on the US charts, but was not critically well received, nor produced any charting singles. Around this time Stills played percussion on the Bee Gees' song "You Should Be Dancing" and wrote an unreleased song with Barry Gibb. In retrospect Stills has commented on his mid-70s solo period saying he "short-circuited for a while, things were moving too fast. I got a little crazed. Too much drinking, too many drugs. What can I say." Cashbox magazine ranked Stills as the number 29 top male vocalist of 1975.
In 1976 after the release of Illegal Stills, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, they returned to find the other pair had wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without them as the Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did for three dates before it was cancelled with Chris Hillman helping him, but upon returning home, his wife, French singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson, announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France, although they temporarily reunited.
Stills went out on tour, in November 1976, as a three piece, Stills on guitar, vocals, piano, George Perry on Bass, and Joe Vitale on drums. It was around this time Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. Not before Atlantic records released a compilation album from Stills first two solo albums, and the two Manassas albums in December 1976 called Still Stills: The Best Of Stephen Stills. Cashbox magazine ranked Stills at number 27 for the top male vocalist of 1976, and Stills and Young as the number 6 duo, number 3 new duo, and number 20 best new artist of 1976. Stills, as Gold Hill publishing was having hits publishing for the band Firefall and Joey Stec, during this time, so much so that Billboard ranked him as the number 97 publisher of 1976.
CSN reunion and solo years (1977–1979)
Stills's performances with Crosby and Nash in late 1976 and early 1977 led to the permanent reunion of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They released the CSN album in 1977 and unsuccessfully attempted another album in 1978. The band toured major arenas including Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum in 1977 and 1978, and during the 1977 tour they visited President Jimmy Carter in the White House. Stills released his final album on Columbia Records entitled Thoroughfare Gap in October 1978. It was comparatively unsuccessful and reached number 84 on the US charts. In 1977 and 1978, Stills played only one solo engagement, at the Bread and Roses Festival in 1978.
After a four-day residency at the Roxy in January 1979 with original CSN bandmate Dallas Taylor on drums, Stills spent most of 1979 on tour in the US playing with his California Blues Band. One of these dates in early 1979 included a trip to Cuba to participate in the Havana Jam festival that took place between March 2 and 4, alongside Weather Report, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, as well as an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.
In 1979, Stills recorded one of the first entirely digital albums; however, it remains unreleased, as the record company did not feel it was commercial enough. The songs recorded for this album include "Spanish Suite" and "Cuba al Fin" and the 1982 CSN hit "Southern Cross". The album was produced by Barry Beckett and was slated for release in 1979 or 1980.
CSN played only two dates in 1979, both at Madison Square Garden for Musicians United for Safe Energy. Their performance was released on The Muse Concerts for a Non-Nuclear Future.
In 1979, Stills's wife, Veronique Sanson, filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 12, 1980.
1980s
After playing some European dates in 1980, and with Graham Nash joining him for the German dates supporting Angelo Branduardi, Stills and Nash decided to record a duo album together. The record company refused to release this album without David Crosby, so they added him and CSN's Daylight Again was released in 1982, reaching number 8 in the US and was certified Platinum. The album featured the Stills-written top twenty hit "Southern Cross". In 1983, the CSN live album Allies, was released featuring Stills's number 45 hit song "War Games". CSN toured yearly from 1982–1989, except during 1986, due to David Crosby's prison sentence.
In 1984, Stills released his first solo album in 6 years, Right by You on Atlantic Records. This would be the final Stills album to make the Billboard 200 album chart and featured Jimmy Page on guitar. It was his last solo release on a major label.
In 1985 CSN and CSNY played Live Aid.
In 1988, CSNY reunited for the album American Dream, which reached number 12 on the US charts and was certified platinum in the US. However no tour was taken in support of the album.
In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Anne Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor.
1990s
In 1990, CSN released the album Live It Up, their first not to be certified in the US since their debut.
Stills toured with CSN, in 1990, 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
Having spent most of 1990 playing acoustic with CSN and solo he released the solo album Stills Alone in 1991, with the aim of releasing a solo electric album in 1992. However this solo electric album was never released.
In 1994, CSN released the album After The Storm.
From 1993 to 1995 part owned a restaurant in New Orleans, called Toucan Du. He married his third wife, Kristen Hathaway, on May 27, 1996.
In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice on the same night for his work with CSN and Buffalo Springfield. Fender Guitars Custom Shop crafted a guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, a Telecaster 1953 reissue guitar serial R2674 bearing an inscription on the neck plate; "Stephen Stills R & R Hall of Fame May 6, 1997 "
In 1999, CSNY reunited to release the album Looking Forward, it reached number 26 on the US charts.
2000s
This CSNY reunion resulted in CSNY reunion tours 2000 CSNY2K, 2002 and 2006 reunion tours, their first since 1974. The CSNY2K tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000. The 2006 CSNY tour was the Freedom Of Speech tour, which was released on the album Deja Vu Live.. Stills also toured with CSN in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The 2005 tour supported their Gold certified album Greatest Hits, their 2009 tour supported the CSN demos album Demos.
2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Man Alive! was released on the small English independent folk rock label Talking Elephant, and was not widely reviewed. The record did not chart on either side of the Atlantic, and was received lukewarmly by the few critics who did review it. It featured songs dating from the 70s to the present, including "Spanish Suite", originally recorded in the late 70s with Herbie Hancock.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "the Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnigan or session player Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Passarelli on bass. On May 28, 2007, Stills sang the national anthem for Game 1 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals between the Anaheim Ducks and Ottawa Senators in Anaheim, California. On December 17, 2007, Graham Nash revealed on Larry King Live that Stills had been diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer and that his operation would take place on January 3, 2008, which is Stills's birthday. Stills said later in January 2008 that he had come through the operation with "flying colors."
In 2007 he released Just Roll Tape, a recently found tape of Stills singing demos of his unreleased songs in 1968 after the breakup of the Buffalo Springfield, during the last hour of a Judy Collins session.
Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008, resulted in the release of the 2009 live album and video Live At Shepherds Bush, recorded in London, England.
Also in 2009, he released his second archival release Pieces by Manassas, a selection of alternate takes and unreleased songs of Stills band recorded between 1971–1973. This was supposed to be the start in a series of archival releases, however none have appeared since.
2010s
Stills toured with CSN in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015. The 2012 tour resulted in the release CSN 2012.
In 2011, Stills contributed a song, "Low Barefoot Tolerance," to the soundtrack of a documentary produced by J. Ralph, Wretches & Jabberers.
Also in 2010, Stills reunited with Neil Young and Richie Furay to reform Buffalo Springfield with Young for the Bridge School Benefit 2010. This was supposed to be followed by a full tour in 2012 but this never materialised.
On August 27, 2013, Stills released the album, Can't Get Enough with Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Barry Goldberg as the blues band the Rides. The band toured to support this release in 2013. They released a follow up album called Pierced Arrow in 2016, this was followed by another tour to support this release in 2016 -2017.
On August 12, 2014, Watsky released the album All You Can Do, featuring a song with Stills, "Cannonball."
In 2016, CSN split up after over 30 years together, and in December 2016 Stills independently released a song called "Look Each Other in the Eye" on Soundcloud.
On September 22, 2017 Stills and Judy Collins released an album Everybody Knows which entered the "Billboard 200" chart at number 195 and peaked at 45, it was their first joint album and was followed by a tour supporting the album.
Personal life
Stills was involved with musician Judy Collins from 1968 to 1969 and wrote the song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" for her. He dated actress and singer-songwriter Nancy Priddy, who was the inspiration for the Buffalo Springfield song "Pretty Girl Why". Stills also had a short-term relationship with Rita Coolidge, as had Graham Nash, which apparently led to the initial breakup of CSNY, in 1970. During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met his first wife, the singer-songwriter Véronique Sanson. They were married on March 14, 1973. Their son Christopher was born in 1974. They divorced in 1979. In 1976, Stills told Rolling Stone, "My hearing has gotten to be a terrible problem. If I keep playing and touring the way I have been, I'll go deaf." In 1988, he married Thai model Pamela Ann Jordan, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor. His third wife is Kristen Hathaway, whom he married on May 27, 1996.
Stills's son, Justin Stills, was born in 1972 to Harriet Tunis. Justin was critically injured while snowboarding on Mt. Charleston, just outside Las Vegas, in 1997. An episode of Discovery Health's documentary series Trauma: Life in the ER featured his treatment and recovery. Another son, Henry, has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and is profiled in the 2007 documentary Autism: The Musical. Stills's daughter Eleanor is a photographer and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Since Eleanor's graduation, she has been responsible for all recent Crosby, Stills & Nash photography. Stills has another daughter, Alex, who attends Emerson College in Boston and currently plays in the rock band Stilljill. His son Chris and daughter Jennifer are both recording artists. His youngest son, Oliver Ragland, was born in 2004 and named in honor of Neil Young, whose maternal family name is Ragland.
Stills has long been involved in liberal causes and politics. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years.
In December 2018, Stills received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he was a speaker at the commencement ceremony.
Stills performed with Billy Porter during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Style, musicianship, and sound
Stills is a guitarist whose music draws from myriad genres that include rock and roll, blues, gospel, country and folk music. In addition, Latin music has played a key role in both his approach to percussion and guitar and he is also a multi-instrumentalist, capable of playing keyboards, bass, percussion, congas, clavinet, electric piano, piano, organ, banjo and drums.
Stills experimented with the guitar itself, including soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using alternate guitar tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. His primary alternate tuning is usually D A D F♯ A D, or "Palmer modal tuning which is 'E E E E B E' ", which can be heard in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," "Carry On," and "4 + 20."
For the CSN debut album in 1969, Graham Nash commented that "Stephen had a vision, and David and I let him run with it." Stills played every instrumental part on Crosby, Stills and Nash with the exception of some guitar by Crosby and Nash, and drums by Dallas Taylor.
Discography
See also discographies for The Au Go Go Singers, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
Albums
Singles
Other appearances
Guest appearances
Filmography and TV appearances
Tours
Memphis Horns Tour 1971
Manassas World Tour 1972
Manassas North American Tour 1973
1974 Theater Tour
1975 Tour
The Stills-Young Band Tour
1976 Tour
1979 California Blues Band Tour
References
External links
Official Site
CSN Official Site
CSNY Official Site
Five audio interview clips with Stephen Stills
The Rides
American male singers
American folk rock musicians
American folk guitarists
American folk singers
American country guitarists
American blues guitarists
American country rock singers
American rock keyboardists
American rock drummers
American rock percussionists
American multi-instrumentalists
American rock pianists
American male pianists
American organists
American male organists
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
1945 births
Living people
Lead guitarists
Buffalo Springfield members
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members
Atlantic Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Reprise Records artists
Musicians from Dallas
Singer-songwriters from Texas
Musicians from Tampa, Florida
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
Zonians
Admiral Farragut Academy alumni
Gainesville High School (Florida) alumni
Henry B. Plant High School alumni
Saint Leo College Preparatory School alumni
Singer-songwriters from Florida
University of Florida alumni
People from Topanga, California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Florida
Guitarists from Texas
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century organists
The Rides members
Singer-songwriters from California
| true |
[
"William L. White is a writer on addiction recovery and policy.\n\nBiography\nWhite was born the eldest son in an Army family, father, William \"Billy\" White and mother, Alice White. His father was a construction worker and his mother was a nurse. His family grew quite large with more than 20 adopted, foster, related and siblings living in a small rural home in Decatur, Illinois. He received a bachelor's degree from Eureka College, studying psychology, sociology and history.\n\nCareer\n\nHis first job was with the Illinois Department of Mental Health in 1967, where his responsibilities were to tour the wards of the mental health institution and screen the alcoholics and addicts for community placement. In the seventies, he became an outreach worker, gathering addicts and alcoholics from jail or hospitals and connecting them with services like Salvation Army shelters, SRO’s and AA meetings. In 1970, he worked at Chestnut Health Systems, one of the first local community treatment centers in Illinois, and became the clinical director of the facility.\n\nIn 1975, White left to pursue a master's degree in Addiction Studies at Goddard College. Upon graduating he began working with the Illinois Dangerous Drug Commission, and then became deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s training center in Washington DC. In 1986, he returned to the Chestnut Health System and founded the Lighthouse Institute, an addiction treatment research center. In 1998, he published his best-known book, Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America.\nHe was a senior consultant at the Chestnut Health System engaged in research and writing on addiction treatment and recovery coaching up until his retirement in 2014. He continues to write about the history of treatment and recovery on his website.\n\nProfessional appointments \nBill White's has held many professional appointments since 2000 to the present day including: \n Advisory Committee, NAADAC Minority Fellowship Program\n Advisory Council, Faces and Voices of Recovery\n Advisory Board, Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation (HAMS)\n Board of Directors, Betty Ford Institute\n National Advisory Board, Recovery Research Institute, Harvard Medical School\n NAADAC Recovery to Practice Advisory Committee\n UK National Treatment Agency Expert Group on Recovery-oriented Drug Treatment\n Advisory Panel, State of New Jersey Governor’s Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse\n Scientific Advisory Panel, Phoenix House, Inc.\n International Advisory Council, SMART Recovery\n Advisory Board, LifeRing Secular Recovery\n Advisory Board, Jewish Network of Addiction Recovery Support\n Advisory Council, Association of Recovery Schools\n Board of Directors, Wellbriety for Prisons, Inc.\n Editorial Board, Counselor Magazine\n Editorial Board, Student Assistance Journal\n Editorial Board, Quest House Review\n Board Member, Wired In to Recovery, UK\n Editorial Board, Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly\n Editorial Board, Advances in Addiction and Recovery\n\nAwards\n\nBooks\n \n \n \n \n \n Don Coyhis and William L. White, Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery. Colorado Springs, CO: Coyhis Publishing & Consulting, Inc., 2006\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1947 births\n20th-century American historians\n21st-century American historians\n21st-century American male writers\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nAmerican social sciences writers\nGoddard College alumni\nLiving people\nWriters from Decatur, Illinois\nWriters on addiction\nHistorians from Illinois",
"Assistance in Recovery (AiR) is an international provider of addiction recovery assistance in Saint Paul, Minnesota that focuses on treating addiction as a chronic disease, and provides services to reflect this. AiR has behavioral health case management services for chronic disease care and specializes in the treatment of chemical dependency, mental health and eating disorders. AiR is an organization of professional intervention specialists, recovery and addiction licensed counselors and consultants who provide crisis management services through education, action and healing alongside their behavioral health management services and aftercare recovery assistance programs.\n\nThe implementation of case management improves outcomes for clients. This increase is a result of consistent support for the family or organization and ongoing advocacy with appropriate clinical support for the individual.\n\nThe company maintains offices in 15 cities within the United States, with a staff of board certified clinical psychologists, social workers, addiction counselors and therapists. The company also manages cases from outside the United States.\n\nHistory\nAssistance in Recovery (AiR) follows in line with the philosophy and practice of Dr. Vernon Johnson, the creator of the Johnson Model of intervention, which stresses the need to break through the denial harbored by most who suffer from addiction. By confronting and promoting the positive outcomes of treatment while explaining the negative consequences of refusal, the individual becomes enabled to make an informed, active decision regarding his/her disease.\n\nIn the 1990s, Dr. Johnson’s successor Dr. James Fearing began National Counseling Intervention Services (NCIS) in Minneapolis. His goal was to educate families about addiction and provide national intervention training. NCIS was one of the foremost intervention training sources until Dr. Fearing’s death in 2002.\n\nEmployed and trained by Dr. Fearing as an interventionist in the mid nineties, Andrew Wainwright created AiR with the same goal in 2002.\n\nWainwright's understanding of addiction recovery came not only from his experience working under Dr. Fearing, but also from his own personal recovery from heroin addiction in the mid-1990s. After his mother urged him to seek recovery while in a psychiatric ward in Washington D.C., Wainwright entered treatment at the nationally recognized Hazelden center in Center City, Minnesota. While in treatment, Wainwright met Robert Poznanovich and together began Addiction Intervention Resources, Incorporated. The company was the first to implement both Dr. Johnson's model of recovery and the Family Systems model. The AiR Model focuses on a fast initiation of care while also helping the family cope. In so doing, they increase the rates of recovery for those struggling to overcome addiction or behavioral health issues.\n\nFollowing Poznanovich's departure from the company in 2009, Wainwright re-branded AiR, renaming it Assistance in Recovery and expanding the company.\n\nAiR has provided consulting, intervention and recovery management services in all US states and around the world.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAssistance in Recovery\nArrowhead Lodge Recovery\nPhuket Addiction Recovery Clinic\nUS Department of Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Office of Applied Studies) \"Results from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings.\"\nUrschel III, Dr. Harold C., “Revolutionary Recovery: Healing the Addicted Brain, Approaching Addiction as a Chronic Brain Disease.” PsychologyToday.com, 3 August 2009.\nMcLellan, A. Thomas, “Have We Evaluated Addiction Treatment Correctly? Implications From a Chronic Care Perspective.” Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs, Addiction. 97, 249–252, 2002.\nLeshner, Alan I., “Addiction Is a Brain Disease, and It Matters.” Focus. 1: 190-193, 2003\n\nMental health organizations in Minnesota\nAddiction organizations in the United States"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)"
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
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Did they release any albums in 1993?
| 1 |
Did Therapy release any albums in 1993?
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Therapy?
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If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
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The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy
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Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"Bryan & Katie Torwalt are an American Christian music husband and wife duo from Sacramento, California who started their music recording careers in 2006. The first album, Here On Earth, was released in 2011 by Jesus Culture Music alongside Kingsway Music. It became their Billboard magazine breakthrough release. Their second album, Kingdom Come, was released by the aforementioned labels in 2013, and performed even better on the Billboard magazine charts. They released a self-titled album in 2015, Bryan & Katie Torwalt, again with the two labels mentioned earlier, although this album did not place on any Billboard magazine charts.\n\nBackground\nThe duo met for the first-time at a Bethel Ministry event in Redding, California in 2006, and they started dating, eventually getting married in 2009.\n\nMusic history\nThe husband and wife duo commenced their recording careers in 2011 with the album Here On Earth, released on September 13, 2011 by Jesus Culture Music in association with Kingsway Music. This album was their breakthrough release on the Billboard magazine charts, where it placed at No. 24 on the Christian Albums chart and No. 24 on the Heatseekers Albums chart. Their second release, Kingdom Come, was released by Jesus Culture Music alongside Kingsway Music on October 15, 2013. The album placed even better on the Billboard magazine charts, reaching No. 43 on The Billboard 200 as well as No. 3 on the Christian Albums chart and No. 5 on the Independent Albums chart. They released Bryan & Katie Torwalt with Jesus Culture Music and Kingsway Music on April 7, 2015, although this album did not place on any Billboard magazine charts.\n\nMembers\n Bryan James Torwalt (born June 14, 1985 in Canada)\n Katelin Michelle \"Katie\" Torwalt (née Horn) (born August 14, 1988 in Sonoma County, California)\n Daniel Owen Wible (born August 3, 1988 in Waco, Texas)\n Chason Tyler Ford (born June 30, 1993 in Honolulu, HI)\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nEPs\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Cross Rhythms artist profile\n\nAmerican musical duos\nMusical groups established in 2006\nMusical groups from Sacramento, California\n2006 establishments in California",
"Silver Series: Donna is the third compilation album by Filipino singer Donna Cruz, released in the Philippines in 2006 by Viva Records. The compilation album was a part of the Silver Series collection which celebrated the twenty five years of VIVA Entertainment Group in the local entertainment industry.\n\nBackground\nSimilar to Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits, Silver Series: Donna did not include any newly recorded material nor any promotion from Cruz. Tracks from all Cruz's studio albums except for Kurot Sa Puso and Merry Christmas Donna were included in this release.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2006 compilation albums\nViva Records (Philippines) compilation albums\nDonna Cruz albums"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy"
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
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Were they on the charts?
| 2 |
Were the album "Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy" on the charts?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
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Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager.
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"\"Head to Toe\" is a song recorded by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam that appeared on their 1987 album Spanish Fly. The song hit number one on three charts: Billboard Hot 100 on June 20, 1987, the Hot Black Singles charts on May 30 of that year, and the dance charts. In Canada, the song topped the RPM 100 national singles chart on July 25 of the same year. The song sports a retro Motown flavor mixed with the Freestyle sound for which they were known.\n\nComposition\nThe song is performed in the key of D major with a tempo of 114 beats per minute. The Los Angeles Times wrote in their 1987 review of the Spanish Fly album that Head to Toe \"melodically owes a debt to the Supremes’ Back in My Arms Again\".\n\nMusic Videos\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1987 songs\n1987 singles\nLisa Lisa and Cult Jam songs\nBillboard Hot 100 number-one singles\nCashbox number-one singles\nSong recordings produced by Full Force\nColumbia Records singles",
"Echo Mountain is the fifth studio album of the Belgian rock band K's Choice. After a reunion concert at Dranouter festival in August 2009 the band started recording new material in the Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, North Carolina. On 22 February 2010 they confirmed on their website that the new album would be released on 26 March 2010. \"When I Lay Beside You\" (#3 at the singles charts) and \"Come Live The Life\" were released as singles.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nMusicians:\n Sam Bettens\n Gert Bettens\n Eric Grossman\n Koen Lieckens\n Reinout Swinnen\n Thomas Vanelslander\n\nCharts performance\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSingle charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAlbum track list\nPhotos from the recording session\n\n2010 albums\nK's Choice albums"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy",
"Were they on the charts?",
"Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager."
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
|
Did they do any songs with other popular artists?
| 3 |
Did Therapy do any songs with other popular artists other than "Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy"?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
|
Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard,
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"This is a list of songs recorded by Usher. Usher is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 7 studio albums, 9 compilation albums and 52 singles. He has also appeared on 22 albums released by other artists. His songs have been released on other compilation albums, including Disneymania, a compilation of Disney songs covered by popular artists. Usher has recorded songs with other popular artists including Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Pitbull, Afrojack and Wiz Khalifa among others. As of 2016, he has recorded more than 150 songs.\n\nList\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nUsher",
"\"Chicken Pot Pie\" is an unreleased parody song written by \"Weird Al\" Yankovic. It was written as a parody of \"Live and Let Die\" by Paul McCartney and Wings; however, Yankovic voluntarily decided not to release it after McCartney declined to support the parody, as he felt it conflicted with his vegetarianism and condoned the consumption of meat.\n\nHistory \n\"Weird Al\" Yankovic is an American musician, specializing in performing parodies of popular songs. At an airport, the British singer Paul McCartney approached him and said to him: \"anytime you want to do one of my songs, it's yours\". Two years passed before Yankovic decided to parody McCartney's James Bond song \"Live and Let Die\" and wrote \"Chicken Pot Pie\".\n\nAs a courtesy, Yankovic always sought permission from any artists whose songs he parodied before releasing any song he had written (despite not being required to under American law following the case of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.). Following his personal rule, he approached McCartney for permission. Despite showing initial enthusiasm for being parodied, McCartney declined to grant his consent. Yankovic stated: \"Paul didn't want me to do it because he's a strict vegetarian and he didn't want a parody that condoned the consumption of animal flesh.\" McCartney did propose that he would grant consent if it was called \"Tofu Pot Pie\", but Yankovic refused, citing that the chorus would contain the mimicking of a chicken clucking.\n\nYankovic has performed segments of the song during live concerts, debuting it in 1992 as part of his \"Fast Food Medley\" (a compilation of segments of some of Yankovic's food related songs). Yankovic and McCartney never held any ill will over the declination, with McCartney agreeing to a comedy interview between the two in 1996.\n\nReferences \n\nSongs about food\nSongs about birds\nUnreleased songs\n\"Weird Al\" Yankovic songs\nSongs written by Paul McCartney\nSongs with lyrics by \"Weird Al\" Yankovic\nPaul McCartney and Wings"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy",
"Were they on the charts?",
"Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager.",
"Did they do any songs with other popular artists?",
"Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard,"
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
|
Did they win an awards?
| 4 |
Did Therapy win an awards?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
|
It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"Carnivàle is an American television series that aired on HBO between 2003 and 2005. Created by Daniel Knauf, the show traces the disparate storylines of a young carnival worker named Ben Hawkins (played by Nick Stahl) and a preacher in California named Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown) during the United States Dust Bowl. Although Carnivàle was praised for its production and art style, the unfolding story proved too inaccessible for the general audience and led to the show's cancellation after two of six planned seasons. The inaugural season of Carnivàle garnered numerous awards and nominations, including five Emmy Awards and two Emmy nominations in the creative arts categories. The second season received eight Emmy nominations. Nominations for two Golden Reel Awards, four Satellite Awards and two Saturn Awards did not result in a win. The only actor of Carnivàle's large main cast to win an award was Adrienne Barbeau (\"Ruthie\") with a WIN Award (Women's Image Network Awards). Overall, Carnivàle has received eleven awards from thirty-six nominations.\n\nCostume Designers Guild Awards\nFounded in 1999, the Costume Designers Guild Awards honors Costume Designers in Motion Pictures, Television, and Commercials. Carnivàle was nominated for a CDG twice, winning in 2003.\n\nEmmy Awards\nThe Emmy is a television production award considered the television equivalent to the Academy Award. The inaugural season of Carnivàle received nominations for seven Emmys in 2004, winning five in creative arts categories. The second season received eight further Emmy nominations in 2005 without a win.\n\nGolden Reel Awards\nThe Golden Reel Award has been annually presented by the American Motion Picture Sound Editors since 1953, honoring motion picture and television sound editors and their soundtracks. Carnivàle was nominated for two Golden Reel Awards in 2003.\n\nSatellite Awards\nThe Satellite Award, originally known as the Golden Satellite Award, is an annual award given by the International Press Academy.\n\nSaturn Awards\nThe Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. Carnivàle was nominated in two categories in 2004, but failed to win in either.\n\nVES Awards\nThe Visual Effects Society represents the full breadth of visual effects practitioners in all areas of entertainment and honors film, television, commercials, music videos and video games with an award since 2002. Carnivàle won one of three nominations in 2003.\n\nOther awards\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n List of awards on IMDb\n\nAwards and nominations\nCarnivale",
"Ricky Gervais ( ; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director. He is best known for co-creating, writing, and acting in the British television series The Office (2001–2003). He has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007, he was placed at No. 11 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and at No. 3 on the updated 2010 list. In 2010, he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2002 he was nominated to be Britain's Funniest Man but did not win the award, he did however beat some gangsters up in a pub when an old man was being hassled, against the odds.\n\nMajor awards\n\nPrimetime Emmy Awards\n\nGolden Globe Awards\n\nBAFTA Television Awards\n\nScreen Actors Guild Awards\n\nWriters Guild of America Awards\n\nProducers Guild of America Awards\n\nOther awards\n\nBritannia Awards\n\nBritish Comedy Guide Awards\n\nBritish Comedy Awards\n\nBroadcasting Press Guild Awards\n\nEvening Standard British Film Awards\n\nSatellite Award\n\nTelevision Critics Association Awards\n\nReferences \n\nLists of awards received by actor"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy",
"Were they on the charts?",
"Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager.",
"Did they do any songs with other popular artists?",
"Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard,",
"Did they win an awards?",
"It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards."
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
|
Did they release any other albums during this time?
| 5 |
Did Therapy release any other albums during the time 1993-1995 besides "Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy"?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
|
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl is a compilation album by American country singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn. It was released in 1985 via MCA Records and was produced by Owen Bradley. The album included ten previously-recorded hits by Lynn during a fifteen-year time span. All of the album's recordings were first cut on MCA/Decca Records.\n\nBackground, release and reception\nBlue Eyed Kentucky Girl was part of a series of compilations MCA released by Loretta Lynn during the 1980s. A total of ten tracks were included on the album package. The songs chosen were recorded in sessions over a fifteen-year time-span between 1964 and 1980. Eight of the album's tracks had been among Lynn's biggest hits in her career. This included signature songs, such as \"Coal Miner's Daughter\"(1970), \"You're Lookin' at Country\" (1971) and \"The Pill.\" Also included were other hits, such as \"Somebody Led Me Away\" (1981) and \"The Home You're Tearing Down\" (1965). All of the album's sessions had originally been produced by Owen Bradley, Lynn's long-time producer at MCA.\n\nBlue Eyed Kentucky Girl had first been released in 1985 via MCA Records. It was offered as both a compact disc and an audio cassette. It was later released again On November 15, 1995 via Universal Special Products on a cassette. The album did not reach any peak positions on any music publication charts, including Billboard. It also did not spawn any singles to radio. The album was reviewed by Hank Small of Allmusic following its re-release: \"Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl assembles ten tracks from Loretta Lynn's 1970s recordings for RCA [MCA], perhaps the singer's most creatively fertile period.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD version\n\nCassette version\n\nPersonnel\nAll credits are adapted from the liner notes of Blue Eyed Kentucky Girl.\n\nMusical and technical personnel\n Owen Bradley – producer\n Steve Hoffman – compiled credits\n Loretta Lynn – lead vocals, harmony vocals\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1985 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Owen Bradley\nLoretta Lynn compilation albums\nMCA Records compilation albums",
"Katie Waissel is the debut studio album by British singer-songwriter Katie Waissel, released on 14 March 2011.\n\nBackground\nThe song \"The Ugly Truth\" premiered four days before the release of Katie Waissel. The day before the release of the album, she performed the song \"The Ugly Truth\" on The Alan Titchmarsh Show. The entire album is composed of songs recorded during her time on Green Eyed World, when she was signed to Chamberlain Records, this release concluding her two-record contract. Several of the songs can be heard as background music or as Katie performing them on Green Eyed World. Waissel spoke on the album:\n\n“I’m so excited that this album is ready for a release. I co-wrote these songs so they mean a lot to me. To have the opportunity to share them with everyone is a dream come true for me.”\n\nOther songs recorded with Chamberlain Records that have not featured on any release by Waissel but are available online are: a cover of \"Love Me Tender\", \"Love, Life and Money\", \"Crystal Lagoon\", \"Ray of Light\", \"Whole Lotta Love\", \"Rock Steady!\", and \"Maybe\". Katie Waissel did not chart on the UK Albums Chart, or see a full physical release. Since the album's release, Waissel has formed a four-member rock band named \"Red Velvet\", who are expected to release their own debut album.\n\nTrack listing\n\nNotes\n a \"Moving Mountains\" was also previously included on The Private Life of David Reed's self-titled debut album, with Waissel under the alias of \"Lola Fontaine\".\n\n b Acoustic version of \"He's In Love\"\n\nReferences\n\n2011 debut albums\nKatie Waissel albums"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy",
"Were they on the charts?",
"Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager.",
"Did they do any songs with other popular artists?",
"Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard,",
"Did they win an awards?",
"It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.",
"Did they release any other albums during this time?",
"1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album"
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
|
Did they go on tour?
| 6 |
Did the go on tour?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
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string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone,
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| true |
[
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Therapy?",
"The success (1993-1995)",
"Did they release any albums in 1993?",
"The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy",
"Were they on the charts?",
"Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager.",
"Did they do any songs with other popular artists?",
"Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard,",
"Did they win an awards?",
"It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.",
"Did they release any other albums during this time?",
"1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album",
"Did they go on tour?",
"string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone,"
] |
C_1d5ce516fe6c4be19df76a7cbfc97b5e_0
|
Did they make any music videos?
| 7 |
Did Therapy make any music videos?
|
Therapy?
|
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash). 1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of Top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards. With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Therapy? are a rock band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist-vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing. Therapy? recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar. To complete the lineup, the band recruited Larne bassist Michael McKeegan. The band signed with major label A&M Records in 1992, for which they released four albums, most notably Troublegum in 1994 and Infernal Love in 1995. Ewing's departure in early 1996 preceded the arrivals of his replacement Graham Hopkins, and Martin McCarrick on cello and guitar. Neil Cooper replaced Hopkins on drums in 2002. Following the departure of McCarrick in 2004, the band have remained a stable three-piece since.
Therapy? are currently signed to UK independent label Marshall Records. The band has released 15 full-length studio albums and has sold over two million albums worldwide.
History
Early years (1989–1992)
While attending a charity gig at the Jordanstown Polytechnic in early 1989, Andy Cairns noticed Fyfe Ewing playing drums in a punk covers band. The two spoke afterwards and agreed to meet for rehearsal in Fyfe's house in Larne with Andy playing a small practice amp and Fyfe playing his kit with brushes. In April they recorded a four track demo tape (Thirty Seconds of Silence) with Andy playing a bass guitar borrowed from Fyfe's classmate Michael McKeegan. Deciding to play live, they recruited McKeegan and played their debut gig at the Belfast Art College supporting Decadence Within on 20 August 1989. They followed this up with another four track demo tape (Meat Abstract). Their sound was becoming highly influenced by artists of the indie rock movement such as The Jesus Lizard, Big Black, and The Membranes as well as new beat disco acts such as Belgian outfit Erotic Dissidents.
Therapy? released its first single, called Meat Abstract in July 1990. The single was limited to 1,000 copies and released on the band's own Multifuckinational Records. During the summer of that year, the band made its first tour through the United Kingdom with The Beyond, catching the attention of influential DJ John Peel along the way. The band's early years followed the familiar pattern of hard graft on the local alternative music scene, with Cairns often putting in a full day at the Michelin tyre factory (where he worked as a quality controller), then speeding across Northern Ireland in order to make it to gigs. The band also took whatever support slot they could, opening for the likes of Loop, Ride, Teenage Fanclub, Inspiral Carpets, Tad, Fugazi and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Therapy? quickly came to the attention of local music fans with their distinctively uncompromising style. Their use of guitar feedback as a "fourth instrument" and unconventional song structures, combined with a darkly original approach to lyrics and imaginative use of samples pulled from cult movies and obscure documentaries, led them to be spotted in 1990 by London-based independent label Wiiija Records. The move was helped by Lesley Rankine of Silverfish, who passed the band's first single on to Gary Walker of Wiiija.
The band's first album, July 1991's Babyteeth, and its January 1992 follow-up, Pleasure Death, were successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. The attention led to support slots with both Babes In Toyland and Hole on their respective UK tours. A compilation of the two albums entitled Caucasian Psychosis was prepared for the North American market, and the band embarked on their first U.S. tour in October 1992.
Their debut A&M record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK and Ireland. The grunge revolution was in full swing, with US outfit Nirvana leading the way. Predictably, the media began to draw comparisons between the two bands. The heavy guitars and inventive drumming that was swiftly becoming Therapy?'s trademark led them more towards the grunge camp than away from it.
The success (1993–1995)
If there was one true "breakthrough" year in the band's history, it would almost certainly be 1993. The release of the Shortsharpshock EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40, peaking at nine, featuring the lead track Screamager. The single led to the first of several appearances on the venerable UK music show Top of the Pops. Two more UK Top 40 EPs Face the Strange and Opal Mantra followed, as the band toured heavily on the European festival circuit, made two separate jaunts to the United States in support of Kings X initially, and then both Helmet and The Jesus Lizard, and played their debut shows in Japan. Compilations of the three EP's were released in the U.S. and Japan (Hats Off to the Insane), and in Europe (Born in a Crash).
1994 saw the release of the commercially successful Troublegum album in February which earned the band appearances at a string of rock and indie festivals, including Reading (third consecutive appearance), Donington and Phoenix in the UK alone, as well as a clutch of top 40 singles. It achieved a string of nominations in end-of-year polls, including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and success at the Kerrang! Awards.
With impatience mounting for a new album, Infernal Love was released in June 1995. This time, the press reaction was lukewarm. The band had attempted to create a "cinematic" record with Belfast DJ David Holmes employed to link each track with "insanity", but in the eyes of many, had produced a disjointed piece over-subscribed with ballads. Despite a second consecutive Donington appearance at Metallica's request, and singles Stories and Loose charting in the UK earlier in the year, it was clear that Therapy? had changed direction. Although the string laden single Diane (originally by Hüsker Dü) was a Top 10 hit in 15 European countries later in the year, much of the early momentum had gone.
Ewing quits / Four piece (1996–1998)
Fyfe Ewing left the band in January 1996. The band quickly recruited Graham Hopkins to replace Ewing as well as the permanent addition of guest cellist Martin McCarrick, and steadily toured throughout the US and Canada in 1996.
After the tour wound up in October 1996, Therapy? finally took a long break. They reconvened after a few months and spent most of 1997 writing, rehearsing and recording the follow-up to Infernal Love.
While the Church of Noise single in March 1998 failed commercially, it marked the return of the band following three years out of the spotlight. The Semi-Detached album transcended the trajectory of Troublegum and Infernal Love with their dark, broody atmosphere. However, promotion for the album was scant at best, due to problems at the A&M label, which culminated in the loss of their record deal with the company. Without label support, Cairns and McKeegan needed to finance the band's European tour in late 1998 themselves.
The turn of the millennium (1999–2003)
The band's sentiment towards newer alternative metal bands was expressed in the song Ten Year Plan from the band's uncompromising 1999 Ark21 album Suicide Pact – You First, which was packed full of vitriol, discontent and barely-repressed musical aggression. This album revealed a fuller-sound, yet was noticeably lacking in songs suitable of mainstream-radio airplay.
The following year saw the release of the So Much for the Ten Year Plan: A Retrospective 1990–2000 album which (in title at least) was a self-deprecating poke at the bands' difficulties with corporate rock in recent years. It also allowed the band to fulfill some outstanding obligations to Universal Music.
Therapy? recorded follow-up record Shameless in early 2001 in Seattle. The album, produced by the legendary Jack Endino, was released by Ark21 in September. Graham Hopkins, who was unhappy with his musical limitation within the band, quit in December 2001. Following Hopkins' departure, the band yet again found themselves without a drummer and a record deal.
The band toured Europe in 2002 with ex-3 Colours Red drummer Keith Baxter. Hopkins was permanently replaced in Therapy? by ex-The Beyond/Cable/Gorilla drummer Neil Cooper, while the band signed a new record deal with Spitfire Records.
This line-up lasted one album, the commercially inclined High Anxiety. The bands' first home video release, a DVD entitled Scopophobia was released shortly afterwards, consisting of a full concert recorded live at Belfast's Mandella Hall in June 2003, promo videos and other extras. The band completed a UK tour at the end of 2003 as a three piece, due to McCarrick leaving the tour midway through owing to a perforated eardrum.
Back to a three piece (2004–2009)
McCarrick left the band permanently in March 2004, and the band were now slimmed down to a permanent three piece again for the first time since 1995. Never Apologise Never Explain was released in September 2004 to an audience re-acquainted with the three-piece Therapy? and was reminiscent of the claustrophobic sound of their earlier material.
The following album One Cure Fits All was released in April 2006. The album, produced by Pedro Ferreira, was a return to the melodic tendencies of High Anxiety and again divided opinion among the band's fans.
On 19 September 2006, Therapy? performed an exclusive studio show of songs chosen by fans who had voted for their three favourite tracks from a lengthy list on the band's website. These votes were counted and the twelve tracks with the most votes were then performed and recorded (both as audio and video). In early 2007, these tracks became available to buy from the band's official website. The Webgig is no longer available to purchase. In addition to this release, the band received some attention from their old record company Universal Records (who own the rights to the band's material recorded on A&M Records) who released both a DVD of old promo clips (Gold) and a double-CD compilation of BBC sessions (Music Through A Cheap Transistor) in 2007. On the touring front, Therapy? focused on markets they had not usually played, including a slot at the NXNE festival in Canada, festival dates in Europe (one of which was as a late replacement for Helmet at the Nova Rock Festival) and a tour through countries such as Romania, Croatia and Serbia, even playing two gigs on Reunion Island, off the East African coast. The band ended 2007 by supporting New Model Army at their Christmas gig in Cologne.
Therapy? were a last minute replacement for Biffy Clyro on the Jägermeister Rock Liga tour of Germany which lasted five dates in February 2008. These dates were the only gigs played in 2008 as the band focused their energies exclusively on recording the new record. Therapy? began recording the new album in late July at Blast Studios in Newcastle and finished recording by late August. It was produced by Andy Gill. Video of rehearsals surfaced on Therapy?'s website offering previews of the new work, showcasing a more rythmetic jazz-influenced direction (Rehearsal), alongside a rough track typical of newer Therapy? output (Clowns Galore). The album, entitled Crooked Timber, was released on 23 March 2009 via Blast Records/Global Music. The band performed the new album in its entirety on selected live dates in May, played various European festivals throughout the summer (including a debut appearance at Oxegen in Ireland and a second outing at England's Download) and toured Europe extensively from October to December.
20th Anniversary (2010–2013)
To mark the 20th anniversary of their debut commercial recording release, Therapy? performed for three consecutive nights at London's Monto Water Rats in March which were recorded for the bands' first official live album entitled We're Here to the End, released in November. A deluxe gold edition of 2009's Crooked Timber album was released on 19 July. Therapy? also appeared at European festivals in the summer, including at Knebworth Sonisphere on 31 July when the band performed the Troublegum album in its entirety. Later in 2010, the band performed several "Troublegum & more" sets throughout Europe as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations.
In December 2010, the band began recording their thirteenth studio album, entitled A Brief Crack of Light, in Newcastle's Blast Studio. The album recording was completed in February 2011 and mixing began in March. In late May 2011, the group announced a change of plan for the new album; another recording session was planned for June in order to record new songs that had emerged. Those songs were mixed in July 2011 and included, along with songs from the first session, for the new album. The album was released in February 2012. A preceding single and video entitled Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing was released in January 2012.
In May 2013, Cairns embarked on his first ever solo acoustic tour of the UK, as well as some dates in Europe. To especially mark the tour, he released a CD of acoustic material for sale exclusively at the shows, comprising 12 Therapy? songs, 6 original tracks freshly written for the tour and a cover version, all recorded in late April in Newcastle's Blast Studios
The Gemil Box was released on 18 November 2013; a career-spanning box set of rare and unreleased material. Contents included remastered versions of Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love and Semi-Detached, three CDs of rare and unreleased tracks, a DVD of the band's 2010 Sonisphere performance of the Troublegum album, official bootlegs of London ULU '91 and London Mean Fiddler '92, a 12" vinyl of their early demo releases and a cassette of a live recording from Dublin 1990.
Deluxe Edition releases of both Troublegum and Infernal Love were released by Universal Music on 31 March 2014. The band promoted these releases with a series of retro video and audio uploads to their official YouTube channel, proceeding a short UK tour in early April. A compilation of singles from 1992 to 1998 followed on 14 April 2014 via Spectrum Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music, entitled Stories: The Singles Collection.
Disquiet and acoustic shows (2014–2017)
On 18 February 2014, the band began pre-production on studio album number 14 with producer Tom Dalgety in their now usual surroundings of Blast Studios in Newcastle. The session finished on 28 February with 18 tracks laid down in demo form. Having chosen 11 songs, the band began recording the album proper on 17 April 2014 and it was completed on 30 April 2014. The album, entitled Disquiet, was released on the bands' new record label on 23 March 2015. Pre-orders of the album were announced on 23 February 2015 and included an instant download of two album tracks and an exclusive pre-order track called We Kill People. A digital only single called Still Hurts, featuring two more non-album tracks, was released on 9 March 2015.
The band began the first leg of their Disquiet Tour in the UK in March, before taking in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and returning to the UK throughout April. Their performance in Utrecht was filmed by 'Quantum VR Media' for a future 360 VR release. In early May, Therapy? recorded a session for XFM, their 4th overall following previous sessions in 2001, 2004 and 2012. Deathstimate was released as a download only single on 30 October 2015. The single Tides was released on 15 April 2016, although it was available in early March to purchase on limited edition CD at the bands' UK tour performing the Infernal Love album in its entirety. Summer festivals on the European circuit followed, including a date at the Wacken Open Air in Germany. Therapy? performed a fully acoustic "Wood & Wire" tour through Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany and the UK from 14 November until 1 December 2016. A newly recorded 11-track acoustic album entitled Wood & Wire was available for purchase on CD at these shows. A six date Irish Wood & Wire tour took place in April 2017.
On 21 July 2017, the band announced a double live acoustic album, Communion: Live at the Union Chapel, for release on 21 August 2017. The album was recorded in London on 1 December 2016 during the "Wood & Wire" European tour.
Cleave (2018–2019)
On 15 January 2018 the band began recording their 15th studio album at Blast Recording in Newcastle with Chris Sheldon producing. Recording was completed on 6 February 2018. In March, the band completed a 22-date UK and Ireland tour supporting The Stranglers.
On 10 May 2018, the band announced via their social media that they signed a worldwide record deal with Marshall Records
"Absolutely delighted to announce we have signed to @marshallrecs for a worldwide deal! The first single, "Callow", from our 15th album "CLEAVE" will be released Fri May 25th 2018"
A second single, "Wreck It Like Beckett", was released as a digital download on 7 September 2018, preceding the release of "Cleave" on 21 September 2018, following an extensive Pledge Music pre-order campaign which featured signed CDs, coloured vinyl, black vinyl and test presses.
"Kakistocracy" was released as a digital only single along with a music video on 24 January 2019.
30th anniversary (2020–present)
On 16 January 2020, the band announced that they would be releasing a greatest hits compilation, entitled Greatest Hits (The Abbey Road Session). The album featured newly re-recorded versions of 12 Top 40 UK singles spanning the albums Nurse, Troublegum, Infernal Love, and Semi-Detached, and was recorded at the venerable Abbey Road Studios in November 2019.
The band was due to embark on a European tour in support of the album beginning in March; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they postponed the tour until October 2020. In June 2020, they re-scheduled the tour again for spring 2021. Once more, in March 2021, the tour was re-scheduled to begin in January 2022. The over 18 months between the last show of 2019 and the first show of 2021 (a festival date in July which was one of only three gigs in 2021) was the longest the group has ever gone between shows in their existence.
On 2 November 2021, the band announced that their major label debut Nurse will be reissued by Caroline Records on 26 November 2021. The remastered 2CD version will contain b-sides and previously unreleased demo tracks. There will also be a vinyl release.
On 8 November 2021, the band entered Marshall Studios with producer Chris Sheldon to begin work on their 16th studio album, due for release in late 2022 once outstanding touring commitments are fulfilled.
Question mark suffix
Much has been made over the years of the unusual question mark suffix to the band's name. In early interviews the band said that the name was "really deep" and intended to raise the question "do you need therapy?", but in a 1992 interview guitarist Andy Cairns admitted that it was a chance design when he was working on the band's first record sleeve. Working with Letraset transfers, Cairns misaligned the band's name, and used the "?" icon to fill the space to the right. "And then we thought, well maybe we can bluff our way through when people start reading into it."
Collaborations and other appearances
Therapy? collaborated with the short-lived rap group Fatal (part of the Soul Assassin camp, not to be confused with the hip hop artist Fatal) on the track "Come and Die" from the soundtrack to the 1993 film Judgment Night. Cairns has contributed vocals and guitar to various recordings with different bands throughout the years – "Jonestown Mind" (1994) and "Waiting For Earthquakes" (2001) by The Almighty, "Rehab" (2000) by UK band Manchild, "Radio" (2001) by UK band Dog Toffee (although this version remains unreleased), "Gleason" (2002) by Northern Irish band Throat, "Get Your Groove On" (2003) by The Wildhearts, "F8" (2005) by This Is Menace, "The Second Triumvirate of Lavonia" (2009) by Italian band Inferno, "Crisis? What Crisis?" and "Ignite" (2014) by UK band Thirty Six Strategies and "Celebrating Sinking" (2015) by Ricky Warwick. Therapy? appear on the 2005 "Welt Turbojugend Tage" DVD, performing three songs live in Hamburg. Therapy?, along with Biohazard and Gunshot, contributed with remixes on Pitchshifter's 1995 album, The Remix War.
Some of their songs were used in movies and video games. "Auto Surgery" and "Teethgrinder" are featured on Electronic Arts' video game Road Rash for the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation consoles while "Nowhere" is featured on EA Sports's video game "NCAA Football 2006" for the Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube, and PlayStation 2 consoles.
"Accelerator" appears in Dominic Sena's 1993 movie Kalifornia while "He's Not That Kind Of Girl" and "God Kicks" appear in John Carney's 2001 movie On The Edge, starring Cillian Murphy."Screamager" and "Nowhere" are heard on the first series of the BBC sitcom Game On. "Speedball" appears in the movie S.F.W.
Influences
Therapy? covered Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", and other songs such The Police's "Invisible Sun", The Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare", The Smiths' "Vicar in a Tutu" and Turbonegro's "Denim Demon". Cairns cited in his other favorite bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees for the album Juju, and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band for the album Trout Mask Replica.
Influences from bands such as Sonic Youth, The Jesus Lizard, Hüsker Dü, Big Black, Killing Joke and Helmet can also be heard in Therapy?'s music.
The band's songs and artwork often reference the work of Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett.
Band members
Current members
Andy Cairns – lead vocals, lead guitar (1989–present)
Michael McKeegan – bass, backing vocals (1989–present)
Neil Cooper – drums (2002–present)
Former members
Fyfe Ewing – vocals, drums (1989–1996)
Graham Hopkins – drums, backing vocals (1996–2001)
Martin McCarrick – guitar, cello, backing vocals (1996–2004)
Touring members
Stevie Firth – guitar, backing vocals (2010–present)
Herb Magee – bass, backing vocals (2014)
Adam Sinclair – drums (2012)
Alan Lynn – drums (2012)
Keith Baxter – drums (2002, 2003) (died 2008)
Rosie Wetters – cello (1995)
Martin McCarrick – cello, backing vocals (1992, 1994, 1995)
Charlie McKeegan – drums (1990, 1999, 2003)
Jenny Nendick – cello (2016)
Timeline
Discography
Babyteeth (1991)
Pleasure Death (1992)
Nurse (1992)
Troublegum (1994)
Infernal Love (1995)
Semi-Detached (1998)
Suicide Pact – You First (1999)
Shameless (2001)
High Anxiety (2003)
Never Apologise Never Explain (2004)
One Cure Fits All (2006)
Crooked Timber (2009)
A Brief Crack of Light (2012)
Disquiet (2015)
Cleave (2018)
References
External links
Official website
Stressed Sumo Records
Interview with Michael McKeegan and Neil Cooper from Hard Rock Hell Festival 2011
British musical trios
Heavy metal musical groups from Northern Ireland
British alternative metal musical groups
Noise rock groups from Northern Ireland
Grunge musical groups
Punk rock groups from Northern Ireland
A&M Records artists
| false |
[
"The discography of pureNRG, a Christian pop group, consists of four studio albums, one remix album and a compilation album. They have also released three DVDs and four music videos.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nChristmas albums\n\nRemix albums\n\nChart history\n\n Note: — means that the album did not make the chart.\n\nDVDs\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nPop music group discographies",
"The Britney Spears doll is a celebrity doll made in the likeness of pop singer Britney Spears. Several versions of the doll were released. Each doll is dressed in costumes that resemble the clothing Spears had worn in concerts, appearances, and music videos. The Britney Spears doll was the first doll produced by Play Along Toys.\n\nHistory\n\nThe doll\n\nJay Foreman and Charlie Emby, the founders of Play Along Toys, spent millions of dollars to license, advertise, and distribute the Britney Spears dolls. In 1999, Play Along Toys released the Britney Spears Fashion Doll; the Britney Doll was notable, as it was the first product Play Along Toys ever released. The dolls feature Spears in different outfits, make-up, and hairstyles from her concerts, appearances, photoshoots and music videos. The packaging the dolls were sold in often contained DVDs of music videos, stickers, and other accessories.\n\nA couple of years after Play Along Toys released the first Britney Doll, Yaboom Toys released their own version of the popular toy. The Singing Character, fashioned as Spears, plays a full-length version of one of Spear's popular songs when a button on the doll's stomach is pressed. The doll arrived on toy store shelves just in time for the holidays in 2000.\n\nA porcelain version of the Britney Doll was also released. The doll wears the classic outfit worn by Spears in the \"...Baby One More Time\" music video and is accompanied by a stand for easy display.\n\nPopularity\nOn October 15, 1999, the first Britney Spears Doll was released. The initial doll sold over 800,000 units. To date, over 5 million of the assorted Britney Dolls have been sold. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, the doll is the second best-selling celebrity doll of all time, behind only the Spice Girls dolls.\n\nThe first time Spears saw the doll she was displeased with its looks. She asked that the doll be changed because she felt it had the appearance of a bulldog chewing a wasp. As Spears reasoned, I felt a bit bad about ordering changes but hey, it's my doll. Following the changes to the doll's face, the dolls sold out in the United States in December. In the United Kingdom, three weeks of sales resulted in 60,000 dolls being sold.\n\nProduction of the doll was later discontinued sometime in late 2001 or early 2002. Years after the doll’s discontinuation, it has become a collectors item among her fans and doll collectors, usually sold on eBay.\n\nList of Products\n\n...Baby One More Time Dolls \nThis collection is composed of three dolls fashioning costumes from music videos from 1999. One wears the clothing from Spears' \"...Baby One More Time\" music video, two wear ensembles resembling those worn in the \"(You Drive Me) Crazy\" music video, and the last wear an outfit from the \"Sometimes\" music video.\n School Girl (outfit from \"...Baby One More Time\" music videos)\n Flowing White (outfit from \"Sometimes\" music videos)\n Pink Waitress (outfit from \"(You Drive Me) Crazy\" music videos)\n\nOops!... I Did It Again Dolls \nThis collection is composed of seven dolls (two dolls in other packaging) from two music videos by Britney Spears from 2000.\n Black & White (outfit from \"Oops!... I Did It Again\" music videos)\n White Leather (outfit from \"Oops!... I Did It Again\" music videos)\n Red Cat Jumpsuit (outfit from \"Oops!... I Did It Again\" music videos)\n Green Top (outfit from \"Lucky\" music videos)\n Red Top (outfit from \"Lucky\" music videos)\n\nVideo Performance Collection Dolls \nThis collection contains two dolls in different outfits from Spears' \"Born to Make You Happy\" music video, along with the outfit from her performance at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards.\n Red & Black (outfit from \"Born to Make You Happy\" music videos)\n Silver Sequined Disco Dive (outfit from \"Born to Make You Happy\" music videos)\n Green & Black (outfit from \"(You Drive Me) Crazy\" music videos)\n Shine Grey Sequined Disco Diva (outfit from 1999 MTV Video Music Awards performance)\n Futuristic (outfit from \"Stronger\" music videos)\n Red Cat Jumpsuit (outfit from \"Oops!... I Did It Again\" music videos)\n\nVideo Collection Dolls \n Green Top (outfit from \"Lucky\" music videos)\n Red Top (outfit from \"Lucky\" music videos)\n Pink Top (outfit from \"I'm A Slave 4 U\" music videos)\n Ripped Top (outfit from \"I'm A Slave 4 U\" music videos)\n Futuristic (outfit from \"Stronger\" music videos)\n White Top (outfit from \"I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman\" music videos)\n Red Cat Jumpsuit (outfit from \"Oops!... I Did It Again\" music videos)\n Crossroads (outfit from Crossroads film)\n\nConcert Outfit Dolls \nThis collection contains seven dolls wears different clothing that Britney Spears wore on stage during her Oops!... I Did It Again Tour.\n Silver Cowboy Outfit\n Navy Sailor Outfit\n Pink Dress Outfit\n Purple Jumpsuit Outfit\n Fire Top Outfit\n Elvis Presley Jumpsuit Outfit\n\nReferences\n\n2000s toys\nCelebrity dolls\nBritney Spears"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years"
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
Where did Ramis attend school?
| 1 |
Where did Ramis attend school?
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Harold Ramis
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Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
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Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
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Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| true |
[
"Ramis may refer to:\n\nSurname\n Harold Ramis (1944–2014), American actor, director and screenwriter\n Iván Ramis (born 1984), Spanish footballer\n Jean-Pierre Ramis (born 1943), French mathematician\n Juan Ramis (1746–1819), Spanish historian\n Jonathan Ramis (born 1989), Uruguayan footballer\n Llucia Ramis (born 1977), Spanish writer and journalist\n Luis Miguel Ramis (born 1970), Spanish footballer \n Magali García Ramis (born 1946), Puerto Rican writer\n\nOther\n Ramis, Armenia, ancient settlement in Goghtn Region of Armenia\n RAMIS (software) fourth-generation programming language\n\nCatalan-language surnames",
"RAMIS (\"Random Access Management Information System\") is a fourth-generation programming language (4GL) capable of creating and maintaining databases consisting of named files containing both numeric and alphabetic fields and subsequently producing detailed simple or complex reports using a very simple English like language. As such it is easily mastered by non-programmers. A typical program - either to create or maintain a database or to create quite complex reports - would normally consist of a handful of lines of code which could be written or understood by non-professional programmers. \"End users\" as they became known. Such end users could be trained to use RAMIS in a matter of days and so large companies would often have several hundred such users scattered throughout the company.\n\nHistory\nRAMIS was initially developed in the mid 1960s by the company Mathematica on a consulting contract for a marketing study by a team headed by Gerald Cohen and subsequently further developed and marketed as a general purpose data management and analysis tool. In the late 1960s Cohen fell out with the management of Mathematica and left to form his own company. Shortly thereafter his new company released a new product called FOCUS which was very similar to RAMIS: \"the same bugs and the same misspelled error messages.\"\n\nNational CSS (NCSS), a Time-sharing vendor, licensed rights to make RAMIS available on its VP/CSS system.\n\nAt some point Mathematica changed its licensing price.\n\nThe interested parties were:\n NCSS, which was marketing RAMIS (and other products) for use on their time-sharing system\n Mathematica, owner of RAMIS\n Key developers/programmers of RAMIS\n some stayed with Mathematica\n others left to form the company that became Information Builders, known for their FOCUS product\n\nMost of the programming team remained with Mathematica as did almost all the sales force. By this time RAMIS had double digits of client companies in both the US and a European division headquartered in London and so Mathematica decided to create a new division called Mathematica Products Group and rename the product RAMIS II. At the same time, the company decided to recall Frank Fish - originally a Mathematica consultant who had been assigned to lead a European consulting team and had subsequently formed the European RAMIS group - to head up the RAMIS II design team and International Sales.\n\nSales of both RAMIS II and FOCUS continued to grow through the 1980s throughout the western world with RAMIS II generally outselling FOCUS on mainframes though no detailed figures are available. RAMIS II was eventually installed in some 40 countries worldwide.\n\nPurchased by Martin Marietta\nMathematica itself eventually grew to more than 500 staff with roughly 200 involved with RAMIS II. The company was largely owned by a group of professors in Mathematics and Economics at Princeton University and, as this group aged, they opted to cash out by selling to Martin Marietta Corporation (subsequently Lockheed Martin) in 1983.\n\nRAMIS II continued to grow for another 4 years until most of the top people in RAMIS II design and sales quit in reaction to policy changes imposed by Lockheed Martin. Roughly 2 years later Lockheed Martin sold the RAMIS II group to another software firm whose background and culture was so different from Mathematica that they were unable to make a success of the product and they in turn sold the product to another company for its maintenance revenue.\n\nThree-way split\nIn 1987 RAMIS was sold to On-Line Software International \nuntil it was acquired by its current owners, Computer Associates.\n\nBy the time the company was about to be purchased by Computer Associates (CA Technologies), the results were\n NCSS, with its own database software, NOMAD\n(\"We’ve got to replace RAMIS, and we’re going to build our own product.\")\n Mathematica, with its RAMIS offering\n Information Builders, with its FOCUS offering\n\nRAMIS syntax\nThe RAMIS syntax has been described as \n \"allows you to use English-like commands to prepare reports and graphs from your RAMIS files.\"\n \"a fourth-generation programming language capable of generating reports using simple language and many fewer lines of code than previous third-generation programing languages such as COBOL.\"\n\nMarket acceptance\nWhile the initial timesharing/mainframe product was positively accepted, the initial PC version didn't get the same reception:\n\nLess positive\n \"Ramis is a compromise 4GL relational database management system. It lacks SQL, a full programming language, good tech support, and the brute-force capabilities and sophistication of its competition. But it's remarkably easy to learn and use, comes with decent documentation, and performs the database basics.\"\n\nLess negative\n \"In Short: Ramis is an easy-to-use, pop-up menu database query and reporting tool for end users. However, its lack of a sophisticated applications development environment will preclude its use for more complicated demands.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Response to \"In CA Ramis, how can I produce a report, comparing the earliest date in one file to a date in another file with matching keys?\"\n\nFourth-generation programming languages\nMainframe computer software"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe."
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
Who did he perform with at Second City?
| 2 |
Who did Ramis perform with at Second City?
|
Harold Ramis
|
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
|
I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college".
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| false |
[
"Boris Kozlov is a Russian-born jazz bassist.\n\nBiography\nBorn in Moscow, USSR on December 5, 1967, Kozlov studied piano at Children's Music School before switching to bass. Kozlov won the Gnesin Music Academy Competition which enabled him to enter college at age 15 and study electric bass guitar.\n\nAfter graduation Kozlov did a mandatory two year military service where he played tuba and other brass instruments. After leaving the service, Kozlov played with the Soviet state-owned \"Melodia\" Studio Ensemble in 1989 and in 1991 won the USSR Competition of Jazz soloists. He then moved to New York City to study and perform jazz.\n\nKozlov has played on two Grammy Award-winning albums, the first with Brian Lynch and the second with Mingus Big Band (Live at Jazz Standard) in 2011. Kozlov has performed as musical director of the latter band.\n\nKozlov has performed with Lew Tabackin, Bobby Watson, Michael Brecker, Alex Sipiagin among others.\n\nAs a solo artist, Kozlov has released Double Standard in 2010 and as bandleader Conversations At The Well in 2016.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBoris Kozlov at Discogs\nBoris Kozlov at Inarhyme Records\n\n1967 births\nMale double-bassists\nBebop double-bassists\n20th-century double-bassists\n21st-century double-bassists\nLiving people\n20th-century male musicians\n21st-century male musicians",
"The Boy's rings event final for the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics took place on the 23rd of August at Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium.\n\nMedalists\n\nQualification\n\nThe top eight gymnasts from qualification advanced into the final – with exception to Vigen Khachatryan, who placed fourth during qualifications. He had problems with his back did not perform on the parallel bars or horizontal bar. With the performance on all apparatus being a requirement for gymnasts at the YOG, Khachatryan was not eligible to advance to the finals.\n\nResults\n\nReserves\n\nThe following gymnasts were reserves for the final:\n\nReferences\n\nGymnastics at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\"."
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
What year(s) did he perform at Second City?
| 3 |
What year(s) did Ramis perform at Second City?
|
Harold Ramis
|
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
|
1968,
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| true |
[
"Master Herbert (born 1822) was an English child actor.\n\n'Master Herbert' also known as the 'Infant Roscius' Henry Herbert (1822-?) born 22 December, in Wisbech, the son of John Herbert (a member of Wisbech Harmonic Society). He was taken to the theatre at the age of two.\n\nThe family moved to London, where he watched Edmund Kean perform. The family relocated to Reading, where he saw another juvenile Roscius, Master Grossmith perform. George Dibdin Pitt of the Surrey theatre wrote a suitable piece Peter Proteus; or How to gain five thousand pounds for the young actor. His first performance was at Watford. He performed at Reading reciting a comic piece in The Star Struck Sailor and the song 'Barney Brannigan'. He also returned to Wisbech to perform at what is now the Angles Theatre in 1829.\nFrom Wisbech he was to perform at the George and Star Inn, Whittlesey on 1st September and then Peterborough, Thorney, March, Long Sutton and Holbeach. In December 1829 he appeared at Norwich for three nights and at Holkham Hall before going to Aylsham.\nIn 1830 he performed in Beverley, Bridlington, York, Scarborough, Knareborough, Richmond, Pontefract and at Leeds in December.\nIn April 1831 he performed Peter Proteus! At the Royal Pavilion Theatre.\nHe performed as Briefwit in The Weathercock at Chelmsford theatre on 23rd August 1833. In December he appeared at Huntingdon and received much applause.\nA return visit was made to Wisbech during the Mart before moving to neighbouring towns.\n\nReferences\n\n1822 births\n19th-century British male actors\nBritish male stage actors\nMale actors from London\n\nFurther reading \n\nEnglish male child actors\nPeople from Wisbech\nYear of death missing",
"The men's 3 metre springboard diving competition at the 2012 Olympic Games in London was held on 6 and 7 August at the Aquatics Centre within the Olympic Park.\n\nIlya Zakharov from Russia won the gold medal. China's Qin Kai took silver and He Chong won bronze.\n\nFormat\n\nThe competition was held in three rounds:\n\nPreliminary round: All 29 divers perform six dives; the top 18 divers advance to the semi-final.\nSemi-final: The 18 divers perform six dives; the scores of the qualifications are erased and the top 12 divers advance to the final.\nFinal: The 12 divers perform six dives; the semi-final scores are erased and the top three divers win the gold, silver and bronze medals accordingly.\n\nSchedule \nAll times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)\n\nResults\nSource:\n\n*Stephan Feck, competing in his first Olympics, received a 0.0 on his second dive after he slipped on the board and landed on his back in the water. He returned for his third dive but did not perform his fourth, fifth or sixth, thereby removing himself from the competition.\n\nReferences\n\nDiving at the 2012 Summer Olympics\n2012\nMen's events at the 2012 Summer Olympics"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\".",
"What year(s) did he perform at Second City?",
"1968,"
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
What did he do after Second City?
| 4 |
What did Ramis do after Second City?
|
Harold Ramis
|
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
|
CANNOTANSWER
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| false |
[
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\".",
"What year(s) did he perform at Second City?",
"1968,",
"What did he do after Second City?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
What else happened in 1968?
| 5 |
What else happened for Ramis in 1968 besides being in Second ity?
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Harold Ramis
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Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
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he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes.
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| true |
[
"An Englishman in Auschwitz is a 2001 book written by Leon Greenman, a Holocaust survivor. The book details his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp.\n\nThe book is a result of the commitment of English-born Greenman to God \"that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war\". In short, the book describes the reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutchwoman, and their three-year-old son, Barney) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in these words: The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 non-fiction books\nPersonal accounts of the Holocaust",
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\".",
"What year(s) did he perform at Second City?",
"1968,",
"What did he do after Second City?",
"I don't know.",
"What else happened in 1968?",
"he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes."
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
Did Ramis have any other jobs?
| 6 |
Did Ramis have any other jobs besides being a teacher?
|
Harold Ramis
|
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
|
He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV,
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| true |
[
"Ramis may refer to:\n\nSurname\n Harold Ramis (1944–2014), American actor, director and screenwriter\n Iván Ramis (born 1984), Spanish footballer\n Jean-Pierre Ramis (born 1943), French mathematician\n Juan Ramis (1746–1819), Spanish historian\n Jonathan Ramis (born 1989), Uruguayan footballer\n Llucia Ramis (born 1977), Spanish writer and journalist\n Luis Miguel Ramis (born 1970), Spanish footballer \n Magali García Ramis (born 1946), Puerto Rican writer\n\nOther\n Ramis, Armenia, ancient settlement in Goghtn Region of Armenia\n RAMIS (software) fourth-generation programming language\n\nCatalan-language surnames",
"RAMIS (\"Random Access Management Information System\") is a fourth-generation programming language (4GL) capable of creating and maintaining databases consisting of named files containing both numeric and alphabetic fields and subsequently producing detailed simple or complex reports using a very simple English like language. As such it is easily mastered by non-programmers. A typical program - either to create or maintain a database or to create quite complex reports - would normally consist of a handful of lines of code which could be written or understood by non-professional programmers. \"End users\" as they became known. Such end users could be trained to use RAMIS in a matter of days and so large companies would often have several hundred such users scattered throughout the company.\n\nHistory\nRAMIS was initially developed in the mid 1960s by the company Mathematica on a consulting contract for a marketing study by a team headed by Gerald Cohen and subsequently further developed and marketed as a general purpose data management and analysis tool. In the late 1960s Cohen fell out with the management of Mathematica and left to form his own company. Shortly thereafter his new company released a new product called FOCUS which was very similar to RAMIS: \"the same bugs and the same misspelled error messages.\"\n\nNational CSS (NCSS), a Time-sharing vendor, licensed rights to make RAMIS available on its VP/CSS system.\n\nAt some point Mathematica changed its licensing price.\n\nThe interested parties were:\n NCSS, which was marketing RAMIS (and other products) for use on their time-sharing system\n Mathematica, owner of RAMIS\n Key developers/programmers of RAMIS\n some stayed with Mathematica\n others left to form the company that became Information Builders, known for their FOCUS product\n\nMost of the programming team remained with Mathematica as did almost all the sales force. By this time RAMIS had double digits of client companies in both the US and a European division headquartered in London and so Mathematica decided to create a new division called Mathematica Products Group and rename the product RAMIS II. At the same time, the company decided to recall Frank Fish - originally a Mathematica consultant who had been assigned to lead a European consulting team and had subsequently formed the European RAMIS group - to head up the RAMIS II design team and International Sales.\n\nSales of both RAMIS II and FOCUS continued to grow through the 1980s throughout the western world with RAMIS II generally outselling FOCUS on mainframes though no detailed figures are available. RAMIS II was eventually installed in some 40 countries worldwide.\n\nPurchased by Martin Marietta\nMathematica itself eventually grew to more than 500 staff with roughly 200 involved with RAMIS II. The company was largely owned by a group of professors in Mathematics and Economics at Princeton University and, as this group aged, they opted to cash out by selling to Martin Marietta Corporation (subsequently Lockheed Martin) in 1983.\n\nRAMIS II continued to grow for another 4 years until most of the top people in RAMIS II design and sales quit in reaction to policy changes imposed by Lockheed Martin. Roughly 2 years later Lockheed Martin sold the RAMIS II group to another software firm whose background and culture was so different from Mathematica that they were unable to make a success of the product and they in turn sold the product to another company for its maintenance revenue.\n\nThree-way split\nIn 1987 RAMIS was sold to On-Line Software International \nuntil it was acquired by its current owners, Computer Associates.\n\nBy the time the company was about to be purchased by Computer Associates (CA Technologies), the results were\n NCSS, with its own database software, NOMAD\n(\"We’ve got to replace RAMIS, and we’re going to build our own product.\")\n Mathematica, with its RAMIS offering\n Information Builders, with its FOCUS offering\n\nRAMIS syntax\nThe RAMIS syntax has been described as \n \"allows you to use English-like commands to prepare reports and graphs from your RAMIS files.\"\n \"a fourth-generation programming language capable of generating reports using simple language and many fewer lines of code than previous third-generation programing languages such as COBOL.\"\n\nMarket acceptance\nWhile the initial timesharing/mainframe product was positively accepted, the initial PC version didn't get the same reception:\n\nLess positive\n \"Ramis is a compromise 4GL relational database management system. It lacks SQL, a full programming language, good tech support, and the brute-force capabilities and sophistication of its competition. But it's remarkably easy to learn and use, comes with decent documentation, and performs the database basics.\"\n\nLess negative\n \"In Short: Ramis is an easy-to-use, pop-up menu database query and reporting tool for end users. However, its lack of a sophisticated applications development environment will preclude its use for more complicated demands.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Response to \"In CA Ramis, how can I produce a report, comparing the earliest date in one file to a date in another file with matching keys?\"\n\nFourth-generation programming languages\nMainframe computer software"
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\".",
"What year(s) did he perform at Second City?",
"1968,",
"What did he do after Second City?",
"I don't know.",
"What else happened in 1968?",
"he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes.",
"Did Ramis have any other jobs?",
"He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV,"
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
What did he do for TVTV?
| 7 |
What did Ramis do for TVTV?
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Harold Ramis
|
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
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CANNOTANSWER
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Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| false |
[
"tvtv Services, trading as tvtv, is a consumer oriented pan-European electronic programme guide (EPG) service provider, owned by the arvato AG subsidiary rtv media group GmbH since January 2013. It was formerly broadcast on Freeview channel 304 (owned by YooMedia, timesharing with Absolute Radio) until 30 October 2008.\n\nHistory \nIn 1999, the first tvtv website (tvtv.de) was launched by Munich-based company Fast TV Server AG to enable remote programming. In 2001 Fast TV Server announced the first personal video recorder (PVR) with remote programming, and in 2002, the first TV set with EPG and PVR was launched.\n\nIn November 2003, Sony acquired Fast TV Server AG's EPG services, and tvtv Services became a branch of Sony UK Ltd, but continued to be run from Munich, under the management of Philippe Boulanger. This was followed by the launch of first digital PVR in 2004 and the first customized web-EPG in 2005.\n\nIn September 2011, the ownership of tvtv was moved from Sony UK to the US Sony subsidiary Gracenote, under its German daughter company Gracenote GmbH. The purpose of the move was, according to the official press release, \"to enable Gracenote to expand its portfolio of products and technology to Smart TV manufacturers, cable operators and broadcasters.\"\n\nIn November 2012, tvtv suspended the offer for new subscriptions to their online services, and announced that existing subscriptions would not be extended.\n\nIn January 2013, tvtv was moved from Gracenote GmbH to the arvato AG subsidiary rtv media group GmbH. With this transfer the rtv media group expands its portfolio to further digital products and is constantly on a growth course with positioning its products as leading platforms for program navigation and advertising media for online and crossmedia campaigns.\n\nService\ntvtv enables users to personalize their TV listings, receive personalized and collaborative recommendations, recommend programs to their friends and remotely control their recording lists via internet or mobile.\nTvtv provides EPG technology and metadata to various set-top boxes and websites of large cable operators, digital TV sets, digital video recorders, TV tuner sticks, mobile devices and web portals. \nIn order to benefit from the premium services like remote recording, users need to have a compatible device and register to the service.\nThe delivery of metadata for set-top boxes, TV tuner sticks and hardware in general as well as the online recording function was ceased on February 28, 2013. Nevertheless, the tvtv websites for Germany, Austria and Switzerland are still operated by rtv media group.\n\nSystem\n\ntvtv collects television program data for more than 115 TV channels which have their origin in 38 countries, mainly in Europe. tvtv works with editorial sources, local aggregators and TV companies directly to be able to deliver the pictures, and descriptions of the programs. The program data is then structured and put into one format and one categorization scheme and distributed mainly to consumer electronics devices and TV network operators. The transmission is hybrid; it can take place via broadcast play-out, and broadband through an application interface on the device or XML-file transfer, depending on the capabilities of the devices and the TV systems. The tvtv system is using open standards, like DVB, WST, DSM-CC, XML and JPEG for data provision and using a unified data format for digital broadcast, analog broadcast and Internet.\n\nIn addition, the EPG data is published on various websites, such as tvtv.co.uk, or specially customized websites. In most of the cases, the content of the websites is available to the public. Owners of a tvtv enabled device can also remotely record programs to their devices through the tvtv websites.\n\nA widget application is also available for German TV program information. The widget gives you a quick access to tvtv.de program listings and allows you to search programs, define your own search filters, group your channels, set reminders, mark programs, or set recordings for your devices.\n\nAs one alternative to the EPG services such as tvtv, broadcasting device manufacturer could also use DVB-SI data which are a part of the DVB specification and are broadcast along with the TV content. The main difference between tvtv and DVB-SI is that information depth as well as preview period, varies a lot between channels and countries in the case of DVB-SI.\n\ntvtv services has received various awards. In 2006, tvtv.de they received 5 stars from German Video magazine for being fast, intuitive, clearly arranged and having a valuable system of categories and subcategories, 21 days preview and a very precise search for keywords, genres and attributes such as 16:9-movies or Dolby. In November 2009, tvtv was announced as the best EPG in Germany by Satvision, tested on the Humax iCord. The award was received for providing tips per genre, comfortable searches and high quality data with 14 days preview, descriptions and pictures.\n\nSee also\nWyplay\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\ntvtv in Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, France, Netherlands.\n\"Sony’s tvtv Services and Wyplay collaborate on Electronic Programming Guide for In-Home Multimedia Products\". Press Release, 11 September 2008\n\"tvtv-EPG now out at Kathrein\". Press Release, 16 March 2005\nBauer Media Online koopiert mit tvtv Services, Cision.net\nVAIO Next Generation\nTerratec Guida Soluzioni, Terratec Italian Website\nTVTV, la EPG si controlla dal web, Eurosat Online, Italian Magazine about Satellite and Digital TV\ntvtv-Plugin, VDR Wiki\n\nDigital television\nTechnology companies of Germany",
"TVTV may refer to:\n tvtv Services, a Germany-based pan-European EPG service provider, owned by Gracenote.\n TVTV!, the name for Finnish youth TV channel Sub from February 2000 to August 2001.\n TVTV (video collective), a video collective active in San Francisco 1972 to 1979.\n TV TV Australia Pty Ltd, corporate owner of IceTV."
] |
[
"Harold Ramis",
"Early years",
"Where did Ramis attend school?",
"Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.",
"Who did he perform with at Second City?",
"I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college\".",
"What year(s) did he perform at Second City?",
"1968,",
"What did he do after Second City?",
"I don't know.",
"What else happened in 1968?",
"he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes.",
"Did Ramis have any other jobs?",
"He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV,",
"What did he do for TVTV?",
"I don't know."
] |
C_8b48ff8bc3404ccda0cc4ffc5aaf4a39_1
|
What else did Ramis do in his early years?
| 8 |
What else did Ramis do in his early years besides TVTV, and Second City?
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Harold Ramis
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Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy--he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called ... just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor. CANNOTANSWER
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Ramis' newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine.
|
Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Ramis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.
Early life
Ramis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.
Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:
Career
Early years
Ramis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it." He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.
Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. "Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features." Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.
Ramis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. "I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college." Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.
National Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top
After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.
In 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show "New Wave Theater." He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.
The show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors"; the Hollies, who performed "Stop in the Name of Love"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, "Talking in Your Sleep" and "What I Like About You."
Guest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a "punk" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.
Ramis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.
The Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.
Film career
Ramis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million.
He also had a voice part as Zeke in the "So Beautiful & So Dangerous" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.
Ramis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.
In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his "masterpiece."
His films have been noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American." They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks." Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice."
Ramis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).
In 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title "The Dinner Party," because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, "his first attempt to make a comic film noir." Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.
In an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.
Ramis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.
Personal life
Ramis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.
Ramis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.
Illness and death
In May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.
He died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.
Upon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, "When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings." He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis "received total consciousness," in reference to a line from Caddyshack.
Ramis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.
Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that "as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis." He ended the show by thanking him.
Awards and honors
In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
In 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.
The 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads "for Harold."
Collaborations
Ramis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.
Filmography
Films
Television
Acting roles
Video games
Archival appearances
References
Further reading
External links
Henkel, Guido. "Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis", DVD Review, August 6, 1999
Garfinkel, Perry. "And If He Sees His Shadow...", Lion's Roar, July 2009
Meatballs Movie Website
The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014
1944 births
2014 deaths
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American screenwriters
American people of Jewish descent
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American television writers
Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners
Comedy film directors
Deaths from vasculitis
Jewish American male actors
Male actors from Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Jewish American writers
Film directors from Illinois
American male television writers
Comedians from Illinois
Writers from Chicago
Screenwriters from Illinois
Jewish American male comedians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
| false |
[
"Harold Allen Ramis (; November 21, 1944 – February 24, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).\n\nRamis's films influenced subsequent generations of comedians, comedy writers and actors. Filmmakers and actors including Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as among their favorites. Along with Danny Rubin, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay for Groundhog Day.\n\nEarly life\nRamis was born on November 21, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) (1919-2001) and Nathan Ramis (1915-2009), who owned the Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. Ramis had a Jewish upbringing. In his adult life, he did not practice any religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School in June 1958 and Nicholas Senn High School in 1962, both Chicago public schools, and in 1966 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.\n\nAfterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said of his time working there that it:\n\nCareer\n\nEarly years\nRamis began writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, \"In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and Harpo Marx, of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo's antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy—he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it.\" He avoided the Vietnam War military draft by taking methamphetamine to fail his draft physical.\n\nFollowing his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at schools serving the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the Chicago Daily News. \"Michael Shamberg, right out of college, had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that.' I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the Chicago Daily News, the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments [for] entertainment features.\" Additionally, Ramis had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe.\n\nRamis's newspaper writing led to him becoming joke editor at Playboy magazine. \"I called…just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college.\" Ramis was eventually promoted to associate editor.\n\nNational Lampoon, SCTV, and The Top\nAfter leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator Bill Murray, to New York City to work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.\n\nDuring this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue The National Lampoon Show, the successor to National Lampoon's Lemmings. Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series SCTV during its first three years (1976–1979). He was soon offered work as a writer at Saturday Night Live but chose to continue with SCTV. Characterizations by Ramis on SCTV include corrupt Dialing for Dollars host/SCTV station manager Maurice \"Moe\" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan \"Crazy Legs\" Hirschman and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on SCTV included Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy.\n\nIn 1984, Ramis executive produced a music/comedy/variety television show called The Top. The producer was Paul Flattery and the director was David Jove. Ramis got involved after the mysterious death of his friend Peter Ivers who had hosted Jove's underground show \"New Wave Theater.\" He called Jove and offered to help. Flattery and Jove pitched him the idea for The Top, and Ramis was instrumental in getting it on the air.\n\nThe show was a mixture of live music, videos, and humor. Performers on the show included Cyndi Lauper, who performed \"Girls Just Want to Have Fun\" and \"True Colors\"; the Hollies, who performed \"Stop in the Name of Love\"; and the Romantics, who performed their two hits at the time, \"Talking in Your Sleep\" and \"What I Like About You.\"\n\nGuest stars included Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd. Ramis got Bill Murray to host but, because Ghostbusters filming ran late, he did not make it to the taping. Chase came out dressed as a \"punk\" of the time and somehow got into a physical altercation with an audience member (also a punk) during the opening monologue. He immediately left the taping. Flattery and Jove carried on with the show.\n\nRamis then got Andy Kaufman to fill in for Chase and recorded the host segments at a separate, later, session; it would be Kaufman's final professional appearance.\n\nThe Top aired on Friday, January 27, 1984, at 7 p.m. It scored a 7.7% rating and a 14% share. This represented a 28% rating increase and a 27% share increase over KTLA's regularly scheduled Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley.\n\nFilm career\nRamis left SCTV to pursue a film career and wrote a script with National Lampoon magazine's Douglas Kenney, which eventually became National Lampoon's Animal House. They were later joined by a third collaborator, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. Animal House \"broke all box-office records for comedies\" and earned $141 million.\n\nHe also had a voice part as Zeke in the \"So Beautiful & So Dangerous\" segment of Heavy Metal in 1981.\n\nRamis next co-wrote the comedy Meatballs, starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was Caddyshack, which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. It starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, Caddyshack was a commercial success.\n\nIn 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for Ghostbusters, which became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler. He reprised the role for the 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd). His later film Groundhog Day has been called his \"masterpiece.\"\n\nHis films have been noted for attacking \"the smugness of institutional life…with an impish good [will] that is unmistakably American.\" They are also noted for \"Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks.\" Sloppiness and improv were also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicted the qualities of \"anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism\" in \"a hyper-articulate voice.\"\n\nRamis also occasionally acted in supporting roles in acclaimed films that he did not write or direct, such as James L. Brooks's Academy Award-winning As Good as It Gets (1997) and Judd Apatow's hit comedy Knocked Up (2007).\n\nIn 2004, Ramis turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film Guess Who, then under the working title \"The Dinner Party,\" because he considered it poorly written. That same year, he began filming the low-budget The Ice Harvest, \"his first attempt to make a comic film noir.\" Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack's and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received mixed reviews. In 2004, Ramis's typical directing fee was $5 million.\n\nIn an interview in the documentary American Storytellers, Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the film studios were interested and that it would have been difficult to raise the funding.\n\nRamis said in 2009 that he planned to make a third Ghostbusters film for release either in mid-2011 or for Christmas 2012. A reboot to the franchise, also called Ghostbusters, was eventually made and released in 2016, directed and co-written by Paul Feig. In this film, a bronze bust of Ramis can be seen when Erin Gilbert leaves her office at Columbia University.\n\nPersonal life\nRamis was married twice and had four children. On July 2, 1967, he married San Francisco artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he had a daughter, Violet Ramis Stiel. Actor and Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray is Violet's godfather. Ramis and Plotkin separated in 1984 and later divorced. Ramis' daughter Mollie Heckerling was born in 1985 and Mollie Heckerling's mother is Amy Heckerling, a director. In 1989, Ramis married Erica Mann, daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams. Together they had two sons, Julian Arthur and Daniel Hayes in 1990 and 1994. Although Ramis maintained humanist beliefs, Erica's Buddhist upbringing greatly influenced his philosophies for the rest of his life, and he became friends with the Dalai Lama.\n\nRamis was a Chicago Cubs fan and attended games every year to conduct the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. His pastimes included fencing, ritual drumming, acoustic guitar, and making hats from felted fleece; additionally, he taught himself to ski by watching skiers on television.\n\nIllness and death\n\nIn May 2010, Ramis contracted an infection that resulted in complications from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis and lost the ability to walk. After relearning to walk he suffered a relapse of the disease in late 2011.\n\nHe died of complications of the disease on February 24, 2014, at his home on Chicago's North Shore, at age 69. A private funeral was held for him two days later with family, friends, and several collaborators in attendance, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, David Pasquesi, Andrew Alexander, and the widows of John Belushi and Bernard Sahlins. He is buried at Shalom Memorial Park in Arlington Heights.\n\nUpon Ramis's death, President Barack Obama released a statement, saying, \"When we watched his movies—from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day—we didn't just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings.\" He ended his statement by saying he hoped Ramis \"received total consciousness,\" in reference to a line from Caddyshack.\n\nRamis and longtime collaborator Bill Murray had a falling out during the filming of Groundhog Day, which Ramis attributed to problems that Murray had in his own life at the time. They did not speak for more than 20 years. Shortly before Ramis's death, Murray, encouraged by his brother Brian Doyle-Murray, visited him to make amends with a box of donuts and a police escort, according to Ramis's daughter Violet. At that point, Ramis had lost most of his ability to speak, so Murray did most of the talking over several hours. Murray gave a tribute to Ramis at the 86th Academy Awards.\n\nStephen Colbert paid tribute to Ramis on an episode of his show The Colbert Report. Colbert said that \"as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis.\" He ended the show by thanking him.\n\nAwards and honors\nIn 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, he received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Chicago Improv Festival. In 2015, the Writers Guild of America posthumously honored him with their lifetime achievement award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.\n\nIn 2016, two years after his death, The Second City founded the Harold Ramis Film School, the first film school to focus solely on film comedy, in his honor.\n\nThe 2016 film Ghostbusters, a reboot of the series Ramis co-created and starred in, was posthumously dedicated to him. A bust of Ramis appears in the film. In the 2021 movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the age-progressed image of Ramis appears as the ghost of Egon Spengler; a dedication before the end credits also reads \"for Harold.\"\n\nCollaborations\nRamis frequently collaborated with Ivan Reitman. He co-wrote National Lampoon's Animal House, which Reitman produced, then co-wrote the Reitman-directed comedy Meatballs; he co-wrote and appeared in the Reitman-directed films Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilms\n\nTelevision\n\nActing roles\n\nVideo games\n\nArchival appearances\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Henkel, Guido. \"Anatomy of a Comedian: Harold Ramis\", DVD Review, August 6, 1999\n Garfinkel, Perry. \"And If He Sees His Shadow...\", Lion's Roar, July 2009\n Meatballs Movie Website\n The films of Harold Ramis, Hell Is For Hyphenates, April 30, 2014\n\n1944 births\n2014 deaths\n20th-century American male actors\n21st-century American male actors\n20th-century American screenwriters\n21st-century American screenwriters\nAmerican people of Jewish descent\nAmerican male comedians\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male screenwriters\nAmerican male television actors\nAmerican television writers\nBest Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners\nComedy film directors\nDeaths from vasculitis\nJewish American male actors\nMale actors from Chicago\nWashington University in St. Louis alumni\nJewish American writers\nFilm directors from Illinois\nAmerican male television writers\nComedians from Illinois\nWriters from Chicago\nScreenwriters from Illinois\nJewish American male comedians\n20th-century American male writers\n21st-century American male writers",
"(\"Celtic Antiquities of the Island of Menorca\") is a book written by Menorcan erudite Juan Ramis y Ramis (1746–1819). It was published in Mahón in 1818 and is the first book/treatise wholly dedicated to prehistory in Spain.\n\nBackground \n\n was written during the last phase in the life of Juan Ramis y Ramis, who started writing it in 1814 and finished it with his death in 1819. Its main subject is Menorcan history, grouping together all what he covered in all the pieces of work that he published in the time, such as (1815), (1816), (1818) and the posthumous (1819).\n\nDuring this phase in the life of Ramis, Menorca was under the rule of the Spanish monarchy, after it was under British rule in three different periods and also under French rule once over the 18th century. For this reason, Ramis, who used Catalan as a lingua franca in most of his works, wrote in Spanish this time. His main aim was to make the singular character of Menorca known to the rest of Spain through its history.\n\nThe book \n\nThe book, which deals with the prehistory of Menorca, was first thought to cover more topics and be divided into three volumes devoted to the civil and political history of the island. Only the first volume was published since the author died a year later.\n\nRamis’ book is arranged in an introduction and ten chapters, in which the author delves into the knowledge about Menorcan prehistory following the style in vogue in 18th century Europe, considering that the megalithic constructions of Europe were thought to be Celtic.\n\nIn the different chapters the author makes a typological classification of the monuments (following the nomenclature that has come down to us: talayot, taula enclosure, naveta...) and offers some interpretations that are not accepted any longer–due to better knowledge about the Talayotic culture, thanks to the archaeological excavations carried out in many sites during the 20th century. For instance, he believes the Celts built most of the monuments and that the vast majority of the (Talayotic) buildings had a religious function.\n\nRamis based his writings on the antiquarian tradition in such a way that he tries to explain the archaeological remains through written records. However, he overcame this limitation since he also used different types of archaeological objects and structures to obtain information from the past. He expressed his hypothesis about the irregular distribution of prehistoric settlements on the island, correctly pointing to the environmental conditions defined by types of soil. It is also important to remark the thorough list of prehistoric sites included in the book. Of the 350 talayots which are currently recorded, he mentions 195. Thus, this Menorcan erudite was not only a desk-based researcher.\n\nDespite the Enlightenment spirit that can be felt throughout his work, we still find approaches which are typical from previous periods, making reference, for instance, to the biblical roots of the first settlers as well as to writings from several authors who considered that the origins of the Iberians and the Celts were found in Tubal and Tarsis. It was not until the end of the 19th century, when Émile Cartailhac published his book (Primitive monuments of the Balearic Islands), when a proper scientific study started to develop towards the prehistoric monuments of Menorca. Unlike Ramis’ book, published in 1818, Cartailhac's was published in 1892, nearly 30 years after archaeology started to be internationally regarded as a proper scientific discipline.\n\nRamis was the first author who talked about the naveta d'Es Tudons, although his ignorance towards its nature led him to think it was a temple dedicated to goddess Isis. The archaeological excavation conducted by Maria Lluïsa Serra Belabre and Lluís Pericot in the second half of the 20th century shed light on its true function, being a collective tomb.\n\nA modern approach in his work is his defense of the historical heritage. This attitude is perfectly expressed in his indignation towards the partial destruction of some grinding stones located in a prehistoric site, which happened some years before his book was published.\n\nBook structure \n\nPrologue\n\nIntroduction\n\nChapter. I Which families or peoples preceded others in populating Menorca?\n\nChapter. II That the Celts from France, from the British Isles and from other places in Europe built several buildings similar to those in Menorca\n\nChapter. III When they started to build talayots on the island: tools and means that were used to do this and what these constructions were destined to be\n\nChapter. IV About circles and pilasters that can be seen near the talayots\n\nChapter. V About the large and small taulas or altars\n\nChapter. VI About the or grinding stones that are found near the talayots and circles in Menorca and about the two mill wheels that can be seen at the top of the Torelló talayot\n\nChapter. VII About the artificial caves that can be seen around the talayots in Menorca\n\nChapter. VIII About the ship-shaped building in Es Tudons, in Ciutadella judicial district\n\nChapter. IX Several features of the druids\n\nChapter. X Conjectures about the two ancient monuments recently found on the island\n\nWatchtowers on the island of Menorca, locally known as talayots\n\nSee also \n Talaiotic culture\n Juan Ramis\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \nBAGUR, J.; SALORD, J.; & VILLEYRA, A. 1998. Joan Ramis, un il·lustrat de la Menorca disputada. Mahón: IES Joan Ramis i Ramis. Consejería de Educación, Cultura y Deportes.\nPONS, B. (ed.). 2018. Antigüedades célticas de la isla de Menorca, by Joan Ramis i Ramis (1818). Menorca: Institut Menorquí d'Estudis, Consell Insular de Menorca.\nSALORD, J. 2011. La il·lustració a Menorca. Palma. Documenta.\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1818 non-fiction books\nMenorca\nPrehistory of the Balearic Islands\nBronze Age Spain\nIron Age Spain"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career"
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
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Who was Maurice Malpas coach?
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Who was Maurice Malpas?
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Maurice Malpas
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After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
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After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.
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Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
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[
"Malpas is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nCharles Malpas (1899–1982), Australian inventor and businessman\nJeff Malpas, Australian philosopher\nJodi Ellen Malpas, British writer\nMaurice Malpas, Scottish footballer\nRobert Malpas (born 1927), British engineer and businessman",
"Malpas is an ancient market town and a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. Malpas is now referred to as a village after losing its town status. It lies near the borders with Shropshire and Wales, and had a population of 1,673 at the 2011 census.\n\nEtymology\nThe name derives from Old French and means \"bad/difficult passage\".\n\nHistory\n\nMedieval (Norman 1066–1154)\nAfter the Norman Conquest of 1066 Malpas is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as belonging to Robert FitzHugh, baron of Malpas. Malpas and other holdings were given to his family for defensive services along the Welsh border.\n\nA concentrated line of castles protected Cheshire's western border from the Welsh; these included motte-and-bailey castles at Shotwick, Dodleston, Aldford, Pulford, Shocklach, Oldcastle and Malpas. The earthworks of Malpas Castle are still to be found to the north of St. Oswald's Church.\n\nMedieval (Plantagenet 1154–1485)\nMalpas retains its general layout established in the medieval period. A possible reason for Malpas not undergoing intensive development is that Whitchurch, a major market town, was just away.\n\nTudor – Elizabethan (1485–1603)\nThe seventh son of Sir Randolph Brereton of Shocklach and Malpas, Sir William Brereton, became chamberlain of Chester, and groom of the chamber to Henry VIII. He was beheaded on 17 May 1536 for a suspected romantic affair with Anne Boleyn. These accusations may have been politically motivated.\n\nCivil War and the Stuarts (1603–1714)\nCheshire was strategically very important during the civil war as it controlled the north–south movement of troops from the west of the Pennines to the east of the Clwydian range – Chester, as the main port to Ireland was supremely important as Charles I had an army there.\n\nTransport\nMalpas was once served by a a station on the Whitchurch and Tattenhall Railway.\n\nThe B5069 road passes through the village from the Welsh border, towards the A41 road near Hampton Heath. The B5395 road diverges from the A41 at Grindley Brook and heads towards Malpas.\n\nDemography\n\nAccording to the 2001 census, the civil parish had 1,628 residents living in 720 households. This increased slightly in the 2011 census to 1,673 residents, composed of 767 (45.8%) males and 906 (54.2%) females, in 810 households.\n\nGovernance\nMalpas was formerly a township and ancient parish within Broxton Hundred, which became a civil parish in 1866. It has had a parish council since their formation in 1894. Prior to that, Malpas had been administered through Vestry Meetings held in St Oswald's Church. Between 1894 and 1936 the village had its own rural district council. Under a Cheshire County review order in 1936, the boundaries of several rural districts were adjusted. Malpas Rural District was abolished and most of the area absorbed into Tarvin Rural District.\nOn 1 April 1974 this was merged into Chester District. Further changes occurred on 1 April 2009 when the Cheshire West & Chester unitary authority was formed.\n\nAn electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches north to Edge and south to Wigland. The total population of this ward taken at the 2011 census was 3,975.\n\nMalpas is within the Eddisbury parliamentary constituency.\n\nListed buildings\n\nReligion\n Church of England, see: St Oswald's Church, Malpas\n High Street Church, an ecumenical partnership bringing together traditions of the United Reform Church and the Methodist Church.\n\nEducation\n Primary School − Malpas Alport Endowed Primary School\n Secondary School − Bishop Heber High School, named after Bishop Reginald Heber\n\nNotable people\n Ian Bartholomew, Coronation Street actor, lives in Malpas\n Ralph Churton, Anglican churchman and biographer\n Anthony Harvey, filmmaker, was a resident from 1968\n Bishop Reginald Heber (1783–1826), Bishop of Calcutta and poet\n Matthew Henry (1662–1714), Presbyterian minister and biblical commentator\n Mark Rylands, Anglican Bishop of Shrewsbury 2009–18, Malpas resident 1961–1988\n Chris Stockton, former jockey, owner of rare cattle, BTCC racing driver\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Churton, Ralph (1793) \"A memoir of Thomas Townson, D.D., archdeacon of Richmond, and rector of Malpas, Cheshire\", prefixed to A Discourse on the Evangelical History from the Interment to the Ascension published after Dr. Townson's death by Dr. John Loveday, Oxford, 1793.\n\nExternal links\n\nMalpas Community Website which includes sections on history, art, events, sports and social groups and businesses.\n Visions of Britain – Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–72)\n Visions of Britain, John Bartholomew, Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887)\n P. Carrington: Roman Cheshire\n K. Matthews: Saxon Cheshire\n\n \nVillages in Cheshire\nCivil parishes in Cheshire\nCheshire West and Chester"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
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Are there any famous people he has coached?
| 2 |
Are there any famous people Maurice Malpas has coached?
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Maurice Malpas
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After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"There have been 33 coaches in the history of the North Melbourne Kangaroos, an Australian Football League club. The Kangaroos are based in North Melbourne, just north of Melbourne metropolitan area. The North Melbourne Football Club was formed in 1869. It was purportedly established to satisfy the needs of local cricketers who were keen to keep themselves fit and healthy over the winter months. They entered the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1925 after 48 years in the Victorian Football Association (VFA).\n\nWels Eicke became the first coach of the Kangaroos in the 1925 season, serving for two seasons before retiring after the 1926 season. In terms of tenure, Denis Pagan has coached more games (240) and seasons (10) than any other coach in the club's history. He coached the Kangaroos to two AFL Premierships in the 1996 season and then again in the 1999 season. In terms of successfulness, Ron Barassi has been more successful (65.91% win/loss record) than any other coach in the club's history. There have been 7 coaches in the North Melbourne Football Club's history that have been inducted to the Australian Football Hall of Fame. There have been eleven captain-coaches in Kangaroos history. First, in 1925, coach Wels Eicke become the first captain-coach in Kangaroos history. He played only 21 games for the Kangaroos and coached 20 of those games. The current senior coach of the Kangaroos is David Noble.\n\nKey\n\nStatistics are correct to the end of round 23, 2016.\n\nCoaches\n\nNotes\n A running total of the number of coaches of the Kangaroos. Thus any coach who has two separate terms as head coach is only counted once.\n Thomas coach the Kangaroos for a single match in 1926, while a replacement coach was found after the resignation of Wels Eicke.\n Cameron coach for four games as Dick Taylor out suspended for four weeks for elbowing opponent.\n Cusack coached final two games of season after Keith Forbes out suspended for threatening umpire.\n Jordan coached the Kangaroos for a single match in 1976.\n Dugdale coached the Kangaroos for a single match in Round 12, 1977.\n\nReferences\n\nNorth Melbourne Football Club coaches\n\nNorth Melbourne Football Club coaches",
"Paul ApSimon is a Canadian fencer and coach. He has coached Canadian fencers at the 2000 Summer Olympics, the 2012 Summer Olympics, and the 2016 Summer Olympics. He also coached pentathletes at the 2012 Olympics.\n\nApSimon has also represented Canada at World and Commonwealth Championships and has numerous National and Provincial Championships to his credit. He is a graduate of the national coaches institute and is currently both Coach at the Excalibur Fencing Club and Head Coach at the RA Fencing Club in Ottawa. As varsity fencing coach at the University of Ottawa, ApSimon coached the men's and women's teams to six consecutive provincial titles. In 1997 he was named Team Leader for the Canadian University Fencing Team at the FISU Games in Sicily. ApSimon coached the women's foil team to a historic gold medal at the 2015 Pan Am Games, a first for any Canadian women in fencing.\n\nHe most recently coached modern pentathlon and women's foil for the Canadian 2016 Olympic team.\n\nReferences \n\nCanadian male fencers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
|
Is there any teams he coached on full time?
| 3 |
Is there any teams Maurice Malpas coached on full time?
|
Maurice Malpas
|
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher.
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"Primera División Reserves (El Salvador) (officially known as Torneo Reservas), is the reserve team league for the top El Salvador football teams in the Primera Divisió. The league is split into a Clausura and Apertura season.\n\nThe league in its current form started in 2009, restarting the top level of reserve-team football which had been inactive since 2003.\n\nTeams are not relegated from the Torneo Reservas League based on their final league position, but on the league position of their respective clubs' senior teams. If a senior team is relegated from the Premier League, then the reserve team is relegated from the Premier Reserve League and replaced by the reserve team of the promoted team.\n\nChampions\nThe list of all finals\n\nPerformance by Reserves club\n\nTeams & Coaches (2020 Apertura)\n Águila reserve side is coached by Santos Noel Riviera.\n Alianza reserve side is coached by Edgar Henriquez\n Atletico Marte reserve side is coached by TBD.\n Chalatenango reserve side is coached by Geovanni Portillo.\n FAS reserve side is coached by Enzo Henriquez.\n Firpo reserve side is coached by Miguel Ovando (*).\n Jocoro reserve side is coached by Oscar Eduardo Alvarez.\n Limeno reserve side is coached by Manuel Carranza Murillo.\n Metapán reserve side is coached by Hector Omar Mejia.\n Once Deportivo reserve side is coached by Ivan Ruiz (*).\n Santa Tecla reserve side is coached by Eduardo Castillo.\n Sonsonate reserve side is coached by Alonzo Aguilar (*).\n\nTop scorers\n\nExternal links\n (culebrita macheteada)\n\nReserves\n2009 establishments in El Salvador\nEl Salvador\nSports leagues established in 2009\nRes",
"Richard Shawn Slocum (born February 21, 1965) is an American football coach who was the special teams coach for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League and is currently the Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator/Outside Linebackers Coach at Arizona State University.\n\nEarly life and college career\nBorn in Monticello, Arkansas, Slocum graduated from Bryan High School in Bryan, Texas in 1983 and attended Texas A&M University, where he played football as a linebacker and was a member of the 12th Man Kickoff Team under coach Jackie Sherrill. Slocum earned one letter with the team in 1984. He graduated with a B.S. in construction management in 1987 from the Texas A&M College of Architecture.\n\nCoaching career\nSlocum started his coaching career as a volunteer assistant at Texas A&M, under his father R. C. Slocum. In 1990, Shawn served as a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, coaching the defense. He returned to coaching at Texas A&M, coaching tight ends, linebackers, and special teams from 1991 to 1997. From 1991 to 1993, Slocum helped the Aggies win three straight Southwest Conference championships. During the years 1994-97, he coached two all-Americans, Shane Lechler and Lombardi Award winner Dat Nguyen, who both went on to play for the NFL. During his seven-season coaching tenure at A&M, he assisted the Aggies to five bowl games, including four Cotton Bowl Classic appearances. The Aggie team record was 94-28-2 from 1991–1997. The 94 wins were the sixth in the country and also the greatest wins by any Texas Division I school in any decade. From 1998 to 1999, Slocum coached at the University of Southern California, where he coached Butkus Award winner Chris Claiborne, Zeke Moreno, and Markus Steele. He returned to A&M again and coached the Secondary and special teams from 2000-02. In 2005, he became assistant head coach and linebacker coach at Ole Miss, where he coached star linebacker Patrick Willis.\n\nOn February 6, 2006, Slocum joined the Packers, becoming the assistant special teams coach. He got promoted to special teams coordinator on January 14, 2009.\n\nThe Dallas Morning News ranked the Packers special teams units 29th in 2010 and 31st in 2011.\n\nThe Packers' special teams units were ranked 12th in 2012 and 20th in 2013 by the Dallas Morning News.\n\nOn January 30, 2015, the Packers fired Slocum.\n\nOn March 2, 2015, Slocum joined Todd Graham's coaching staff at Arizona State University as associate head coach, special teams coordinator, and outside linebackers coach.\n\nOn January 9, 2018, Slocum was retained as Sun Devils special teams coordinator and associate head coach.\n\nPersonal life\nHis father R. C. Slocum was head coach for Texas A&M from 1989 to 2002 and is the winningest coach in Texas A&M football history. R. C. Slocum was a tight end at McNeese State when Shawn was born. Shawn Slocum has been an assistant coach at Texas A&M under R. C. Slocum.\n\nShawn Slocum is currently married to the former Michelle Biehl and has four children (daughters, Tayler, Jordyn, Haley and son Jaxon) from a previous marriage.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nPackers' bio\n\n1965 births\nGreen Bay Packers coaches\nLiving people\nTexas A&M Aggies football players\nTexas A&M Aggies football coaches\nUSC Trojans football coaches\nPeople from Bryan, Texas\nPittsburgh Panthers football coaches\nSportspeople from Lake Charles, Louisiana\nUniversity of Pittsburgh alumni\nOle Miss Rebels football coaches\nPlayers of American football from Texas\nPlayers of American football from Louisiana\nAmerican football linebackers\nPeople from Monticello, Arkansas\nArizona State Sun Devils football coaches"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.",
"Is there any teams he coached on full time?",
"He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
|
What other interesting facts can you tell me about his coaching career?
| 4 |
Other than the teams and people Maurice Malpas coached, what other interesting facts can you tell me about Maurice Malpas coaching career?
|
Maurice Malpas
|
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation.
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"\"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" is the title of a number-one R&B single by singer Tevin Campbell. To date, the single is Campbell's biggest hit peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending one week at number-one on the US R&B chart. The hit song is also Tevin's one and only Adult Contemporary hit, where it peaked at number 43. The song showcases Campbell's four-octave vocal range from a low note of E2 to a D#6 during the bridge of the song.\n\nTrack listings\nUS 7\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental) – 5:00\n\n12\" vinyl\nA \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:16\t\nB \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nUK CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:16\n \"Goodbye\" (7\" Remix Edit) – 3:48\n \"Goodbye\" (Sidub and Listen) – 4:58\n \"Goodbye\" (Tevin's Dub Pt 1 & 2) – 6:53\n\nJapan CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" – 4:10\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (instrumental version) – 4:10\n\nGermany CD\n \"Tell Me What You Want Me to Do\" (edit) – 4:10\n \"Just Ask Me\" (featuring Chubb Rock) – 4:07\n \"Tomorrow\" (A Better You, Better Me) – 4:46\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of number-one R&B singles of 1992 (U.S.)\n\nReferences\n\nTevin Campbell songs\n1991 singles\n1991 songs\nSongs written by Tevin Campbell\nSongs written by Narada Michael Walden\nSong recordings produced by Narada Michael Walden\nWarner Records singles\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\n1990s ballads",
"\"Tell Me What You Want\" is the fourth single by English R&B band Loose Ends from their first studio album, A Little Spice, and was released in February 1984 by Virgin Records. The single reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n7” Single: VS658\n \"Tell Me What You Want) 3.35\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Dub Mix)\" 3.34\n\n12” Single: VS658-12\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Version)\" 6.11\n \"Tell Me What You Want (Extended Dub Mix)\" 5.41\n\nU.S. only release - 12” Single: MCA23596 (released 1985)\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Extended Remix)\" 6.08 *\n \"Tell Me What You Want (U.S. Dub Version)\" 5.18\n\n* The U.S. Extended Remix version was released on CD on the U.S. Version of the 'A Little Spice' album (MCAD27141).\n\nThe Extended Version also featured on Side D of the limited gatefold sleeve version of 'Magic Touch'\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Tell Me What You Want at Discogs.\n\n1984 singles\nLoose Ends (band) songs\nSong recordings produced by Nick Martinelli\nSongs written by Carl McIntosh (musician)\nSongs written by Steve Nichol\n1984 songs\nVirgin Records singles"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.",
"Is there any teams he coached on full time?",
"He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher.",
"What other interesting facts can you tell me about his coaching career?",
"He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
|
What team did he narrowly avoided relegation?
| 5 |
What team did Maurice Malpas narrowly avoid relegation?
|
Maurice Malpas
|
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007,
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"Carlos Terrazas Sánchez (born 9 February 1962) is a Spanish football manager.\n\nHis career of over a quarter of a century was spent mostly in Segunda División B, though he also competed in Segunda División with Eibar, Guadalajara and Mirandés.\n\nFootball career\nBorn in Bilbao, Biscay, Terrazas began his managerial career at local CD Santurtzi, and subsequently worked with neighbouring Bilbao Athletic in Segunda División B. After spells with Gimnástica de Torrelavega, Burgos CF, Bilbao Athletic and AD Ceuta, he was appointed at the helm of Segunda División club SD Eibar in June 2005.\n\nTerrazas was dismissed on 23 December 2005, after a bad run of results. In the summer of 2007, he moved to Real Jaén of the third division.\n\nOn 27 August 2009, Terrazas resigned from the Andalusians' bench, alleging personal problems. On 29 September of the following year he moved to CD Guadalajara, replacing the fired Kike Liñero. He achieved promotion to the second tier at the first attempt, and narrowly avoided relegation the following season, being appointed general manager in the process.\n\nOn 1 August 2013, after the Castilla-La Mancha side's administrative relegation, Terrazas announced his resignment. He joined fellow league team CD Mirandés on 17 December, replacing Gonzalo Arconada.\n\nTerrazas remained in charge for the following campaigns, achieving an eighth place in 2014–15, the club's best-ever position. On 1 December 2016, he was relieved of his duties.\n\nIn 2017–18, Terrazas led SD Ponferradina for the whole season, also serving as sporting director. Though the aim was the play-offs, the team fought relegation and only avoided relegation in the penultimate game, finishing 12th; he did not renew his contract.\n\nManagerial statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1962 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Bilbao\nSpanish football managers\nSegunda División managers\nSegunda División B managers\nTercera División managers\nAthletic Bilbao B managers\nGimnástica de Torrelavega managers\nBurgos CF managers\nAD Ceuta managers\nSD Eibar managers\nReal Jaén managers\nCD Guadalajara (Spain) managers\nCD Mirandés managers\nSD Ponferradina managers",
"1º de Maio de Quelimane is a football club based in Quelimane, Mozambique. , 1º de Maio compete in the Moçambola, the premiere football league of Mozambique.\n\nThe club (colloquially known as Operários) narrowly avoided relegation from the Moçambola during the 2016 season.\n\nReferences\n\nFootball clubs in Mozambique"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.",
"Is there any teams he coached on full time?",
"He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher.",
"What other interesting facts can you tell me about his coaching career?",
"He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation.",
"What team did he narrowly avoided relegation?",
"Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007,"
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
|
When did he stop coach the Scotland team?
| 6 |
When did Maurice Malpas stop coaching the Scotland team?
|
Maurice Malpas
|
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"John Dalziel is a Forwards Coach for Scotland. He was previously Head Coach of the Scotland 7s team. He began coaching while at Melrose, and went on have coaching roles with Scotland U20, London Scottish and Glasgow Warriors.\n\nAs a player he represented London Scottish, Gala, Border Reivers and Melrose.\n\nPlaying career\n\nHe played club rugby for Gala RFC as a back-row forward and captained the club. \nHe moved to play for Melrose in 2008.\nHe played for the Co-Optimists in 2010.\n\nDalziel played for London Scottish for the 1997-98 season.\n\nHe played for the Border Reivers in the Celtic league and signed a professional contract with the club in 2001.\n\nCoaching career\n\nDalziel played for Melrose RFC and also became their Forwards coach. He was promoted to Head Coach for the 2013–14 season. Melrose won the league title in the final seconds of the season.\n\nIn September 2012 he was appointed as assistant coach for the Scotland national under-20 rugby union team. In September 2015 he was promoted to head coach of the Scotland national under-20 rugby union team.\n\nThe following year he left Melrose and took on a full-time coaching role with Scottish Rugby. He was appointed as the Forwards coach of London Scottish F.C. for the 2016–17 season, who were competing in the RFU Championship. He did this on sabbatical while still Head Coach of the Scotland U20s.\n\nThe following season he was as appointed the Head Coach for Scotland 7s.\n\nOn 3 May 2019 it was announced that Dalziel would be joining Glasgow Warriors as Forwards Coach with immediate effect, leaving his role with the Scotland 7s team.\n\nOn 3 August 2020 it was announced by Glasgow Warriors that Dalziel was moving on to become the Forwards Coach for Scotland.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nBorder Reivers players\nCo-Optimist Rugby Club players\nGala RFC players\nGlasgow Warriors coaches\nLondon Scottish F.C. players\nMelrose RFC players\nScotland Club XV international rugby union players\nScottish rugby union coaches\nScottish rugby union players\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Vedam Hariharan (born 5 June 1954) is a former Indian first-class cricketer who played for Karnataka cricket team and Kerala cricket team. After retirement, he became a cricket coach.\n\nCareer\nA right-arm medium pace swing bowler, Hariharan represented Karnataka cricket team in one match in the 1974/75 season before playing for his home team Kerala cricket team between 1980/81 and 1989/90. He appeared in 42 first-class cricket matches but did not play List A cricket. Former India cricketer Kapil Dev in his autobiography mentioned that Hariharan had more talent than he himself did.\n\nAfter his playing career, Hariharan took up the job of coaching. In 1990, he became a cricket coach and worked for several years in Australia, England, India, Ireland, Malaysia and Scotland. In the 1990s, Hariharan became a player-coach with the Scottish team Glasgow Accies in the Western Union League and continued in that role for over a decade. He also trained cricketers at cricket academies in Brisbane and Bangalore during his stint with Glasgow Accies. He worked as a coach at the Glasgow Academy in Scotland and was accredited as a Level 3 coach from the England and Wales Cricket Board. In 2007, the Kerala Cricket Association appointed him as the head coach of the Kerala team for the 2007/08 domestic season. Hariharan was replaced from the position in 2009 following which he served the Kerala Cricket Association with a legal notice claiming his term as coach was to end after the 2010/11 season.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1954 births\nLiving people\nKarnataka cricketers\nKerala cricketers\nIndian cricket coaches\nCricketers from Kochi\nIndian cricketers"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.",
"Is there any teams he coached on full time?",
"He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher.",
"What other interesting facts can you tell me about his coaching career?",
"He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation.",
"What team did he narrowly avoided relegation?",
"Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007,",
"When did he stop coach the Scotland team?",
"Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
|
When did Maurice Malpas retire for good?
| 7 |
When did Maurice Malpas retire for good?
|
Maurice Malpas
|
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
|
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
|
Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"Malpas is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nCharles Malpas (1899–1982), Australian inventor and businessman\nJeff Malpas, Australian philosopher\nJodi Ellen Malpas, British writer\nMaurice Malpas, Scottish footballer\nRobert Malpas (born 1927), British engineer and businessman",
"Malpas may refer to:\n\nPlaces\n\nFrance\nMalpas, Doubs, a commune in the Doubs department\nMalpas Tunnel, a tunnel on the Canal du Midi\n\nUnited Kingdom\nMalpas, Cheshire, north-west England\nMalpas, Cornwall, south-west England\nMalpas, Newport, south-east Wales\n\nOther uses\nMalpas (surname), people with the name\nMALPAS Software Static Analysis Toolset for safety critical applications"
] |
[
"Maurice Malpas",
"Coaching and managerial career",
"Who was Maurice Malpas coach?",
"After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991.",
"Are there any famous people he has coached?",
"He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.",
"Is there any teams he coached on full time?",
"He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher.",
"What other interesting facts can you tell me about his coaching career?",
"He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation.",
"What team did he narrowly avoided relegation?",
"Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007,",
"When did he stop coach the Scotland team?",
"Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.",
"When did Maurice Malpas retire for good?",
"Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran."
] |
C_63aa83345c3e4bcb9348159398448f16_0
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What is the last fact given in the article about Maurice Malpas?
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What is the last fact given in the article about Maurice Malpas?
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Maurice Malpas
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After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003. He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark. In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership. Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015. Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran. CANNOTANSWER
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Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
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Maurice Daniel Robert Malpas (born 3 August 1962) is a Scottish football player and coach. He signed for Dundee United in 1979 and spent his entire professional playing career with the club until his retirement in 2000. With him, United were Scottish champions in 1983 and Scottish Cup winners in 1994. European runs there included reaching the 1983–84 European Cup semi final and the 1987 UEFA Cup Final.
Malpas made his debut for the Scotland national team in 1984. He went on to gain 55 caps, making him a member of the Scotland national football team roll of honour. He played for Scotland at two World Cups and one UEFA European Championship final tournaments.
Malpas began a coaching career in 1991 whilst still a Dundee United player, continuing as a coach after his retirement until leaving the club in 2003. He joined Motherwell as assistant manager to Terry Butcher before becoming manager from 2006 until 2007. He coached the Scotland under-21 team on a temporary basis before another brief spell in club management with Swindon Town during 2008. More recently he has been assistant manager to Butcher at both Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Hibernian.
Playing career
Dundee United
Malpas was born in Dunfermline, Fife and played youth football for Leven Royals.
He signed for Dundee United in August 1979. His total of 830 competitive first team appearances is the second highest in the club's history. Malpas initially combined his football career with studying for an electrical engineering degree at Dundee College of Technology (now Abertay University), and didn't become a full-time professional until 1984. Despite this, he made his debut in for Dundee United in 1981 and won the Scottish Football League Premier Division title in 1983. In the subsequent 1983–84 European Cup, United reached the semi final.
United made it to the final of the 1986–87 UEFA Cup; en-route they defeated Terry Venables' FC Barcelona side home and away in the quarter-final, and inflicted a first home defeat on Borussia Mönchengladbach in 55 European games going back to 1970 in the semi-final. They lost 2–1 on aggregate to IFK Gothenburg in the final, the second leg of which was their 70th match of the season.
United and Malpas played in five Scottish Cup finals in nine years: in 1985 they took the lead but lost 2–1 to Celtic. In 1987 (played in between the two legs of the UEFA Cup final) they lost 1–0 St Mirren. In 1988 against Celtic, the pattern of 1985 was almost repeated but this time it was an even later goal which defeated United. In 1991, they suffered a 4–3 extra time defeat to Motherwell. Captain Malpas lifted the trophy when Craig Brewster scored the only goal in the 1994 Scottish Cup Final win against Rangers.
Malpas won the SFWA Footballer of the Year award in 1991. His long service was rewarded with two testimonial matches, in 1991 and 2000. He was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame as one of its inaugural members in 2008.
Scotland
Winning first of his caps in 1984, Malpas is the most recent part-time professional to have played for Scotland. He won 55 caps in total. In his 50th international appearance (away to Norway in June 1992) he was made captain to mark the occasion. He appeared for Scotland at the 1986 and 1990 World Cups and at Euro 1992.
Coaching and managerial career
After retiring as a player, Malpas assumed full-time coaching duties at Tannadice, having been acting as player/coach since 1991. He was part of the temporary management team following the dismissal of Alex Smith in October 2002, but left the club in January 2003.
He initially joined Motherwell as assistant manager to former coaching colleague Terry Butcher. Malpas became Motherwell manager in May 2006, following Butcher's departure to coach Sydney FC. He left the club in June 2007 after one season in charge, having taken the team from a comfortable mid-table position to one that narrowly avoided relegation. Malpas became caretaker manager of the Scotland under-21 team in August 2007, but missed out on the permanent position to Billy Stark.
In January 2008, Malpas became manager of Swindon Town after the takeover of the club by local businessman Andrew Fitton, replacing former Dundee United teammate Paul Sturrock. Malpas was sacked by chairman Andrew Fitton on 14 November 2008 after a poor run of results and shock exits in the FA Cup to Histon and in the Football League Trophy within a week. He joined Terry Butcher again as assistant, this time at SPL club Inverness Caledonian Thistle. In 2013, Malpas moved with Butcher to Hibernian, rejecting the chance to manage Inverness. Butcher and Malpas both left Hibernian in June 2014, after the club had been relegated from the Scottish Premiership.
Malpas became director of football at Raith Rovers on 26 December 2014. He left Raith Rovers on 22 May 2015 and was inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in October 2015.
Malpas returned to Inverness Caledonian Thistle in April 2017, working for manager Richie Foran.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Club
Dundee United
Scottish League Premier Division: 1982–83
Scottish Cup: 1993–94
Runner-up 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1990–91
Scottish League Cup runner-up: 1984–85, 1997–98
UEFA Cup runner-up: 1986–87
Scottish Challenge Cup runner-up: 1995–96
Individual
SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1991
Scottish FA International Roll of Honour: 1992
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductee: 2015
See also
List of footballers in Scotland by number of league appearances (500+)
List of one-club men in association football
List of Scotland national football team captains
References
External links
1962 births
1986 FIFA World Cup players
1990 FIFA World Cup players
Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff
Dundee United F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. non-playing staff
Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. non-playing staff
Living people
Motherwell F.C. managers
Motherwell F.C. non-playing staff
Scotland international footballers
Scotland under-21 international footballers
Scottish Football League players
Scottish football managers
Scottish footballers
Scottish Premier League managers
Scottish Premier League players
Footballers from Dunfermline
Swindon Town F.C. managers
English Football League managers
UEFA Euro 1992 players
Scotland national under-21 football team managers
Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees
Association football fullbacks
| true |
[
"Malpas is an electoral district (ward) and coterminous community (parish) of the city of Newport, South Wales. The area is governed by the Newport City Council.\n\nBoundaries \n\nThe ward is bounded by the A4042 Heidenheim Drive to the east, the city boundary to the north, Malpas brook to the west, and Bettws Lane, Llanover Close, and the western and northern edges of Graig Wood, Yewberry Lane and Grove Park Drive to the south.\n\nName origin \n\nThe name is French and comes from Mal (bad/poor) and Pas (passage/way). Earlier examples of the name include the definite article 'Le' and even an odd Welsh definite article 'Y' i.e. Le Malpas, Y Malpas.\n\nThe community \n\nThere are two large housing estates either side of the main Malpas Road (A4051). To the west is Hollybush and the council estates Westfield and Malpas Court, although many of the houses are now in private ownership. To the east are the privately owned estates Woodlands, Malpas Park, Pilton Vale and Claremont. The roads in Malpas Court take their names from famous inventors and scientists, while those in Malpas Park are named after trees. The roads in Woodlands are named after World War II generals, e.g. Allenbrooke Avenue, Horrocks Close, Montgomery Road, Robertson Way, Wavell Drive, etc. Claremont and Pilton Vale however are just single street names with large house numbers.\n\nThe Malpas Institute Trust is a charitable fund, founded on the sale of the World War I Memorial Institute.\n\nThere are four primary schools in the ward. Malpas Church Primary ]</ref> Malpas Court, and Malpas Park.\n\nThere are three Christian churches in Malpas, St. Mary's Church in Wales, Trinity Presbyterian, and St. Anne's Roman Catholic. The fourth Malpas Church, Christchurch, which is just off the Old Malpas Road is in the Shaftesbury Ward. There are no formal places of worship for other religions or faiths.\n\nMalpas is also home to St Joseph's Hospital, Newport, one of Wales's largest private hospitals, and an in-patient hospice service, St Anne's Hospice, both originally run by the Sisters of St Joseph of Annecy. Since 2013 the hospice has been run by St David's Foundation Hospice Care, whilst the hospital was taken over by a consortium of businessmen and doctors in July 2014.\n\nA station of South Wales Fire and Rescue Service is located in Malpas.\n\nArmy Cadet Force \nThere is a detachment for Gwent & Powys ACF near Oliphant Circle. It is badged to the local TA regiment the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers. The detachment parades on Thursday 1830 - 2030 and welcomes 12 - 18yr olds. For more information on the Army Cadet Force.\n\nCycling and walking\nA cycle and pedestrian walkway alongside the River Usk links Malpas to Caerleon and Newport city centre at Crindau.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n https://web.archive.org/web/20070929071944/http://www.themalpasthree.org.uk/ local councillors' website\n\nCommunities in Newport, Wales\nWards of Newport, Wales",
"Overton is a former civil parish, now in the parish of Malpas, in the Cheshire West and Chester district and ceremonial county of Cheshire in England. In 2001 it had a population of 68. The civil parish was abolished in 2015 and merged into Malpas. It is the site of a deserted village, a scheduled monument, the sole remains of which are earthworks.\n\nSee also\n\nListed buildings in Overton, Malpas\nOverton Hall\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nFormer populated places in Cheshire\nFormer civil parishes in Cheshire\nMalpas, Cheshire"
] |
[
"KAT-TUN",
"2006: Debut and \"Real Face\""
] |
C_b1fe27f9b0154d1a89ddb60a5b3acf16_1
|
What was Real Face?
| 1 |
What was Real Face?
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KAT-TUN
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On March 22, KAT-TUN released their debut single "Real Face", accompanied by an album, Best of KAT-TUN and a DVD Real Face Film. These were released on their own label J-One Records. The group also went on a nationwide tour, Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face", in support of the album. Within the first week, Best of KAT-TUN, "Real Face" and Real Face Film topped all three Oricon weekly charts by selling 556,548 copies, 754,234 copies and 374,202 copies respectively. They became the second artists to do so, the first being Ayumi Hamasaki. With these numbers, KAT-TUN holds the record for the highest weekly single debut sales (previously held by Arashi with their debut single "Arashi" of 557,000 copies sold in 1999). In addition, "Real Face" topped the Oricon charts for three weeks straight, becoming the first debut single to do so in Japan in 8 years 8 months since KinKi Kids' debut single "Garasu no Shonen." The single sold over a million copies in nine weeks, making "Real Face" the highest selling single for the year 2006. In March 2006, KAT-TUN became the first group to hold their own performances in Japan's most popular stadium, Tokyo Dome, before debuting. They performed to 110,000 people over two days and about 630,000 people in total during the tour. About three months after releasing "Real Face", KAT-TUN released their second single, "Signal", on July 19. On October 12, member Akanishi announced a hiatus from the group in order to study linguistics abroad in the United States, leaving KAT-TUN as a five-member group for six months. The remaining members continued activities by releasing their third single, "Bokura no Machi de" as the theme song to members Kamenashi and Tanaka's drama, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi and their second album, Cartoon KAT-TUN II You on December 7. KAT-TUN is the first group in Japan to have all three singles from debut to exceed 500,000 in yearly sales, taking first, fifth and thirteenth place on the Oricon yearly singles chart. CANNOTANSWER
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On March 22,
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is a Japanese boy band formed under Johnny & Associates (Johnny's) in 2001. The group's name was originally an acronym based on the first letter of each member's family name: Kazuya Kamenashi, Jin Akanishi, Junnosuke Taguchi, Koki Tanaka, Tatsuya Ueda, and Yuichi Nakamaru. Their debut on March 22, 2006 was marked by a tripartite release of a CD single, album and music DVD on their exclusive record label J-One Records. Since then, all of their single, album and music DVD releases have debuted at number one on the Oricon music and DVD charts.
In 2010, Akanishi left the group to start a solo career, making the group's acronym then come from KAmenashi, Taguchi, Tanaka, Ueda, and Nakamaru, and the group toured with five members. In 2013, Tanaka's contract was terminated for several violations, leaving KAT-TUN as a four-man ensemble, and Tatsuya Ueda took the T to keep the acronym. By the end of March 2016, Taguchi left both the group and the agency, leaving KAT-TUN with only three remaining members.
History
2001–2005: Formation and pre-debut activities
Before becoming KAT-TUN, each member belonged to different trainee units within Johnny & Associates. In 2001, eight members were chosen to become a temporary dancing unit in order to support Koichi Domoto in the NHK music program, Pop Jam. The eight members were switched around before it officially became KAT-TUN, with the current three members plus Jin Akanishi, Koki Tanaka and Junnosuke Taguchi. Although the formation was only meant to be a temporary support unit, KAT-TUN gained a great deal of attention and became a solid unit.
In 2002, in response to many requests, KAT-TUN held their first concert called , for which 550,000 people tried to get tickets. That same year, they performed eleven shows in a single day. This is the current record in Japan for the most performances in one day. Since then, KAT-TUN has held concerts in Japan almost every season.
In 2003-2004, their popularity rose to that of a debuted group, to the point where they performed on Music Station multiple times before debuting. In 2005, KAT-TUN released their first major DVD, , which topped the Oricon yearly chart for the best-selling DVD. At the 20th Japan Gold Disc Awards, Live Kaizokuban placed on the Music Video Of The Year list.
2006: Debut and Best of KAT-TUN
On March 22, KAT-TUN released their debut single "Real Face", accompanied by an album, Best of KAT-TUN and a DVD Real Face Film. These were released on their own label J-One Records. The group also went on a nationwide tour, Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face", in support of the album. Within the first week, Best of KAT-TUN, "Real Face" and Real Face Film topped all three Oricon weekly charts by selling 556,548 copies, 754,234 copies and 374,202 copies respectively Total 1,684,984 copies. They became the second artists to do so, the first being Ayumi Hamasaki. With these numbers, KAT-TUN holds the record for the highest weekly single debut sales (previously held by Arashi with their debut single "Arashi" of 557,000 copies sold in 1999). In addition, "Real Face" topped the Oricon charts for three weeks straight, becoming the first debut single to do so in Japan in 8 years 8 months since KinKi Kids' debut single "Garasu no Shōnen." The single sold over a million copies in nine weeks, making "Real Face" the highest selling single for the year 2006.
In March 2006, KAT-TUN became the first group to hold their own performances in Japan's most popular stadium, Tokyo Dome, before debuting. They performed to 110,000 people over two days and about 630,000 people in total during the tour. About three months after releasing "Real Face", KAT-TUN released their second single, "Signal", on July 19.
On October 12, member Akanishi announced a hiatus from the group in order to study linguistics abroad in the United States, leaving KAT-TUN as a five-member group for six months. The remaining members continued activities by releasing their third single, "Bokura no Machi de" as the theme song to members Kamenashi and Tanaka's drama, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi and their second album, Cartoon KAT-TUN II You on December 7.
KAT-TUN is the first group in Japan to have all three singles from debut to exceed 500,000 in yearly sales, taking first, fifth and thirteenth place on the Oricon yearly singles chart.
2007: Cartoon KAT-TUN II You
Under the same name as their second album, KAT-TUN started their second nationwide tour, Tour 2007 Cartoon KAT-TUN II You, still without Akanishi, on April 3. The next day, KAT-TUN began to host their own variety show Cartoon KAT-TUN, which aired every Wednesday from 11:55 p.m. to 12:26 a.m.
Akanishi returned to Japan on April 19 and officially resumed work activities on April 20. Akanishi joined the rest of KAT-TUN during their tour on April 21 in Sendai for the encore, marking his official return to KAT-TUN.
On June 6, KAT-TUN released their fourth single, "Yorokobi no Uta", as the theme song to Tanaka's drama, Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go.
On November 21, they simultaneously released their fifth single, "Keep the Faith", as the theme song to members Akanishi and Taguchi's drama, Yukan Club, and the DVD to their Tokyo Dome Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face" concert. The DVD marked their fifth consecutive release topping the Oricon musical DVD chart, and set the opening week record for the year. KAT-TUN took the annual number one position on the Oricon musical DVD charts for the third time in a row with the release.
After KinKi Kids, KAT-TUN is the second artist to have all singles since debut to exceed 300,000 in sales during their first week.
2008: Queen of Pirates
KAT-TUN released 'Lips', the theme song to Kamenashi's drama based on the manga One Pound Gospel, as their sixth single on February 6. The single topped at number one on the Oricon charts.
KAT-TUN released their seventh single "Don't U Ever Stop" on May 14, which topped the weekly Oricon chart. On May 15, during the MC segment promoting "Don't U Ever Stop" on Music Station, Kamenashi announced that two shows had been added to their Tokyo Dome tour dates, resulting in a total of four consecutive days at the Dome. This marked a historic event in the Dome's history, as KAT-TUN became the first Japanese artist to hold four consecutive days at the stadium since it opened in 1988. Other Japanese artists, such as SMAP, X Japan and Ayumi Hamasaki have had three consecutive days at the Dome. The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson have played multiple days at the Dome, but they were not consecutive.
On June 4, KAT-TUN released their third album, KAT-TUN III: Queen of Pirates.
On December 3, KAT-TUN released "White X'mas", their first Christmas single.
On December 21, it was announced that KAT-TUN would release a new single "One Drop" as a tie-in theme song to Kamenashi's new drama, Kami no Shizuku, just two months after their "White X'mas" single. The release consisted of three versions: Limited Edition w/DVD, Regular Edition (First Press) and a Regular Edition.
2009 - 2010: Break the Records: By You & For You, Akanishi Jin's departure and No More Pain
On February 10, KAT-TUN released their first single since March 2009, which was used for Kamenashi's live-action drama adaptation of Tomoko Hayakawa's manga series Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, which premiered January 15 on TBS. The single, "Love Yourself (Kimi ga Kirai na Kimi ga Suki)", debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly singles chart, resulting in KAT-TUN's eleventh consecutive number one single since their debut. It became KAT-TUN's first single to sell more than 350,000 copies in its first week since the May 2008 release of their single "Don't U Ever Stop", which sold more than 381,000 copies in its first week.
On March 24, Johnny & Associates announced that KAT-TUN would go on their first Asia concert tour as a five-member group while Akanishi held his own solo concerts in the United States, making him the first Johnny's artist to perform solo in the United States. KAT-TUN is set to have their Asia Tour from early May to late August and although the majority of the concerts will be held in Japan, KAT-TUN will also be heading to Bangkok on July 31, Seoul from August 6 to 7, and Taipei from August 27 to 28; other sources say that a Hawaii concert is also being considered. Due to his absence from KAT-TUN's Asia concert tour and single promotions, Akanishi did not participate in the recording of KAT-TUN's twelfth single "Going!" set for release on May 12. Due to the political unrest in Thailand, Johnny & Associates announced on May 15 that KAT-TUN's concert in Bangkok would be indefinitely postponed.
KAT-TUN released their first 2010 album, No More Pain, on June 16 in two versions: a limited and regular edition that both include solo songs by each member. The limited edition contains thirteen songs and a bonus DVD with the PVs and making-of's the album's songs while the regular edition contains a bonus track.
Johnny & Associates announced on July 17 that Akanishi would leave the group in late 2010 to pursue a solo career while the rest of the members would continue to work as a five-member group. On July 21, Akanishi himself confirmed through the official Johnny's mobile site, Johnny's Web, that he would leave KAT-TUN to focus on his solo career, although he had not appeared on any event to his fans until October.
KAT-TUN continued as a group of five. On August 28, the last day of their World Big Tour 2010, KAT-TUN revealed their 2011 tour plan to celebrate their fifth anniversary by performing at industrial complexes in five cities in Japan and expanding its overseas tour to five different countries including Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, and Hawaii. The Hawaii concert would make them the first Johnny artist to hold a concert in Hawaii. The World Big Tour is where former member Tanaka Koki gave the name "hyphens" to the fans, saying that the fans unite KAT-TUN together.
On October 13, KAT-TUN announced the release of their new single, "Change Ur World", which was KAT-TUN's 13th single and the first single after Akanishi's official departure, was released on November 17. The single debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly singles chart for selling 230,829 copies, resulting in KAT-TUN's thirteenth consecutive number one single since their debut plus all of their 13 singles sold over 200,000 copies in the first week.
On December 29, KAT-TUN released KAT-TUN -NO MORE PAIИ- WORLD TOUR 2010 DVD, featuring their last day in Japan leg of their successful World Big Tour 2010 at Kyocera Dome and more concert footages from their Korea and Taiwan legs.
2011: 5th Anniversary
The group announced a release of their 14th single on 2010s Christmas Eve, "Ultimate Wheels" on February 2, 2011 along with a tie-in CM of Suzuki Solio car that the group endorsed. On January 6, KAT-TUN announced its plan of KAT-TUN Live Tour 2011 during May to October. The tour includes the 5 big dome tour at Sapporo Dome, Tokyo Dome, Nagoya Dome, Yahoo Dome in Fukuoka, and Kyocera Dome in Osaka and a special live event in Kawasaki on July 17–19. KAT-TUN will become the fourth Johnny group to be able to conquer the 5 big domes in Japan after SMAP, KinKi Kids and Arashi. After October, the group will start their Asia Tour that includes Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea. "Ultimate Wheels" became their 14th straight No.1 single since their debut. The total number of copies sold in the first week was over 180,000 copies, reported by Oricon. Early March, KAT-TUN announced three new songs in three days, including "Perfect" for Kamenashi's new Aoki TV commercial, "White" for a Sofina commercial, and "Diamond" as the theme song of NTV telecasts of Yomiuri Giants baseball games.
It was announced on March 29 that Johnny's Company would start a new charity project called Marching J, a fundraising project for the Tohoku earthquake victims. The first part of the project started as an event held from April 1 through April 3. From the company, SMAP, Tokio, KinKi Kids, V6, Arashi, Tackey and Tsubasa, NEWS, Kanjani8, KAT-TUN, Hey! Say! JUMP and some of Johnny's Juniors participated in this first event. The first event will be held in Tokyo, in front of the first Yoyogi gymnasium. Groups took turns according to their schedule and will have a talk session in front of the fans, also calling out for donations for the earthquake victims. And due to this disaster, all the planned events to celebrate KAT-TUN's 5th debut anniversary were canceled.
On May 18, KAT-TUN's 15th single, "White", was released with "Perfect" as its coupling song. By this time, they also announced another two new songs, "Cosmic Child" for a Wing TV commercial, and "Run For You" for a New Suzuki Solio commercial. On May 29, KAT-TUN with all its five members joined another Marching J project, "Johnny's Charity Baseball Tournament" with other Johnny artists and juniors at Tokyo Dome, in which the ticket sales would be donated for Japan's earthquake and tsunami victims.
It was announced in mid-June that members Kazuya Kamenashi, Koki Tanaka and Yuichi Nakamaru would star in this year's Dream Boy musicals as the leads, shows will commence from September 3 to 25.
On September 8, 2011, it was confirmed that KAT-TUN would host a new TV show titled KAT-TUN no Zettai Manetaku Naru TV, their first show since Cartoon KAT-TUN ended in March 2010. The new show began airing on October 18 on NTV. During the broadcast of the first episode, it was revealed that the show will only air for a limited time until the end of December 2011 with a total of 10 episodes.
On September 30, 2011, KAT-TUN announced their 17th single "Birth" as the soundtrack to Kamenashi Kazuya's drama "Youkai Ningen Bem" would have been released on November 30. "Birth" became their 17th straight No.1 single on the Oricon's weekly chart since their debut.
2012: Chain
KAT-TUN began their new year with an extreme special TV show titled KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni, a one-off show broadcast on the night of January 1 on TBS. A few weeks later they announced the release of their sixth album, titled Chain, scheduled for release on February 22. On January 13, KAT-TUN endorsed the mobile game site Entag which used KAT-TUN's album track "Smile for You" as the commercial song and the first-ever KAT-TUN animation, "Ai wa KAT-TUN", voiced by KAT-TUN themselves, was launched on The Entag site for a limited period. On February 11, they kicked off their nationwide tour "KAT-TUN Live Tour 2012 Chain". This tour covered 12 cities, including Sendai. The tour started in Niigata and will end in Sendai. They will become the first Johnnys group to perform in the affected areas after the earthquake and tsunami disaster. Music Station presented on Jan 13 with a special report for the 'Most Powerful Group BEST 20' which listed the Top 20 most powerful groups of all-time in terms of physical single and album sales, KAT-TUN was listed at number 16 with their five-year debut, 17 singles and 5 albums, together they have sold over 8,450,000 records. Music Station hints to this ranking included the debut single 'Real Face' which became 2006's number 1 selling single and how they managed to hold 8 consecutive concerts at Tokyo Dome. Among the groups in Top 20, KAT-TUN is apparently the newest group on the list.
KAT-TUN's 6th studio album, "CHAIN", reached No.1 on Oricon album ranking on March 5, making them the first male artist in history to have six consecutive No.1 albums ever since the debut. KAT-TUN broke the record for the first time in 24 years and 10 months. On March 8, it was announced that the second episode of KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni will be aired on April 3.
Official confirmations for the upcoming 2012 shows for Johnny's long-running Dream Boys musicals were released, and once again member Kamenashi reprises his role as the main lead for the musical. According to confirmation, the shows will begin in September. On April 20–22, KAT-TUN performed at Tokyo Dome as parts of their LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN tour. According to news reports, KAT-TUN's original idea "Flash-Tree" spotlights was introduced for the first time in Johnny and also Tokyo Dome's 25m moving stage was the longest in Johnny's history.
On June 27, KAT-TUN released its 18th single To The Limit, which was used as a tie-up song for Suzuki Solio Bandit CM. On June 29 Music Station reported that KAT-TUN ranked as No.10 best-selling Heisei era's idol with the total sales of 6,661,293 copies from 17 singles. In early August it was announced that KAT-TUN's Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni TV special will be turned into a regular show due to the success of the previous 2 special episodes. The regular show was renamed KAT-TUN Sekaiichi dame na yoru! and began airing on August 24 on TBS.
KAT-TUN's 19th single "Fumetsu no Scrum" which was used as the theme song for Kanjani8 member Yasuda Shota's drama Dragon Seinendan, was released on September 12 and sold around 157,000 copies within its first week of release, this gives KAT-TUN their 19th consecutive #1 single since their debut in 2006.
In November, KAT-TUN achieved their 9th consecutive no.1 music-DVD, and 8th no.1 overall DVD with their live DVD, "KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN TOKYO DOME." The latter achievement puts them at 3rd place among male groups who have done the most no.1 overall DVDs in history after B'z and Mr.Children.
2013 - 2014: Tanaka Koki's departure and Come Here
"Expose" sold 155,000 copies in the first weeks. With this single, their number of consecutive singles topping the chart has reached 20. KAT-TUN is the second artist to top the singles chart for 20 consecutive singles since the debut. It was only achieved by their senior KinKi Kids 8 years and a month ago with “Anniversary”.
In October 2013, Koki Tanaka was removed from the band and the talent agency for having violated his contract, leaving KAT-TUN as a four-man ensemble.
The mini album "Kusabi" was released on November 27, 2013, on J-Storm. The title track "Kusabi" was used as the theme song for the drama Henshin Interviewer no Yūutsu starring KAT-TUN member Yuichi Nakamaru and actress Fumino Kimura, while "Gimme Luv" was used in a Suzuki Solio Bandit television commercial. "Kusabi" debuted at the number one spot top the Oricon weekly album chart, selling approximately 168,000 copies in its first week of release. The album is KAT-TUN's seventh consecutive album to achieve number one, putting them in a tie with singer Hikaru Utada for most consecutive album number ones in Oricon chart history.
"In Fact" was their 22nd single released on June 4, 2014 under the label J-One Records. The title track "In Fact" was the main theme song for the TV drama series "First Class". In Fact debuted at the number one spot top the Oricon weekly single chart, selling over 146,000 copies in its first week of release. With this, KAT-TUN achieved their 22nd consecutive No.1 with their 22nd single.
On June 25, "Come Here" album was released and KAT-TUN became the first artist in history to have 8 consecutive No.1 albums since debut according to Oricon.
2015: Taguchi Junnosuke's departure
"Dead or Alive" was released on January 21, 2015 and it debuted at the number one spot on the Oricon weekly single chart, selling over 192,000 copies in its first week of release. With this, KAT-TUN has then achieved their 23rd consecutive No.1 with their 23rd single. They are currently behind KinKi Kids who are with 34 consecutive No.1 singles since debut.
On November 24, 2015, before their performance at Best Artist, Junnosuke Taguchi surprised the audience by announcing that he had decided to quit not only KAT-TUN but also from Johnny's Entertainment and that he would retire from the industry by Spring the following year.
2016 - 2019: Hiatus, Recharging Period, CAST and Ignite
KAT-TUN released two more singles as a four-member group entitled "Tragedy" on February 10, 2016 followed by "Unlock" on March 2, 2016, both of which had reached number 1 in Oricon chart in their first week. A compilation album entitled "KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary BEST 10Ks" and a 3-Dome Tour entitled "KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary LIVE TOUR 10Ks" were announced by the three remaining members through their official website. They also announced that the group activities of KAT-TUN will be on a temporary, indefinite hiatus (or so-called "recharging period") starting on May 1, 2016, as each member will focus more on their solo projects and works. ″KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary BEST “10Ks”″ album was then released on March 22, 2016 (the same date with their debut album released back in 2006) and has reached number 1 in the Oricon chart in its first week. On August 17, 2016, KAT-TUN released the DVD for KAT-TUN 10TH ANNIVERSARY LIVE TOUR"10Ks!” and it reached the number one spot in the Oricon Chart as well.
While the group activities are temporarily on hold, each member had their own individual projects, apart from the regular TV programs where they were regulars individually. All had been part or starred in different dramas, movies and theatrical plays and all three also had the chance to perform in a concert and stage shows.
On January 1, 2018 on the annual Johnny's Countdown, a big surprise had been announced and that KAT-TUN had finally resumed their group activities. The group sang their debut song, Real Face, which was then followed by their new song "Ask Yourself" which will be the main theme song for Kamenashi's drama this January. After the performance, the group also announced that concert dates had been decided, which would be happening on April 20–22, 2018. The group later announced they would be releasing CAST on 18 July, their first original album in four years. On July 31, 2019 KAT-TUN released their 9th full album, "IGNITE".
2021 - 2022: Resume of Group Activities and Honey
In January 2021, NTV drama 'Red Eyes: Kanshi Sousa-han' premiered on January 23, starred Kamenashi. The title of the theme song was "Roar," and it's a song about one's determination to keep walking towards the future even though the present is ambiguous and has no correct answer. The single was released on March 10 as KAT-TUN's first single in three years. To commemorate the 15th anniversary of debut, KAT-TUN embarked on their nationwide tour '15TH ANNIVERSARY LIVE KAT-TUN' on March 20 at Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium (Tokyo), and wrapped up on June 9 at Marine Messe Fukuoka, 22 performances in 7 cities. Their live tour was later released through DVD and Blue Ray on November 24, which feature footage from the group's concert on May 29 at Pia Arena MM. On September 8, KAT-TUN announced double sided A-side single "We Just Go Hard feat. AK-69 ", the single was the image song for NTV's broadcast of professional baseball 'DRAMATIC BASEBALL 2021' as well as the theme song for NTV's 'Going! Sports & News'. Meanwhile, "EUPHORIA" as the theme song for Bishounen's drama 'The High School Heroes' that premiered on July 31.
In February 2022, KAT-TUN announced the release of their digital single "Crystal Moment", as the theme song for NTV’s coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the rap lyrics was written by Arashi’s Sho Sakurai. For the first time in about two and a half years, KAT-TUN announced the release of the 10th full album "Honey". Two songs, "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and "STING", which symbolize this work, are the lead songs, the album was released on March 29. They also held "KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2022 Honey" from April 1 to June 4, via eight locations.
Current members
(born February 23, 1986), (Main Vocals)
(born October 4, 1983), (Sub Vocals)
(born September 4, 1983), (Sub Vocals)
Former members
(born July 4, 1984), (Main Vocals)
(born November 5, 1985), (Rapper, Sub Vocals)
(born November 29, 1985), (Sub Vocals)
Discography
Best of KAT-TUN (2006)
Cartoon KAT-TUN II You (2007)
KAT-TUN III: Queen of Pirates (2008)
Break the Records: By You & for You (2009)
No More Pain (2010)
Chain (2012)
Come Here (2014)
Cast (2018)
Ignite (2019)
Honey (2022)
Other activities
TV shows
KAT-TUN had regularly appeared on NHK's Johnny's Jr. show Shounen Club and became the regular hosts and leaders of the show until 2006 when they made their official debut. They also became part of other variety programs like Minna no Terebi and KAT-TUNx3. KAT-TUN even became special supporters for the FIVB World Grand Champions Cup in 2005, wherein their song "Gloria" served as its theme song.
From 2005 to January 2007, KAT-TUN was a regular participant in the variety show Utawara Hot Hit 10 with Jun Matsumoto. From October 8, 2006, members Tanaka Koki & Nakamaru Yuichi hosted the show YouTachi! YOUたち! together, until the show ended on September 30, 2007.
From April 4, 2007, KAT-TUN then began hosting their own talk show Cartoon KAT-TUN every Wednesday until March 24, 2010, comprising a total of 152 episodes. This was their last regular show as a 6-member group.
After becoming a 5-member group, their next TV show titled KAT-TUN no Zettai Manetaku Naru TV began on October 18, 2011 on NTV and lasted only for a total of 10 episodes, with the show's finale on December 20, 2011.
KAT-TUN then also had a one-off TV special titled KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni which was aired on the night of January 1, 2012 on TBS. It was soon followed by another special episode on April 3, 2012. Following the success of the two special episodes of the show, it became KAT-TUN's third regular TV show. The show was then renamed as KAT-TUN Sekaiichi Dame na Yoru! and began airing from August 24, 2012 until December 28, 2012.
On January 11, 2014, after becoming a four-man group, KAT-TUN became guests for a special program titled KAT-TUN Sekaiichi Tame ni Naru Tabi where they traveled to Okinawa (for two episodes), Aomori, Hokkaido and Kumamoto. The 5-part special became a success that the show was soon confirmed to become another regular show for KAT-TUN, retaining the same title of the program. The first episode aired on April 17, 2015 and lasted until the 42nd episode on March 25, 2016.
In 2014, KAT-TUN also became the main hosts for the Shounen Club Premium, replacing Taichi Kokubun from TOKIO. Their stint as the show's main hosts started from April 2014 until March 2016. Another Johnny's group NEWS then replaced them as the hosts of the show.
Radio
The group has had three different radio shows, each hosted by different members and all have aired for several years.
Former members Jin Akanishi, Koki Tanaka and Junnosuke Taguchi hosted KAT-TUN Style together from April 2006 until March 2012. Yuichi Nakamaru and Tatsuya Ueda hosted R-One KAT-TUN every Tuesday from 12am – 12:30am.
Kazuya Kamenashi had his own radio show called Kamenashi Kazuya - Kase by Kase until it ended on September 20. He has a new radio show called Kamenashi Kazuya - Hang Out and currently airs every Saturday from 10:20am – 10:50am.
Taguchi Junnosuke also had his own radio show called "Tag-tune driving" and a radio show together with Yuichi Nakamaru called "KAT-TUN no Gatsūn" from April 2012 and ended in March 2016.
Musicals
As a group, KAT-TUN has appeared in Koichi Domoto's Shock musical, Summary of Johnnys World with NEWS and Ya-ya-yah and Johnny's long-running Dream Boys musicals from 2004 to 2006.
Since 2004, member Kazuya Kamenashi has played the lead role in Dream Boys musicals consecutively each year, after senior Hideaki Takizawa handed down the role to Kamenashi.
Kamenashi and fellow KAT-TUN member Koki Tanaka paired up to play the lead roles for the shows held in 2007 and 2008. The pair collaborated once again as the leads for the 2011 shows alongside fellow KAT-TUN member Yuichi Nakamaru. The 2012 shows for the musical began in September, and once again Kamenashi reprised his role as the lead for the musical.
Concerts
Since their first concert in 2002, granted after overwhelming numbers of fan requests to Johnny's, KAT-TUN regularly holds concerts during almost every season of the year in Japan. This has helped them gain more popularity with their fans. It was considered remarkable for a Johnny's group which had not yet officially debuted to be able to hold its own concerts.
KAT-TUN was the first Japanese artist to perform for four days in a row at Tokyo Dome during their Queen of Pirates tour. The following year, they broke their own record becoming the first artists ever to perform for eight consecutive days at Tokyo Dome during their Break The Records: By You & For You 2009 tour. Now, Johnny & Associates submitted this new record to Guinness Book of World Records for KAT-TUN to be recognized as the Japanese boy band who broke the records in Tokyo Dome performances.
The group (excluding Jin Akanishi) held their biggest ever concert tour in 2010 titled KAT-TUN -NO MORE PAIИ- WORLD TOUR 2010 which consisted of concerts in many major cities across Japan. The tour also included concerts held in Taiwan and Korea; the first time the group has ever toured outside Japan for their official concerts.
Although during their pre-debut years, KAT-TUN had on several occasions toured overseas with their senior groups, while they were still Johnny Jrs.
Their nationwide tour for 2012 titled KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN began in Nagiita on Feb 11, they toured 12 cities across Japan including Sendai; which was one of the worst affected areas by the Tohoku earthquake & tsunami disaster back in March 2011.
Commercials
KAT-TUN regularly appeared in TV commercials to endorse for NTT docomo, SKY PerfecTV!, Rohto and Lotte from 2005 to 2009.
Since 2010, member Kazuya Kamenashi endorses Panasonic's Lamdash shaver and DOLTZ electric toothbrush, and AOKI 3D slim suits. Kamenashi also endorses KIRIN's 'Gogo no Kocha' tea since March 2012, and is endorsing SOURS Gummies since early 2013.
Since early 2011, the group together has endorsed Suzuki's 'SOLIO' car, and has sung commercial theme songs for Sofina and Wing products. The group are also currently endorsing the mobile game site entag!.
Events
On August 26–27, 2006 KAT-TUN members were the main personality supporters for the NTV telethon 24 Hour Television: Love Saves the Earth charity program.
Awards
References
External links
Official page on J-Storm/J-One Records
Official page on Johnny's Website
Japanese pop music groups
Japanese rock music groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Johnny & Associates
Japanese boy bands
Japanese idol groups
J Storm
Musical groups from Tokyo
Jin Akanishi
| true |
[
"The Brazilian currency has been renamed and redefined several times through its history. Since 1994, the official one is the Brazilian real (plural reais, with symbol R$ and ISO code BRL.\n\nHistorical currencies \n\nNote that the dates of various currencies overlap. For example, the cruzeiro novo was still legal tender for 2 years after the second cruzeiro was introduced.\n\nNot considering inflation, one modern Brazilian real is equivalent to 2,750,000,000,000,000,000 times the old real, that is, (2.75 quintillion) réis.\n\nBefore leaving Brazil in 1821, the Portuguese royal court withdrew all the bullion currency it could from banks in exchange for what would become worthless bond notes;\n\nBanknotes \n\nThe following tables indicate what banknotes were present in each of the currencies of Brazil:\n\n|-\n! 0.01 !! 0.05 !! 0.10 !! 0.50 !! 1 !! 2 !! 5 !! 10 !! 20 !! 50 !! 100 !! 200 !! 500 !! 1,000 !! 2,000 !! 5,000 !! 10,000 !! 20,000 !! 50,000 !! 100,000 !! 200,000 !! 500,000 !! 1,000,000 !! 5,000,000\n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n\nNo single face value has been present in all historical Brazilian banknotes. For example, a face value of 100 is missing from the old real (as its lowest denomination of banknote is 500 Rs) and from the cruzeiro novo (as its only banknotes were overstamps of the first cruzeiro, and the highest denomination was NCr$10). It is, however, present in all the other currencies:\n\nCoins \nThe following tables indicate what coins were present in each of the currencies of Brazil, with the exception of réis:\n\n! 0.01 !! 0.02 !! 0.05 !! 0.10 !! 0.20 !! 0.25 !! 0.50 !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 10 !! 20 !! 50 !! 100 !! 200 !! 300 !! 500 !! 1,000 !! 2,000 !! 5,000\n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n|-\n| || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || \n\nNo single face value has been present in all historical Brazilian coins. For example, a face value of 1 is missing from the cruzeiro novo (as its highest denomination of coin is NCr$0.50 because it's a transitory monetary standard between the cruzeiro issued between 1942 and 1967 and the cruzeiro issued after 1970) and from the old real and the cruzeiro real (as their lowest denomination of coin is 5 Rs and CR$5, respectively). It is, however, present in all the other currencies:\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n \n\nHistorical currencies of Brazil",
"\"Get Real\" is a song by English singer Paul Rutherford, released in 1988 as the lead single from his debut solo album Oh World. A collaboration with ABC, the song was written by Rutherford, Martin Fry, Mark White and David Clayton, and produced by White and Fry. \"Get Real\" reached No. 47 in the UK and remained in the charts for four weeks. The song received an airplay ban by the BBC.\n\nA music video was filmed to promote the single, which featured Rutherford in the Sonoran Desert. Speaking of the song to Melody Maker in 1989, Rutherford said: \"\"Get Real\" was so off the wall, even with the whole Acid thing going on, there was something special about it. I knew no one would understand it, but Island said it was a definite Top 10 hit.\"\n\nCritical reception\nUpon release, Wee Papa Girl Rappers guest reviewed the song for Number One, with Sandra Lawrence commenting: \"I'm quite into that acid music, it's good dance music but this one's a bit mellow, a bit commercial.\" Melody Maker described the song as a \"slab of Acid for the radical dance faction, all squiggly synths and slithery bass.\" In 2004, FutureMusic described the song as \"kind of like Giorgio Moroder meets Kraftwerk with a 303\".\n\nTrack listing\n7\" single\n \"Get Real\" – 3:35\n \"Happy Face\" – 4:24\n\n12\" single\n \"Get Real (Happy House Mix)\" – 7:22\n \"Get Real\" – 3:35\n \"Happy Face\" – 4:24\n\n12\" single (UK \"Sinister\" release)\n \"Get Real (Sinister)\" – 6:31\n \"Get Real (Don't Let 'Em Dub You Down)\" – 6:33\n \"Happy Face\" – 4:24\n\n12\" single (UK \"Hardcore\" release)\n \"Get Real (Hardcore)\" – 9:28\n \"Get Real\" – 3:35\n \"Happy Face\" – 6:50\n\nCD single\n \"Get Real (Happy House Mix)\" – 7:24\n \"Get Real\" – 3:35\n \"Happy Face (Full Length)\" – 6:50\n\nPersonnel\n Paul Rutherford - lead vocals, keyboards and programming on \"Get Real\"\n Beverley Skeete, Paul Lee, Lorenza Johnson - backing vocals on \"Get Real\"\n Derek Green - backing vocals and backing vocal arrangement on \"Get Real\"\n Dave Clayton - keyboards on \"Get Real\"\n Mark White - keyboards, producer and programming on \"Get Real\", producer of \"Happy Face\"\n Joe Dworniak - bass programming on \"Get Real\"\n Danny Cummings - percussion on \"Get Real\"\n Martin Fry - producer of \"Get Real\" and \"Happy Face\"\n Mark Stent - engineer on \"Get Real\"\n Jack Adams - mastering on \"Get Real\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1988 songs\n1988 singles\nIsland Records singles\nSongs written by Martin Fry\nSongs written by Mark White (musician)"
] |
[
"KAT-TUN",
"2006: Debut and \"Real Face\"",
"What was Real Face?",
"On March 22,"
] |
C_b1fe27f9b0154d1a89ddb60a5b3acf16_1
|
Did it win any awards?
| 2 |
Did Real Face win any awards?
|
KAT-TUN
|
On March 22, KAT-TUN released their debut single "Real Face", accompanied by an album, Best of KAT-TUN and a DVD Real Face Film. These were released on their own label J-One Records. The group also went on a nationwide tour, Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face", in support of the album. Within the first week, Best of KAT-TUN, "Real Face" and Real Face Film topped all three Oricon weekly charts by selling 556,548 copies, 754,234 copies and 374,202 copies respectively. They became the second artists to do so, the first being Ayumi Hamasaki. With these numbers, KAT-TUN holds the record for the highest weekly single debut sales (previously held by Arashi with their debut single "Arashi" of 557,000 copies sold in 1999). In addition, "Real Face" topped the Oricon charts for three weeks straight, becoming the first debut single to do so in Japan in 8 years 8 months since KinKi Kids' debut single "Garasu no Shonen." The single sold over a million copies in nine weeks, making "Real Face" the highest selling single for the year 2006. In March 2006, KAT-TUN became the first group to hold their own performances in Japan's most popular stadium, Tokyo Dome, before debuting. They performed to 110,000 people over two days and about 630,000 people in total during the tour. About three months after releasing "Real Face", KAT-TUN released their second single, "Signal", on July 19. On October 12, member Akanishi announced a hiatus from the group in order to study linguistics abroad in the United States, leaving KAT-TUN as a five-member group for six months. The remaining members continued activities by releasing their third single, "Bokura no Machi de" as the theme song to members Kamenashi and Tanaka's drama, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi and their second album, Cartoon KAT-TUN II You on December 7. KAT-TUN is the first group in Japan to have all three singles from debut to exceed 500,000 in yearly sales, taking first, fifth and thirteenth place on the Oricon yearly singles chart. CANNOTANSWER
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754,234 copies
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is a Japanese boy band formed under Johnny & Associates (Johnny's) in 2001. The group's name was originally an acronym based on the first letter of each member's family name: Kazuya Kamenashi, Jin Akanishi, Junnosuke Taguchi, Koki Tanaka, Tatsuya Ueda, and Yuichi Nakamaru. Their debut on March 22, 2006 was marked by a tripartite release of a CD single, album and music DVD on their exclusive record label J-One Records. Since then, all of their single, album and music DVD releases have debuted at number one on the Oricon music and DVD charts.
In 2010, Akanishi left the group to start a solo career, making the group's acronym then come from KAmenashi, Taguchi, Tanaka, Ueda, and Nakamaru, and the group toured with five members. In 2013, Tanaka's contract was terminated for several violations, leaving KAT-TUN as a four-man ensemble, and Tatsuya Ueda took the T to keep the acronym. By the end of March 2016, Taguchi left both the group and the agency, leaving KAT-TUN with only three remaining members.
History
2001–2005: Formation and pre-debut activities
Before becoming KAT-TUN, each member belonged to different trainee units within Johnny & Associates. In 2001, eight members were chosen to become a temporary dancing unit in order to support Koichi Domoto in the NHK music program, Pop Jam. The eight members were switched around before it officially became KAT-TUN, with the current three members plus Jin Akanishi, Koki Tanaka and Junnosuke Taguchi. Although the formation was only meant to be a temporary support unit, KAT-TUN gained a great deal of attention and became a solid unit.
In 2002, in response to many requests, KAT-TUN held their first concert called , for which 550,000 people tried to get tickets. That same year, they performed eleven shows in a single day. This is the current record in Japan for the most performances in one day. Since then, KAT-TUN has held concerts in Japan almost every season.
In 2003-2004, their popularity rose to that of a debuted group, to the point where they performed on Music Station multiple times before debuting. In 2005, KAT-TUN released their first major DVD, , which topped the Oricon yearly chart for the best-selling DVD. At the 20th Japan Gold Disc Awards, Live Kaizokuban placed on the Music Video Of The Year list.
2006: Debut and Best of KAT-TUN
On March 22, KAT-TUN released their debut single "Real Face", accompanied by an album, Best of KAT-TUN and a DVD Real Face Film. These were released on their own label J-One Records. The group also went on a nationwide tour, Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face", in support of the album. Within the first week, Best of KAT-TUN, "Real Face" and Real Face Film topped all three Oricon weekly charts by selling 556,548 copies, 754,234 copies and 374,202 copies respectively Total 1,684,984 copies. They became the second artists to do so, the first being Ayumi Hamasaki. With these numbers, KAT-TUN holds the record for the highest weekly single debut sales (previously held by Arashi with their debut single "Arashi" of 557,000 copies sold in 1999). In addition, "Real Face" topped the Oricon charts for three weeks straight, becoming the first debut single to do so in Japan in 8 years 8 months since KinKi Kids' debut single "Garasu no Shōnen." The single sold over a million copies in nine weeks, making "Real Face" the highest selling single for the year 2006.
In March 2006, KAT-TUN became the first group to hold their own performances in Japan's most popular stadium, Tokyo Dome, before debuting. They performed to 110,000 people over two days and about 630,000 people in total during the tour. About three months after releasing "Real Face", KAT-TUN released their second single, "Signal", on July 19.
On October 12, member Akanishi announced a hiatus from the group in order to study linguistics abroad in the United States, leaving KAT-TUN as a five-member group for six months. The remaining members continued activities by releasing their third single, "Bokura no Machi de" as the theme song to members Kamenashi and Tanaka's drama, Tatta Hitotsu no Koi and their second album, Cartoon KAT-TUN II You on December 7.
KAT-TUN is the first group in Japan to have all three singles from debut to exceed 500,000 in yearly sales, taking first, fifth and thirteenth place on the Oricon yearly singles chart.
2007: Cartoon KAT-TUN II You
Under the same name as their second album, KAT-TUN started their second nationwide tour, Tour 2007 Cartoon KAT-TUN II You, still without Akanishi, on April 3. The next day, KAT-TUN began to host their own variety show Cartoon KAT-TUN, which aired every Wednesday from 11:55 p.m. to 12:26 a.m.
Akanishi returned to Japan on April 19 and officially resumed work activities on April 20. Akanishi joined the rest of KAT-TUN during their tour on April 21 in Sendai for the encore, marking his official return to KAT-TUN.
On June 6, KAT-TUN released their fourth single, "Yorokobi no Uta", as the theme song to Tanaka's drama, Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go.
On November 21, they simultaneously released their fifth single, "Keep the Faith", as the theme song to members Akanishi and Taguchi's drama, Yukan Club, and the DVD to their Tokyo Dome Live of KAT-TUN "Real Face" concert. The DVD marked their fifth consecutive release topping the Oricon musical DVD chart, and set the opening week record for the year. KAT-TUN took the annual number one position on the Oricon musical DVD charts for the third time in a row with the release.
After KinKi Kids, KAT-TUN is the second artist to have all singles since debut to exceed 300,000 in sales during their first week.
2008: Queen of Pirates
KAT-TUN released 'Lips', the theme song to Kamenashi's drama based on the manga One Pound Gospel, as their sixth single on February 6. The single topped at number one on the Oricon charts.
KAT-TUN released their seventh single "Don't U Ever Stop" on May 14, which topped the weekly Oricon chart. On May 15, during the MC segment promoting "Don't U Ever Stop" on Music Station, Kamenashi announced that two shows had been added to their Tokyo Dome tour dates, resulting in a total of four consecutive days at the Dome. This marked a historic event in the Dome's history, as KAT-TUN became the first Japanese artist to hold four consecutive days at the stadium since it opened in 1988. Other Japanese artists, such as SMAP, X Japan and Ayumi Hamasaki have had three consecutive days at the Dome. The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson have played multiple days at the Dome, but they were not consecutive.
On June 4, KAT-TUN released their third album, KAT-TUN III: Queen of Pirates.
On December 3, KAT-TUN released "White X'mas", their first Christmas single.
On December 21, it was announced that KAT-TUN would release a new single "One Drop" as a tie-in theme song to Kamenashi's new drama, Kami no Shizuku, just two months after their "White X'mas" single. The release consisted of three versions: Limited Edition w/DVD, Regular Edition (First Press) and a Regular Edition.
2009 - 2010: Break the Records: By You & For You, Akanishi Jin's departure and No More Pain
On February 10, KAT-TUN released their first single since March 2009, which was used for Kamenashi's live-action drama adaptation of Tomoko Hayakawa's manga series Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, which premiered January 15 on TBS. The single, "Love Yourself (Kimi ga Kirai na Kimi ga Suki)", debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly singles chart, resulting in KAT-TUN's eleventh consecutive number one single since their debut. It became KAT-TUN's first single to sell more than 350,000 copies in its first week since the May 2008 release of their single "Don't U Ever Stop", which sold more than 381,000 copies in its first week.
On March 24, Johnny & Associates announced that KAT-TUN would go on their first Asia concert tour as a five-member group while Akanishi held his own solo concerts in the United States, making him the first Johnny's artist to perform solo in the United States. KAT-TUN is set to have their Asia Tour from early May to late August and although the majority of the concerts will be held in Japan, KAT-TUN will also be heading to Bangkok on July 31, Seoul from August 6 to 7, and Taipei from August 27 to 28; other sources say that a Hawaii concert is also being considered. Due to his absence from KAT-TUN's Asia concert tour and single promotions, Akanishi did not participate in the recording of KAT-TUN's twelfth single "Going!" set for release on May 12. Due to the political unrest in Thailand, Johnny & Associates announced on May 15 that KAT-TUN's concert in Bangkok would be indefinitely postponed.
KAT-TUN released their first 2010 album, No More Pain, on June 16 in two versions: a limited and regular edition that both include solo songs by each member. The limited edition contains thirteen songs and a bonus DVD with the PVs and making-of's the album's songs while the regular edition contains a bonus track.
Johnny & Associates announced on July 17 that Akanishi would leave the group in late 2010 to pursue a solo career while the rest of the members would continue to work as a five-member group. On July 21, Akanishi himself confirmed through the official Johnny's mobile site, Johnny's Web, that he would leave KAT-TUN to focus on his solo career, although he had not appeared on any event to his fans until October.
KAT-TUN continued as a group of five. On August 28, the last day of their World Big Tour 2010, KAT-TUN revealed their 2011 tour plan to celebrate their fifth anniversary by performing at industrial complexes in five cities in Japan and expanding its overseas tour to five different countries including Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, and Hawaii. The Hawaii concert would make them the first Johnny artist to hold a concert in Hawaii. The World Big Tour is where former member Tanaka Koki gave the name "hyphens" to the fans, saying that the fans unite KAT-TUN together.
On October 13, KAT-TUN announced the release of their new single, "Change Ur World", which was KAT-TUN's 13th single and the first single after Akanishi's official departure, was released on November 17. The single debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly singles chart for selling 230,829 copies, resulting in KAT-TUN's thirteenth consecutive number one single since their debut plus all of their 13 singles sold over 200,000 copies in the first week.
On December 29, KAT-TUN released KAT-TUN -NO MORE PAIИ- WORLD TOUR 2010 DVD, featuring their last day in Japan leg of their successful World Big Tour 2010 at Kyocera Dome and more concert footages from their Korea and Taiwan legs.
2011: 5th Anniversary
The group announced a release of their 14th single on 2010s Christmas Eve, "Ultimate Wheels" on February 2, 2011 along with a tie-in CM of Suzuki Solio car that the group endorsed. On January 6, KAT-TUN announced its plan of KAT-TUN Live Tour 2011 during May to October. The tour includes the 5 big dome tour at Sapporo Dome, Tokyo Dome, Nagoya Dome, Yahoo Dome in Fukuoka, and Kyocera Dome in Osaka and a special live event in Kawasaki on July 17–19. KAT-TUN will become the fourth Johnny group to be able to conquer the 5 big domes in Japan after SMAP, KinKi Kids and Arashi. After October, the group will start their Asia Tour that includes Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea. "Ultimate Wheels" became their 14th straight No.1 single since their debut. The total number of copies sold in the first week was over 180,000 copies, reported by Oricon. Early March, KAT-TUN announced three new songs in three days, including "Perfect" for Kamenashi's new Aoki TV commercial, "White" for a Sofina commercial, and "Diamond" as the theme song of NTV telecasts of Yomiuri Giants baseball games.
It was announced on March 29 that Johnny's Company would start a new charity project called Marching J, a fundraising project for the Tohoku earthquake victims. The first part of the project started as an event held from April 1 through April 3. From the company, SMAP, Tokio, KinKi Kids, V6, Arashi, Tackey and Tsubasa, NEWS, Kanjani8, KAT-TUN, Hey! Say! JUMP and some of Johnny's Juniors participated in this first event. The first event will be held in Tokyo, in front of the first Yoyogi gymnasium. Groups took turns according to their schedule and will have a talk session in front of the fans, also calling out for donations for the earthquake victims. And due to this disaster, all the planned events to celebrate KAT-TUN's 5th debut anniversary were canceled.
On May 18, KAT-TUN's 15th single, "White", was released with "Perfect" as its coupling song. By this time, they also announced another two new songs, "Cosmic Child" for a Wing TV commercial, and "Run For You" for a New Suzuki Solio commercial. On May 29, KAT-TUN with all its five members joined another Marching J project, "Johnny's Charity Baseball Tournament" with other Johnny artists and juniors at Tokyo Dome, in which the ticket sales would be donated for Japan's earthquake and tsunami victims.
It was announced in mid-June that members Kazuya Kamenashi, Koki Tanaka and Yuichi Nakamaru would star in this year's Dream Boy musicals as the leads, shows will commence from September 3 to 25.
On September 8, 2011, it was confirmed that KAT-TUN would host a new TV show titled KAT-TUN no Zettai Manetaku Naru TV, their first show since Cartoon KAT-TUN ended in March 2010. The new show began airing on October 18 on NTV. During the broadcast of the first episode, it was revealed that the show will only air for a limited time until the end of December 2011 with a total of 10 episodes.
On September 30, 2011, KAT-TUN announced their 17th single "Birth" as the soundtrack to Kamenashi Kazuya's drama "Youkai Ningen Bem" would have been released on November 30. "Birth" became their 17th straight No.1 single on the Oricon's weekly chart since their debut.
2012: Chain
KAT-TUN began their new year with an extreme special TV show titled KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni, a one-off show broadcast on the night of January 1 on TBS. A few weeks later they announced the release of their sixth album, titled Chain, scheduled for release on February 22. On January 13, KAT-TUN endorsed the mobile game site Entag which used KAT-TUN's album track "Smile for You" as the commercial song and the first-ever KAT-TUN animation, "Ai wa KAT-TUN", voiced by KAT-TUN themselves, was launched on The Entag site for a limited period. On February 11, they kicked off their nationwide tour "KAT-TUN Live Tour 2012 Chain". This tour covered 12 cities, including Sendai. The tour started in Niigata and will end in Sendai. They will become the first Johnnys group to perform in the affected areas after the earthquake and tsunami disaster. Music Station presented on Jan 13 with a special report for the 'Most Powerful Group BEST 20' which listed the Top 20 most powerful groups of all-time in terms of physical single and album sales, KAT-TUN was listed at number 16 with their five-year debut, 17 singles and 5 albums, together they have sold over 8,450,000 records. Music Station hints to this ranking included the debut single 'Real Face' which became 2006's number 1 selling single and how they managed to hold 8 consecutive concerts at Tokyo Dome. Among the groups in Top 20, KAT-TUN is apparently the newest group on the list.
KAT-TUN's 6th studio album, "CHAIN", reached No.1 on Oricon album ranking on March 5, making them the first male artist in history to have six consecutive No.1 albums ever since the debut. KAT-TUN broke the record for the first time in 24 years and 10 months. On March 8, it was announced that the second episode of KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni will be aired on April 3.
Official confirmations for the upcoming 2012 shows for Johnny's long-running Dream Boys musicals were released, and once again member Kamenashi reprises his role as the main lead for the musical. According to confirmation, the shows will begin in September. On April 20–22, KAT-TUN performed at Tokyo Dome as parts of their LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN tour. According to news reports, KAT-TUN's original idea "Flash-Tree" spotlights was introduced for the first time in Johnny and also Tokyo Dome's 25m moving stage was the longest in Johnny's history.
On June 27, KAT-TUN released its 18th single To The Limit, which was used as a tie-up song for Suzuki Solio Bandit CM. On June 29 Music Station reported that KAT-TUN ranked as No.10 best-selling Heisei era's idol with the total sales of 6,661,293 copies from 17 singles. In early August it was announced that KAT-TUN's Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni TV special will be turned into a regular show due to the success of the previous 2 special episodes. The regular show was renamed KAT-TUN Sekaiichi dame na yoru! and began airing on August 24 on TBS.
KAT-TUN's 19th single "Fumetsu no Scrum" which was used as the theme song for Kanjani8 member Yasuda Shota's drama Dragon Seinendan, was released on September 12 and sold around 157,000 copies within its first week of release, this gives KAT-TUN their 19th consecutive #1 single since their debut in 2006.
In November, KAT-TUN achieved their 9th consecutive no.1 music-DVD, and 8th no.1 overall DVD with their live DVD, "KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN TOKYO DOME." The latter achievement puts them at 3rd place among male groups who have done the most no.1 overall DVDs in history after B'z and Mr.Children.
2013 - 2014: Tanaka Koki's departure and Come Here
"Expose" sold 155,000 copies in the first weeks. With this single, their number of consecutive singles topping the chart has reached 20. KAT-TUN is the second artist to top the singles chart for 20 consecutive singles since the debut. It was only achieved by their senior KinKi Kids 8 years and a month ago with “Anniversary”.
In October 2013, Koki Tanaka was removed from the band and the talent agency for having violated his contract, leaving KAT-TUN as a four-man ensemble.
The mini album "Kusabi" was released on November 27, 2013, on J-Storm. The title track "Kusabi" was used as the theme song for the drama Henshin Interviewer no Yūutsu starring KAT-TUN member Yuichi Nakamaru and actress Fumino Kimura, while "Gimme Luv" was used in a Suzuki Solio Bandit television commercial. "Kusabi" debuted at the number one spot top the Oricon weekly album chart, selling approximately 168,000 copies in its first week of release. The album is KAT-TUN's seventh consecutive album to achieve number one, putting them in a tie with singer Hikaru Utada for most consecutive album number ones in Oricon chart history.
"In Fact" was their 22nd single released on June 4, 2014 under the label J-One Records. The title track "In Fact" was the main theme song for the TV drama series "First Class". In Fact debuted at the number one spot top the Oricon weekly single chart, selling over 146,000 copies in its first week of release. With this, KAT-TUN achieved their 22nd consecutive No.1 with their 22nd single.
On June 25, "Come Here" album was released and KAT-TUN became the first artist in history to have 8 consecutive No.1 albums since debut according to Oricon.
2015: Taguchi Junnosuke's departure
"Dead or Alive" was released on January 21, 2015 and it debuted at the number one spot on the Oricon weekly single chart, selling over 192,000 copies in its first week of release. With this, KAT-TUN has then achieved their 23rd consecutive No.1 with their 23rd single. They are currently behind KinKi Kids who are with 34 consecutive No.1 singles since debut.
On November 24, 2015, before their performance at Best Artist, Junnosuke Taguchi surprised the audience by announcing that he had decided to quit not only KAT-TUN but also from Johnny's Entertainment and that he would retire from the industry by Spring the following year.
2016 - 2019: Hiatus, Recharging Period, CAST and Ignite
KAT-TUN released two more singles as a four-member group entitled "Tragedy" on February 10, 2016 followed by "Unlock" on March 2, 2016, both of which had reached number 1 in Oricon chart in their first week. A compilation album entitled "KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary BEST 10Ks" and a 3-Dome Tour entitled "KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary LIVE TOUR 10Ks" were announced by the three remaining members through their official website. They also announced that the group activities of KAT-TUN will be on a temporary, indefinite hiatus (or so-called "recharging period") starting on May 1, 2016, as each member will focus more on their solo projects and works. ″KAT-TUN 10th Anniversary BEST “10Ks”″ album was then released on March 22, 2016 (the same date with their debut album released back in 2006) and has reached number 1 in the Oricon chart in its first week. On August 17, 2016, KAT-TUN released the DVD for KAT-TUN 10TH ANNIVERSARY LIVE TOUR"10Ks!” and it reached the number one spot in the Oricon Chart as well.
While the group activities are temporarily on hold, each member had their own individual projects, apart from the regular TV programs where they were regulars individually. All had been part or starred in different dramas, movies and theatrical plays and all three also had the chance to perform in a concert and stage shows.
On January 1, 2018 on the annual Johnny's Countdown, a big surprise had been announced and that KAT-TUN had finally resumed their group activities. The group sang their debut song, Real Face, which was then followed by their new song "Ask Yourself" which will be the main theme song for Kamenashi's drama this January. After the performance, the group also announced that concert dates had been decided, which would be happening on April 20–22, 2018. The group later announced they would be releasing CAST on 18 July, their first original album in four years. On July 31, 2019 KAT-TUN released their 9th full album, "IGNITE".
2021 - 2022: Resume of Group Activities and Honey
In January 2021, NTV drama 'Red Eyes: Kanshi Sousa-han' premiered on January 23, starred Kamenashi. The title of the theme song was "Roar," and it's a song about one's determination to keep walking towards the future even though the present is ambiguous and has no correct answer. The single was released on March 10 as KAT-TUN's first single in three years. To commemorate the 15th anniversary of debut, KAT-TUN embarked on their nationwide tour '15TH ANNIVERSARY LIVE KAT-TUN' on March 20 at Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium (Tokyo), and wrapped up on June 9 at Marine Messe Fukuoka, 22 performances in 7 cities. Their live tour was later released through DVD and Blue Ray on November 24, which feature footage from the group's concert on May 29 at Pia Arena MM. On September 8, KAT-TUN announced double sided A-side single "We Just Go Hard feat. AK-69 ", the single was the image song for NTV's broadcast of professional baseball 'DRAMATIC BASEBALL 2021' as well as the theme song for NTV's 'Going! Sports & News'. Meanwhile, "EUPHORIA" as the theme song for Bishounen's drama 'The High School Heroes' that premiered on July 31.
In February 2022, KAT-TUN announced the release of their digital single "Crystal Moment", as the theme song for NTV’s coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the rap lyrics was written by Arashi’s Sho Sakurai. For the first time in about two and a half years, KAT-TUN announced the release of the 10th full album "Honey". Two songs, "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and "STING", which symbolize this work, are the lead songs, the album was released on March 29. They also held "KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2022 Honey" from April 1 to June 4, via eight locations.
Current members
(born February 23, 1986), (Main Vocals)
(born October 4, 1983), (Sub Vocals)
(born September 4, 1983), (Sub Vocals)
Former members
(born July 4, 1984), (Main Vocals)
(born November 5, 1985), (Rapper, Sub Vocals)
(born November 29, 1985), (Sub Vocals)
Discography
Best of KAT-TUN (2006)
Cartoon KAT-TUN II You (2007)
KAT-TUN III: Queen of Pirates (2008)
Break the Records: By You & for You (2009)
No More Pain (2010)
Chain (2012)
Come Here (2014)
Cast (2018)
Ignite (2019)
Honey (2022)
Other activities
TV shows
KAT-TUN had regularly appeared on NHK's Johnny's Jr. show Shounen Club and became the regular hosts and leaders of the show until 2006 when they made their official debut. They also became part of other variety programs like Minna no Terebi and KAT-TUNx3. KAT-TUN even became special supporters for the FIVB World Grand Champions Cup in 2005, wherein their song "Gloria" served as its theme song.
From 2005 to January 2007, KAT-TUN was a regular participant in the variety show Utawara Hot Hit 10 with Jun Matsumoto. From October 8, 2006, members Tanaka Koki & Nakamaru Yuichi hosted the show YouTachi! YOUたち! together, until the show ended on September 30, 2007.
From April 4, 2007, KAT-TUN then began hosting their own talk show Cartoon KAT-TUN every Wednesday until March 24, 2010, comprising a total of 152 episodes. This was their last regular show as a 6-member group.
After becoming a 5-member group, their next TV show titled KAT-TUN no Zettai Manetaku Naru TV began on October 18, 2011 on NTV and lasted only for a total of 10 episodes, with the show's finale on December 20, 2011.
KAT-TUN then also had a one-off TV special titled KAT-TUN no Sekaiichi Dame Yoru Ni which was aired on the night of January 1, 2012 on TBS. It was soon followed by another special episode on April 3, 2012. Following the success of the two special episodes of the show, it became KAT-TUN's third regular TV show. The show was then renamed as KAT-TUN Sekaiichi Dame na Yoru! and began airing from August 24, 2012 until December 28, 2012.
On January 11, 2014, after becoming a four-man group, KAT-TUN became guests for a special program titled KAT-TUN Sekaiichi Tame ni Naru Tabi where they traveled to Okinawa (for two episodes), Aomori, Hokkaido and Kumamoto. The 5-part special became a success that the show was soon confirmed to become another regular show for KAT-TUN, retaining the same title of the program. The first episode aired on April 17, 2015 and lasted until the 42nd episode on March 25, 2016.
In 2014, KAT-TUN also became the main hosts for the Shounen Club Premium, replacing Taichi Kokubun from TOKIO. Their stint as the show's main hosts started from April 2014 until March 2016. Another Johnny's group NEWS then replaced them as the hosts of the show.
Radio
The group has had three different radio shows, each hosted by different members and all have aired for several years.
Former members Jin Akanishi, Koki Tanaka and Junnosuke Taguchi hosted KAT-TUN Style together from April 2006 until March 2012. Yuichi Nakamaru and Tatsuya Ueda hosted R-One KAT-TUN every Tuesday from 12am – 12:30am.
Kazuya Kamenashi had his own radio show called Kamenashi Kazuya - Kase by Kase until it ended on September 20. He has a new radio show called Kamenashi Kazuya - Hang Out and currently airs every Saturday from 10:20am – 10:50am.
Taguchi Junnosuke also had his own radio show called "Tag-tune driving" and a radio show together with Yuichi Nakamaru called "KAT-TUN no Gatsūn" from April 2012 and ended in March 2016.
Musicals
As a group, KAT-TUN has appeared in Koichi Domoto's Shock musical, Summary of Johnnys World with NEWS and Ya-ya-yah and Johnny's long-running Dream Boys musicals from 2004 to 2006.
Since 2004, member Kazuya Kamenashi has played the lead role in Dream Boys musicals consecutively each year, after senior Hideaki Takizawa handed down the role to Kamenashi.
Kamenashi and fellow KAT-TUN member Koki Tanaka paired up to play the lead roles for the shows held in 2007 and 2008. The pair collaborated once again as the leads for the 2011 shows alongside fellow KAT-TUN member Yuichi Nakamaru. The 2012 shows for the musical began in September, and once again Kamenashi reprised his role as the lead for the musical.
Concerts
Since their first concert in 2002, granted after overwhelming numbers of fan requests to Johnny's, KAT-TUN regularly holds concerts during almost every season of the year in Japan. This has helped them gain more popularity with their fans. It was considered remarkable for a Johnny's group which had not yet officially debuted to be able to hold its own concerts.
KAT-TUN was the first Japanese artist to perform for four days in a row at Tokyo Dome during their Queen of Pirates tour. The following year, they broke their own record becoming the first artists ever to perform for eight consecutive days at Tokyo Dome during their Break The Records: By You & For You 2009 tour. Now, Johnny & Associates submitted this new record to Guinness Book of World Records for KAT-TUN to be recognized as the Japanese boy band who broke the records in Tokyo Dome performances.
The group (excluding Jin Akanishi) held their biggest ever concert tour in 2010 titled KAT-TUN -NO MORE PAIИ- WORLD TOUR 2010 which consisted of concerts in many major cities across Japan. The tour also included concerts held in Taiwan and Korea; the first time the group has ever toured outside Japan for their official concerts.
Although during their pre-debut years, KAT-TUN had on several occasions toured overseas with their senior groups, while they were still Johnny Jrs.
Their nationwide tour for 2012 titled KAT-TUN LIVE TOUR 2012 CHAIN began in Nagiita on Feb 11, they toured 12 cities across Japan including Sendai; which was one of the worst affected areas by the Tohoku earthquake & tsunami disaster back in March 2011.
Commercials
KAT-TUN regularly appeared in TV commercials to endorse for NTT docomo, SKY PerfecTV!, Rohto and Lotte from 2005 to 2009.
Since 2010, member Kazuya Kamenashi endorses Panasonic's Lamdash shaver and DOLTZ electric toothbrush, and AOKI 3D slim suits. Kamenashi also endorses KIRIN's 'Gogo no Kocha' tea since March 2012, and is endorsing SOURS Gummies since early 2013.
Since early 2011, the group together has endorsed Suzuki's 'SOLIO' car, and has sung commercial theme songs for Sofina and Wing products. The group are also currently endorsing the mobile game site entag!.
Events
On August 26–27, 2006 KAT-TUN members were the main personality supporters for the NTV telethon 24 Hour Television: Love Saves the Earth charity program.
Awards
References
External links
Official page on J-Storm/J-One Records
Official page on Johnny's Website
Japanese pop music groups
Japanese rock music groups
Musical groups established in 2001
Johnny & Associates
Japanese boy bands
Japanese idol groups
J Storm
Musical groups from Tokyo
Jin Akanishi
| true |
[
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The 23rd Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony presented for horror films that were released in 2020. The nominees were announced on January 20, 2021. The film The Invisible Man won five of its five nominations, including Best Wide Release, as well as the write-in poll of Best Kill. Color Out Of Space and Possessor each took two awards. His House did not win any of its seven nominations. The ceremony was exclusively livestreamed for the first time on the SHUDDER horror streaming service.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\nFangoria Chainsaw Awards"
] |
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